Biden says he wouldn't have run for a second term in 2024 if he knew he had cancer

Former U.S. president Joe Biden, center, arriving for his son Hunter Biden's visit to the College Historical Society in Dublin to receive the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse in Dublin, Ireland, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (Niall Carson/PA via AP)

ATLANTA — Joe Biden says he did not know he had cancer while he was U.S. president and would not have sought a second term if he already had been diagnosed.

The former Democratic U.S. president’s comments came in an interview with People magazine before the release of his White House memoir on Tuesday.

“If I had known that I was feeling lousy because I had cancer,” said Biden, who turns 84 on Nov. 20, “I would’ve not gone forward” with a 2024 reelection bid that ended after a disastrous debate performance against Republican Donald Trump.

Biden was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer months after leaving office in 2025.

“I don’t think an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running” for president, Biden said in the interview.

Still, he argued that the June 2024 debate, less than five months before Election Day, was not a seismic event even if it accelerated Democrats’ concerns about his age — he was 81 at the time — and his ability to defeat Trump.

“First of all, I thought there’d be another debate, which there wasn’t,” Biden said. “But notwithstanding the fact that there wasn’t another debate, it didn’t disturb me because it wasn’t consequential.”

Within weeks, Biden announced he was ending his campaign and endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, who secured the nomination and lost to Trump in the general election.

Biden insisted he was able to perform his duties while he was in office. He said age itself was not disqualifying and meant he had experience and deep personal relationships with world leaders.

“I believe that on an objective basis, I was the best-equipped person to do the job,” he said.

His son Hunter told the BBC in August that the cancer had spread and was causing his father pain. “It’s very painful and it’s very debilitating in many respects,” he said.

Since Joe Biden left office, his son has become a higher profile public presence, sparring with Republicans on social media, posting lengthy thoughts on the nation’s direction and launching his own cryptocurrency.

Joe Biden defended his son’s public persona and his decision to pardon Hunter Biden after the younger Biden’s 2024 conviction on federal felony gun charges and his guilty plea to federal tax charges. Hunter Biden also had faced years of scrutiny and withering Republican attacks over his international business dealings.

Hunter Biden has said the pardon damaged his father’s legacy, but the former president said Trump’s penchant for vengeance made it necessary.

“He goes after people without any basis, whether they’re viewed as an enemy. I knew what he would do,” Joe Biden said. “If I hadn’t pardoned — not just some of my family members, anyone who’s dealt with me — he would go back and try to do harm to them.”

Biden called his son “one of the brightest men I know,” adding, “I’m really proud of him.”

Bill Barrow, The Associated Press