Biden says he would have left 2024 race if cancer diagnosis was known

Joe Biden has said he would have withdrawn from the 2024 presidential race if he had known that cancer was causing him to feel unwell. The former president made the comment in an interview about his forthcoming memoir, revisiting the campaign and the debate performance that helped prompt calls for him to step aside.

Biden announced in May 2025, four months after leaving office, that he had stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer. He said he did not consider his June 2024 debate with Donald Trump decisive and believed he remained capable of serving; after pressure from fellow Democrats, he withdrew on 21 July and endorsed Kamala Harris. In the interview, he also defended pardoning his son Hunter, saying he feared Trump would target people connected to him.