Former President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he “won’t be able to do as many conversations” about his upcoming presidential memoir due to his fight with prostate cancer.
“Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down. What that means is, unfortunately, I won’t be able to do as many conversations about my book as I’d hoped. However, I’m hopeful the words on the page speak for themselves,” he wrote on social media.
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The Atlantic published Monday the first excerpt from Biden’s book, which is titled “Promise Me, America” and slated for release on November 17. In it, Biden mainly criticized some of the earliest actions in President Donald Trump’s second term and expressed confidence that US democracy can withstand the era of his successor.
But the former president also offered some surprising observations about his post-election meeting with Trump at the White House. He said Trump’s tone toward him “bordered on fawning,” that Trump told him they’d be “good friends” if not for politics and that Trump praised his job creating record as “extraordinary.”
“I didn’t really understand why he was buttering me up, so I cut off his compliments to move on to the business at hand,” Biden wrote, pivoting to the foreign policy issues he wanted to raise with Trump.
Biden, who turns 84 on November 20, is the oldest living former president. He revealed his cancer diagnosis in May 2025, less than four months after he left the White House.
His office said in a statement then that he appeared to have a “more aggressive” form of cancer but that it “appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management.”
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The former president’s son, Hunter Biden, told the BBC in August that his father’s cancer had “metastasized into his bones and further.”
“It’s really sad to watch,” Hunter Biden said. “The only thing that I’d say about my dad, about his health right now, is I wish he would complain more, because it’s not good.”
“I hope you’ll read it,” Biden wrote on social media about his memoir. “It covers my years as President. The challenges we faced, the decisions I made, and why I made them. It’s about who we are as a nation. What we stand for. And America’s role in the world.”
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