Biden Scales Back Memoir Tour, Says Cancer Slows Him Down

Former President Joe Biden said on Nov. 8 that his cancer treatment will force him to cut back on the interviews and appearances planned for his new memoir, which goes on sale in just over a week.

"Some days are better than others," Biden wrote in a long post on X. "It hasn't stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down."

Biden, 83, wrote that he will not be able to do as many conversations about the book as he had hoped, and said he hoped the writing itself would carry it. The memoir, Promise Me, America, is due out on Nov. 17.

He was diagnosed in May 2025 with an aggressive prostate cancer that had already spread to his bones, roughly four months after he left the White House. He has since gone through radiation and hormone treatment.

What He Actually Wrote

Most of the Sunday post was about the book. Biden listed what it covers: his years as president, the challenges the country faced, the decisions he made and the reasons behind them. He wrote that it is about who Americans are as a nation and what they stand for.

The health news came in the third paragraph. "While writing the book, I was diagnosed with cancer, a disease known all too well to millions of Americans and their families," he wrote. "My doctors continue to be encouraged by how I've responded to treatment. And the prayers and kind words and well wishes from so many of you have meant more to me and Jill and our family than you can ever know."

Near the end he reached for the line he has used in a thousand speeches, from his father. "Looking forward, I'm going to keep following what my father told me a long time ago: 'Champ, when you get knocked down, get up,'" Biden wrote, according to the full text of the post. "It's a good lesson for me. And for America."

The last lines were about the country rather than himself. He described a nation built on an idea bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any army, stronger than any tyrant or dictator. "That idea? All of us are created equal."

In July, He Said Treatment Was Going Really Well

The shift from summer is hard to miss. On July 15, 2026, Little, Brown announced that Promise Me, America would go on sale Nov. 17. Biden posted a video the same day saying the book was coming out that date and was available for preorder.

In that video, he described his cancer treatment as "going really well." A spokesperson for Little, Brown told The Associated Press that Biden planned a book tour and interviews.

Four months later, the plan is good days and bad days and a promotional schedule trimmed to fit them.

In the July video, Biden said the book would explain why he chose to run for reelection and why he chose to step aside. He also said it covers leading the country through Covid, rebuilding the economy, restoring democracy after the Jan. 6 attack, ending the war in Afghanistan, strengthening NATO and supporting Ukraine.

A Book Landing Two Weeks After the Midterms

The release date puts the memoir on shelves two weeks after the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Biden turns 84 on Nov. 20, three days after it comes out. He is the oldest living former president.

Hachette Book Group, the publisher, says the book covers his campaign, his presidency and his decision to run again. It also says the memoir lays out the agonizing calculation behind his decision in the summer of 2024 to step aside from the presidential race and put his party and the nation ahead of his own ambitions.

Biden suspended that reelection bid under mounting pressure and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris.

The first excerpt ran in The Atlantic on Nov. 9, with Biden accusing President Donald Trump of leading an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and writing that what Trump did that day "should follow him to his grave."

The title rhymes with two earlier Biden books, Promises to Keep from 2007 and Promise Me, Dad from 2017, the second of which was his account of the last year of his son Beau's life. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.

The Diagnosis, Date by Date

Biden saw doctors in May 2025 after worsening urinary symptoms, and they found a nodule on his prostate. On Friday, May 16, 2025, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer that had already reached his bones.

His office made it public two days later, on Sunday, May 18, describing "prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone."

That number carries weight. Pathologists look at prostate cancer cells under a microscope and grade them by how far they have drifted from healthy tissue, then add two grades together. In practice the score runs from 6 to 10. Biden's 9 is the second highest, and under the newer international system, 9s and 10s both fall into Grade Group 5, the most aggressive of the five groups.

The same statement carried one hopeful line: the cancer appeared to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management.

Biden answered publicly on X the next day with a sentence that read like a family motto. "Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places," he wrote.

Radiation, and a Bell in Philadelphia

Most of the rest of 2025 went to treatment. In early September 2025, after video showed a healing wound on his forehead, Biden spokesperson Kelly Scully confirmed he had Mohs surgery to remove skin cancer.

On Oct. 11, 2025, Scully said Biden was "currently undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment."

Nine days later, on Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, she confirmed the next step: "I can confirm that he has completed a course of radiation therapy." Scully said Biden rang the bell at Penn Medicine Radiation Oncology in Philadelphia, where he had been treated for several weeks. Patients ring that bell to mark the end of a course of treatment, not the end of the disease. She would not say what came next.

On Sept. 8, 2026, Biden wrote on X that the radiation treatment from the previous fall had worked as intended.

What His Family Has Said

Jill Biden spoke about her husband's condition in August on SiriusXM's Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa. She said he is "doing okay," but added that "he will forever live with cancer, and we have to be mindful of it every three months, testing and medicines."

She had put it even more bluntly to NBC's TODAY in June: "I think Joe will live with cancer till the rest of his life."

Days after that radio interview, Hunter Biden gave the gloomiest account yet. "The cancer has spread, metastasized into his bones and further," he told the BBC's Newsnight in August. "It's very painful and it's very debilitating in many respects." He added, "It's really sad to watch."

Cancer has hit the family repeatedly. Beau died of a brain tumor at 46, and Jill Biden had two cancerous skin lesions removed in 2023.

The Fight Over What He Knew, and When

Biden was the oldest man to serve as U.S. president, and his age and health shadowed much of his term. He has pushed back repeatedly on accusations about his mental sharpness and his memory.

Critics in both parties have questioned whether Biden and the people around him were straight with the public about his health while he was in office. His team has denied any cover-up.

The timing of the book keeps that argument alive, since the memoir arrives just after the midterms and is pitched as his own account of the 2024 decision.

A Talker Who Has to Stay Quiet

There is something strange about this particular politician cutting back on interviews. Biden spent half a century in public life talking: rope lines, Senate floor speeches, conversations that blew past whatever his schedule said. Now, days before his account of the presidency reaches bookstores, he is saying it will have to land mostly without him in front of a camera.

The Sunday post did not say how many events were canceled, or which ones survive. It did not spell out what treatment he is on now. Biden thanked the public for the prayers and well wishes and said his doctors remain encouraged.

Promise Me, America goes on sale Nov. 17. Three days later, Biden turns 84.