Former President Joe Biden would not have run for reelection in 2024 if he had known about his cancer, he said in an interview released Wednesday in which he also sought to downplay the historic debate performance that helped end his political career.

„If I had known that I was feeling lousy because I had cancer, I would have not gone forward because I don’t think an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running,” he said in the interview with People magazine, which was conducted last week following Democrats’ big midterm wins and ahead of his upcoming memoir’s release.

The former president announced his diagnosis — Stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer — in May 2025, just four months after leaving the White House. It triggered an outpouring of public support — but it also raised questions about how doctors failed to catch the cancer earlier and whether it might have contributed to Biden’s apparent decline toward the end of his term.

“I think it’s very sad, actually. I’m surprised that it wasn’t, you know, the public wasn’t notified a long time ago because to get to [a Gleason score of] 9, that’s a long time,” President Donald Trump told reporters shortly after Biden’s announcement.

Prior to his diagnosis, Biden hadn’t been screened for prostate cancer since 2014. U.S. guidelines have long recommended that men shouldn’t be screened for the cancer once they hit their 70s.

Biden also downplayed his poor June 2024 debate performance against Trump that contributed to his exit from the Democratic ticket a month later.

“To me, it was not very consequential,” he said. “First of all, I thought there would be another debate, which there wasn’t. But notwithstanding the fact that there wasn’t another debate, it didn’t disturb me because it wasn’t consequential.”

Biden’s son, Hunter, has said he believes the cancer was responsible for the performance. His weak showing on the debate stage led to mounting calls within his party for him to withdraw, an effort eventually backed by longtime friends and allies such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The former president’s memoir, “Promise Me, America,” will go on sale next week. Biden wrote Sunday on X that the cancer meant he “won’t be able to do as many conversations about my book as I’d hoped.” But he still feels sharp, he told the magazine.

“I’m not saying I’ll live forever, but the point is that, you know, I have all my faculties, I have access to all the things I had before and, you know, I feel good,” he said.

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