Biden says he wouldn't have run for a second term in 2024 if he knew he had cancer
Joe Biden says he did not know he had cancer while he was president and would not have sought a second term if he already had been diagnosed.
The former Democratic 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.
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At 83 years old and battling stage four prostate cancer,
former president Joe Biden is discussing his health
in a new interview with People magazine.
I'm not saying I'll live forever, but the point is that,
you know, I have had all my faculties.
I have access to all the things I had before.
A little bit more, and uh...
From the dining room of his Wilmington, Delaware, lake house,
Biden told people he shared with the public as soon as he was diagnosed
last year and wouldn't have run for re-election had he known.
I would have not gone forward because I don't think
an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running for, you know.
But that wasn't the case.
I believe that on an objective basis,
I was the best equipped person to do the job.
The former president getting candid ahead
of the release of his new memoir, Promise Me America.
The New York Times releasing an excerpt in which Biden
reveals President Trump left him a letter in the Oval Office
on Inauguration Day 2021, just days after the January 6th insurrection.
Biden describes the letter as very generous,
saying Trump wrote, quote, Many presidents have come
and gone who simply govern as Republicans or Democrats.
This will not happen to you
because I know how much you love the American people.
The letter, as published by The Times, never mentions
the 2020 election, which Trump falsely claims was rigged.
In a separate excerpt of the book published by The Atlantic,
Biden writes Donald Trump led an insurrection
and that January 6th should follow him to his grave.
Biden condemns Trump for pardoning the rioters,
but also writes that after the 2024 election, Trump told him,
quote, if it weren't for politics, I believe we'd be good friends.
In the interview with People,
Biden also reacted to the results of last week's midterm elections.
He says they could not have gone any better,
but that he was not surprised.
People magazine's print issue with the full interview will
be out on Friday. Reena Roy, ABC News, New York.