Joe Biden has finished writing the story of his presidency, and the cancer in his bones means he will not be out telling much of it.
The 46th president, 83, said in a lengthy post on X on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026, that he will scale back the promotional tour for his memoir, “Promise Me, America,” which Little, Brown and Co. publishes Nov. 17, as he continues to live with an aggressive prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.
“While writing the book, I was diagnosed with cancer, a disease known all too well to millions of Americans and their families,” Biden wrote.
“Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down,” he continued. As a result, he explained, he will take part in fewer conversations about the book than he had planned, trusting the pages to make his case.
His medical team remains encouraged by his response to treatment, he said, and he thanked supporters for prayers that have meant a great deal to him, his wife, Jill, and the rest of the family. It is a striking concession from a politician who built a long career on talking — rope lines, Senate floor speeches, town halls that ran past schedule.
The Nodule Doctors Found in May
The cancer surfaced about four months after Biden left the White House in January 2025. After worsening urinary symptoms, doctors examined him and found a nodule on his prostate. He was diagnosed on Friday, May 16, 2025, with prostate cancer that had already reached his bones, and his office made the diagnosis public two days later, on Sunday, May 18, 2025, describing a Gleason score of 9, Grade Group 5, with metastasis to the bone.
Those figures carry weight. Pathologists grade prostate cells by how far they have strayed from healthy tissue and add two grades together; in practice the Gleason scale runs from 6 to 10, so Biden’s 9 is the second-highest score. Under the newer international system, 9s and 10s both fall into Grade Group 5, the most aggressive of the five groups. The May 2025 statement offered one piece of encouragement: the cancer appeared to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management.
He Rang the Bell in Philadelphia
Treatment consumed the rest of that year. On Oct. 11, 2025, Biden spokesperson Kelly Scully said he was undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment. On Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, Scully confirmed that he had completed a course of radiation that day and had rung 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.
There was other news from his doctors along the way. In early September 2025, after video showed a healing wound on his forehead, a spokesperson confirmed he had undergone Mohs surgery to remove skin cancer. In a message marking Prostate Awareness Month, Biden urged men to see their doctors for early detection, saying the disease had already spread to his bones by the time it was found and that early detection brings a five-year survival rate close to 100%. The radiation from the previous fall, he wrote, had worked as intended.
His family has been blunter. In an August 2026 interview on BBC Newsnight, his son Hunter Biden told host Paddy O’Connell that he wished his father would complain more, because his health is not good, and said the cancer had metastasized into his bones and further, leaving him in pain. “It’s really sad to watch,” he added.
Jill Biden, the former first lady, told NBC News: “I think Joe will live with cancer till the rest of his life.” Speaking with Kelly Ripa on her SiriusXM show in August 2026, she described him as doing fine but facing checkups and medication every three months for good.
The Calculation Behind Stepping Aside
Little, Brown announced the memoir’s on-sale date on July 15, 2026, the same day Biden posted an announcement video on X saying treatment had been going really well. The release lands two weeks after the 2026 midterm elections. Biden had already let the book slip in June 2026, at one of his wife’s stops promoting her own book, “A View from the East Wing,” when he said it would be out in September.
The title echoes his 2017 book “Promise Me, Dad,” written about the death of his elder son, Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015. The memoir takes on his decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy, military actions in Afghanistan and Ukraine, and the aftermath of Jan. 6 at the Capitol. Hachette Book Group says it also reveals the deeply agonizing calculation behind his decision in the summer of 2024 to step aside from the presidential race.
Biden suspended that re-election bid after a disastrous debate performance against President Donald Trump and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris. He was the oldest man to serve as president, and his age and health dogged much of his term; he has repeatedly pushed back on accusations about his mental acuity and memory. A Little, Brown spokesperson said in July 2026 that he planned a book tour and interviews.
Now that plan is smaller. Biden ended Sunday’s post by returning to advice from his late father that has guided him since boyhood: “Champ, when you get knocked down, get up.”
