Biden scaling back book tour after cancer diagnosis

Former President Biden on Sunday said he was scaling back the book tour for his upcoming presidential memoir due to his ongoing cancer diagnosis.

“While writing the book, I was diagnosed with cancer, a disease known all too well to millions of Americans and their families,” the former president said in a statement about the process of writing “Promise Me, America,” out Nov. 17.

“My doctors continue to be encouraged by how I’ve responded to treatment,” he added.

Biden said the “prayers and kind words and well wishes from so many of you have meant more to” him and former first lady Jill Biden” and our family than you can ever know.”

“Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me,” he continued. “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.”

The former president’s office revealed in May 2025 , four months after he left office, that he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer with bone metastasis, though doctors said his cancer was “hormone sensitive.” He completed his treatment in October 2025.

Biden said in September that his radiation treatment “ worked as intended ” and continued to work on his memoir.

His son Hunter Biden told BBC’s “Newsnight” in August that his father’s cancer had spread to other parts of his body, calling it “very debilitating” and that watching the former president’s health decline has been “really hard.”

“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,” the younger Biden said at the time.

Jill Biden called her husband’s diagnosis “shocking” and said White House physicians “somehow” missed detecting his cancer.

The memoir will cover the former president’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and his decision to run for a second term. The book also “reveals the deeply agonizing calculation behind his decision in the summer of 2024 to step aside from the presidential race and to put his party and the nation before his personal ambitions,” according to the publisher Hachette Book Group .

His office also stated last year that he had undergone Mohs surgery to cut away thin layers of skin to be examined for signs of cancer, until no signs are found.