Joe Biden says he wouldn't have run in 2024 if he'd known he had cancer

NEED TO KNOW Joe Biden gets candid about his stage 4 prostate cancer as he releases his new memoir, Promise Me, America The former president reflects on life,…

NEED TO KNOW Joe Biden gets candid about his stage 4 prostate cancer as he releases his new memoir, Promise Me, America The former president reflects on life, withdrawing from the 2024 race and the legacy he hopes to leave Dr. Jill Biden describes the daily realities of caring for her husband with support from their family Two days after the Democrats swept the midterm elections, former President Joe Biden has that signature twinkle in his blue eyes.

“Look at the people we got elected: first women governors, first Black governors,” he tells PEOPLE with a quiet rasp. At 83, and living with stage 4 prostate cancer — for which he completed radiation and is undergoing hormone therapy — Biden is slower than when he suddenly withdrew from the presidential race in 2024 following a disastrous debate against Donald Trump and amid concerns about his health. Still, his perennial optimism remains.

“I’m not saying I’ll live forever,” says the one-term president, seated in the dining room of his Wilmington, Del., lake house, “but the point is that I have all my faculties, I have access to all the things I had before and I feel good.” He’s fighting the disease “like hell,” Biden writes in his presidential memoir, Promise Me, America, out Nov. 17. Through it all, his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, 75, has been by his side.

Being a family caregiver — like 63 million Americans — is “emotionally, physically hard,” the former first lady says after returning home from volunteering at a women’s prison, where she teaches literature part-time. Although she has help looking after her husband and says family is a constant at the house, “My days are making sure he eats right. Does he exercise? Is he taking the right medicine?

Did I talk to the doctor?” Reality came into focus when she read a magazine at a nail salon and imagined traveling to the destinations on the glossy pages. “All of a sudden it struck me, like, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t our life now,’ ” she says. “We’re on a new journey.” With no questions off the table, President Biden addresses his life and health now, his presidency and the legacy he hopes to leave behind.