Joe Biden said he would not have run for a second term in 2024 if he had known about his cancer diagnosis.

What it means

Former President Joe Biden told PEOPLE magazine that if he had known he had prostate cancer while in office, he would not have run for a second term in 2024 and would have stepped down. He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer after leaving office, and he says the fatigue he felt during his presidency was a symptom he didn't recognize at the time.

Accuracy & sourcesGrounded

The claim comes directly from Biden's own interview with PEOPLE, a primary source, and is reported across multiple major outlets (AP, CNN, Time, etc.) with consistent framing. The reporting sits very close to the original interview, so the claim is solid as a statement of what Biden said, though the factual claim itself — that he was unaware of his cancer — cannot be independently verified.

How new

Genuinely new: the interview was published on November 11, 2026, and this is the first wave of reporting on it.

Go deeper

• New York Post — first to publish