Biden Memoir: Cancer Slows Book Tour as Excerpt Reveals Trump's 'Fawning' Tone

WASHINGTON — Former President Joe Biden said on Sunday that prostate cancer will limit how much he can do to promote the Biden memoir, as the first published excerpt revealed a strikingly warm tone from Donald Trump during their post-election meeting at the White House.

“Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down,” Biden said of his illness, adding that he “won’t be able to do as many conversations” about the book as he would otherwise have liked. The remarks, made on Sunday, November 8, 2026, were his most candid yet about how the disease is shaping his public life.

The book, titled Promise Me, America, is due for release on November 17, 2026. The Atlantic published the first excerpt on Monday, November 9. In it, Biden mainly criticises some of the earliest actions of President Donald Trump’s second term, while arguing that American democracy can withstand the era of his successor.

Key Points

• Joe Biden said prostate cancer means he “won’t be able to do as many conversations” to promote his memoir, Promise Me, America.
• The Atlantic published the first excerpt on Monday, November 9, 2026, eight days before the book’s November 17 release.
• In the excerpt, Biden writes that Donald Trump’s tone toward him at their post-election White House meeting “bordered on fawning.”
• Trump told Biden they would be “good friends” if not for politics and praised his job-creation record as “extraordinary.”
• Biden, who turns 84 on November 20, is the oldest living former president, and revealed his prostate cancer diagnosis in May 2025.

What Happened

Biden spoke about the limits his illness will place on the book tour on Sunday, November 8, 2026, nine days before Promise Me, America reaches bookshops. He did not say he was cancelling promotion altogether, only that he would do fewer interviews and public conversations than a former president launching a memoir normally would.

The next day brought the first taste of the book itself. The Atlantic’s excerpt, published on Monday, November 9, covers the meeting between Biden and Trump at the White House after the 2024 election, the traditional handover encounter between an outgoing president and his successor. It is the passage that has drawn the most attention so far, not for a policy argument but for the portrait it paints of Trump in private: warm, complimentary, almost eager to please. Biden writes that Trump’s tone toward him “bordered on fawning,” and that Trump praised his record on job creation as “extraordinary.”

Background: A Memoir and a Diagnosis

Promise Me, America is Biden’s first full account of his presidency, which ran from January 2021 to January 2025, and of the decision that ended his political career: stepping aside as the Democratic nominee in the summer of 2024 after a disastrous debate performance, clearing the way for his vice president, Kamala Harris, who went on to lose the election to Trump. The title echoes his 2017 book Promise Me, Dad, about his late son Beau.

The cancer has shadowed the book from the start. Biden’s office revealed in May 2025, less than four months after he left the White House, that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, describing it as a “more aggressive” form that was nonetheless hormone-sensitive. In August, his son Hunter Biden told the BBC that the cancer had “metastasized into his bones and further.” Biden turns 84 on November 20, three days after the book’s release.

The Biden Memoir’s Account of Trump

The centrepiece of the excerpt is the post-election meeting, and what makes it striking is the contrast between the public relationship of the two men and the private one Biden describes. In public, Biden spent the 2024 campaign warning that Trump posed a threat to democracy, and Trump spent it mocking Biden’s age and capacity. In the Oval Office, by Biden’s account, Trump was a different figure: effusive about Biden’s record, eager to find common ground, and, in Biden’s word, fawning. The excerpt also contains Biden’s broader criticism of the earliest actions of Trump’s second term.

Reactions and Quotes

Biden’s own words about his health were plain and unsparing. “Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down,” he said on Sunday, in the clearest public acknowledgement yet of how the cancer affects his daily life. A memoir tour is a gruelling schedule of interviews, signings and travel, and Biden is choosing to do less of it rather than push through at full pace. On the meeting, Biden records his own bemusement: “I didn’t really understand why he was buttering me up, so I cut off his compliments to move on to the business at hand.”

Why It Matters

The memoir matters because it is the first extended account from the man at the centre of the most consequential presidential transition in recent American history: a president who stepped aside under pressure from his own party, watched his successor lose, and then handed power to the man who had defeated him. How Biden tells that story will shape how historians and Democrats alike judge his presidency. It also matters because of the timing: the book arrives a week after a midterm election that returned Democrats to power in Congress.

What Happens Next

Promise Me, America is released on November 17, 2026, and the full text will show how much of the book is devoted to the Trump meeting, how detailed Biden’s criticism of the second Trump term is, and how candid he is about the decision to step aside in 2024 — the question readers and historians will care about most. More excerpts are likely to appear in the days before publication. Biden’s reduced schedule means fewer interviews than a memoir of this importance would normally command.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is Joe Biden’s memoir published?

Promise Me, America is due for release on November 17, 2026. The Atlantic published the first excerpt on Monday, November 9, 2026.

Why is Biden doing fewer events to promote the book?

He said on Sunday, November 8, 2026 that his fight with prostate cancer means he “won’t be able to do as many conversations” about the memoir. “Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down.”

What does the excerpt say about Trump?

Biden writes that Trump’s tone toward him at their post-election White House meeting “bordered on fawning,” that Trump said they would be “good friends” if not for politics, and that Trump praised his job-creation record as “extraordinary.”

When was Biden diagnosed with cancer?

His office revealed the prostate cancer diagnosis in May 2025, less than four months after he left the White House, describing it as a “more aggressive” form but hormone-sensitive. His son Hunter later told the BBC it had “metastasized into his bones and further.”

How old is Joe Biden?

He turns 84 on November 20, 2026, and is the oldest living former president in American history.

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