Former President Joe Biden uses his forthcoming personal memoir, “Promise Me, America,” to reject accusations that he concealed his prostate cancer diagnosis. In excerpts obtained by MS NOW, he calls the suggestion “absurd” and describes the response from parts of the political press and commentary world as a “cynical twist.”

Biden publicly announced his prostate cancer diagnosis last May, days after he said doctors first identified the disease. The memoir is scheduled for release next week.

“What did surprise me was the cynical twist the story took in the political press and among political commentators,” Biden writes. He says the reaction almost immediately turned to accusations that he had known about the cancer and hidden it.

Biden argues that anyone diagnosed with stage 4 cancer would wish doctors had discovered it sooner. Although he does not identify anyone by name in that passage, President Trump publicly questioned whether Biden had been candid about his health.

Trump initially offered Biden his well wishes before raising suspicions about the timing of the announcement. “I’m surprised the public wasn’t notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine, that’s a long time,” Trump said in the Oval Office last year.

Trump also claimed without evidence, “Somebody is not telling the facts.” Biden’s memoir delivers a blunt rejection of that line of attack while recounting how his diagnosis unfolded.

Biden writes that he experienced “some urinary symptoms” that prompted him to visit a doctor in May 2025. Doctors discovered a nodule on his prostate and diagnosed him with fast moving, stage 4 prostate cancer.

Biden announced the diagnosis two days later, according to the memoir, and immediately began hormone and radiation therapy. “For anyone to think I would try to ignore or hide a cancer ravaging my body is absurd,” Biden says.

Biden also points to standard medical practices surrounding prostate cancer screening. “Here are the simple facts. Standard medical protocol is to stop testing men for prostate cancer after the age of seventy.”

The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force says the potential benefits of prostate screening “do not outweigh the expected harms” for men older than 70. Biden nevertheless makes clear that he wishes his own cancer had been found before it spread.

“And as I sit here today, do I wish I had been tested sooner? Yes, I do. Do I wish the cancer had been caught before it spread to my bones? Yes, I do,” Biden writes. He says he was treated no differently from other men his age.

Biden left office as the oldest sitting president in history after facing sustained scrutiny about his age, health and mental sharpness. He ended his presidential campaign following a June 2024 debate with Trump during which he struggled to answer questions and lost his train of thought.

Hunter Biden speculated on a podcast earlier this year that his father was unknowingly suffering from cancer during that debate. Seventeen months after the diagnosis, Biden says he received his final radiation therapy in October at Penn Medicine and rang a bell marking the treatment’s conclusion.

Biden continues receiving hormone treatment, which he says is keeping the cancer at bay. Ahead of the memoir’s release, he wrote on social media that doctors “continue to be encouraged” by his response, though his health has forced him to reduce planned promotional events.

“Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down,” Biden wrote. He said he remains hopeful that the words in the book will speak for themselves even if he cannot participate in as many conversations as planned.

Since leaving Washington, Biden has spent most days at his Wilmington home while maintaining a public schedule. He headlined five state Democratic Party dinners over the last year and attended Monday’s groundbreaking for Biden Hall at the University of Delaware.

The memoir also reflects on his presidency and his family’s long battle against cancer, including former first lady Jill Biden’s advocacy beginning in 1993. “All I can do— with the help of an incredible medical team and an even better family— is fight like hell. And that’s what I’m doing,” Biden writes.