Former President Joe Biden said in an interview released on Wednesday that his debate performance with Donald Trump in 2024 “was not very consequential” and that he would have not tried to seek a second term had he known he had cancer.
The interview with PEOPLE comes ahead of the release of Biden’s presidential memoir, “Promise Me, America,” next week.
The July 2024 debate, in which Biden appeared confused and had difficulty articulating his case for another term, eventually led to the president dropping out of the race and endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, just 107 days before the 2024 election.
His debate performance also prompted his wife, first lady Jill Biden, to think the president was having a stroke. But Biden downplayed its influence in the new interview.
“Look, I don’t know anybody who hasn’t made a mistake in a debate,” Biden said in the PEOPLE interview. “To me, it was not very consequential. First of all, I thought there’d be another debate, which there wasn’t. But notwithstanding the fact that there wasn’t another debate, it didn’t disturb me because it wasn’t consequential.”
A planned second debate took place in September, but between Harris and Trump.
The former president was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer just four months after leaving office.
He conceded to having felt “lousy” before knowing about the cancer, and added he would not have attempted to mount another campaign for the White House had he known he was sick.
“If I had known that I was feeling lousy because I had cancer, I would have resigned. I would’ve not gone forward, because I don’t think an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running for (president),” he said. “But that wasn’t the case … I believe that on an objective basis, I was the best-equipped person to do the job.”
He said he let the public know of his diagnosis “when we found out” and denied having hid the truth about his health during his presidency.
“I didn’t do that,” Biden said. “We let the public know when I found out, when I knew what was going on. I think it’s important for a national leader, as president, to let people know they go through some of the very same things that a lot of American people are going through.”
Biden’s book will be released next Tuesday. He has said his cancer will limit his ability to promote it.
