Former President Joe Biden detailed his 2024 presidential transition meeting with President Donald Trump in an excerpt of his new book released Monday, describing how Trump was “buttering [him] up” at the White House that day.
“You know, Joe, if it weren’t for politics, I believe we’d be good friends,” Trump told Biden that day, according to Biden’s account teased in the Monday excerpt.
“I think I blinked, too stunned to respond,” Biden wrote in the excerpt published by the Atlantic. “Then he kept going, as if intoxicated by the curious conversational path he had chosen. ‘Yes, if it weren’t for politics, we’d spend all our time golfing together.’ He said my performance on job creation had been ‘extraordinary.’ He added that he’d been relieved he didn’t have to run against me.”
Biden’s account comes as part of his new memoir about his time as president, Promise Me, America, which is set to be released Nov. 17.
In the excerpts of the memoir released by the outlet on Monday, Biden focused on his successor, what Trump had done at the beginning of his second term as president, and how America can “reclaim our better angels” after Trump’s term ends.
Biden also looked at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and blasted Trump for pardoning thousands of rioters who were convicted or awaiting sentences in connection with the riots.
“To this day, Trump and his supporters continue to preen and posture like they’re supporters of law enforcement,” Biden wrote. “Here’s my view: You don’t get to turn a blind eye to cops being punched, speared, sprayed, and brutalized and call yourself a friend of law enforcement. What Trump did on January 6, 2021, should never be forgotten. It should follow him to his grave.”
Biden waited to release the memoir until after the 2026 midterm elections. Its title is a reference to his other memoir called Promise Me, Dad, which is about the loss of his elder son, Beau Biden, who died from brain cancer when Biden was vice president during the Obama administration.
Biden himself was diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of Stage 4 prostate cancer in May 2025, with the diagnosis spreading to his bones. In August, Biden’s younger son, Hunter Biden, said in an interview that his father’s cancer had further metastasized and is “very painful” and “very debilitating” but promised his father would “continue to fight.”
Joe Biden announced Monday that his cancer would force him to scale back his book tour as he fights and receives treatment.
“Some days are better than others,” the former president said in a statement posted to X. “It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down. What that means is, unfortunately, I won’t be able to do as many conversations about my book as I’d hoped.”
BIDEN TO PUBLISH ANOTHER MEMOIR AFTER MIDTERM ELECTIONS: PROMISE ME, AMERICA
“Looking forward, I’m going to keep following what my father told me a long time ago: ‘Champ, when you get knocked down, get up,’” Biden continued. “It’s a good lesson for me. And for America.”
Biden’s memoir details his 2020 campaign, his time in the Oval Office, his initial decision to run again in 2024, and his decision to suspend his candidacy that summer. His book will be released in hardcover, e-book, and audio form.