Former President Joe Biden announced his upcoming memoir on Wednesday morning, and the reaction from his own party's former allies landed harder than anything Republicans could have scripted. Lindy Li, once a top Democratic fundraiser, publicly savaged the book launch and the people around Biden who she says keep pushing him into the spotlight nobody asked for.
The memoir, titled "Promise Me, America," is set for release on November 17, two weeks after the 2026 midterm elections. Little, Brown and Company is publishing it. Biden, now 83, reportedly received a $10 million advance, according to Breitbart, and plans a national tour with media interviews to promote the book.
The timing tells its own story. Democrats already nervous about the midterms now face the prospect of their former standard-bearer relitigating his presidency, his decision to seek reelection, and his withdrawal from the 2024 race, all while voters are heading to the polls. And Li, who left the party, is saying out loud what plenty of Democrats apparently whisper behind closed doors.
Li did not hold back. She described a party that wanted nothing to do with Biden even before he dropped out of the 2024 race on July 21, and she aimed some of her sharpest words at former First Lady Jill Biden.
"Jill has him writing books that no one wants to read instead of fully enjoying his retirement. Just like she had him out running for president, a presidency that no one wanted, not even Democrats, instead of enjoying his retirement. He should have been in retirement 10, 20 years ago, but they need the money."
That last line, "they need the money", frames the entire memoir project as a financial exercise rather than a public service. Li also described the mood inside the party when Biden finally stepped aside.
"They're thinking, 'Why can't you just shut the f, up?' Prior to me leaving the party, they wanted nothing to do with this guy. It was so bad that when, finally, Biden exited on July 21, there was no goodbye party other than a staffer one in the Rose Garden. There was nothing."
No formal farewell. No ceremony from the national party. Just a small staff gathering in the Rose Garden and a collective sigh of relief. That is the picture Li paints of how Democrats treated the sitting president of the United States when he finally gave them what they wanted.
Li's most striking claims involve what she described as the DNC's efforts to control the narrative around Biden's fitness. She alleged that at a 2023 campaign event, party officials physically took her phone, and she was not the only one.
"The [Democratic National Committee] was routinely confiscating the phones of top donors with social media followings. They took away my phone because they knew I was a prolific tweeter. And I posted something on Instagram that night, and a finance director from the DNC called me at around 10 or 11 that same night to instruct me to delete everything from Instagram about Biden that I posted that day."
Li did not name the specific finance director. But her account describes a party apparatus that treated its own donors, the people writing the checks, like security risks. The reason, she said, was plain enough.
"The reason is because [Biden] seemed infirm. He seemed weak. It's very clear they were trying to hide the fact that instead of having a candidate they could be proud of, they were busy hiding a candidate that they were deeply ashamed of."
If Li's account is accurate, the DNC was not just managing a campaign. It was running a concealment operation, confiscating phones, monitoring social media posts in real time, and calling donors late at night to demand deletions. All to prevent the public from seeing what insiders already knew about the president's condition.
Biden announced the memoir via a post on X. His description was characteristically sweeping and vague.
"It's about the challenges we face as a nation. About the decisions I made and why I made them. It's about why I chose to run for reelection and why I chose to step aside."
He also disclosed that he is currently undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, as AP News reported, telling the public he has "been spending a lot of time with my family" and that treatment "is going really well."
The cancer disclosure adds a sympathetic dimension. But it does not answer the question Li and others are raising: why now, and who benefits?
The November 17 release date places the book squarely in the post-election news cycle, but the announcement itself, and the planned national tour, will generate coverage well before voters cast their ballots. The Washington Examiner reported that the timing has drawn scrutiny from within the Democratic Party, with some fearing it will reignite damaging narratives about Biden's fitness and the party's handling of his candidacy.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, tried to wave it off. "We don't need to be distracted by what the DNC says about the autopsy," she said. "I don't need to be distracted about anyone's book."
That is the sound of a party trying to change the subject before the subject has even fully arrived. Newsmax noted that the memoir arrives amid ongoing Democratic divisions over Biden's legacy and lingering questions about the concealment of his cognitive decline during his term. A book tour relitigating all of it is the last thing midterm candidates in swing districts want.
Conservative commentators wasted no time. Steve Guest, a conservative communicator, posted on X: "The first lie of Joe Biden's book launch: 'I've written a book.'"
Outkick founder Clay Travis went further: "Joe Biden couldn't sign his own pardons. Now he's 'written' a book, which Democrats forced him to release after the midterms so he wouldn't be in the news to remind people how bad he was. Who in the world is buying this book?"
Daily Wire editor-in-chief Brent Scher kept it simple: "Who do we think wrote this book." And Rep. Jason Smith, the Missouri Republican, posted a single question that referenced the device Biden reportedly used to sign official documents: "Did the autopen write this too."
The sarcasm points in the same direction Li's criticism does, though from a different angle. The right questions whether Biden is capable of writing the book. Li questions whether anyone around him should have let him announce it.
It is worth noting that Li has her own memoir in the pipeline. Her book, "Unburdened," is scheduled for publication later this year through HarperCollins. That creates an obvious question about motive: is Li offering genuine insider testimony, or is she promoting her own product by tearing down Biden's?
Both can be true at the same time. Her specific claims, the phone confiscation, the late-night call from a DNC finance director, the absence of a formal goodbye, are either verifiable or they are not. No one from the DNC has publicly rebutted them in the available reporting. And the broader narrative she describes, a party that knew its candidate was failing and worked to hide it, is consistent with what the public saw play out in real time during 2023 and 2024.
Biden says the book will explain why he ran for reelection and why he stepped aside. Those are the two questions that matter most, and the two that Democrats have never answered honestly.
Why did a president whose own party was confiscating donors' phones to hide his frailty decide to seek a second term? Who made that decision? And when he finally withdrew on July 21, was it his choice or the party's?
The memoir's publisher, release date, and $10 million advance are now public. What remains unknown is whether "Promise Me, America" will contain real answers or the kind of polished, ghostwritten evasion that political memoirs typically deliver.
Li's prediction may be harsh, but the market will render its own verdict. If Democrats didn't want Biden at his own farewell, it's hard to imagine they'll line up at the bookstore.
