This new book explores how Biden's inner circle kept his mental decline from voters
A new book by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson paints the story of how President Biden believed he was capable of serving a second term even though his inner circle hid that he wasn't.
Axios reporter Alex Thompson (left) and CNN's Jake Tapper during an interview at NPR on Thursday. Bronson Arcuri/NPR & Grace Raver/NPR
toggle captionBronson Arcuri/NPR & Grace Raver/NPRThe year is 2019 and presidential hopeful Joe Biden is on a campaign swing in Iowa. During the event, Biden struggles to remember the names of one of his aides, Mike Donilon.
The issue? The two had known each other since 1981, with Donilon serving as one of Biden's closest aides for decades and at one point had a White House desk just steps away from the Oval Office.
It's one of several jarring moments reported in the new book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson. It chronicles Biden's decline over his time in the White House, as well as efforts by his top staff to keep that decline hidden from voters.
Tapper and Thompson joined All Things Considered host Scott Detrow on Thursday to discuss the process of writing the book and why they felt now was the right time to publish.
President Biden delivers remarks during the CNN Presidential Debate in June 2024 in Atlanta. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
toggle captionJustin Sullivan/Getty ImagesThe upcoming book comes as Biden's personal office announced in a statement Sunday that he has been diagnosed with an "aggressive form" of prostate cancer, which has metastasized to the bone. Biden, 82, was seen for further tests last week after a finding of a prostate nodule.
The diagnosis underscores the biggest vulnerability Biden faced during his final years in office.
Those close to Biden have defended him and his presidency, despite the book.
Last week, a spokesperson from Biden's office said, "We're still waiting for someone, anyone to point out where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or make a presidential address where he was unable to do his job because of mental decline."
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlightsOn the presidential debate night that sparked the book:
Tapper: Dana Bash, my co-moderator, and I had these iPads so that we could write to the people in the control room, because obviously we can't talk to them and there was only one or two commercial breaks. And I wrote, "Holy Smokes," during that first rambling, awful non-answer where he said, "We finally beat Medicare." I just couldn't believe it.
I mean, we had all seen him aging. We had all seen him tripping and misspeaking. We had all seen evidence of decline, but the Biden team, family and senior advisors were telling everybody, not just media and not just the public, but also Democratic donors and members of Congress: "He's fine. He's fine. He's fine."
Even today, the inner inner circle still thinks he could have won, still thinks that he could have been functioning and doing a great job as president until January 2029. It's just delusion at this point. I mean, we can see it. We talked to a top Democrat who saw what everybody saw: how he didn't seem great. He wasn't on top of things. And look, this is a guy we've seen in public life. He's been in public life since 1972. So, we have seen him age.
On using the phrase "cover-up"
Thompson: If it wasn't a cover up, then why were so many people surprised by the debate? Beginning in fall of 2023, our reporting shows, based on the interviews of over 200 people, that there were two Bidens: there was a functioning Biden and non-functioning Biden. And that goes back to 2019. But he was almost always functioning Biden.
But beginning in 2023, the ratio of that functioning and non-functioning starts to change dramatically and also non-functioning Biden is getting worse. The White House, the people around them ā we had one senior White House official who left because they were upset over what was happening and didn't think he should be running for reelection.
Detrow: When you say nonfunctioning. What's the best way to define that?
Tapper: I would describe it as unable to come up with the names of top advisers or close friends. I would say look, we're all human. We all forget names. We all lose our train of thought. We all witness that in people who are aging.
We're talking about to the point of you not being able to have a conversation. You are not able to come up with data, information, knowledge, names that you should have at the ready.
When he didn't recognize George Clooney. That is somebody who is not only somebody he'd known for more than 15 years, not only somebody that he had had serious conversations about Darfur with, not only somebody that had raised millions of dollars for him and was co-hosting that very fundraiser. He's also one of the most recognizable people in the world. So, I'm talking about that. I'm talking about what we saw at the debate, that non-functioning, I-cannot-articulate-a-sentence Biden.
Penguin PressDetrow: You were talking about the framing of the cover up. He's giving speeches. He's appearing in public. He's carrying out the duties of the presidency. And yet, as you reported, there is a concerted effort to wall him off. What specifically was that circle of aides doing?
Thompson: The one top aide who left the White House said that they intentionally shielded him from other members of the administration, other members of the cabinet, other senior White House officials. The inner circle became smaller and smaller.
This White House official said that was intentional so that they did not realize the extent of the decline. You also saw the schedule become much tighter and more restricted.
The schedule just became much more oriented about making sure that the public and other aides did not see non-functioning Biden.
Detrow: What to you is the theory that makes the most sense about how we got to this point?
Tapper: We have a chapter in the book that goes into the legend of Joe Biden. Which I don't mean in a pejorative sense, but just the story, the mythology of Joe Biden.
He has had a remarkable ability to get up after being knocked to the floor by fate, whether it's having a debilitating stutter or the horrific tragedy that took the life of his wife and daughter or having two brain aneurysms etc., etc.
And he says in one of his memoirs, "Get up" was what his father used to say to him. And that's the way you measure a man, your ability to get up. And that became not just a mythology, but almost a theology. And like any theology, skepticism was not permitted. And that is the inner circle of Biden.
"He can do it. He's a game day performer. He'll do it." Everybody wrote him off in 2008 and then he became the best vice president in history. Everybody wrote him off in 2019, 2020 and then he beat Donald Trump. And he's the only one that's ever beaten Donald Trump. And that theology took root. It's the theology of the President of the United States. And who is anybody to challenge that?
Detrow: I want to end this interview the way you start the book, that the morning after the election, Joe Biden woke up convinced he could have won.
Tapper: He still thinks that. He still thinks he could have won. He went on The View to prebutt this book, we think. And he was asked about that. And he said, "Well, look, I still got 7 million more votes than Donald Trump."
And he's talking about the 2020 election.
I have talked to his pollsters more than he ever has and they did not think that. When Chuck Schumer finally has the conversation with Biden in which he says that he thinks Biden should drop out. He says, "I've talked to your pollsters. They give you a 5% chance of winning." And Biden did not know that because all the polling was interpreted through the spinmeisters around him, Donilon and [Steve] Ricchetti, and Biden's shocked to hear that. When I talked with one of the pollsters about that story, 5%, he said it was probably more like 1%.
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