With Joe Biden out of office, new details are surfacing about the cover-up of the ex-president's cognitive decline.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper is the co-author of a new book about the conspiracy to hide Biden's decline, called Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.
As a debate moderator for CNN, Tapper had a front-row seat to Biden's televised implosion in June, which proved to be a pivotal moment in U.S. history - and the end of an elaborate charade.
"What the world saw at Joe Biden’s one and only debate was not an anomaly — it was not a cold, it was not someone who was under or overprepared, it was not someone who was just a little tired. It was the natural result of an eighty-one-year-old man whose faculties had been diminishing for years," Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson write in the forthcoming book.
Some have criticized the authors of Original Sin, particularly Tapper, citing the media's failure to hold the Biden administration accountable as the public grew concerned about Biden's age.
Tapper's critics have pointed to instances in the past when he downplayed Biden's decline, including after a major speech mid-way through his single term, when Tapper praised Biden's "solid" performance.
Of course, Biden was already showing evidence of decline when he ran for the White House in 2020. Tapper dismissed Biden's glaring gaffes at the time, attributing them to a stutter.
“How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that?” Tapper asked Lara Trump at the time.
“I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody’s cognitive decline."
To some critics of the media, the recent interest in covering Biden's decline seems hypocritical.
Reacting to critics, Tapper said he has been "covering concerns about President Biden’s age and health for years" - and he says sources are more forthcoming with information now that the election is over.
“I literally asked him about it in October 2022, and we’ve challenged Democrats and White House officials on the issue,” the anchor said.
“But Alex Thompson of Axios and I have spent the last several months talking to more than 200 insiders, officials, and donors — many of whom were more willing to talk post-election — to explain the last couple of years in politics and how we, as a country, got here.”
