New Book: Biden Cabinet members worried about his capacity in a crisis
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In the last year of Joe Biden's presidency, some members of his Cabinet lacked confidence the president could be relied on to respond to a crisis in the middle of the night, CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson write in their new book, "Original Sin."
- CNN on Wednesday first reported that revelation from the book, which also describes how Biden's inner circle shielded him from several Cabinet members "for months" at a time in 2023 and 2024.
Why it matters: The authors' reporting shows that even as the White House was moving to assure the public and the media of Biden's fitness, top administration officials were worried about his decline in the final years of his presidency.
- The book is based on more than 200 interviews, mostly with Democratic insiders, almost all of which occurred after the 2024 election.
Driving the news: Several Cabinet secretaries told the authors that they frequently were boxed out from access to Biden in 2023 and 2024, when the 81-year-old president was running for re-election.
- One Cabinet secretary said Biden's top aides "shielded him in every meeting." From October 2023 on, "the Cabinet was kept at bay," the secretary said.
- "For months, we didn't have access to him. There was clearly a deliberate strategy by the White House to have him meet with as few people as necessary," the Cabinet secretary told the authors.
- "At one rare meeting during that time," the Cabinet secretary "was shocked by how the president was acting. He seemed 'disoriented' and 'out of it,' his mouth agape," according to the book.
- The secretary added that Biden's staff wanted to keep him happy and shielded him from bad news.
- "The staff did him wrong," the Cabinet member said. "If you were with him every day and you knew this was a problem, why didn't you go to him and say something?"
A second Cabinet secretary told the authors: "Access dropped off considerably in 2024, and I didn't interact with him as much."
- Instead of talking with Biden directly, the secretaries would speak with White House aides who then briefed Biden.
- The Cabinet member thought the process was odd and wondered if senior White House staff were filtering information to direct Biden's decisions.
- "Yes, the president is 'making the decisions,' but if the inner circle is shaping them in such a way, is it really a decision? Are they leading him to something?" the second Cabinet secretary recalled wondering.
Zoom out: "I don't think he has dementia," said a third Cabinet secretary. "But the thing is, he's an old man. The president can give you four to six good hours a day. When he got tired, sloppy isn't the right word, but his guard was down."
- The third Cabinet secretary said of Biden's inner circle: "It's hard for an adviser to be honest with the principal. If he had asked me, I would have told him, 'Do one term and you're done to preserve your legacy.' "
What they're saying: A Biden spokesperson who declined to be identified told CNN: "We continue to await anything that shows where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or where national security was threatened or where he was unable to do his job. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite — he was a very effective president."
- Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden appeared on ABC's "The View" last week to push back on the reports about Biden's decline.
- "The people who wrote those books were not in the White House with us, and they didn't see how hard Joe worked every single day," Jill Biden said. "He'd get up, he put in a full day, and then at night ... I'd be in bed, you know, reading my book, and he was still on the phone, reading his briefings, working with staff. I mean, it was nonstop."
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The biggest political coverup in decades.
Every single democrat who worked with him knew he was infirm and lied to our faces. The sad part is half the country seems perfectly fine with it.
It seems like only yesterday when Jake Tapper squashed anyone who questioned Biden's cognitive decline. He was the conspiracy theorist who pushed the Russia hoax and always the partisan hack.
It's one of the stranger parts of this story. As you say, Tapper was one of the more prominent "journalists" who defended Biden's mental acuity while he was the nominee. Now he's writing this book destroying Biden when he's safely out of office. He's trying to save his reputation but the video is out there of what he said when Biden was President.
It gets interesting in how he defends it. He blames his bad reporting on being "lied to" by administration, as if his entire job isn't to not trust government officials and find the truth. 2/3 of America knew Biden's mind was cooked and reported he was fine because his democratic friends told him he was fine, and that was enough. Damn the video. It just show how far fallen the media really is. They really believe their job is just conveying the talking points Democrats give them.
He was asked about the monster contradiction yesterday. He said: as to his past reporting: "He is humbled."
That was it Sean.
The question remains.....who was really in charge of what was going on? I still think the Obama was manipulating Biden's puppet strings during most of the disastrous debacle of Biden's "presidency"
100%. An area Tapper won't touch
I guess we'll be left to speculate.
Susan Rice quitting as domestic advisor just before the debacle debate could be the big clue.
Related reading:
9 Times Jake Tapper Dismissed Biden's Decline
Jeffries had no answers.