“Lyin'” Jill Biden Is A Little Off

Off what? Off her rocker meaning she’s a bit twisted in the brain function.  No one did more to hide Joe Biden’s decline than his wife, Jill, the first lady, according to a new book that details how she berated staff in private, defended his missteps in public, and sometimes helped him finish his thoughts in conversations.

It describes how her team of advisers became the most powerful in the White House and took extraordinary steps to protect the president from negative headlines.

And it suggests she was instrumental in hiding from her husband just how badly his re-election campaign was going as she tried to cling to power.

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“Original Sin”, co-authored by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, will be published next week. It lifts the lid on how Mr Biden, the oldest president in history, struggled to keep up with the demands of the job.

In one episode it describes how the first lady pulled her husband away from a Democratic governor after he raised concerns about the re-election campaign.

Mr Biden met Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, days after his catastrophic debate performance, when the president appeared unable to keep up with his rival Donald Trump. His words ground to halt and he was pictured slack-jawed, mouth agape.

“So how do you think it’s going out there?” the president asked the governor when they sat with smoothies after a campaign event.

Mr Shapiro decided to “give it to him straight”, the book recounts. “Frankly, the governor didn’t know how much the president’s senior advisers were telling him about how bad things really were for him.”

The polling in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, was bad and the president had yet to convince voters the debate was an aberration, he continued.

That was enough for the first lady.

Biden had many enablers but his wife Jill was the worst of all.

Joe’s best “I’m in a daze” look

Jill Biden is said to have shut down any conversation over Joe Biden’s age – Erik S Lesser/Shutterstock

The Telegraph

“Alright,” she said, standing up. “We gotta go.”

The book describes how much of Mr. Biden’s top team was made up of people close to the first lady and how they took on unusual powers close to the first family.

It included Anthony Bernal, her senior adviser, and Annie Tomasini, deputy chief of staff. They had unusual access to the Bidens’ residential quarters, and were feared by junior officials.

Mr. Biden is helped after falling during a graduation ceremony in Colorado in 2023 – AFP/Brendan Smialowski

“As Jill’s power rose, so did Bernal’s,” the authors reveal. “Biden aides would say that she was one of the most powerful first ladies in history, and as a result, he became one of the most influential people in the White House.”

Mrs Biden also took a position in the limelight, and was often the strongest defender of Mr Biden when allies in the Democratic Party started to realise that he was no longer the best person to run in 2024.

The book is based on interviews with more than 200 people, many of them Democratic insiders, and reveals just who knew what about the president’s fitness, and the tricks they used to hide the truth.

The rambling press conference

On the eve of the president’s first year in office, Mr. Biden gave a press conference that ran for almost two hours.

The president made his way through the whole list of journalists handed to him on a cheat sheet.

And then he went rogue, calling on James Rosen, of the hard-right NewsMax channel, to ask a question.

Why do you suppose such large segments of the American electorate have come to harbor such profound concerns about your cognitive fitness?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” Mr. Biden said.

His top team decamped afterwards to the Treaty Room for a debrief when suddenly the first lady appeared in the doorway.

“Why didn’t anyone stop that?” she demanded.

He was the president and could decide how and when a press conference ended, but Dr Biden, as she liked to be known because of her doctoral degree in education, was furious with his staff.

‘Terrible’ cabinet meetings

Mr. Biden relied on briefing cards in public settings and interactions with reporters. They would include names of people he was likely to encounter and talking points.

But he shocked insiders by using them in private settings, including cabinet meetings.

“Before these meetings, White House staff called the various departments and agencies to figure out what they were going to ask the president so that answers could be prepared,” the book says.

“The conversations were largely scripted, even after the press had left the room.”

Three former cabinet secretaries weighed in to describe their discomfort at the president’s performance.

“The cabinet meetings were terrible and at times uncomfortable – and they were from the beginning,” said cabinet secretary number one.

“I don’t recall a great cabinet meeting in terms of his presence. They were so scripted.”

Aides shrugged off the issue. They said cabinet meetings were always a drain on time and that the president was better off in small groups. This “performative” stuff did not really matter, they said, so long as Mr Biden was in charge and making decisions.

But another key group thought differently. In this day and age, the performative issues mattered, and were important in showing that the president was president.

Failed to recognize George Clooney

Hollywood superstars George Clooney and Julia Roberts held a record-breaking fundraiser with Mr. Biden and Barack Obama, the former US president, ahead of the 2024 election.

“Mr. Clooney felt a knot form in his stomach as the president approached him,” the book recounts.

 “Mr. Biden looked at him. ‘Thank you for being here,’ he said. ‘Thank you for being here.’”

An aide hurriedly stepped in to tell the president that he knew Mr. Clooney, one of the most recognizable faces in the country.

The penny eventually dropped and Mr Biden chatted with the actor and director about his journey, but the damage was done. Mr. Clooney would eventually become one of the highest-profile names to call for the Democratic candidate to exit the race after his stumbling debate performance.

“Mr. Clooney was shaken to his core,” the book adds. “The president hadn’t recognized him. A man he had known for years.”

Biden’s staff discussed using a wheelchair

Mr. Biden’s deterioration was so bad in the year ahead of the election that advisers discussed whether he would have to use a wheelchair during a second term. It reflects the extent that his shuffling gait and spine problems had become news stories.

The book reveals how the White House issued slow-motion videos of the president walking around the White House to disguise just how his movement had become. And at times aides walked beside him to Marine One to hide his small stride in a crowd of legs or in case he needed a helping hand.

Things came to a head when he tripped over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy in June 2023.

He began using a shorter set of stairs to board Air Force One and staff plotted the shortest walking route at events.

Aides believed it was untenable to use a wheelchair when he was campaigning for re-election, the book reports, but that it might be necessary during a second term.

“Given Biden’s age, [his physician Dr. Kevin] O’Connor also privately said that if he had another bad fall, a wheelchair might be necessary for what could be a difficult recovery,” it said.

Hunter’s troubles weighed heavily

Perhaps the biggest factor in Mr Biden’s struggles was the way his son, Hunter, his addictions and prosecutions, became a huge story in the final year of his time in office.

“To understand Joe Biden’s deterioration, top aides told us, one has to know Hunter’s struggles,” the book says.

Hunter was three when he survived the car crash that killed his mother and sister. And his life spiraled into alcohol and drug abuse after his older brother, Beau, died from a brain tumor in 2015.

He was at the center of allegations that Mr. Biden’s family had used his connections to make money, joining the board of a Ukrainian energy company when his father was vice-president, for example.

He eventually pleaded guilty to failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 and 2019 in a case that laid out embarrassing details about his lifestyle, with tales of drugs, escorts and a sex club.

Months earlier, he was found guilty of lying about his drug use on a gun ownership form.

Again, evidence heard in court included deeply embarrassing details of his descent into crack addiction and his love affair with his brother’s widow.

“A fourth cabinet secretary with whom we spoke saw Hunter’s June 2024 trial and conviction as akin to a five-hundred-pound weight dropping on the president’s head,” the authors write.

The Bidens feared the legal trouble would trigger another relapse from which their son might never recover.

“It wore on the president’s soul,” the book says. “He lived in fear that he would lose a third child.”

Jake Tapper’s past coverage of Biden’s cognitive decline under scrutiny ahead of his new book

Joseph A. Wulfsohn

Wed, May 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM EDT11 min read

The cognitive decline of former President Joe Biden has been described as one of the biggest cover-ups in American history. Now, one journalist who claims to be getting to the bottom of the scandal in a new book is facing criticism for his participation in it.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper has co-authored a new book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” set to be released next week.

“As viewers of ‘The Lead’ know, I’ve been covering the concerns about President Biden’s age and health for years,” Tapper told CNN viewers when announcing the book in February. “I literally asked him about it in October 2022, and we’ve challenged Democrats and White House officials about it.”

The book’s co-author is Alex Thompson, an Axios correspondent who made a name for himself as one of the few members of the legacy media whose reporting scratched the surface of Biden’s mental acuity long before the now-infamous CNN presidential debate (which Tapper co-moderated) that led to the president’s ouster from the 2024 race.

Conservative critics have taken aim at Tapper since the announcement, alleging he was part of the cover-up and “trying to re-write history” with his book.

Shielding Biden: Journalists Shed Light On The Media’s Cover-up Of A Weakened President

Jake Tapper

Social media users accused Jake Tapper of “trying to rewrite history” with his new book on former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.

Concerns over Biden’s age and stamina go as far back as 2019 as he ran in the Democratic primary. The subject wasn’t just raised by conservatives at the time, it was used as a cudgel by Democratic rivals Julián Castro and Cory Booker, who both cast doubt on the former VP’s sharpness.

Once Biden clinched the nomination in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, he ran what many dubbed the “basement campaign,” a name meant to signify Biden’s limited public appearances on the campaign trail. Biden frequently went viral for incoherent word jumbles during various events. His campaign repeatedly claimed that his various verbal stumbles stemmed from Biden’s lifelong battle of overcoming a stutter.

In October 2020, Tapper touted the Biden talking point, even showing a clip from the DNC convention of a 13-year-old Biden supporter with a severe stutter who turned to the Democratic nominee for inspiration, during a tense exchange with then-Trump 2020 campaign advisor Lara Trump (now a Fox News host), who drew attention to Biden’s cognitive decline at a campaign event.

Biden had many enablers but his wife Jill was the worst of all

The Telegraph

Ex-cnn Journalist Speaks Out On Biden Cover-up, Says White House Aides Made It Difficult On Press

“How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that?” Tapper asked indignantly after showing a clip of Lara Trump commenting on Biden struggling for words.

“First and foremost, I had no idea that Joe Biden ever suffered from a stutter,” Lara Trump responded. “I think what we see on stage with Joe Biden, Jake, is very clearly a cognitive decline-“

“Ok,” Tapper quickly interrupted while talking over her. “It’s so amazing to me- a ‘cognitive decline.’ I think you were mocking his stutter. Yeah. I think you were mocking his stutter and I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody’s cognitive decline. I would think somebody in the Trump family would be more sensitive to people who do not have medical licenses diagnosing politicians from afar.”

After Lara Trump insisted Biden’s cognitive decline was “very concerning,” Tapper cut the interview short.

“Thank you, Lara. I’m sure it’s from a place of concern. We all believe that,” Tapper sarcastically told her before ending the interview.

Tapper did press Biden in a September 2020 interview about whether he would pledge to be transparent about his health if elected, to which Biden firmly responded yes.

Jake Tapper interviews Lara Trump

Tapper accused then-Trump campaign adviser Lara Trump of mocking Biden’s “stutter” after she sounded the alarm about his cognitive decline in a heated Oct. 2020 interview exchange.

Fox News Digital reviewed Grabien transcript search results of Tapper’s coverage of Biden’s decline throughout his presidency.

His most aggressive coverage took place in February 2024 in the wake of Biden’s press conference responding in outrage to the Hur report. Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to bring charges against Biden in the classified documents case because he determined a jury would not convict someone perceived as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” based on his interview with investigators.

In a tense exchange with former Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield, Tapper hammered Biden for mixing up the presidents of Mexico and Egypt in the press conference as well as confusing French President Emmanuel Macron with the late French President Francois Mitterrand, who had been dead for nearly 30 years, earlier in the week.

“It’s about faculty and memory and whether or not somebody [voters] perceive is competent,” Tapper said as Bedingfield shrugged off the leader mix-ups.

Tapper also challenged then-Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., over his party’s outrage towards Hur, asking him what the special counsel said about Biden that wasn’t accurate.

Shortly after the release of the Hur report, Tapper drew attention to the decision by the Biden White House to skip the traditional pre-Super Bowl interview two years in a row.

“Isn’t the White House signaling with that decision, like, ‘We’re afraid of putting him out there?'” Tapper asked during a panel discussion.

CBS Reporter Says Most ‘Underreported’ Story In 2024 Was Biden’s ‘Obvious Cognitive Decline’

As he alluded to in his book announcement, Tapper did broach the subject of Biden’s age in an October 2022 interview with the president, albeit ever so gently.

“You’re about to turn 80 next month. Happy birthday ahead of time,” Tapper told Biden. “Whenever anyone raises concerns about your age- you’re the oldest president in the history of the United States- you always say, ‘Watch me.’ Voters have been watching you. Democratic voters approve of the job you’re doing. Democratic voters overwhelmingly like you, but one poll shows that almost two-thirds of Democratic voters want a new nominee in 2024 and the top reason they gave was your age. So what’s your message to Democrats who like you, who like what you’ve done but are concerned about your age and the demands of the job?”

Notably, Tapper offered Biden an assist during his response to the question when the president was at a loss for words.

“We’ve had, you know, dealing with, you know, making sure that veterans get compensated for the, for-” Biden struggled to finish his thought.

“Burn pits,” Tapper chimed in.

“The burn pits,” Biden repeated before listing other things on his agenda.

Jake Tapper Biden interview

CNN’s Jake Tapper gently broached the subject of then-President Joe Biden’s age during an October 2022 interview.

Tapper, however, pumped the brakes on covering Biden’s cognitive decline in the heat of the 2024 election cycle.

In March 2024, following Biden’s high-energy State of the Union address filled with shouting and attacking Republicans, Tapper took a swipe at the president’s conservative critics who previously accused him of being “weak” and “senile.”

“He certainly seemed like an 81-year-old, but he didn’t seem incapable of doing the job,” Tapper told his panel before dismissing “Weekend at Bernie’s” comparisons from the right.

Jen Psaki Insists She ‘Never Saw’ Diminished Biden While Working As Press Secretary

Later in the year, Biden had a string of incidents that fueled questions about his acuity, like when he stepped away from other world leaders at the G-7 Summit to give a thumbs up to parachutists off-camera, prompting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to corral him back to the group for a photo-op.

There was also when Biden appeared frozen as others around him danced and swayed to a concert held on the White House lawn commemorating Juneteenth and when he stood still at his star-studded LA fundraiser until former President Obama grabbed his wrist and guided him off the stage with his hand behind Biden’s back. Biden’s White House and allies in the media insisted each of the viral moments, which occurred within the span of a few days in June 2024, were “cheap fakes.”

The CNN anchor avoided covering all three incidents, according to transcripts. In fact, it wasn’t until after George Clooney wrote the scathing New York Times op-ed about Biden’s behavior at the LA fundraiser and urged the president to step aside that Tapper acknowledged the freezing incident.

“This was the same event, we should note, that Republicans later circulated cellphone video that seemed to show President Biden freezing on stage for about seven seconds before being led offstage by former President Obama,” Tapper told viewers July 10.

Tapper made no mention of President Biden’s viral moments his defenders called “cheap fakes” in the weeks leading up to the CNN debate.

Tapper similarly ignored Biden’s “Where’s Jackie?” gaffe from September 2022 when he called out for the late Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., at an event honoring her memory after she died in a tragic car accident weeks prior.

Fast-forward to September 2023, when Tapper asserted that Biden was mentally “sharp” while discussing Nikki Haley demanding cognitive tests for older politicians, suggesting that questions swirling around the president were only about whether he was “physically” able to do the job.

The CNN anchor also has a mixed record of putting a spotlight on Biden’s physical stumbles. His program covered Biden tripping up the stairs of Air Force One in March 2021, and his nasty spill at the June 2023 Air Force Academy commencement ceremony, but avoided the viral moment when Biden fell from his bike in June 2022.

In June 2024, weeks before the debate that exposed Biden’s cognitive decline on the world stage, Tapper addressed the Wall Street Journal’s bombshell report on Biden showing “signs of slipping,” which at the time faced intense backlash from Democrats and the liberal media. Tapper kept his focus on the White House’s aggressive response to the “false” claims made in the report and repeatedly told viewers the report was “mostly based on observations of Republicans.” He had a top Biden surrogate, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, on to defend the president and attempt to discredit the reporting as agenda-driven.

Cnn’s Jake Tapper Insists He Won’t ‘Shy Away’ From Covering Hunter Biden After Avoiding Laptop Scandal In 2020

Earlier this month, Tapper’s book publisher Penguin Press released a montage, perhaps to combat critics who accused the CNN anchor of not covering Biden’s cognitive decline, of clips showing him and Thompson discussing the now-former president’s age on-air. Notably, the vast majority of Tapper’s comments featured in the video pertained to polls showing Americans believed Biden was too old to seek a second term.

While promoting his book on CNN, Tapper suggested that Biden’s White House was solely responsible for the cover-up versus Democrats and the media broadly.

“Well, Alex Thompson and I were on the case, as were lots of other reporters trying to figure out what was going on behind the scenes. But the bottom line is the White House was lying, not only to the press, not only to the public, but they were lying to members of their own Cabinet, they were lying to White House staffers, they were lying to Democratic members of Congress, to donors about how bad things had gotten,” Tapper said Tuesday, adding that their Democratic sources refused to speak candidly about Biden until after the 2024 election.

CNN’s Jake Tapper suggested the Biden White House was solely responsible for the cognitive decline cover-up, insisting staffers “lied” to the media and fellow Democrats.

A spokesperson for CNN strongly pushed back at the notion that Tapper offered insufficient coverage of the Biden scandal before the debate.

“Jake Tapper is a veteran journalist whose tenacious and thorough reporting has held those in power to account on both sides of the aisle for decades,” the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “He fairly and accurately covered Senator, Vice President and President Biden through years of dogged Washington reporting, hitting every high and low of the former president’s political career. From the campaign in 2020 to 2024 when he dropped out, Jake raised concerns about President Biden’s mental stamina on his shows, questioned Biden officials directly about his health on air, and consistently encouraged open discussion and debate on the issue.”

“Despite bad faith allegations otherwise, the record clearly shows Jake covered the Clooney op-ed, the Hur report, and Biden physical limitations. As noted, Jake also covered Biden’s physical falls multiple times, and he happened to be on assignment in Chicago off air the day after his bike fall in June 2022,” the spokesperson added.

Original article source: Jake Tapper’s past coverage of Biden’s cognitive decline under scrutiny ahead of his new book

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