Jake Tapper

Democrats were shocked. They were just absolutely stunned. And I think there were really two camps. There was the Biden camp, which was, OK, how do we get out of this? How do we crawl back? Because Joe Biden, as I said earlier, as a compliment, you know, he cannot be defeated. That's his great attitude. He's not going to be defeated by brain aneurysms, by this tragedy, by that tragedy.

So I think their attitude was, OK, how do we get out of this? And then I think there were other Democrats who were like, oh, my God, what? happened? Did we really just see what we saw? And there was a feeling among that second group, okay, go out and the obvious, you don't need to be a...

So I think their attitude was, OK, how do we get out of this? And then I think there were other Democrats who were like, oh, my God, what? happened? Did we really just see what we saw? And there was a feeling among that second group, okay, go out and the obvious, you don't need to be a...

So I think their attitude was, OK, how do we get out of this? And then I think there were other Democrats who were like, oh, my God, what? happened? Did we really just see what we saw? And there was a feeling among that second group, okay, go out and the obvious, you don't need to be a...

you know, a genius political consultant to know that the obvious remedy to fixing what he had just done was to go out and do 15 interviews and 20 town halls and five press conferences and just show people that he was sharp as a tack, as they had been saying. And the problem was he couldn't do that. And that's why his pollsters ultimately concluded there was just no way to get out of it.

you know, a genius political consultant to know that the obvious remedy to fixing what he had just done was to go out and do 15 interviews and 20 town halls and five press conferences and just show people that he was sharp as a tack, as they had been saying. And the problem was he couldn't do that. And that's why his pollsters ultimately concluded there was just no way to get out of it.

you know, a genius political consultant to know that the obvious remedy to fixing what he had just done was to go out and do 15 interviews and 20 town halls and five press conferences and just show people that he was sharp as a tack, as they had been saying. And the problem was he couldn't do that. And that's why his pollsters ultimately concluded there was just no way to get out of it.

This was a disaster and it was going to keep getting worse and worse until election day.

This was a disaster and it was going to keep getting worse and worse until election day.

This was a disaster and it was going to keep getting worse and worse until election day.

um tell us more about why you call it a cover-up as opposed to these are people who really believed that that biden was up to it they did and some of the ways in which they helped hide his deterioration started off innocently enough i mean any staffer wants to make a a president or a senator or a governor look as good as possible and if he wants uh

um tell us more about why you call it a cover-up as opposed to these are people who really believed that that biden was up to it they did and some of the ways in which they helped hide his deterioration started off innocently enough i mean any staffer wants to make a a president or a senator or a governor look as good as possible and if he wants uh

um tell us more about why you call it a cover-up as opposed to these are people who really believed that that biden was up to it they did and some of the ways in which they helped hide his deterioration started off innocently enough i mean any staffer wants to make a a president or a senator or a governor look as good as possible and if he wants uh

Note cards, if he wants a teleprompter, if he wants to do events, you know, in the middle of the day instead of early in the morning or late at night, that's all perfectly understandable. But then all of those things became crutches and started really infiltrating his presidency in a serious way to the point that even cabinet meetings, even after the cameras left, were highly scripted.

Note cards, if he wants a teleprompter, if he wants to do events, you know, in the middle of the day instead of early in the morning or late at night, that's all perfectly understandable. But then all of those things became crutches and started really infiltrating his presidency in a serious way to the point that even cabinet meetings, even after the cameras left, were highly scripted.

Note cards, if he wants a teleprompter, if he wants to do events, you know, in the middle of the day instead of early in the morning or late at night, that's all perfectly understandable. But then all of those things became crutches and started really infiltrating his presidency in a serious way to the point that even cabinet meetings, even after the cameras left, were highly scripted.

And cabinet secretaries thought they were weird that way. Then I think the real part of the cover up comes with not just the fact that he's at, you know, 40 or 50 person fundraisers using a teleprompter, which is bizarre and unprecedented for a president who should be able to speak extemporaneously for 10 minutes. There's the fact that they started cordoning him off. from people in 2023.

And cabinet secretaries thought they were weird that way. Then I think the real part of the cover up comes with not just the fact that he's at, you know, 40 or 50 person fundraisers using a teleprompter, which is bizarre and unprecedented for a president who should be able to speak extemporaneously for 10 minutes. There's the fact that they started cordoning him off. from people in 2023.

And cabinet secretaries thought they were weird that way. Then I think the real part of the cover up comes with not just the fact that he's at, you know, 40 or 50 person fundraisers using a teleprompter, which is bizarre and unprecedented for a president who should be able to speak extemporaneously for 10 minutes. There's the fact that they started cordoning him off. from people in 2023.

So members of Congress who went to the White House Christmas party in December 2022 didn't see him again in the flesh, many of them, until December 2023. And they were shocked at what they saw. And then one person we talked to, a very high profile Democrat who would only go on background with us, said that throughout 2024, he would call and say to top aides,