Author Chris Whipple says Biden's family and closest advisors operated in denial regarding his ability to serve another term: "There's no doubt that they were protecting the president." Whipple spoke with campaign insiders to get a behind-the-scenes look at what happened in 2024. His book is Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History. Our book critic Maureen Corrigan shares an appreciation of The Great Gatsby for its 100th anniversary.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who is Chris Whipple and what is his new book about?
How did Kamala Harris lose to Trump after Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election and was convicted of 34 felonies? My guest, Chris Whipple, explores these questions from different perspectives in his new book, Uncharted, How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History. Whipple's previous book was about the first two years of the Biden presidency.
He's also the author of The Spymasters, How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future, and The Gatekeepers, How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency. Biden's chief of staff during the first two years of his presidency, Ron Klain, was a major source for the new book about the 2024 election, as was Biden's final chief of staff, Jeffrey Zients.
Chris Whipple is also a documentary filmmaker and has won a Peabody and an Emmy. Chris Whipple, welcome to Fresh Air.
Great to be with you. Thanks for having me.
So you're right. The truth was that Joe Biden was too old to run for reelection, much less govern effectively in a second term. His advisers knew this or should have known it, but refused to face that fact. None ever discussed with the president whether he was too old to serve a second term.
Instead, they walled Biden off from the outside world, limiting the number of people who interacted with him. How do you know for sure that no one ever discussed with Biden whether he was too old to serve?
Well, you know, this is what makes the book such an extraordinary story, I think. It's really remarkable the extent to which Biden's inner circle, not just his family but his close advisors, were operating in a kind of fog of delusion and denial. You know, I differ with people who say that this was a cover-up in the classic book.
Watergate sense of the word, and that suggests that you're hiding something that you know to be true. What's so remarkable about this story is that Biden's closest advisors really were all in on this delusional notion that Joe Biden could function effectively for another four years as president at the age of 82 or 86 by the end of that term. And I find it just a really remarkable story.
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Chapter 2: Why did Joe Biden's inner circle deny his inability to serve a second term?
To answer your specific question, you know, at one point, Bill Daley, President Obama's second White House chief of staff, spoke to Tom Donilon, who is the brother of maybe Joe Biden's closest advisor, Mike Donilon, his alter ego. And he said, you know, Daley said, how the hell is this going on? He used a more colorful adjective.
And Tom Donilon said, you know, not even my brother has had this conversation with Joe Biden about his age. And you can be sure that if Mike Donilon didn't have that conversation, it's almost certain no one else did.
What are some of the ways in which you say he was walled off from the outside world and his staff limited the number of people who interacted with him?
Well, you know, I had my own reasons for wondering if the Biden White House staff was hiding the president, because when I was writing my book on the first two years of the administration, I asked for an interview with the president. I was told I could email questions and I would get written answers in reply.
You know, clearly they were uncomfortable even then with the prospect of the president having an interview in real time with a reporter.
A major source for your new book was Ron Klain, who was Biden's chief of staff during his first two years in the White House. And, you know, in your book about chiefs of staff, you say that one of the main jobs of a chief of staff, a good chief of staff, is to tell the president what the president doesn't want to hear, but is true. And you think that Ron Klain was a terrific chief of staff.
At the same time, Ron Klain never acknowledged that Biden shouldn't be running. And he saw up close what Biden's condition was. So how do you explain that?
Well, here's the thing. As I say, I think that this is much more interesting and not nearly as simple as the notion of a cover up. In other words, I am convinced that Joe Biden's inner circle was convinced that Joe Biden was capable of governing and they believe that he could do it for another four years.
And we can't dismiss the fact that Biden, on the very last day, July 21st, that Sunday when his aides came to hammer out his abdication statement, Joe Biden was on the phone parsing the details of a complex multi-nation prisoner swap. He was on top of every detail.
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Chapter 3: How was Joe Biden's condition managed and perceived by his staff?
What I'm saying is the inner circle, and I've spent a lot of time talking to his closest aides, and I'm talking about Mike Donilon and Steve Reschetti and Bruce Reed and others. And four months after that debate, I went to the White House and I interviewed Reschetti and Reed, and they were still trapped in this kind of – force field of denial.
They still believed that Biden would have been reelected, could have been reelected, would have governed capably for another four years until he was 86. Now, I find that to be misguided and delusional, but They believe it.
And Mike Donilon went to the Harvard Kennedy School months after the election and said he thought the party had lost its mind by walking away from the guy who got 81 million votes in 2020. So all I'm saying is that those guys weren't covering up somebody that they thought was incapable of governing. They believed he was still on his game.
The days leading up to that disastrous debate with Trump did not find Biden in good shape, and Ron Klain saw it up close. What were some of the most disturbing signs that he saw that he told you about?
He was in a terrible state. He was absolutely exhausted. He was unable, really, to follow— what was happening in the campaign. He was tuned out. He was obsessed with NATO and with foreign policy, particularly with Emmanuel Macron of France and Olaf Scholz of Germany. He kept talking about how they said he was doing such a great job.
Klain wondered half-jokingly if Biden thought he was president of NATO and not president of the U.S. He didn't really have anything to say about his second-term plans. And early on, he walked out of a session in the Aspen Lodge, the president's cabin, went over to the pool, sank into a lounge chair, and just fell sound asleep.
There were two mock debates that were scheduled and Klain ended one prematurely because Biden just didn't seem to be up for it. And Biden ended one after about 15 minutes because he was so exhausted. The campaign was considering canceling the debate but decided not to. Why? Why not?
Well, I don't know if the campaign ever formally considered canceling the debate. I said to Ron, given the condition of the president that he described, I said, did you think about, wait a minute, we should put this off? And Klain said, no, look, it just wasn't politically feasible to do that, given the sensitivity, given the fact that his cognitive condition was such a huge issue.
They had to go forward. They couldn't – they had no choice in Klain's view. But as you said and as I report in the book, Biden was – Klain was trying every trick in the book to bring the president up to speed. He got him on the phone with Melinda French Gates who – loves to talk about child care, hoping that that might kindle some interest in talking about his second-term plans for that.
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Chapter 4: What were the signs of Biden's struggles leading up to the 2024 debate?
The Biden team was really angry with Obama. How come?
You know, the whole relationship between Joe Biden and Barack Obama is so complex and fascinating and with so many levels to it. I mean, on the one hand, there's no question about the fact that they really bonded deeply. over Beau Biden's tragic death. And Barack Obama took Joe Biden under his wing, and they developed a closeness there.
But at the same time, there's a real competitiveness between them. And the Obama camp, for example, was not amused when Biden's staffers were going around early in his first term and talking about how the American rescue plan was so much bigger than Obama's stimulus package back in 2009. They're just competitive, these two camps.
And the other major factor here is that Joe Biden never forgave Barack Obama for putting his thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton to become the nominee in 2016. That was a really deep wound for Joe Biden. And in the end, it became clear that as during that fateful weekend of July 2021, that Barack Obama wasn't really there. He just wasn't there for Joe Biden.
One of Biden's closest friends told me that the thing that really got him was that Obama never picked up the phone and called him and just said, you know, Joe, geez, are you sure you're up to this? That never happened. There was a phone call earlier after the debate saying, hey, you know, it was just a bad night. Don't worry about it.
But when things went south and Biden was on the ropes, Barack Obama never picked up the phone.
It sounds to me from your book that when Biden dropped out, the Harris campaign was kind of prepared for that. The Harris campaign was waging what you describe as a stealth campaign to try to be prepared in case Biden did drop out. Tell us about that stealth campaign.
Yeah, you know, this is really previously unreported. But what I learned in writing the book was that prior to that weekend when Biden made his decision, you know, up to that point, Harris had had to be absolutely scrupulous. You know, she was walking through a minefield. I mean, she had to be so careful not to give any hint that she was thinking about taking over the top spot on the ticket.
But the truth was that she was quietly and secretly preparing. Her camp had reached out to Democratic political operatives who were looking at the rules and getting ready and making sure that when that day came, I think they thought, that she would be ready to go. And Sure enough, she was.
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Chapter 5: Why did Biden's campaign choose not to cancel the debate despite his condition?
Not only that, Joe Biden personally called Kamala Harris and said, look, I get it. You know, you need to win this campaign and don't worry about hurting my feelings. In effect, not in those words. So it's fascinating to me that even then she was unable to make that break.
Well, we need to take another break here, so let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Chris Whipple. He's author of the new book, Uncharted, How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air.
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I think I haven't always successfully made choices in my work that are aligned with my personal taste. And that is something I feel like I'm still trying to prove. I'm Rachel Martin.
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Chapter 6: How did Hollywood figures like Spielberg and Katzenberg prepare Biden for debates?
Join us for NPR's Wildcard podcast, the show where cards control the conversation.
You think or a lot of people told you that, you know, your sources that part of the problem with the Harris campaign was the decision to really focus on the threat to democracy as opposed to focusing more on like personal finance issues and, you know, economic issues. The threat to democracy, that really resonated with a lot of people.
But talk a little bit more about the controversy about how much to stress that in the campaign.
I think what happened was that the campaign took a page from the 2022 midterms. And you may recall that during those midterms, the Democrats really leaned heavily on democracy and women's reproductive rights. and defied the odds and did so much better than anyone thought they would do during those midterms.
So I think the campaign took a page from that and not realizing that they're very different animals. Midterms are different from presidential elections. It probably didn't – those issues didn't have the same resonance in the presidential election, which is really all about the two candidates more than it is about issues, no matter how effective or resonant they might have been in the midterms.
So I think a number of presidential – former presidential campaign managers I spoke to just felt that that was the wrong emphasis, that the real message had to be the economy, had to be bringing down costs, had to be trying to become a change candidate in an election where there was just a tidal wave of anti-incumbent sentiment that
Around the world, something like 50 out of 85 elections, in those elections, incumbents lost since 2020. So there was a real wave of anti-incumbent sentiment, and she never got out ahead of that.
The Harris campaign was criticized for running a really good, more traditional campaign, knocking on doors to get out the vote, going on mainstream media, whereas the Trump campaign did a lot of podcasts, including with people on the right, went on Joe Rogan. And Harris considered going on Joe Rogan's podcast, but decided not to
How consequential do you think the decision was to take a more like mainstream approach to getting out the vote and being on the media compared to Trump?
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Chapter 7: What led to Biden's decision to drop out of the 2024 race?
And part of what she meant by that was that she felt that just like the Biden's handlers in 2020, that they were hiding her, not in the basement this time, but They were hiding her coming out of the convention, that there was a period of a couple of weeks where she wasn't doing interviews. General Malley Dillon, Harris's campaign chair, would dispute that.
But Susie Wiles was just really emphatic about the fact that they just couldn't believe how ineffective Harris was and never doubted they were going to win.
I want to talk with you about Susie Wiles. And Wiles managed Trump's 2024 successful presidential campaign and is now his White House chief of staff. One of the things you say, and I mentioned this before, about chiefs of staff is that they have to be able to say no to presidents. They have to be able to tell the truth to the president when it's not something the president wants to hear.
They have to be able to contradict the president and set the president on what they perceive to be the right course. How is Susie Wiles doing in that job? And I'm just thinking about the tariffs and letting loose Elon Musk and taking advice from right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer about who to fire from, you know, like what national security experts to fire.
Well, let me start on the plus side when it comes to Susie Wiles. First of all, her relationship with Trump is absolutely fascinating. And she has a certain magic with him. And I think it goes back to the fact that she's the daughter of Pat Summerall, the famous sportscaster who struggled with alcoholism. And Susie Wiles knows something about handling difficult men.
But that's another story to talk about now. I think that on the one hand, this is not Trump 1.0. The Trump White House is no longer a battlefield of backstabbers and leakers. And there's not anything like the drama that happened during Trump's first term. And that's largely because of Susie Wiles. She has a kind of magic with Trump that none of her predecessors had.
Remember Reince Priebus and John Kelly, Mick Mulvaney. You know, he went through chiefs of staff at a rapid clip. I think Susie Wiles is going to be there for a while because he trusts her. On the minus side of the ledger, you're right.
The most important part of the White House chief of staff's job is walking into the Oval Office, closing the door and telling the president what he doesn't want to hear. Now, you know, I've talked to Susie Weil since she's been in this job a number of times. She says that she has fought these battles with him.
One of them was in the case of the pardoning, doing a blanket pardon of the January 6th insurrectionists. I said to her, did it ever occur to you to say to the president, wait a minute, maybe we should take a look at these one by one instead of a sweeping list? get out of jail free card? And she said, yes, that's exactly the conversation I had with him. I lost that argument.
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Chapter 8: How did Kamala Harris's campaign prepare for a possible Biden withdrawal?
One of your earlier books, The Gatekeepers, is about White House chiefs of staff. And you describe the chief of staff position as being one of the most important positions. Why is it so important? Explain what a chief of staff actually does.
Well, it really is the second most powerful job in government. And that was my principal takeaway when I wrote the book back in 2017. He's critical because every president learns sometimes the hard way that you cannot govern effectively without empowering a chief of staff as first among equals to, number one, execute your agenda.
Number two, be the gatekeeper, who's the person who gives the president time and space to think. You have to be the keeper of the message, making sure that everybody's on the same page. You have to be the president's heat shield. Jack Watson, Jimmy Carter's last White House chief, calls him the javelin catcher, taking the heat for the president. It's just an extraordinarily critical job.
And again, to circle back to a question you raised earlier, he or she, at the end of the day, is the person who has to be able to tell the president what he doesn't want to hear.
Don Rumsfeld, who was a very good chief of staff for Gerald Ford way back in the day, said, you know, he's the one person besides the president's wife who can look him straight in the eye and say, you cannot go down this road. Trust me, it's a mistake.
The position of chief of staff is relatively new. It started under President Eisenhower. Why did he create the position?
Well, Eisenhower was smart enough to know that you really need to have a chief of staff to make things work. And he had a guy named Sherman Adams who was gruff and tough, and they called him the abominable no-man. He was the— Oh, because he said no all the time? Yes, exactly. He was the governmental equivalent of an army chief of staff, which is probably why Ike came up with the position.
But anyway, it began with Eisenhower, and really what I've discovered in writing the book was that no— No modern president has really been able to succeed without an empowered White House chief of staff. There would have been, in my view, no Reagan revolution without Jim Baker.
And Bill Clinton might well have been a one-term president without Leon Panetta, who really turned his White House around. So it's a very important issue. job. Cheney told me that, and Cheney, of course, was Gerald Ford's second White House chief at the age of 33 or 34, I think. Cheney told me that the White House chief has more power than the vice president.
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