The New Yorker Radio Hour
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on President Joe Biden’s Decline, and Its Cover-Up
Fri, 16 May 2025
Nearly a year ago, a Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash of CNN, began the end of Biden’s bid for a second term. The President struggled to make points, complete sentences, and remember facts; he spoke in a raspy whisper. This was not the first time voters expressed concern about Biden’s age, but his decline was shocking to many, and suddenly Trump seemed likely to win in a landslide. New reporting by Tapper and Thompson reveals that the debate was no fluke at all. In “How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump” (an excerpt from their new book “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again”), they lay out a case that the latter half of Biden’s Presidency was carefully stage-managed by his top aides; Biden would often end the workday as early as four-thirty. “What [aides and] others would say is, ‘His decision-making was always fine.’ The job of the President is not just decision-making. It’s also communication,” Tapper tells David Remnick. “If you are a President . . . and you’re not able to go into a room full of donors and speak extemporaneously for ten minutes, then there’s something wrong. And that was happening in 2023.”
Chapter 1: What happened during the Biden-Trump debate?
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And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. I've been speaking today with the authors of Original Sin, President Biden's decline, its cover-up, and his disastrous choice to run again. The book is by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, and an excerpt of the book appears on newyorker.com.
The book recounts the actions of staff members who deliberately concealed Biden's decline from the public and the silence of those who witnessed it. The book also raises some enduring questions about how our political system works and how candidates are vetted or not. I'll continue my conversation with Alex Thompson, a Washington reporter for Axios, and Jake Tapper of CNN.
There's never been a cognitive test released to the public, I believe. What did you uncover in your reporting on that score?
Well, I would say that Biden's personal physician, His name is Dr. Kevin O'Connor. He's been with him for so long. He even helped with Joe Biden's sons, Beau Biden's cancer treatments. They're essentially almost like a family doctor, which gave some people concern that he was too close. And he basically said, I don't need to give the president a cognitive exam. Now, you'll remember maybe that
during Trump's first presidency, he underwent a cognitive exam. Now, they claim he aced it. They obviously said he's like, fine, fine, fine, fine. But they actually sort of defiantly said, we don't need to conduct one. And Biden's personal physician said, well, I see him every day. And the cognitive exam is made for physicians who only see their patients every several months. And
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Chapter 2: What concerns were raised about Biden's cognitive abilities?
A little grayer, but, you know, same guy. And then Biden walks in and he's shocked. He hasn't seen Biden since December 2022 before he got a Kennedy Center honor, George Clooney. He sees him. He can't believe how slow he's walking, how much he's shuffling. And then Biden walks over and he's saying, hey, how you doing? Thanks for coming. Hey, how you doing?
Thanks for coming for everybody who's there. And he says, comes over to Clooney and says, hey, how you doing? Thanks for being here. And his aide, Biden's aide says, you know, George. And he's like, yeah, sure. Of course. How you doing? And it becomes very apparent to everyone there that President Biden does not recognize George Clooney.
And then the aide has to say, George Clooney, like underlying who this person is, one of the most recognizable faces in the world, the guy who was hosting the fundraiser for you, the guy that you gave a Kennedy Center honor to, the guy you've known for 20 years. And then he's like, sure. Hey, how you doing?
And he wasn't the only one, Clooney and those in that circle who saw something that upset them. Barack Obama saw something. Biden not at his best, where he had to jump in a couple times in these private meetings behind the scenes. And they all just kind of like convinced themselves, look, he's Biden's had a rough travel schedule.
He's tired. He's on a flight.
He was in France. Then he was in Delaware for Hunter's trial. Then he's back to Italy for the G7.
He's not flying in a middle seat.
No, he has Air Force One with a bedroom. Although one of his top aides says to me, like, there's a big difference between Joe Biden getting seven hours and Joe Biden getting eight hours of sleep, which is. OK, that's interesting.
That's that's not encouraging.
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Chapter 3: How did Biden's aides manage his public image?
And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And I've been speaking this hour with Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios. Their new book is called Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. And it's a book, by the way, that Biden and people close to him have been dreading for a long time.
Earlier in the program, we mentioned how Biden once referred to himself as a bridge, a bridge to a new generation of leaders. That was during the 2020 campaign. Some of us took that remark to mean that Biden intended to stay in office for just one term. But somewhere along the line, he became convinced that only he could beat Donald Trump, and he stayed in the race until it was way too late.
Now, Alex, one of the reasons that Biden wanted to run again, it's said, is that he and his close circle of advisors didn't really view Kamala Harris as a worthy successor. That's what you write. Biden called her, and the quote is, a work in progress when he was speaking in private. First of all, where did that come from? And tell me about that atmosphere.
Yeah, well, you know, it's funny that our title is Original Sin, but a few senior Biden people said, well, you know, the original sin actually was picking Kamala Harris. Because his heart was with Gretchen Whitmer, and... the political case, particularly after the murder of George Floyd by a policeman, was made by Ron Klain, Cedric Richmond,
James Clyburn, that he needed to pick a Black woman, and she was the most vetted and the most prepared. She had also been friends with Beau Biden, which goes a long way with Joe Biden. And once she's in there, you know, the scars of the 2020-2019 Democratic primary, they may have healed between the principles.
Describe those scars.
So Kamala Harris goes in the first debate, and she says that Joe Biden's previous opposition to busing in schools basically makes him disqualified. She essentially insinuates that his past stances were racist. Well, Joe Biden may get over it. Joe Biden's family and the team around him never fully get over it.
Yeah, Jill Biden was said to be particularly furious with Kamala Harris for that debate performance.
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