New Jake Tapper book suggests White House hid Biden health decline

Former President Joe Biden’s administration denied his declining health, all while working behind the scenes to adapt to a president who was increasingly unable to do the job. 

That’s what journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson claim to have found while reporting their new book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Tapper and Thompson discussed the book at a live taping of The Gist podcast held Saturday during the 2025 Cascade PBS Ideas Festival. 

“We all age, and we all lose our train of thought, and we all forget names,” Tapper told Gist host Mike Pesca. “This isn’t that. What we uncovered in our reporting was that there was the fine Joe Biden … then there’s the one that we saw the night of the debate, who’s nonfunctioning, doesn’t seem in control, doesn’t seem in command.” 

Tapper, a CNN anchor, and Thompson, Axios’ national political correspondent, took turns throughout the talk to share stories from sources purporting Biden’s decline, including the now-infamous presidential debate last June. Tapper also highlighted a moment when Biden didn’t recognize George Clooney during a record $30 million fundraiser for the president’s campaign, which Clooney was co-hosting. The two men had known each other for decades. 

“He saw what every one of us saw that debate night backstage at that fundraiser,” Tapper said. 

For Thompson, one of the most shocking revelations came from a relatively mundane source: the president’s private daily schedule. The calendar revealed a pattern of limiting Biden’s availability and obligations. 

“What it shows is that basically the White House apparatus was slowly adapting to his limitations and to his decline,” Thompson said. 

Much of the discussion centered on the authors’ claim that the administration worked to hide the president’s condition. Thompson described “walls” around the president growing taller and thicker. 

“They were intentionally shielding him, not just from the press, but from his own staff, so that people did not realize the severity of the decline,” Thompson said. 

Tapper described an atmosphere of loyalty and quashing dissent, especially when it came to the president’s health – a dynamic he likened to President Donald Trump’s approach to staffing. 

“I’ve covered White Houses since Bill Clinton’s White House and you just can’t compare how insular and how small this group was,” Tapper said, later adding: “I’m not comparing the two men. I’m not comparing the two presidencies, but the style of leadership is the same.” 

Public responses to Tapper and Thompson’s reporting have been mixed. During the talk, Tapper said some readers have seemed to love the book, but the reception among “progressives on the left and conservatives, or MAGA or whatever, on the right has been ferocious.” 

“We are not unsympathetic to Joe Biden in this book,” Tapper said. “We certainly respect his service. We respect all of the hardships that the fates have thrown at him. I do not think this is a mean book. This is about a consequential decision.” 

Tapper said one common criticism he and Thompson have received is that they’re critical of Biden without focusing on Trump.

“Well, I do, two hours every day,” Tapper quipped. “But beyond that is the simple answer of: This is how we got a second term of Donald Trump. Because this happened. Because Joe Biden decided to run for reelection even though he made an implicit — not explicit, but implicit — promise he would be a one-term president. Even after it became very clear that he was having these moments that made it clear he could not do this job of being president for another term.”

If you want to see the entire conversation, it will be aired on Cascade PBS at 7 p.m. on June 18 and available to stream on CascadePBS.org after that.