Latest news with #OriginalSin:PresidentBiden'sDecline
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Biden book authors pressed on why the media failed in covering cognitive decline scandal
CHICAGO – The journalists behind the bombshell book about Joe Biden's cognitive decline continue to face tough questions about the media's failure to report on it sooner. Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, the co-authors of "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," appeared in Chicago as part of their book tour and were confronted with an audience question submitted by Fox News Digital about the reckoning the media has been facing in recent weeks and months regarding their role in the Biden scandal. "I mean, it was a failing of the press," Thompson responded Thursday. "'I'd say, on the most basic level, if the press was completely on this story, then the debate would not have been such a shock." Biden Book Author Reveals How White House Staff Truly Felt About Karine Jean-pierre As Press Secretary The Axios reporter insisted newsrooms aren't a "monolith" and dismissed the notion that there was any coordination between news outlets in covering up for Biden, jokingly telling the Windy City crowd "they can't even plan a happy hour." "There are a lot of really great reporters and there are a lot of great reporters in the Biden White House," Thompson said. "And it does frustrate me a bit when there's this broad brush painted by, in my opinion, some bad-faith right-wing people trying to be like, 'They were all in the tank.' That being said, I do think there were a few things going on that allowed some reporters to miss this. One is, I do think some people let their own personal ideological leanings affect how they reported." Read On The Fox News App "The other thing I will say about the D.C. sort of circuit beyond reporters – D.C. is a liberal town. It didn't always use to be, but it is now. And if you are an aggressive, tough, fair reporter on Donald Trump, you get snaps all around town. If you are invited to every single garden party… You don't get as many yes snaps when you're covering Obama or when you're covering Biden," he continued, adding that the "social incentives" change between covering the Trump administration and covering the Biden administration. Cnn's Tapper Rips Media Smear Campaign Against Hur, Wsj On Biden Decline Without Mentioning Own Network "It's a complicated question," Tapper chimed in. "Yes. I wish I had been more aggressive about it, but I will say when we started writing this book after Election Day 2024, we did not know what we were gonna get or how many people were gonna talk to us… We talked to more than 200 people. And we were surprised at what we learned. Like we did not know that some of this dated back to 2015 after the tragic loss of his son Beau." "And so the idea is that this was all just sitting there waiting for the reporting, I wish it was so, it is not true," Tapper said. While the CNN anchor conceded that "right-wing media" was right in calling out Biden's cognitive decline before the rest of the legacy media, he swiped that sharing viral videos of Biden over the years isn't "investigative journalism." "If any of those outlets actually published any investigative journalism that had cabinet secretaries as we do, or senior White House staffers as we do, etc., saying these things as opposed to just pointing and laughing at him, then maybe I would be more receptive to the argument from them, 'Oh, we all knew this as we reported it at the time,'" Tapper said. Shielding Biden: Journalists Shed Light On The Media's Cover-up Of A Weakened President When asked what their takeaways from their reporting and the entire Biden saga were, Thompson called out journalists who rely on a "moral calculus" when determining whether to cover a major political story. "If reporters are doing a moral calculus, or they start doing some weird calculus where 'If I report this, would it help Trump and that's gonna be bad or good,' that is an endless path that I don't think reporters should be trying to do," Thompson said. "The job and the reporting is, is this true? Can we report it? And it's really up to the country to decide what to do with that reporting. I think sometimes reporters get caught up in thinking about the externalities and the consequences of putting this out into the world." "There are always going to be bad-faith people and bad-faith politicians that are gonna take the reporting and skew it and use it for their own partisan purposes. But if you start thinking that way in saying like, 'Oh, I don't want to report something that's true because bad-faith people are gonna take advantage of it,' I think you just end up in this, like, bad cul-de-sac," he article source: Biden book authors pressed on why the media failed in covering cognitive decline scandal
The Hill
03-06-2025
- General
- The Hill
Trump DOJ reviewing Biden pardons
The Department of Justice is reviewing pardons doled out under former President Biden, citing concerns about whether Biden himself was making decisions about clemency power, a senior administration official confirmed to The Hill. The official told The Hill that pardon attorney Ed Martin will lead an independent review to determine if 'unelected staffers' took advantage of Biden when it came to pardons and commutations. 'The American people deserve to know the extent to which unelected staffers and an autopen acted as a proxy president due to the incompetence and infirmity of the previous president,' White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement. 'President Trump was elected to restore the integrity and transparency of the office, and answering the question of who was actually running this country for four years is well within the president's rights.' Martin was originally Trump's choice to serve as the top prosecutor in the District of Columbia. His nomination was dropped in the face of Republican opposition in the Senate over his ties to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The pardon review comes as fresh reporting and new books, including 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,' have reignited debate about Biden's mental acuity while in office and whether he experienced cognitive decline. A Biden spokesperson told The Hill that the former president and his team thoughtfully reviewed requests for pardons and commutations and pointed to Biden issuing more than 2,500 individual acts of clemency. Biden allies have more broadly pushed back on claims that the former president was not carrying out his duties while in office. Biden issued more than 80 pardons during his four years in office, and he commuted the sentences of thousands of individuals. The vast majority of his acts of clemency were granted to nonviolent offenders, including numerous individuals who had been charged with nonviolent drug offenses. But some of his more controversial uses of the pardon power came toward the end of his term. Biden granted a full pardon to his son, Hunter Biden, who had been found guilty on federal gun charges and pleaded guilty to federal tax charges. Hunter Biden had been a political target for Republicans throughout his father's time in office. Biden also granted blanket pardons in the final moments of his term to five family members and several former government officials who had been the targets of political attacks from Trump and his allies. To be sure, President Trump has further exacerbated questions about presidential clemency power and how it can disproportionately benefit those with connections to the administration. Trump during his first term used clemency powers on political allies such as Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn. Trump also pardoned nearly all Jan. 6 defendants on his first day in office.
Metro
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Metro
Biden jokes he 'can beat the hell out of' authors on his decline after cancer di
Former President Joe Biden joked that he can 'beat the hell out of' two authors who wrote about his decline while delivering his first public remarks since his cancer diagnosis. Biden, 82, knocked several criticisms of him at once while speaking to reporters at a Delaware Memorial Day event on Friday. 'You can see that I'm mentally incompetent and I can't walk and I can beat the hell out of both of them,' he said. The 46th president was referring to journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, who co-wrote Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Biden said he is 'optimistic' about the treatment plan he is under for his Stage 4 prostate cancer. His office announced on May 16 that doctors discovered a 'small nodule' on his prostate. 'We're underway and all the folks are very optimistic,' the ex-president said. 'The expectation is we're going to be able to beat this. It's not in any (other) organ. My bones are strong, it hasn't penetrated. So I'm feeling good.' He added that it's 'all a matter of taking a pill, one particular pill, and for the next six weeks, and then another one, the expectation is we're going to be able to beat this'. Biden said 'I don't have any regrets' about seeking a second term before being forced to drop out of the race following a disastrous debate against now-president Donald Trump. 'There's a lot going on. And I think we're in a really difficult moment, not only in American history, in world history. I think we're at one of those inflection points in history where the decisions we make in the next little bit are going to determine what things look like for the next 20 years.' More Trending He also said he is upset that American politics are 'so divided'. Biden's aides are under new scrutiny after the book detailed signs of his physical and mental decline in his last year as president. A White House spokesperson on Thursday alleged that former First Lady Jill Biden conspired to hide her husband's health from the public. The former president spoke on a day that coincided with the 10th anniversary of his eldest son Beau Biden's death from brain cancer. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Elon Musk shows up with black eye to Trump's event bidding him farewell MORE: Adele Roberts facing fresh health issue three years after being declared cancer-free MORE: Ex-CIA chief reveals where in Europe he thinks Putin will invade next
The Journal
27-05-2025
- Politics
- The Journal
Joe Biden was begged by his son Hunter to ‘take a nap' during his busy trip to Ireland in 2023
HUNTER BIDEN PLEADED with his father Joe Biden to 'take a nap' during his packed Ireland trip two years go, a new book reports. A section in the new book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson focuses on his four-day Irish trip in April 2023, which saw him traverse the country, taking in Dublin as well as ancestral spots in Mayo and Louth. The book – titled Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again – has direct testimony from Democratic congressman Mike Quigley who said that Biden seemed sapped of energy, leading to Hunter to plead for him to take a nap. 'You promised you wouldn't do this,' the book reports Hunter as telling his father. 'You promised you'd take a nap. You know you can't handle all this.' Biden announced his reelection campaign a few days after the Irish trip, only to carry out a stunning reversal after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last June. Advertisement The new book recounts Quigley and New York congressman Brian Higgins discussing Biden's health following a ceremony at Áras an Uachtaráin as part of the Ireland trip. While they noted that Biden seemed to get an 'adrenaline boost' from performing to crowds – like his riverside address in Ballina, Co Mayo to tens of thousands – the two US politicians felt that their president's drained nature that day was similar to that of seriously unwell family members. Higgins is quoted as saying that Biden's cognitive decline was 'evident to most people that watched him', with his health also a worried topic of discussion among Democratic officials. Biden has strongly contested the claims that there had been a dramatic decline in his health in the latter half of his term in the White House. On a recent episode of US TV programme The View, he denied the allegations put forward in numerous reports on his health. 'They are wrong. There's nothing to sustain that,' Biden told the programme last month. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Original Sin' Outlines the Plot Against the American Voter
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's deeply reported book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, takes a sledgehammer to Joe Biden's legacy, already in grave disrepair. Claiming to have interviewed more than 200 sources around the 46th president, the CNN anchor and the Axios correspondent have written a necessary and deeply disturbing account of the Biden White House. For anyone interested in politics and Shakespearean tragedy, there's something on every page. For supporters of Biden's presidency and its considerable legislative achievements, this is an extremely grim read. Biden is both the most effective Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson and the man who helped usher Donald Trump back into the Oval Office by not stepping aside for a stronger candidate. The Biden presented in the book is both familiar and tragic, a King Lear on the Potomac with a Lady McBeth at his side in Jill Biden. The small cohort of longtime aides, dubbed the Politburo by insiders, protecting the president from the press, the American people and, it seems, reality, could be cast in a community theater version of The Death of Stalin. 'I blame his inner circle and I blame him,' one senior administration official told Tapper and Thompson after the election. 'What utter and total hubris not to step aside and be a one-term president, as he said he would, and have an open primary when there was time to let the process play out.' Hubris is a theme that runs throughout the book. Tapper and Thompson present compelling evidence for a plot to cover up for an octogenarian politician in steep physical and mental decline. It was an ineffective and inane effort, but the president's team, it seems, really did try to prop up a visibly aged man, who had carried decades of personal grief and was facing new family drama that would have broken most. There is an unforgettable eyewitness description of Biden as Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, all skin and bones, and short of breath. One can't help but wonder how Team Biden thought running for reelection was the best thing for the man, not to mention the country. It was malpractice and a scandal of the highest order. Given what's depicted in these pages, it's more than fair to ask: Who was leading America after 4:30 p.m., when, sources told Tapper and Thompson, the president's workday often ended after the early bird special? 'Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board,' one person in the know told Tapper and Thompson. Most presidents delegate some authority, but this sounds almost like Woodrow Wilson-in-a-stupor-level stuff. One of the many questions that haunts the pages: How far back was Biden sliding into infirmity and no longer up to the task? Aging is a complicated process that differs for everyone. But family tragedy seems, understandably, to have played a role here. There is some evidence in the book that points to the death of Beau Biden, back in 2014, as an inflection point. 'Before Beau died, he was 100 percent sharper,' one senior Biden White House official told Tapper and Thompson. 'Beau's death wrecked him. Part of him died that never came back.' At the 2020 Democratic National Convention, signs were there as well, according to the book. One top Democrat described seeing videos of Biden and thinking, 'This was like watching Grandpa who shouldn't be driving.' But the real cliff seems to have been reached in 2022 or 2023, when Biden's shuffling and other physical effects of his age became pronounced and inescapable. Descriptions of a confused and forgetful Biden fill these pages. Most of the sources here seem to be folks sympathetic toward the president, but he comes off more addled and confused as his presidency continues. Time comes for us all, but not all of us have the responsibilities of the presidency. Understandably, the stress of his son Hunter Biden's scandal-ridden life seems also to have taken a toll on the president. One cabinet secretary described Hunter's trial for gun possession to Tapper and Thompson as a 'five-hundred-pound weight dropped on the president's head.' Joe Biden's story of personal loss — his first wife and infant daughter killed in a car crash, the death of Beau — has been one of the things that made him an empathic figure. No one could doubt he understood and felt pain; it was there on his face. For much of the last decade or more, Joe Biden has had to worry about losing a third child, first to drugs and then to the criminal justice system. The pressures Biden faced, on the job and in his home, would age any human being. The debacle of the 2024 presidential debate is traced in great detail. For this was the moment when the jig was up. America saw what had been kept hidden: a man long past his prime, but still inexplicably auditioning to retain the most important job in the world. It was undeniable and damning and not just a bad night. This was one of the most stunning moments in recent presidential history, when the scales fell from a nation's eyes. A high-powered Democratic operative described it to me as 'like watching someone die.' Tapper was a moderator and writes that the performance was even worse in person. At one point, after another horrific Biden gaffe ('Look, if… we finally beat Medicare'), Tapper's colleague Dana Bash passed him a note that read: 'He just lost the election.' Some who dared to speak the uncomfortable truths about Biden's condition are owed an apology for the backlash they faced. Congressman Dean Phillips, who rang the alarm and tried to run against Biden in a primary last year, only to be shut out and shunned by the party. Special Counsel Robert Hur, who declined to prosecute Biden for his mishandling of classified documents, and described the president as 'a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.' Hur's integrity was attacked by partisans on both sides of the aisle — simply for being honest and doing his duty. The figure looming off-camera for much of the book is Donald Trump, and part of the story here is how destructive the negative partisanship of the MAGA moment has become — the political equivalent of a toxic speedball of rage, fear, and resentment. The ends justify the means, the thinking goes. Trump was such a danger to democracy that any tactic necessary was needed to keep him out of office. When reporters or public officials like Phillips and Hur brought up Biden's age, they were set upon in, well, Trumpian style. Team Biden's playbook: Deny, deflect, and attack. But deceiving the American people about a candidate's health and mental acuity was sure to backfire. They were asking the American voter to believe the White House, not their own lying eyes, about a man deteriorating before them. (Biden's stage IV cancer diagnosis, announced the day before Original Sin was released, only raises more questions and eyebrows.) If a candidate other than Trump had been running, would they have really tried such an outrageous ploy? At least in part, Biden seems to have convinced himself that only he could beat Trump and thus was not ready to honor his campaign pledge to be a 'bridge' to the next generation and pass the torch. Gov. Jerry Brown may have said it best, when reflecting on Biden's decision to stick around: 'Politics is addictive. It's exciting. It's a kind of psychic cocaine.' History will judge Biden's long-term impact, and Original Sin is but the first draft. His role in the Senate, as vice president, and as president will be chewed over for decades to come. There's a lot there, much of it very good, some bad, and more than a little bit ugly. He's been one of the most consequential politicians of his era. His achievements are real and profound. But this last chapter was brutal, unfortunate, and entirely preventable. More from Rolling Stone Jasmine Crockett: 'It's Time for Republicans to Question Trump's Mental Acuity' Mike Johnson Insists It's 'Moral' to Throw People Off Medicaid Trump's Crypto Grift Is the Latest Corruption Mike Johnson Says He's Too 'Busy' to Care About Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
