Consider This from NPR - New book alleges Biden aides hid his decline

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Joe Biden has stage four metastatic prostate cancer.The former president made that announcement Sunday afternoon. It came just days before the publication of "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again."An explosive book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Original Sin chronicles what the authors say was Biden's steep physical and cognitive decline.Joe Biden repeatedly insisted he was capable of serving a second term. "Original Sin" argues his advisors and his family went to great lengths to hide that he wasn't. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The boyish-looking father of three young children was celebrating his 30th birthday. The boyish-looking father described in that ABC News report was newly elected Delaware Senator Joe Biden, one of the youngest men ever elected to the U.S. Senate. On Sunday, four months after he left the White House, Biden announced he has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. The diagnosis underscores the biggest vulnerability Biden faced during his final years in office. More than 50 years ago, Biden's age was an issue too, but in 1972 the question was, is

he too young? I expect these fellows are going to eventually judge me on my merit, not on my age, and I have to establish that merit assuming there isn't any there. I don't think it's going to be much of a problem. Five decades later, as Biden ran for a second presidential term, the question was instead, is he too old? Mr. President, for months when you were asked about your age, you would respond with the words, watch me.

Many American people have been watching, and they have expressed concerns about your age. That is your judgment. That is your judgment. That is not the judgment of the press. They express concerns about your mental acuity. They say that you are too old. Then came the June debate.

Making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare. And after that disastrous performance, as Biden tried to do damage control, he was asked about his cognitive abilities in a press conference. And you said you take a cognitive test every day in this job. Are you open to taking another physical or test before the election? Governor Whitmer of Michigan, for instance, said it wouldn't hurt to take a test.

His physical stamina in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. You say you were exhausted, and I know you've said that before as well, but you came, and you did have a tough month, but you came home from Europe about 11 or 12 days before the debate, spent six days in Camp David. Why wasn't that enough rest time, enough recovery time? And whether he should get out of the race altogether by NBC's Lester Holt. Do you feel like you've weathered the storm on this issue of whether you should get out of the race altogether by NBC's Lester Holt. Do you feel like you've weathered the storm on this issue of whether you should be on

the ticket or not? Six days after that interview, Biden dropped out. Consider this. Joe Biden repeatedly insisted he was capable of serving a second term. A new book argues his advisors and family went to great lengths to hide that he wasn't. It's Consider This from NPR. Former President Joe Biden has known Mike Donilon since 1981. He's been one of Biden's closest aides for decades, yet a White House desk just steps away from the Oval Office. Yet in 2019, on a campaign swing in Iowa, Biden struggled to remember Donilon's name.

That's according to the new book, Original Sin, by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson. It's one of several jarring moments reported out in the book, which chronicles Biden's decline over his time in the White House as well as efforts by his top staff and family to keep that decline hidden from voters. Staff that included Donilon and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Steve Reschetti. When Thompson and Tapper dropped by our studios recently to talk about the book, Tapper said that disastrous June debate made him want to dig deeper into why Biden decided to run.

Dan Abash, my co-moderator, and I had these iPads so that we could write to the people in the control room because obviously we can't talk to them and there was only one or two commercial breaks. And I wrote, holy smokes, like during that first rambling, awful non-answer where he said we finally beat Medicare. I just couldn't believe it. Look, I mean, we had all seen him aging. We had all seen him tripping and misspeaking. We had all seen evidence of decline,

but the Biden team, family and senior advisors were telling everybody, not just media, not just the public, but also democratic donors and members of Congress, their own cabinet, he's fine, he's fine, he's fine, he's fine. I wanna talk about the hiding as you frame it. Use the word coverup in the title, that's gotten a lot of attention. It's a strong phrase to use. Tell me why you justified using that framing when it came to President Biden's inner circle

and the way that they protected him. If it wasn't a coverup, then why were so many people surprised by the debate? Beginning in fall of 2023, our reporting shows based on the interviews with over 200 people that there were two Bidens. There was a functioning Biden and non-functioning Biden. And that goes back to, you know, 2019, but it was almost always functioning Biden, but beginning in 2023, the ratio of that functioning and non-functioning starts to

change dramatically and also non-functioning Biden is getting worse. And the White House, the people around them, we had one senior White House official who left because they were upset over what was happening and didn't think he should be running for reelection. And when you say non-functioning, what's the best way to define that?

I would describe it as unable to come up with the names of top advisors or close friends. I would say, we look, we're all human, we forget, we all forget names, we all lose our train of thought. We're not talking about that. And also we all witness that in people who are aging. I mean, again, I'm not talking about that. We're talking about to the point of you are not able to have a conversation.

You are not able to come up with data, information, knowledge, names that you should have at the ready. When he didn't recognize George Clooney, that is somebody who is not only somebody he'd known for more than 15 years, not only somebody that he had had serious conversations about Darfur with, not only somebody that had raised millions of dollars for him and was cohosting

that very fundraiser, he's also one of the most recognizable people in the world. So I'm talking about that. I'm talking about what we saw at the debate, like that non-functioning Biden, I cannot articulate a sentence, Biden. You were talking about the framing of the coverup though, because it's odd though,

on one hand he's the president of the United States, he's making a couple appearances of a, some days he didn't make that many of appearances, but he's giving speeches, he's appearing in public, he's carrying out the duties of the presidency. And yet, as you report it, there is a concerted effort to wall him off. What specifically was that circle of aides doing?

Yeah. I mean, the one top aide who left the White House said that they intentionally shielded him from other members of the administration, other members of the cabinet, other senior White House officials. The inner circle became smaller and smaller and this White House official said that was intentional so that they did not realize the extent of the decline. You also saw the schedule become much tighter

and more restricted. We have months of internal schedules that show that he would go up to the residence and have dinner at 4, 4.30, five, other members of the administration also said that He would go up to the residence and have dinner at 4, 4.30, 5. Other members of the administration also said that he just would go up to the residence very, very early and they just wouldn't see him after a certain point in the day. The schedule just became much more oriented about making sure that the public and other aides did not see non-functioning Biden.

That's why the schedule became much more 10 to 4, and why, yes, he was doing those events, but they were often, you know, put in the middle of the day when, you know, those were his good hours. – Enough of the book is out that you're getting a response. I want to read you one quote that we have from Biden's camp, and I want to get you a response. We're still waiting for someone, anyone, to point out where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or make a presidential address where he was unable to do his job because of mental decline. What's your response to that?

I mean, okay, first of all, that is setting the bar really low. That's their defense of our book that, well, okay. Well, where's the decision making that was the wrong decision? Well, I mean, I guess it's the key question for the president of the United States though, right?

Like can this person make that key decision in that moment? Look, one of his most loyal top aides said to me, if the presidency is about two things, making decisions and being able to communicate those decisions to the American people, this person said he was always good at making the decisions. He could never effectively communicate it and it got worse and worse throughout his term.

So I don't buy the idea that the president is just some like magic eight ball. He just has to make decisions after the other and he doesn't have to do anything else. So that to me is just a false premise. But beyond that, the book does describe situations where US senators are very concerned about their interactions with President Biden.

I'll just give you one. There is an incident in June 2024. President Biden has a meeting at the White House, an event having to deal with immigration. And everybody listening, I ask you to go to Google and watch this moment. Biden has some sort of glitch while talking that neurologists told us was some sort of neurological event. They don't know what it was, but it was some sort of glitch while talking that neurologists told us was was some sort of neurological event They don't know what it was, but it was some sort of neurological event. It wasn't a stutter It was something else and Senator Bennett from Colorado loyal Biden supporting Democrat Leaves that immigration event at the White House thinking well This is why the immigration policy in this country is so messed up. This president can't manage the portfolio. So I just, A, I reject the premise,

but even if we're using that premise, I don't buy it. It's not true. They haven't read the book yet and that's fine. I wouldn't read it if I were them either. Alex, what to you was the moment that most alarmed you as a person who lives in the United States as you were reporting and learning these details about the things that most alarmed you as a person who lives in the United States as you were reporting and And learning these details about the things that were happening behind the scene another moment that sort of was jaw-dropping was I was interviewing

a long-time Biden aide and They're quoted in the book as saying I'm paraphrasing here. All he had to do was win Then he could have disappeared for the next four years and only had to occasionally show proof of life. When you're electing a president, I think voters know that they're also electing the people around them. And that was their justification.

This was their justification for their, they basically were acknowledging. Yeah, he's, he's like having trouble, but like the threat of Donald Trump, which I think they felt very sincere about, was so great that they were justifying in some ways undemocratic actions. Yeah, and these are the same people who say,

hey, nobody elected Elon Musk. Well, no one elected Donald and Roshedi, and yet we have a cabinet secretary telling us that Biden, Roshedi, and Donald would make decisions about the economy without even talking to Secretary Yellen during the period that they cut off the cabinet. You talk to a lot of anonymous sources for this book. Did anybody regret not speaking out? Or was it, this is the reality I saw, but it was career suicide to say that he couldn't

run for another term. So in retrospect, I wouldn't say anything. If not regret a lot of soul searching, um, about what could I have done differently? You know, one person sort of put to me this way. It was like, like how many options were there? Like they could have gone public, but would that have changed Joe Biden's mind? Probably not. And then it would have just helped Donald Trump.

Now the one thing that I think people are mad about that the inner circle specialty didn't do, the ones that knew better is you don't necessarily have to go public, but why not confront him? I haven't heard someone give a good answer. And who confronted him? Secretary of state Blinken kind of confronted him. Yeah, she was just, he had the meeting with,

he had a lunch with him in 2023, in which he basically was like, you have to think about how old you're gonna be in the second term, do you think you can handle it? Of course Biden does. And that's kind of just dropped. I think everybody in that circle, in that world should be thinking,

I'm certainly thinking as a journalist, what should I have done differently? Alex and I covered this, Alex very aggressively from the White House beat me less so, and I wish I had been more aggressive. There's a lot of regret, there's a lot of humility. I wanna end this interview the way you start the book, that the morning after the election,

Joe Biden woke up convinced he could have won. He still thinks that, he still thinks he could have won. He still thinks that he still thinks he could have won. He went on the view to pre-bought this book we think. And he was asked about that. And he said, well, look, I still got 7 million more votes than Donald Trump. Now he's talking about the 2020 election. And the truth of the matter is I have talked to his pollsters more than he ever has. And they did not think that.

And Chuck Schumer, when Chuck Schumer finally has the conversation with Biden in which he says that he thinks Biden should drop out, he says, I've talked to your pollsters, they give you a 5% chance of winning. And Biden did not know that because all the polling was interpreted through the spin meisters around him, Donilon and Reschetti.

And Biden's shocked to hear that. When I talked with one of the pollsters about that story, 5%, he said it was probably more like 1%. That's Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Their new book is Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, It's Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Thanks for talking to us. Thank you. This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlem with Audio Engineering by Tiffany Vieira Castro. It was edited by Courtney Dornig.

Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detro.