Fresh Air - Inside The "Cover-Up" Of President Biden's Decline

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

CNN host Jake Tapper's book, Original Sin, co-authored by Alex Thompson, describes a president who struggled to function: "One person told us that the presidency was, at best, a five-person board with Joe Biden as chairman." Tapper spoke with Terry Gross about moderating the disastrous Biden/Trump debate, George Clooney's op-ed calling for the president to drop out, and the White House's "cover-up" about Biden's decline.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Keeping up with the news can feel like a 24-hour job. Luckily, it is our job. Every hour on the NPR News Now podcast, we take the latest most important stories happening and we package them into five-minute episodes. So you can easily squeeze them in between meetings and on your way to that thing. Listen to the NPR News Now podcast now. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Joe Biden got a lot of devastating news over the past few days. On Sunday, it was announced that he has an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone. The audio was released of his interview with Robert Herr, the special counsel, investigating the classified documents found in Biden's home, garage, and office after leaving the White House. The transcript had previously been made public,

but on the audio you can hear how difficult it was for Biden to continue a train of thought, complete a sentence, or remember basic facts. The House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into a cover-up of Biden's cognitive decline. There's also been a lot of advance coverage of my guest Jake Tapper's new book, which was published today. It investigates how Biden's inner circle of advisors and his wife Jill tried to keep his physical and cognitive decline as hidden as possible. It's titled Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, its Cover-Up, and his Disastrous

Choice to Run Again. Tapper is CNN's chief Washington correspondent and anchors two shows. On weekdays, it's the late afternoon show called The Lead. On Sundays, it's State of the Union, which is also anchored by Dana Bash. The book's co-author, Alex Thompson, is a national political correspondent for Axios, and a CNN contributor. Thompson broke several stories regarding Biden's health. Tapper has interviewed Biden many times, dating back to when he was a senator. Along with Dana Bash, he moderated the 2024 debate between Biden and Trump, which was disastrous for Biden. We recorded our interview yesterday morning. Jake Tapper, welcome back disastrous for Biden. We recorded our interview yesterday morning.

Jake Tapper, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thank you so much. Great to be here. I'm really sorry, as I'm sure are you, to hear the news about Biden's prostate cancer. Doesn't make it awkward for you to criticize him now at this moment. The story that we wrote, Alex Thompson and I, about President Biden's decision to run for reelection despite serious questions about whether he was up to doing the job, and then as he deteriorated a bit physically and mentally, the attempts to hide that as much as possible from the public and even from people in the White House and cabinet officials and the like, is a tragedy.

And this latest news that we heard from President Biden, and of course, like everybody listening, my heart goes out to him, my prayers are with him, I hope the hormone therapy for the cancer works. This is part and parcel of the story of Joe Biden. This is equally a tragedy. And yes, of course it makes it, I wanna be extra careful with how I talk about it

because I don't want anyone to feel like I'm reveling in any of this. But the book was written, as you know, as a tragedy. Here is a person that has gone through so much in his life, so many horrible things fate has thrown at him from the very beginning of his life to today, and that instilled in him a spirit that so many people love, which is the guy who gets up after getting knocked down. And it also created a sort of theology around Biden where he could do anything.

And that led to the situation we're in. If you take a step back, big picture. Donald Trump, the president, Republicans controlling the house and the Senate, top Democrats with whom we spoke, and Alex and I interviewed more than 200 after the election of 2024, feel like that was a real disservice to the party, to the country, and paved the way for Donald Trump.

Do you feel like you were misled or lied to? the way for Donald Trump. Do you feel like you were misled or lied to? I do, but more important, what we uncovered in our reporting was that far more important people than me were misled and lied to. I mean, I'm just a journalist. White House has lied to reporters all the time, every White House. But they were keeping Biden's condition. And by that I mean, we uncovered in our reporting that as far back as 2015, there was the emergence

of a second Joe Biden. The first one is the one that everybody got to know during his vice presidency. And the second one was kind of a non-functioning Joe Biden, the one you alluded to hearing in the Her Report audio, losing his train of thought when it's an important conversation, not really understanding things, not knowing dates of very significant events, including the death of his son, Bo. And that non-functioning Biden would rear his head increasingly starting in like 2019, 2020. And then as his term went on, more and more behind the scenes.

And, you know, we in the public would see some of it in front of the cameras or he trips or whatever. But we had no idea how bad it was. LESLIE KENDRICK-KLEIN, JR.: Republicans, I think, are very happy with your book. And James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, is going to continue its investigation into a cover-up of Biden's mental decline

and his use of the auto pen, which is like an automatic pen. And there's questions that Comer has about whether Biden had the mental capacity to sign bills and also whether the auto pen is a legitimate way of signing them. He also says that those involved in the cover-up will begin to put on notice. Do you think that what you found in your book is worthy of a congressional investigation? Is that an appropriate response to what you found in your opinion?

Well, I don't think James Comer's read the book, and we don't have anything in there on the auto pen. Right. And I think a lot of this comes from the Robert Herr audio. Yeah. I think there are serious questions about his capacity to be president and that's not questions raised by me question their questions raised by people in his administration talking to us. One cabinet secretary more than one cabinet secretary told us that that proverbial 2 a.m. phone call that comes in the middle of the night a national security

emergency that we expect our president to be able to handle. Cabinet secretaries told us that they did not think he was up to that task by 2024. And that's concerning. Now, what James Comer is able to find in his committee, I don't know. There is a lot that is subjective. And I would be astounded if executive privilege were not invoked so that the top aides who really knew what was going on didn't ultimately just decline to answer questions. But I do think that there are questions to ask. Danielle Pletka Many Democrats are unhappy about your book,

and this dates back to before the news of the past few days. A lot of Democrats feel like, why are you going back and talking about Biden and his his problems? It distracts from putting the focus on how Trump is using or abusing his power The Democrats want to put the past behind them and move forward What's your response to that? I? Mean there are a lot of responses to that first of all, you know looks like this get written all the time when there's some when A presidential term is over, participants in the term are much more willing to speak than when it's going on.

And that was the case with you, with writing this book. Yeah, but I mean, it always happens. I mean, Alex and I were astounded by how many people we got to talk to us because very few of them spoke to us when we were trying to get answers to these questions during the Biden presidency. Or if if they did they weren't as candid So, I mean that's one like these kinds of books get written to What happened was historically?

Unprecedented it's never happened before that somebody gets his party an incumbent president gets his party's nomination has such a bad performance at the debate With so many questions about what that reveals about his cognition that His party essentially forces him to step down. It's never happened before and we thought it was definitely worth exploring three to Paraphrase George Clooney for an interview. I did with him about about his op-ed Calling for Biden to drop down like I mean to anybody who says, his answer is, how do you think we got Trump? That's what George Clooney says because of this.

And number four, I think just as a political analyst here, the Democratic Party has a real problem. And I think the problem is not as much about bathrooms as it is about The feeling that so many people in the public have that the Democratic Party was not straight with them About any number of things but perhaps top on the list President Biden's acuity So before we get to more findings from your book you and CNN's Dana Bash moderated the Biden Trump debate That was such a disaster for Biden as you saw the Biden-Trump debate that was such a disaster for Biden. As you saw the cognitive problems he was having, the difficulty he had framing a thought or finishing a thought, what was

going through your mind? Well, I had seen, as we all had seen, his decline, the parts that we saw on camera his reliance on a teleprompter his unsteady gait Moments where he was Not as articulate as I'd seen him in the past, you know, obviously he's aging so, you know That's the one thing that we're all experiencing. So, you know, I'm 56. I'm not insensitive to what aging is like you know, I'm 56, I'm not insensitive to what aging is like.

But by another token, you'd call people, I would call people, what's going on? That looks really bad. And everybody would be assured, no, he's fine, he's fine. He's just old, he's fine, but he's fine. His decision making's great, he's great in meanings, he's sharp. What was shocking is they weren't just telling that to me and reporters, they were telling that to

Democratic insiders and people raising millions for the party and democratic members of Congress, their own cabinet, White House staffers who were being cut off, not given access. Everybody was being told the same thing. So when he came out on that stage that night, June 27th in Atlanta, I admit, I was shocked, not by his gait. And then he would, he had a cold, obviously. So his voice sounded even

thinner and readier than ever. But his inability to form a coherent thought, his inability just to articulate why he should be President of the United States, and whether people like it or not, that's part of the job, is explaining to people why they should support you and why they should get behind you. Danielle Pletka Did it make you think like you needed to like change your questions at all since he was unable to respond to them, but it's your job to ask the questions. So like did it throw you off as the moderator? It didn't throw me off. I did wonder if he was gonna make it through all 90 minutes.

My general philosophy with debates is you work for weeks on the questions with a huge team. You go through practice debates. You go through run-throughs. And then you just basically have to stick to the script. That's how I look at it. So I wasn't going to do anything. And also, it wasn't my job to.

I wasn't going to call the fight. One of the things that I did do, Dan and I had iPads so that we could communicate with the control room during the debate. We could write on it, and people would see it in the control room. And during that first really rambling answer, really disturbing, I wrote, holy smokes on the iPad.

And I'm usually a little bit earthier with my language, but I didn't know who was back there. And Dana wrote me a piece of paper saying he just lost the election, because when he said, we finally beat Medicare, just the height of inarticulation. And, you know, one top aide to Biden said to me, if the presidency is about two things, making decisions and communicating them,

he always made good decisions, but making decisions and communicating them, he always made good decisions, but he could never communicate them and it got worse and worse. And I think the Biden team would dismiss the communication stuff as performative, like as if performing is a bad thing. When in fact, it's a huge and vital part of the American presidency You know certainly in the television age dating back to JFK That debate was a game-changer for Biden after that debate a more robust conversation Happened among Democrats about what to do Tell us about what it was like right after the debate. What was the conversation like among the insiders? Democrats were shocked. They were just absolutely stunned. And I think one of the there was a there

were really two camps. There was the Biden camp, which was okay, how do we get out of this? How do we crawl back? Because Joe Biden, as I said earlier, as a compliment, you know, he cannot be defeated. That's his great attitude. He's not going to be defeated by brain aneurysms, by this tragedy, by that tragedy. So I think their attitude was, okay, how do we get out of this? And then I think the other, there were other Democrats who were like, oh my God, what happened? Is this, did we really just see what we saw? And there was a feeling among that second group, okay, go out and the obvious,

you don't need to be a, you know, a genius political consultant to know that the obvious remedy to fixing what he had just done was to go out and do 15 interviews in 20 town halls and five press conferences and just show people that he was sharp as a tack as they had been saying. And the problem was he couldn't do that. And that's why his pollsters ultimately concluded there was just no way to get out of it.

This was a disaster and it was going to keep getting worse and worse until election day. So you call what happened a cover up as opposed to people really believed in him and they believed that he could do the job. And you're talking here about his inner circle, the same people who protected Biden from a lot of cabinet members, from the public, from Congress. Most people who normally would have spent more time with the president didn't get a chance to do that because the inner circle was protecting him. Tell us more about why you call it a cover-up as opposed to these are people who really believe that that Biden was up to it.

They did. And some of the ways in which they helped hide his deterioration started off innocently enough. I mean, any staffer wants to make a president or a senator or a governor look as good as possible. And if he wants note cards, if he wants a teleprompter, if he wants to do events, you know, in the middle of the day instead of early in the morning or late at night, that's all perfectly understandable. But then all of those things became crutches and started really infiltrating his presidency in a serious way to the point that even cabinet meetings,

even after the cameras left, were highly scripted and cabinet secretaries thought they were weird that way. Then I think the real part of the cover-up comes with not just the fact that he's at, you know, 40 or 50 person fundraisers using a teleprompter, which is bizarre and unprecedented for a president who should be able to speak extemporaneously for 10 minutes. There's the fact that they started cordoning him off from people in 2023. So members of Congress who went to the White House Christmas party in December 2022 didn't see him again in the flesh, many of them, until December 2023. And they were shocked at

what they saw. And then one person we talked to, a very high profile Democrat, who would only go on background with us, said that throughout 2024, he would call and say to top aides, Mike Donilon and others, like, these press conferences don't look great, or these spoken remarks don't look great, what's going on? And he was told, he's fine, he's fine, he's fine, he's fine. Then obviously the debate came,

and that person felt betrayed. And then that person, this's fine, he's fine, he's fine, he's fine. Then obviously the debate came and that person felt betrayed. And then that person, this top Democrat, had a private meeting with President and First Lady Biden, just the three of them, in a room in the White House after Biden had dropped out. And he was shocked. He said he wasn't effing fine. And he was just very alarmed.

You write that a lot of the White House was really being run by Biden's inner circle. And I'm not sure how far that extended. Are you implying that decisions, policy decisions that Biden made were actually made by his inner circle with Biden maybe not fully being able to think them through or even comprehend them? I wasn't in the meeting, so I don't know definitively one way or the other. I know that we have people in the book on background and on the record saying their fears of what was going on. One person told us that the presidency was at best a five-person board with Joe Biden as chairman of the board. So we talked to two Democratic senators who expressed deep concerns

about what role Biden was actually playing. One of them, Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, reached out to the White House in October, 2023, because he was worried about reports that the Biden administration was gonna release 11 Yemeni detainees from Gitmo and send them to Oman. And there were a lot of Democrats and Republicans on the intelligence

committee worried about that, worried that they were just going to rejoin the jihadi fight, whether with the Houthis or Hezbollah or Hamas or whatever. He had a conversation with President Biden about it, and he was shocked that Biden seemed so not up on the issue, not engaged in the way you would want a president to be, especially a president who calls the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss this incredibly important life or death issue. Another senator with whom we spoke, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, he went to a immigration event at the White House

in June 2024, where Biden seemed really out of it, really... He seemed, during remarks, to even have some sort of odd event that neurologists told us looked neurological in nature. He just started whispering, and nobody could understand what he was saying, and it was very awkward. And Michael Bennett left the White House that day thinking, well, this is why our immigration policy is so messed up. Because this guy can't handle the portfolio. He can't tell people what to do. And that's why you have all these competing factions just, you know, going back and forth.

And the immigration policy during the Biden administration is so bad. So those were their conclusions, those three individuals. I wasn't in the room. I don't know how bad it got, but it does seem as though he certainly wasn't the Joe Biden of 2016 when he was vice president. Danielle Pletka Well, let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jake Tapper, CNN's chief Washington correspondent and anchor of The Lead and State of the Union. He's the co-author of the new book, Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, its cover-up, and his disastrous choice to run again. We recorded our interview yesterday morning. There's more after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air.

There's more after a short break. I'm Terri Gross and this is Fresh Air. I'm Tonya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. At a time of sound bites and short attention spans, our show is all about the deep dive. We do long form interviews with people behind the best in film, books, TV, music, and journalism. Here our guests open up about their process and their lives in ways you've never heard before. Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY. Look, we get it. When it comes to new music, there is a lot of it and it all comes really fast.

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What is a path you almost took but didn't? On our latest episode, how to ask the magical questions that'll make your party sparkle. Listen to the Life Kit podcast from NPR. Why don't we hear the excerpt of the interview that was recently released with Robert Herr, the special counsel interviewing Joe Biden. And it starts with Biden answering counsel Herr's question about, do you remember where you had the documents, you know, the papers from the White House stored in your home, in your office, in the garage.

Do you remember where they were? So, here's where it picks up with Biden's answer. Well, I don't know. This is what? 2017-18 that area? Yes, sir. Remember, in this timeframe, my son is either been deployed or is dying.

And so, if it was, and by the way, And so, if it was a... And by the way, there were still a lot of people at the time when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president. I'm not, they're not a mean thing to say, I mean, he just thought that she had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did. And so I hadn't, I hadn't at this point,

even though I'm a pen, I hadn't walked away from the idea that I might run for office again. You know, if I ran again, I'd be running for president. And so what was happening though, one month before dying, God, May 30th, 2015, when 2015 he died. I think it was 2015.

I'm not sure the months are, but I think it was. Yeah. That's right, Mr. President. 2015. What's happened in the meantime is that as Trump gets elected in November of 2017, 2016, in November of 2017. 2016. 2016. 2016. All right. So,

when I have 2017? That's when you left office, January of 2017. Yeah, okay. But that's when Trump gets sworn in. Right. Correct. Okay, yeah. So even if our listeners couldn't make out the words, But that's when Trump gets sworn in. Right. Correct. Yeah.

So even if our listeners couldn't make out the words, you hear the hesitations, you hear all the kind of fill words and all these like phrases that just fill time without progressing the sentence. Yeah. It's sad. Yeah. And when special counsel Hurst said that prosecutors believed the jury would see Biden as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory, what his conclusion

was is that the jury would be unlikely to convict him because they'd be sympathetic to him because he sounded like an old man with a poor memory. Yeah. And they would conclude that ultimately he didn't mishandle those documents knowingly, which is a key part of the law. And look, that's part of a prosecutor's job, is to determine, can I get a conviction? It's sad. Look, it is very sad what happens to us

if we're lucky enough to get old. Very few of us retain our acuity until our death and our sleep at age 99. It is the human condition. And that makes it difficult to report on this. But by the same token, we have a right to believe and expect that a president will be sharpened on top of things. And, I mean, just remember, that audio snippet that you just played, that is a president.

On October 8th, 2023, the terrorists of Hamas have just invaded an American ally, Israel, killed 1,200 people, kidnapped hundreds more, and you just heard the person in charge of the United States government and military. And even if you love Joe Biden, even if you agree with every decision he made, I don't see how anybody can think that person that we just heard from, and this interview is in the middle of the day,

is up to speed and up to the job of being president. Is there anything else you hear in that that you want to talk about? I Just think that what's important to remember is Not only did the White House attack Robert Herr for being in their view partisan or making unnecessary comments About the age they were really lobbying before the Her Report was released. They were really lobbying hard for the attorney general to censor it, to cut it out, that one segment. There were people in the Justice Department that read the Her Report before it came out and said, oh my God, Robert Her thinks that Joe Biden broke the law.

But that wasn't the part of the Herr report that alarmed the White House. The part that alarmed the White House was the description of him as a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. And, you know, people couldn't decide for themselves why that alarmed them so much when that was the exculpatory reason he wasn't going to be prosecuted. But then Biden gives a press conference that night, and in addition to confusing Al Sisi saying the president of Egypt was the president of Mexico, he attacks Robert Her for bringing up Bo Biden.

And he says something like, and I said to myself, how dare you ask about that? Robert Her had not brought up Bo Biden. If you were able to understand the words on the radio, you would have heard that part. Yeah. Where Biden just kind of brings it up himself. He brings up Bo a lot. It's obviously a very traumatizing and tragic event in his life. And you know, I knew Bo a little bit and he was a great guy.

Absolutely. And what a horrible, horrible story. But that said, the entire White House apparatus starts attacking Robert Herr. What a cruel, mean man to bring up Bo Biden. How awful. How dare he? I even heard from a conservative Gold Star mom, I know, very conservative, who couldn't believe that Robert Herr would do that to Joe Biden, for whom she didn't vote.

And it's not true. she didn't vote. And it's not true. He didn't bring it up. Robert Herr and the Justice Department did not respond. They could have responded. They could have released that part of the transcript to show that Biden was wrong, but that's just not how the Justice Department operates. Danielle Pletka In 2020, you have a now famous interview that you did with Lara Trump. And she was saying, when Biden talks, I just wait, like frustrated, like, come on, Joe, you can get it out.

You can complete that sentence. I'm waiting for the next words. And you accused her of mocking his stutter. And she said, it's not his stutter. It's his cognitive ability. And you and she went back and forth and, you know, we're talking over each other is like one of those, one of those clashes.

In retrospect, how does that play back to you? In retrospect, what she said aged well and what I said aged poorly, 100%. And I've called Laura Trump and told her that and apologized. What did she say? She said that, well, I don't want to betray an off-the-record conversation, but basically she said that she's not the type of person that she would ever mock anybody's stutter. And so, I mean, which I said I have no reason to doubt that. And so, look, she was right and I was wrong.

And I look back at that exchange, and not just that, but my coverage in general with humility. I don't, I mean, I did cover this. I can point to times where, you know, I asked him this or I asked him that, or I pointed this out to this person or whatever, but knowing what I know now, I barely scratched the surface. Very few people outside the conservative media world were doing so.

Some people were. Annie Lasky and Siobhan Hughes with the Wall Street Journal had a really important piece in the Wall Street Journal in May or June of 2024, behind the scenes about Biden showing signs of deterioration. And again, they got lambasted, not just by the Biden White House, but by the influencers and all that. Democratic senators went on the record, attacking the story. And

it was really a brushback pitch, just really like, do not address this issue. And I my heart goes out to Annie and Siobhan, who I think are amazing reporters, but that had to have been traumatizing. And very few people followed up their reporting, and they had all these colleagues, not me, but other colleagues, other people at CNN, questioning their professionalism, questioning the journalism, and they too were right. And I mean, I have learned a tremendous lesson about covering these issues from the humility,

I feel, from this experience. But I will say this also. One of the things that we learned after we started writing this book after the election, me and Alex Thompson of Axios, is that there was a real deterioration and that the non-functioning Biden that would rear his head over and over in 2023, 2024 was not as present in 2019. But that said, I think that reporters, and I'm mainly talking to myself, so please nobody think I'm being sanctimonious. I need to run more towards the discomfort of questions about health because they're

so important and they're so important, and they're so under-covered in Washington. We have a chapter in the book just about other less consequential stories like this, whether Dianne Feinstein or Strom Thurmond. Kay Granger? Kay Granger was the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, I think, or Ways and Means, one of the two, and she stepped down from the position of chair in 2024 and like a month

or two later was checked into a home for people with dementia. Her constituents didn't know it. She was still a member of Congress. She was still drawing a paycheck. I mean, that's where we are in these stories on these issues. And this was after Joe Biden had dropped out of the race because of his acuity issues. So it is a bipartisan affliction and I think I need to be tougher even if it's uncomfortable. And yeah, I mean, I have regret about that exchange with Laura.

Well, let me reintroduce you again. If you're just joining us, my guest is CNN anchor and chief White House correspondent, Jake Tapper. He coauthored the new book, Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, its coverup and his disastrous choice to run again. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. A story that was excerpted in, I think it was The New Yorker, was that George Clooney

was asked to co-host a really big fundraising event. And I don't remember whether it was for the campaign in particular or for Democrats in general. And I assume Biden knew that Clooney was hosting the event and clearly they'd met before and I'm sure Biden must have seen Clooney once or twice on screen. But but he didn't recognize Clooney. Yeah. So Clooney was very disturbed by that. also a problem at the same event when Biden, Obama, and Jimmy Kimmel were talking together on stage. And tell us what happened when the stage part of the event was over. The stage event was not as horrible as what had happened backstage, where Biden had trouble

stringing sentences together. So Obama had to jump in and where he didn't appear to recognize George Clooney, who he'd known for more than 15 years. And let's be honest, he's one of the most recognizable faces in the country, in the world. And but on stage, there's this moment after it's all over. And it wasn't an impressive event. We talked to a lot of people who were really upset about how out of it he seemed and how old he seemed. But Biden goes to the edge of the stage and kind of stands there. Now, his staff says he was just kind of basking in the glow of the support.

But Obama sees Biden doing that, goes back and kind of grabs his arm and pulls him off stage. Obama later explains it as he just wanted to get the hell out of there and he wasn't going to be able to leave until Biden did. But it looked very odd to attendees there, to Democrats there. Congresswoman Annie Custer, Democrat of New Hampshire, thought it looked weird. A bunch of former Obama staffers like John Favreau, his former chief speech writer, thought it looked weird. It looked like an old man who kind of needed to be guided where he walked.

Like he'd blanked out? Or he just, not that he blanked out, but that he just kind of like didn't understand what he was supposed to do right then. And look, maybe that's not fair. Maybe that's not what happened. I'm not in his mind. All I can tell you is how Democrats in the room interpreted it. So Clooney ends up writing an op-ed in the New York Times basically saying he loves Joe Biden but Joe Biden has to withdraw from the race and that Biden can defeat a lot of the odds that are against him. but age is something that you

don't have any control over. You can't fight age. You can't beat that you're getting older. Undefeated. Father time, undefeated. What was the reaction inside the party to that? They were shocked. Joe Biden, obviously, after the debate was Everybody was talking about

Who's gonna say it because very few people were coming forward publicly even though the voters were clear and Many members of the media were clear there were a lot of Democratic officials kept quiet I don't think the first one the debate was June 27th. I don't think the first one came Went public until July 1st. I think that was House Democrat Lloyd Doggett was the first one, I think. But ultimately, shockingly, after the three and a half weeks or so between the debate and June 27th and Biden dropping out July 21st, only one senator called for him to step down. Only one senator called for him to step down. Only one governor called for him to step down, Democrats, I mean, and a few dozen members

of the House. But it's really a very small number. George Clooney, however, had a huge impact on this internal debate within the Democratic Party after the debate that I moderated with Dana, because there's really no upside for George Clooney to come forward and say, Joe Biden needs to drop out. And what we saw, what was key in his op-ed was what we saw at the debate stage, I saw backstage at my fundraiser, which was a line that Jeffrey Katzenberg pleaded with Clooney to not include in the op-ed,

because Clooney showed the op-ed to the campaign before he sent it into the Times. But Clooney said, no, I'm gonna do it. And Katzenberg said, it's not fair. And Clooney said, yeah, it's not fair. I mean, aging isn't fair, but it's true. It had a huge impact, because here's a guy who co-hosted the most successful Democratic

fundraiser in presidential history, $30 million raised in one night. Here's a beloved figure who would only make enemies. You can only make enemies from such a thing. And he came out and he was gutsier than, you know, most senators and governors and members of the House. My guest is CNN anchor and Chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper. He co-authored the new book, Original Sin,

President Biden's Decline, its Cover-Up, and his disastrous choice to run again. We'll be back after a short break. This is Fresh Air. Schumer had called for a meeting between Democratic senators and Biden's inner circle of advisors, the advisors who were sticking with Biden. And at some point Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania defends Biden and he basically asked who's with me and I

don't know, somewhere between like three and five senators raised their hands. Yeah, that's not a big number for a 51 member Democratic caucus. Yeah. So what was the impact of that? The impact of that was significant, but not for a little bit, because Mike Donilon and Steve Reschetti, who were two of the aides, who were the two of Biden's top aides, Schumer went up to them after that meeting, where a lot of Democrats expressed a lot of concern about Biden staying on top of the ticket. And in fact, Jack Reed of Rhode Island suggested

that Biden be tested by two independent neurologists who give their assessments to the public. I mean, there were a lot of pretty tough stuff said that day. Schumer went up to Donalyn Roschetti and said, make sure that Biden hears what happened at this meeting and then a few days later He finds out They didn't they didn't tell

Biden they didn't tell the president. So when Schumer finally goes and has his meeting with the president in Rehoboth, Delaware About a week before he drops out and he's the only one that I can find out that Alex and I can find out That actually told Biden to drop out. Everybody else was much more passive aggressive or vague about it. But Schumer said I would drop out if I were you. But he tells Biden about that, that there are really only five Democratic senators who think he should stay in the race. And he said something like, you know, I'm good at vote counting. And that's the first time, at least Biden says, that's the first time he's ever heard that story. So I think one of the issues here also, and it's kind of a theme in the book is what were

Donilon and Reschetti sharing with Joe Biden? I mean, Joe Biden is ultimately responsible for his fate. He's not a husk of a man. He's able to know what's going on most of the time, although decreasingly so. But what did Donilon and Reschetti share? There are a lot of concerns. By the end, you have separately Obama, Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer, all of them, trying to make sure that President Biden gets

the voting data, the polling polling to show that the floor has fallen out, that he will not win. He cannot recover because it's unrecoverable. Because the biggest concern people had about Biden before the debate, the reason he was trailing was they worried about his age and acuity along with inflation. What he did at the debate, what he demonstrated is that their fears were correct. And he never was able to demonstrate otherwise. And so the race was unwinnable according to his pollsters.

So, you know, Trump was very opposed to the press during his first administration, enemy of the people. There's more lawsuits now and, you know, legal attacks against the media, funding attacks against public radio and television. I think it's designed to have a chilling effect. How do you fight against that? Michael S. Lauer, Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D.,

Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph or the lawsuit against Paramount for the 60 minutes edits of the Kamala Harris interview, a case that most legal experts say is entirely without merit, but that one informed source told me they expected to settle for something between 30 and 50 million dollars. It's something to keep in mind, but that just means get your facts right.

I do not like what he's doing with NPR or PBS or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or Voice of America or Radio Free Europe or any of them I I don't like it. We've had guests on to talk about it. I tried explaining to a Republican congressman how Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and the Electric Company basically taught me how to read and write by age three. Those shows are so incredible.

And I just saw that Sesame Street's come into Netflix, which is great, although not something accessible to every American with a TV. So, I mean, it's disturbing, but I think we just have to keep doing our job. And most importantly, just keep our head down, not get emotional, not take it personally, make sure that we report the facts. You know, the news media is in a crisis. And I don't count you in this, Terry, because you And I don't count you in this, Terry, because you are your own industry and people revere you.

But reporters in general, CNN, NPR, ABC, CBS, all of us, people don't trust us. One of the reasons they don't trust us is what just happened with Joe Biden and his acuity and the fact that we in the media were pretty late to the story. I should, let me say, we in the media were pretty late to the story. Well, I should let me say we in the legacy media were late to that story because conservative media was not late to it. And I think that that we really need to we are in a an existential fight, I think, for

a free press, not that it's going to be taken away, but it certainly runs the risk of not thriving as it has. And that just calls on us to be as good and professional as possible. Danielle Pletka Jake Tapper, a pleasure to have you back on the show. Thank you so much. Jake Tapper Terry, it's always great. Always great talking to you. Thank you. Danielle Pletka Jake Tapper is an anchor and Chief Washington correspondent for CNN. He's the co-author with Alex Thompson of Axios of the new book, Original Sin, President Biden's decline, its cover-up,

and his disastrous choice to run again. We recorded our interview yesterday morning. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, what happens when artificial intelligence quietly reshapes our lives? New York Times reporter Cashmere Hill will explain the real-world impact of AI, from classrooms to our everyday decisions,

and how our relationship with AI could define the future of privacy and human connection. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Bruegger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited

by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Bodenato, Lauren Krenzel, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challener, Susan Yacundi, and Anna Baumann. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our cohost is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

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