The Megyn Kelly Show - Megyn Kelly's FULL Interview with Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson - on the Truth About Biden Cover-Up and "Original Sin" Revelations

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

Look back on Megyn Kelly's news-making and viral interview with "Original Sin" authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson at the beginning of their book tour last week.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Hey everyone, it's Megyn Kelly. Welcome to this special weekend bonus episode. Did you miss our viral interview with Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson last week on their new book, Original Sin? If you did, you can catch the whole thing right here. Enjoy, and we'll see you Monday with the EJs. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show,

live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Today, a deep dive into the decline of President Biden's cognitive health while in office, including never before heard stories from those very close to the president and a true reckoning about the media's role in the Democrat Party's attempted cover up. In minutes, I will be joined by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson regarding their new book. It's called Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, Its Cover Up, and his disastrous choice to run again. This will be their first long-form interview. The book does include some shocking new details, including from some of Mr. Biden's own cabinet secretaries, who said that by 2024, the president could no longer be relied upon

for being able to perform at 2 a.m. if there were some sort of emergency. He was not able to answer that call. Another revelation from the book, a source close to Mr. Biden said, quote, five people were running the country and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board. Who were those five people running the country and who exactly perpetrated this attempted cover-up? We will ask for and receive names in just a moment. But first, a look back at the president's decline that we reported on at the time that was called nothing more than a conspiracy theory. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created by,

you know the thing. Signs of a slipping Joe Biden were everywhere, even in the run-up to the 2020 election. For a politician long known for gaffes, this was something different, concerning brain freezes, like this one on CNN in April 2020. You know, there's a, during World War II, you know, where Roosevelt came up with a thing that, you know, was totally different than a than the call.

He called the, you know, the World War II. He had the world, the war production board. But raising questions about Mr. Biden's mental fitness back then was risky. Just ask Laura Trump, who dared to go there in an interview with Jake Tapper weeks before the 2020 election. I think what we see on stage with Joe Biden, Jake, is very clearly a cognitive decline. That's what I'm referring to. It makes me uncomfortable. You are no, it's so amazing to me that- And try and figure out an answer. A cognitive decline. Well, when you're trying to tell me that

what I was suggesting was a stuttering- I think that you were mocking his stutter. I had no idea, Joe Biden. Yeah, I think you were mocking his stutter and I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline. Less than four and a half years later, it's Tapper doing the examining. Starting in around 2019, 2020, there were two Bidens. There was a Biden that was perfectly workable, serviceable, seemed fine. And then there was a non-functioning one. In his new book, Original Sin, co-authored with Axios' Alex Thompson, the pair document the behind-the-scenes panic among Democratic officials over Joe Biden's decline. Tapper claims he was on the case all

along, but couldn't report fully until after the election when more people were finally willing to talk. But it was a story most Americans had already seen with their own eyes. The best way to get something done, if you hold near and dear to you that you like to be able to... Anyway. Forgetting the names of world leaders. I want to thank that fellow down under. Thank you very much, pal. And then the moment that shocked even casual observers.

Jackie, are you here? Where's Jackie? Asking for Congresswoman Jackie Walorski, who had died in a car crash seven weeks earlier. The president had publicly mourned her death when it happened, even lowering White House flags in her honor. But he remembered none of it. Tapper did occasionally press White House officials. Watch him, right? Watch him.

And he... I've... They are watching him. That's what I've had conversations. They are watching him, that's what I'm saying. That's the 77% who are concerned. No, no, no. It is hard for us to keep up with this president. The same president who couldn't remember the name of Hamas. There's been a response from the opposition. Then came the bombshell Herr special counsel report. Mr. Herr described President Biden as an elderly man with a poor memory who could not remember when he was vice president or the year his son Beau died. Think anybody sitting down for an interview like that where you're being

asked specific dates over and over again, you're not gonna remember every single one. In early June 2024, a Wall Street Journal story exposed concerns from members of Congress about a diminishing president. There's been a relentless focus in some news outlets on minor slips by our president that I frankly think are typical of anyone who's keeping a demanding 14-hour day schedule. A coordinated message claimed conservative media was deceptively editing clips. In major areas where people get their news, this lie or this concept about Joe Biden is being validated. Fake videos of President Biden that are being referred to as cheap fakes. They're cheap. They're just distorted, out of context videos, chopped up in certain ways, constructed in certain ways. He's far beyond cogent. In fact, I think he's better than he's ever been.

Joining me now, Jake Tapper. He's the host of The Lead with Jake Tapper on CNN and Alex Thompson. Alex is a national political correspondent for Axios. These days, it feels like nothing surprises us anymore, but not in a good way. The headlines are heavy. The future feels uncertain and so much is out of our control. But one thing you can take control of right now is your family's financial future. With life insurance through SelectQuote. Whether you need $500,000 or $50 million in coverage, SelectQuote makes it easy to find the right policy for your unique needs. They have helped over 2 million people find more than 700

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First of all, Jake, explain why it's called Original Sin. It's called Original Sin because right after the election, we started talking to Democratic sources who were telling us how horrible things were, not just in front of the cameras and all those clips you showed, but how much worse it was actually behind the scenes. And one of them said to me that the original sin was that Biden should not have run for reelection to begin with, which then necessitated the cover-up of how bad things actually were. And that term, original sin, just stuck with me. When Alex and I talked about doing the book, I think the day before Election Day, I already thought original sin would be the perfect title because it just gets at how momentous a decision this was, how momentous a mistake this was to run for re-election and then,

of course, the cover-up. Alex, we understand that you originally had drafted a book along these lines, but then the deal fell apart. So how did it get revived? When did publishers get interested in what you were trying to tell? Well, my book project actually was different. I mean, it was a Biden book, but it was with Simon and Schuster. They signed the deal in January of 2021. And it was supposed to come out before the election. And, you know, maybe there was maybe going to be some age stuff, but it was much more about the family dynamics and how they affected the president and the presidency. Ultimately, the book deal did fall apart. Simon Schuster canceled the book in October of 2023. There are a few reasons for that. One was I was running behind. Two, book we were, we wanted. And that was most manifest in sort of a debate, or, you know, clash over the title of the book. And I wanted to call the book

haunted, because the thesis of the book was, he's haunted by his son, Beau, he's haunted by the Hunter stuff, by the Obama comparisons, by the idea that Trump could win again. And they wanted to call the book Soul Man or Shadow Boxer. And I said no. Good hill to die on. I returned them. I returned the advance. And then, you know, I obviously had some Biden reporting and was interested in trying to revive some sort of project on Biden because I'd covered him for so long. And it was really the book was Jake's idea about making it focused on this one issue of the Biden presidency. Yeah, this is the issue. OK, I got it. Let me keep going. Yeah, let's just let's let's go right to the controversy around the book. And then we'll get to the contents of the book, which I definitely

want to spend time on. As you know, this book, it's right in the subtitle, it involves coverage of the so called cover up. But Jake, the criticism has been that you're complaining about a cover up about Joe Biden's mental acuity that failed that that right wing pundits saw, the right wing in general saw, that independent media saw and reported on. And that was no mystery even to left wing and so-called mainstream reporters who were not fooled, but chose willful blindness instead of honest reporting and that you were part of it. How do you respond? It's a tough and fair question. I would say that Alex and I, after Election Day, interviewed more than 200 people, 200 mostly Democratic insiders in all these interviews were, almost all of these interviews were after the election. And they justified to themselves what they had done in terms of misrepresenting how the president was not just to me and Alex and other reporters, but also just to each other and to the world and to Democrats and to the cabinet, et cetera, by saying that there was this existential threat of Donald Trump and only Joe Biden could beat Donald Trump. And

that justified everything in their minds. After that existential threat was over because the election was over and Donald Trump won, they were, we found, Alex and myself, remarkably willing to talk to us either off the record or on background or in some cases on the record about what they saw. One of the things that emerged was that there were two Bidens. One was the fine Biden, serviceable, adequate. And the other one was a non-functioning Biden. And that's the one we saw the night of the debate. And that's the one we saw some clips of here and there that you just showed. And that non-functioning Biden, the one that lost his train of thought in a significant way, not in the way just that every human loses their train of thought, but in a way that shows that he's having trouble articulating his very views, and the one who forgot the

name of close aides, who was not able to come up with George Clooney's name, didn't seem to recognize him, all that sort of thing. That non-functioning Biden was, according to our reporting, showed up as far back as 2015 after the death of Beau, where one top aide said that that tragedy, the loss of Beau, was like watching somebody pour water on sand. That was the effect on his psyche. And there were other moments, 2017, 2018. You hear some, the Her report, one of the reasons he came to that conclusion was because of the recordings they heard of Joe Biden in 2017 talking to his ghostwriter in which he was similarly inclined.

Obviously, in 2019, 2020, there were other moments like that. Most of his campaign staff and others would say, look, he's 78, he's 79, he has senior moments, but he's fine, he's fine, he's fine. Well, he wasn't fine. And throughout his presidency, that non-functioning Biden would show up more and more and more, and he was worse and worse and worse, really deteriorating tremendously the next time there was a really horrible family incident, which was when Hunter Biden's plea deal fell apart

in the summer of 2023. And then obviously in June, he was convicted. And the thought, the fear of losing his son, not to jail, but maybe to another, to a relapse, to an overdose, to a suicide, who knows? It was a very real fear. And the threat of losing a third child really just diminished him tremendously, according to top aides. So all of which is to say that this was a deterioration. This was a progression. And look, knowing what I know now, obviously,

I feel tremendous humility about my coverage, that Laura Trump interview, for example, et cetera. She saw something that I did not see at the time, 100%. And I own that. I did ask Joe Biden to be transparent about his health records in an interview in 2020. I did ask him about the fact that voters thought that he was not transparent at all. No, he promised you that he would be transparent about his health records. And then he wasn't. And when you sat with him again, including one month, including one month after the Jackie Walorski thing, you didn't ask him about it. You didn't follow up on the fact that he was falling up the stairs, that he was losing his train of thought regularly, that he was slurring, that he was incomprehensible,

that he was getting lost on the White House lawn. You sat right across from him and you asked none of that, notwithstanding the fact that he had promised you he would be fully transparent about his health issues. That's true. But I did ask him about his age and the fact that the American people had concluded that even though he said, whenever anybody brought up the subject of his age, watch me. And I said, yes, they're watching you and they are concerned that you did too old for this job. So, you know, you know, as well as I do, that there's a way of you can say, hey, there's this poll on your age, or you could say, you just forgot that Jackie Walorski was dead. You asked where she was

moments after watching a videotape tribute to her. You lowered the flags at the White House after she died. This happened 13 days before you sat with him. There is a way of pressing a man like that on the actual infirmities to bring it home to him and to the audience. And you didn't do it. That's correct. I didn't. And like I said, I feel humility about my coverage. I mean, it's not like I was asking him his favorite movie or his favorite color. We were talking about Putin. We were talking about other issues of national importance. But yeah, I mean, of course, I've said I look back at my coverage with humility and I wish I did cover the issues of age and acuity, but I wish I had covered them much more. And I wish

I mean, of course, in it's May 2025. Do I wish that in that 10, 15 minute interview I had with Biden in October 2022, that this had been the only subject because I had then what I know now. It wasn't just that though, Jake. It wasn't just that. I mean, you sat with him a couple of times in the course of his presidency and these issues were not pressed. Well, there was at least that time. And then there was the time at the beginning. And but separate apart from that, you covered the Biden's presidency. No, no, no. Let me let me just finish my point. I'm just saying I had one interview with him during his. I had one interview with him during the presidency. And it was 13 days after the Jackie Walorski thing. But you covered the Biden presidency

aggressively throughout the four years and and you didn't cover mental acuity hardly at all. I mean, time and time again, when issues came up, you seem to be running cover for the president. I don't think that's true. Well, I mean, we'll start with the Laura Trump issue that you referred. Here it is. This happened in 2020. Joe Biden, as we all know, has worked to overcome a stutter. How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that? First and foremost, I had no idea that Joe Biden ever suffered from a stutter. I think what we see on stage with Joe Biden, Jake, is very clearly a cognitive decline. That's what I'm referring to. It makes me uncomfortable.

You are no. This is so amazing. You're trying to tell me that what I'm referring to. It makes me uncomfortable. You are no. That's so amazing. You're trying to tell me that what I was suggesting was. I think that you were mocking his stutter. Yeah, I think you were mocking his stutter. And I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline. And it's very concerning to a lot of people that this could be the leader of the free world. That is all I'm saying. I genuinely feel sorry for Joe Biden.

I appreciate it. I'm sure it was from a place of concern. We all we all believe saying. I genuinely feel sorry for Joe Biden. I appreciate it. I'm sure it was from a place of concern. We all believe that. Laura Trump, thank you so much. Do you want to apologize to Laura Trump now? I've already apologized to her.

I called her months ago. And what did she say? I mean, I don't want to disclose the contents of a private conversation, but I thought the conversation went well. And she said said she has said this publicly, so I feel fine sharing it. She said that she would never mock anybody's stutter. But I mean, you know, after we did the research for this book and I realized how bad his acuity issues were, I like I mean, I I called Laura Trump and I said you were you were right. She was totally right. That's the thing, because when I watch that clip and I'm giving voice to what a lot of people watching the show are feeling, Jake, I feel angry because she was right. And not only did you not

allow her to make her comments, but you you seem to try to humiliate her. You, you had a hostility toward the position, but she was totally right. And then you lectured her on how she was in no position to diagnose cognitive decline, which you guys do at length, including on page four of your book, you describe at length, his cognitive decline, which is all she tried to do with you. But you had such a visceral reaction to her. And my feeling is that's because you didn't want to hear it. No, I mean, we can. I'm happy to talk about this. I didn't come here thinking that you weren't going to ask me about this. I'm happy to talk to you about it. The first time I saw the coverage of Laura Trump's comments, which were interpreted as her mocking Joe Biden's stutter, was in January 2020. I read it in conservative media. I read it in the

Daily Mail. And that's where I saw that her comments were being interpreted that way. After those comments were publicized, it got a lot of coverage, and Sully Sullenberger wrote an op-ed in the New York Times criticizing her about this. So that's the context for that, that I was following up on a story that had been out there months before. This is also in the context of October 2020, a very intense time. People on the Biden side are saying crazy things about Trump. People on the Trump side are saying crazy things about Biden, including Don Jr. suggesting that Joe Biden is a pedophile. So that is the larger context. But as I said, her comments have aged well. My comments have aged poorly. I own that. But I think what is significant is, in addition to me owning that, the reporting that Alex and I have done, which is beyond just, and when I say just, I don't mean to diminish it, but the comments of Joe Biden making gaffes, saying things stupid, tripping are all important and all deserved to be aired and all deserve scrutiny. But as you know, Megan, because even though you look 30 years younger than me, we're roughly the same age. Joe Biden has been saying stupid things for decades.

I get what you're saying, but this minimizes it but this minimizes it too, because it was more than saying stupid things, but I'm just, I'm telling you like over here in my ecosphere, we were covering all of these. It wasn't just falling down. It was getting lost. It was some of the stuff you report in your book. We knew, and we were reporting on like the multi jump cuts in the videos of him, or it was obvious he couldn't get through a one minute take. So they had to use those. It was clear to us that he was using teleprompter. And there was some reporting on that at the time, all of which the White House was denying. Now, with the current White House, I have some connections. With the Joe Biden White House, I had none. But you did. You did. And so while you've been in Washington 30 years, Jake, you guys,

you and CNN have White House connections. But there was no effort, none to get to the bottom of this. And now you guys write this book like there was a cover up. It's like you there was a cover up and there was an attempted cover up. It could only ever work if you allowed it, if the press allowed it. Some of us tried not to, and some of us were complicit. First of all, the Biden White House did not like me. Okay. This is, I do not have great connections with the Biden White House. Well, clearly a lot of sources, you say you talked to over 200 sources for this book. You have some you could have called and worked. No, that's the point is that they were not being honest. That's the point that the-

Well, how did the Wall Street Journal get it in June of 2024? And Jake Tapper and CNN couldn't find sources for this story then before he dropped out? Annie Linsky and Siobhan Hughes did an amazing job in their reporting. And they should be heralded. And I heralded them. I had them on my show right after the debate to talk about their great reporting. But anyone's debate. But you did not put them on when they published that story, which was before the debate. Correct. I don't know what the booking situation was, but it wasn't because I didn't want them. I'm sure I said that let's book. I'm sure I said that day. Let's book that. Did they? Yeah, you put on a Democrat and you allowed the Democrat to report as a Rupert Murdoch

sponsored hit piece. It's just what that's going to do if we're going to if we're going to do this. Let's just stick to the facts here, OK? When there is a damaging report, that's what I've been doing all along. I'm talking about what you just said. I just missed the biggest story of the century when it comes to presidential politics. And one of us did. OK, so the there is a difference, OK, between the clips of Joe Biden falling on a stage at the Air Force Academy graduation, there is a difference between the clip of Joe Biden embarrassingly forgetting that a Republican member of Congress who he's talking about has died. Those are embarrassing. Those are important. But there is a difference between that and the investigative journalism that Alex and I were able to do and only able to do after the election. And I know you know this because you've been talking about the scoops in the book and you. But there is no way we can have that conversation with an audience that is as skeptical of your ability to tell the story as mine is without addressing your role in this,

right? Like Alex is a different story, but you know, you've watched the coverage since it came out that you wrote this book. There are this a legion of articles about how comparing you in some instances to like O.J. instead of if I did it, this is if I hid it, that like you are not the right messenger to bring the story about the cover up because you helped. You allowed it. And you likely did that out of a desire to help Joe Biden and hurt Donald Trump. You didn't want to do anything that might improve Trump's chances. I do not think that that is accurate. I do not think that that is true at all. The idea that Siobhan and Annie do their piece and we have on the co-chair of the Biden campaign

is not me trying to cover for the Biden campaign. That is me putting the questions of the reporting that were made to him and saying things like, so you really haven't seen any moment or you would acknowledge that you wouldn't you acknowledge that he's lost a step? He's 81, et cetera, et cetera. Like I said before, do if I had known then what I know now, would I have been more aggressive? Yes, of course. How did I know? And you didn't know. I'm just curious, because when I saw that Wall Street Journal report in June of 24, I scoffed at it. Like, okay, it's an attempt, but it's lame. Everybody in the right-wing ecosystem and the independent media ecosystem knew it was a lame

attempt that only scratched the surface. We had all been discussing his serious cognitive problems for years by that point. Jake, in June of 2022, this show did a full two-hour program on his cognitive decline. I heard it. I know we want to pretend I'm mentioning the Wall Street Journal as a courtesy, but those of us on this side of the aisle had been reporting in depth on his multiple problems and the obvious lies we were being told for years, for years. You really want the audience to believe you were fooled? What do you mean I was fooled? I'm not saying I was fooled. I'm saying we all saw these moments before the camera and they were obviously concerning and he was obviously aging and that was significant.

So what did you do to get to the bottom of it? I'm trying to answer the question. So the people at the White House, when I would call, when others would call, when Alex would call, would lie. He's fine. He's fine. You'd call Democrats and say, what are you seeing behind the scenes here because this is concerning? He's fine. He's fine.

This is just a moment. He's 79. He's 80. He has moments like that. But he's fine. His decision- this is concerning. He's fine. He's fine. This is just a moment. He's 79. He's 80. He has moments like that, but he's fine. His decision-making is fine. They're still saying that. They're still saying that. And let me defend Annie and Siobhan there for a second, because you just said that their Wall Street Journal story just scratched the surface. They got what they could get in June, 2024. And I went back and Alex and I went back to report some of the same things that they reported on. For example, there was a meeting in the White House about Ukraine funding in January 2024. And we were able to get people to say things as a Democratic member of Congress that, look, I don't know who Annie and Siobhan sources are, but they were not able to get them to do that. I assume that, you know, they had dozens of sources for that article,

but not one of the Democrats that they talked to would even talk on background. It is a complicated thing to try to get to. But your commentary on your show. Yes, I'm going to bring you in. But your commentary on your show, Jake, consistently ran in one direction. Occasionally you would ask tough questions. I mean, here you are on September 2023 saying that Biden was sharp mentally. September of 2023. No, hold on. You said he's sharp mentally. I think the question is physically, right? He's sharp mentally. And then you pointed out that his opponent, Donald Trump, was only a couple of years younger than he was. There are many examples where you're doing that kind of coverage. OK, so let's let's be honest and full about what you're talking about.

Frank, there's no problem with honesty on this show. OK, yeah, let's watch it. Let's watch it. Yeah, Frank Ford came on with a biography about Joe Biden. Frank Ford came on to talk about his biography with Joe Biden, and I'm trying to summarize what his conclusions were. So he is saying that Biden was— Where is the part where you say he's not sharp mentally, Frank? We've seen the following 10 examples in the past year, never mind three years. I wasn't, I've already said, I wish I had covered this more aggressively.

Frank Foer had come to the show to talk about his book. And that was the end of that. Now, I suppose in retrospect, I say again, I wish I had been more aggressive. I do. But our reporting suggests, and like I said, we've talked to more than 200 people, Democratic insiders, that the real deterioration of President Biden, and yes, there was a digression, a regression, whatever you want to call it, deterioration since 2015. But it really started to intensify in the summer of 2023 when Hunter Biden's plea deal fell apart and Joe Biden was terrified about what that effect would have on his son. I accept that. I accept that it got worse in 2023. And people close to him say that was a real demarcation.

And in October 2023, there is the last cabinet meeting for almost a year. And cabinet secretaries tell us that that began, that fall 2023 began what they call a weird period where they were kept at bay, where they were kept away from President Biden. And now we're getting into substance, which I do want to talk about. I'm about to switch to that. But let me just ask you, because when we got to leading up to the debate, which you anchored, that June 27th debate, 2024, there was a ton of news leading into that debate in that month. And we look back at your coverage and found that you ignored it. Not only did you ignore the Jackie Walorski moment when you had him 13 days later, but you ignored the freeze up that he had at the Juneteenth

celebration. You ignored what happened at the G7 when he wandered off and Georgia Maloney, prime minister of Italy, had to go find him. You ignored the freeze up at the George Clooney L.A. fundraiser. You didn't cover it. You only covered it after the debate, after George Clooney wrote his op ed. Jake, nobody made you do that. There was your network at every turn was telling us those were, quote, cheap fakes. And you were not combating that narrative. You were, CNN was actively misleading us on what our very eyes were showing us. That's the truth. That's the record. I will acknowledge that after I was named moderator, co-moderator of the debate, I tried to make sure that my coverage was

fairly vanilla, both about Trump and about Biden, because I just wanted to get to the debate. And, you know, the Biden people and the Trump people, I'm kind of frankly surprised that either one of them agreed to have me as a moderator because both sides disliked me so much. But yeah, I remember that moment. And I remember that moment, the glitch at the immigration event, not getting much attention outside of conservative media at all. And Alex and I are here to say that conservative media was right and conservative media was correct and that there should be a lot of soul searching, not just among me, but among the legacy media to begin with. All of us for how this was covered or not covered sufficiently. One hundred percent.

So. I mean, I'm not here to defend, uh, coverage that I've already acknowledged. I wish I could do differently. Mm-hmm. Let me bring Alex in. Thank you for your patience, Alex. And apologies for the, the back. I think he's fine.

I think he's fine. You may not be aware of this based on what just happened, but Jake and I are actually friends. And, uh, this is all said in like the context of, I know what my audience wants to hear asked. And Jake has told me before he wanted the opportunity to answer these questions. So that's what we're doing. Megan, we didn't come on the show thinking that this was going to be a softball interview.

I understand. Like, listen, listen. As a – first of all, nobody flagellates Jake Tapper more than Jake Tapper. Okay. Like I, I get it. I understand I am fallible. I make mistakes. It's not just the Biden coverage. I mean, I go back and I look at like, I wish I had been covering terrorism or before nine 11. I wish that I had covered the WMD with more skepticism and there's, I, you know, a million things. This is definitely among them. Um conservative media absolutely has every right to say we were hip to this and the legacy media was not. Now, I do not accept that I was part of a cover up.

I do not accept that I was just providing cover for Joe Biden. I think a lot of these clips are not fair. The one that is fair is the Laura Trump clip, and I own it, and I regret it, and I've told her that privately, and that's completely fair. But what we uncovered after the election, what people were willing to tell us after the election was so shocking. And yeah, the Jackie Walorski thing is awful. But I would posit that President Biden not being able to come up with the name of his national security advisor in December 2022 is important information. And I would also posit- I'm not arguing that the book has no

place or importance. Let me ask Alex something. So you may be aware, the hard time I've given you on this show is not because of your coverage of the Biden mental decline. I've given you a hard time over the past couple of weeks because you you were honored by the White House Correspondents Dinner for covering this story, which honestly is like getting the award for being the thinnest kid at fat camp. I mean, there was literally no competition at the White House Correspondents Association dinner that they would even consider. They're not going to give awards to anybody in the right-wing ecosphere who covered this from the beginning, with all due respect to you, Alex. But when you got up there, you actually got up there and said, we, myself included, missed a lot of this story. And we bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows. But we, the media, did not miss this story, Alex. We did not miss this story.

We were all over this story. We were night and day covering this story. The we. We knew you hated the we after he said it. We talked about this. It was insane. It was an insane comment to make. Who he meant the way in the room. He was talking about the people. It's not your turn to talk anymore. It's Alex's turn. Thank you. Thank you.

I can defend myself. No, we were the people in the room. I mean, like I was getting it was a white. It's the White House Correspondents Dinner. I was talking to the people in the room that covered Joe Biden. All right. So here's my follow up. Got it.

Here's the follow up. We we if that's who we is, did not miss the story. We in that room intentionally chose not to cover the story or dig into the story, which is a massive story that we have missed in original sin. I'm glad you asked me this question because i heard you ripped me to shreds the night out the the monday after the dinner and at first i was i meant to say it was congratulations and yeah um and um at first i was defensive but then i was you know i thought about it also you know from your all perspective especially the missed part and like your readers, your readers that were

saying, hey, there's a problem here, or not your readers for your listeners, saying there's a problem here. And I'm not seeing it reflected in the media. And, and after the debate happens, everyone to be like, oh, my God, there's a problem. I'd be pissed too, because you would feel like you weren't listened to. And that, and I'm sure that a lot of people felt that it was because some reporters let their own personal politics get in the way. And let's be honest, like a lot of newsrooms in DC and New York are more liberal than not. And they, I mean, I'll just say for myself, I think some of them let their own personal politics get in the way.

But in terms of the missed part, the reason I said missed is because I think there were a lot of really great reporters on this beat. And I know you may disagree. I know your listeners may disagree. But I was in the White House, you know, every day. And I think a lot of them really do try and do some really great work every single day that sometimes you also use on this show from the New York Times and others. And I felt that basically saying that calling everyone in the room not a good faith reporter, I didn't think was fair. And so I was I said miss to sort of give grace for both. Well, that's sweet. I'm less graceful than you are and less forgiving, but that's fine. Takes all kinds. Let's go. Let's do some substance, OK, of the book, because we still have some time and I want to get into it. You guys write in Original Sin out today. The Biden cover up may not be unique, but it is arguably the most consequential.

So what do you mean by that? How so, Alex? Well, we've seen this before. Wilson, you know, and Edith Wilson, his wife after a stroke. FDR was incredibly sick during the 1944 campaign. You know, we obviously know a little bit more now about JFK and Ronald Reagan. I'd say two reasons. One is, you know, the FDR one wasn't as consequential because he won. So you mean amongst health cover ups. That's what you mean.

Yes, that's what I meant. I think that's what we meant in the book. Yeah. Sorry. All right. Let's keep going. You write that you spoke with at least four cabinet secretaries of Joe Biden's and that they said he could not be relied upon to, quote,

perform at 2 a.m. during an emergency. So and here's just a little bit more. By the end of 2024. Quoting here from your reporting, access dropped off considerably in 2024. And one of the cabinet secretaries, number one, you referred to said, I did not interact with him as much. I didn't get an explanation. Instead, that cabinet secretary would brief other senior white house aides who then

brief the president. Yes, the president is making the decisions, but if the inner circle is shaping them in such a way, is it really a decision? Are they leading him to something? Said this one, a different cabinet secretary, number three, October 2023, the cabinet was kept at bay,

with the exceptions of Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken, quote, for months, we did not have access to him. There was clearly a deliberate strategy by the White House to have him meet with as few people as possible or as necessary. At one rare meeting during that time, cabinet secretary three was, quote, shocked by how the president was acting. He seemed disoriented and out of it, his mouth agape. All I can think when I see that word agape, Jake, is that debate that you hosted that I just, that that's what it was the whole time agape to the point where I, when I was reading, I listened to my news oftentimes on like these apps that will read you the article. And the newsreaders, the AI newsreaders, pronounced that word agape.

And all I heard for like, I must have heard 200 times agape the day after that debate. So it was a pattern. The cabinet secretaries were saying it. You saw it. We all saw it. And yet, what did they tell you behind the scenes about what, if anything, they did about it? Well, nothing. I mean, that's the thing. There is very little in terms of actual action

that happened. And one of the reasons for that, I think, is because by the end of 2023 and then throughout 2024, so many people had been sequestered off from President Biden that there weren't people that had any reliable information about his current condition. It's actually one of the interesting parts of the post-debate coverage, there are people in the White House that the communications office of the Biden White House are trying to get them to go out and defend the president and say, you know, I just met with him. He's fine, blah, blah, blah. And they had not seen him in weeks or even months. They could not attest to his fitness. When Ron Klain, the former Biden White House chief of staff, is calling around and trying to rally Democrats after the debate to speak about Biden's acuity, many of them tell Klain, I haven't seen him in a year or I haven't seen him in a year and a half. Now Klain interprets that as his successor, Jeff Zients, is managing the portfolio poorly and

should be doing more to have like, you know, make nice with Congress stuff. But Alex and I interpret that as they are hiding Biden from as many people as they can. So there aren't as many people who have seen him. I actually, Nancy Pelosi, as we write about in the book, has a private and secret meeting with Biden after the debate where she's urging him to look at the polling information. And I don't know when the last time she had had a one-on-one with him was, because she suggests that after she stepped down as democratic leader after the midterms of 2022 she barely saw him and this is a theme throughout uh 2023 especially the last half of 2023 and 2024 how many people didn't have access to him how many people didn't see him and that and

this this was by design you write in the book that, Alex, I'll bring you in, because there was a so-called what you write about as a politburo surrounding him. It was four people plus Biden to make five. Can you tell us who those people were? And is the theory then that those are the four people who did know and worked as this as sort of cabal to keep everybody else at arm's length so that they wouldn't also have full knowledge of his deterioration. That to me. Yeah. OK. So the people that we're naming would be Mike Donilon, Steve Reschetti. Mike Donilon is top political advisor. Steve Reschetti's top legislative advisor.

Ron Klain, when he was chief of staff. Bruce Reed, his basically longtime policy advisor. You can, those are sort of the four. They were known as Politburo, Gray Hairs, Poo-Bahs. And they were with him the most of anybody. Now, if you were to ask them, and I still think even if you put them on truth serum today, they would say he was fine. You know, I think, I don't know if they're lying, or lying to themselves, or it doesn't matter. Then there's this other sort of group that aren't the Polit Bureau, but are just as powerful. And they were the ones that kept the schedule, affected personnel

and really built the bubble. And that would be any Tomasini, who was deputy chief of staff and previously Oval Office operations. And then Anthony Bernal, who was the top aide slash enforcer for First Lady Jill Biden and had incredible influence to the point that even people in the Biden White House would refer to her as one of the most powerful first ladies in history. You write about this guy Bernal a lot, and you suggest, Jake, it was very tough to find anybody with a nice word to say about this guy who is Jill Biden's top person. Yeah, and he acknowledged that he had a tough reputation. He was the chief of staff for Jill Biden and perhaps the most powerful first lady chief of staff in the history of this country. He is somebody that enforced what Jill Biden wanted.

And at the end of the day, one of the things that was interesting when we wrote this book and researched this book was trying to figure out why was there no discussion of whether or not he should run for reelection? Why was it just a foregone conclusion that he was going to run for reelection, especially after he had made this kind of vague promise that he would be a one-term president? And it came down to two people, one of whom spoke for Biden, that's Mike Donilon, and the other one spoke for First Lady Jill Biden, and that's Anthony Bernal. And basically, they communicated to the rest of the staff. Bernal would say, you run for two terms, you serve for two terms, you don't do one. And Mike Donilon would say, you know, Biden's made the decision, he's running, that's it. There's no discussion. And when people would try to raise it, although nobody directly with Joe Biden, but when people would try to raise, you know, Anita Dunn said

something like, are we sure this is a good idea? A different pollster was like, shouldn't we figure out if like this is even a good idea of people running the train. And I think that it's not a star chamber so much because they weren't like, it wasn't like five of them in a room making these decisions, but definitely Rashadi and Donilon, definitely Bernal, and then different individuals hopping in and out, whether Jenna Malley Dillon, who was a deputy chief of staff and then ran the campaign, whether Anita Dunn, whether Ron Klain or Jeff Zients, the chiefs of staff, all played different roles. Well, how about can you follow up, Jake, on what you said earlier? Because just this week, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, was out saying, geez, what I saw at that debate shocked me. But you have reporting in this book that Jake Sullivan was well aware that Joe Biden was having some serious memory problems going back years.

In December 2022, the day that her name is escaping me, which is ironic. Brittany Griner. Brittany Griner, the name, I'm sorry, I'm not a big WNBA fan. The time that Brittany Griner gets out of Russian control, Russian, you know, she was a prisoner in Russia. Biden is outside the Oval Office with, and Jake Sullivan, his national security advisor, and Kate Benningfield, his communications director, are there, and he can't come up with their names. This is December 2022. He calls Jake Steve, Steve, and then he calls Kate Benningfield press, and then he beckons them to come with him. So I don't know. I saw in that same interview that Jake said he did. Jake Sullivan said he didn't remember that. I can't attest to what people remember or what they don't.

I just know that that happened. That happened. And you also report, Alex, that there was interference run by, I think, this same Politburo, this cabal, against the White House residence staffers so that they would not witness what the inner circle was witnessing with his deterioration. Can you fill that out a bit? Yeah, the residence staff were really stunned with how, especially the first lady's office, took over really through Bernal and Annie Tomasini. Both of them, also unusual, had resident staff passes, which is not normal for aides in the White House to be able to go like to and from. They would, you know, just had certain powers to the point that a lot of the resident staff, you know, they felt they were being kept at bay, that they were not trusted, and that they often were there just twiddling their thumbs. They would have to go.

They often went home early. They didn't have a lot to do. And there was a feeling among some in the residence staff that this was about hiding his deterioration. one resident staff official that said he would just sometimes look at you. And I'm paraphrasing. He would just sometimes look at you like he doesn't even know you, even though I was seeing him every day. They would keep somebody out of the elevator. Is the elevator in the White House normally manned?

Because you seem to be reporting that they ejected that person from that post. Yes, they basically said your services will no longer be necessary. And again, it was part of this larger pattern of where we are taking over the residents now. Your services are needed sometimes, but not as much as they almost always are. But how about Jill Biden, Alex? I mean, she was first and foremost a protector and she and loyalty enforcer. And she would had tremendous control over over the schedule, over keeping that circle very, very close. And I think, you know, even though she would never admit that, you know, that he has any problems, I think by her very actions, you saw it on The View, but privately, too, you know, jumping in with answers, trying to help him along, guiding him, introducing so he remembers who they are, you know, that by her actions shows that she knows that he needs help, that he needs someone to pick up the slack. All right, we'll pick it up there. We have to get into the presidential debate and what Jake's reaction was when he had that onstage meltdown. And what is the reaction from these guys to the announcement about Joe Biden's cancer

diagnosis on the eve of their pub date? Stand by. We'll be right back. Tax day may have passed, but for millions of Americans, the real trouble is just beginning. If you miss the April 15th deadline or still owe back taxes, the IRS is ramping up enforcement. Oh, joy. Every day you wait might make things worse. With over 5,000 new tax liens filed daily and tools like property seizures, bank levies, and wage garnishments, the IRS is applying pressure at levels we haven't seen in years. The good news, there's still time for Tax Network USA to help. Self-employed or a business owner, even if your books are a mess, they've got it covered. Tax Network USA specializes in cleaning up financial chaos and getting you back on track fast. Even after the deadline, it's not too late to regain control. Your consultation is completely

free and acting now could stop penalties, threatening letters and surprise levies before they escalate. Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com slash Megan. You may have missed the April 15th deadline, but you haven't run out of options. Let Tax Network USA help you before the IRS makes the next move. All right, Jake. So I have been in the front row of the presidential debate in big moments. Oh, I remember. I remember. And one of the interesting things is always like, what's the dynamic between the anchors on the set when you know big news is being made. So walk us through that moment when he completely fell apart with the, I killed Medicare, and everybody was left with their own agape

moment. Presumably your viewers and listeners know the agape reference by now. So that front row seat was really disturbing. And again, as you say, we all watched President Biden age. We all watched his gaffes. We all watched these moments that were uncomfortable and obviously representative of a decline going on. But there was something about that debate that was utterly shocking. And maybe you and your listeners were not shocked. Maybe you thought that this was going to happen

and this was all... I think it was one of those shocked but not surprised moments for us. So he comes out and, you know, he's obviously shuffling, as had been going on with him for years because of his degenerative spine. And although, by the way, that was another thing

that the White House wasn't being honest about. They were saying it had to do with his, like, breaking his ankle or something in December 2020 and not wearing the boot or something. And his refusal to wear the, like, the foot cast or support. Not true. Yeah, it was another lie. Yeah, not true.

So he comes out and he has a cold also, and he sounds, so even his voice, obviously, you go back and listen to him in 2020, his voice is much deeper and stronger. And then, you know, he comes out, it's thinner, it's readier. He obviously is coughing a lot. But there was something about that moment.

My first text to my producing team read phlegm. And I saw that same word in your book referencing what you were thinking. It was phlegmy. He was definitely very phlegmy. It was phlegmy. It was a few minutes in. I mean, his first answer was not good. But that wasn't ultimately particularly surprising.

I think it was the second answer, the second long answer in that economics block that we did where he just completely lost his train of thought in such a way that he was like grasping for words. And look, he has those crutches where he starts wandering off and then he says anyway because he's lost his train of thought. That's something that we've seen. But this was something else. This was something more shocking. And he said, then he says, we finally beat Medicare. And I presumably he was trying to say we finally beat COVID. But it was really shocking. Also interesting at the time was Trump obviously was very Trumpy during the debate. He did his thing. If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't. For Trump, given what was going on to his left, he was fairly restrained. He wasn't really commenting on the self-immolation that was going on. I think he only made one comment that night about Biden's incoherence.

He said something like, I'm not really sure what he just said and I'm not sure that he does either or something like that. I'm paraphrasing, but it was shocking. Get to the text that you sent to your control room and the correspondence between you and Dana. So we have iPads

because you can't communicate, obviously, talking to your control room during a debate. We have iPads where you can write on them. And I recommend it if you don't have one, by the way. It's fantastic. And I wrote, because I had no idea who was back there, so I tried to keep it clean. I wrote, holy smokes. Now, what I was thinking was, holy fuck.

I mean, it was just shocking. But I kept it clean. Dana writes to me on a piece of paper, he just lost the election. And it was just, I mean, it is, I don't think this is hyperbole at all, the worst debate in the history of presidential debates going back to 1960. I just can't think of anything even remotely close to it. And then you saw him immediately after you write in the book and he seemed like unaware that something extremely problematic had just occurred.

Well, it was just, first of all, Jill helps him down from the stage. It's like a one, it's a one step stage. Maybe it was a little distracting because there were weird lights or whatever, but that looked weird too. But they come over to the table. Trump is long gone. He's probably in the air at that point. And they come over, and they really didn't seem to have any idea that this had been as bad as it was very awkward. He said something about, sorry about my cold. And he tried to say something about how much Trump lies. And then he said something like, I guess we'll go see what the just witness this 90-minute event? During it also,

I'll just say, so I'm 56. So I'm now at the age where like, I love sleep. Like sleep is something that when you're a kid, you hate it so much. But when you're an adult, you're like, I can't get enough of it. And I even thought as this debate started, why are we starting at nine? This is so late. And then when Biden started to fump around, I thought, man, starting this at nine was really a bad idea. Why didn't they ask for like five? They never should have agreed. Following up on a point from earlier, Alex, because we talked about the cabinet secretaries unnamed and we talked about the Politburo protecting him and you gave us the names. There is a suggestion in the book, though it's never written explicitly,

that President Biden wasn't always making the calls as president. Is that what you're reporting, that he was not in full command of the decision making for those four years? Well, some members of the cabinet told us that they felt that one of them put it to us this way is because what happened is they closed ranks. They had the cabinet members come in and brief senior staff and then they and then the senior staff would brief the president. And one member of the cabinet put it to us this way. Yes, the president is officially making the decision, you know, putting the sign, dotted line. But if the decision is framed in a certain way, is it really a decision? And are really they the ones making the decision?

And there was a feeling that they were, you know, putting their hand on the scale one way or another. And, you know, some people also felt that this began, you know, as early as 2021, when, you know, the Biden administration, you know, went pretty far to the left of where Joe Biden had been for a lot of his career. And many people attributed to that, to Ron Klain, who is more progressive being chief of staff, and they felt some people, including in the cabinet, felt that if Biden had been 20 years younger, it may have been different. One cabinet member said, you know, he's an old man. He's got four to six hour good hours a day. And if that's the case, sometimes things are missed. You know,

he's not in the weeds as much. Yeah. And the decisions have to be made by other people. Wait, wait, let me, let me keep going. Cause I only have you for seven more minutes. I know you've got to, you've got a date with somebody else. Um, follow up to you on this, Alex. So right before you guys launched your book, as you know, on Sunday night, they came out with an announcement that he's suffering from prostate cancer. That's metastasized to his bones. We've had multiple doctors come out and say that has to be at least a five to seven year run. Some have acknowledged there's a very, very small percentage who could potentially have like that had prostate cancer that went into the bones, but extremely rare. Anyway, what do you make of the timing of that

announcement? And do you think it's any accident that it came in between you releasing the her audio tapes and on Axios on Saturday and you guys releasing your book today? I can tell you, I wrote in a story with Mark Caputo this morning that some people that even worked in the Biden White House are suspicious of the timing and are, they are skeptical of it. I don't want to get into skepticism. I try to just report and not speculate. But I can tell you that, you know, some people that worked for him were, felt very strange about the sudden timing of this. And, you know, I'm going to continue to report it out. It's obviously very sad. And I also think, you know, we framed this book as a as a tragedy of a man undone. And I think this just further shows that tragic element and also, you know, what how risky it was for him to run for reelection at such an old age.

Is that an old shit moment? Is it all an old shit moment where you're like, oh my God, the whole book is about his health and a coverup. And we miss the fact that he he's got cancer. He's got terminal cancer. I mean, like, I don't know. Is that do you feel like what's your odd? What are your what do you think the odds are? Because your whole book is about how he covers up about his, his health problems. So, I mean, I mean, you're in an interesting position now as reporters who are continuing to report on politics and whether you give credence to this story that he just found out and he didn't know while he was the sitting president. How are you going to, how do you handle that? I certainly understand the skepticism. And I think if there's anything this book instructs us

is we should be very skeptical and we should also demand more from our leaders when it comes to health records. There was a moment in the book where Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat of Michigan, is alone with First Lady Jill Biden. This is after the debate before, but before Biden drops out. And Senator Stabenow says something

like, we don't know what's wrong with Joe Biden. We don't know if there's a condition, but you do. And First Lady Biden doesn't answer the question. And then later fumes about the temerity of Senator Stabenow saying that. And I think what we've learned in the last couple of days about President Biden's health and obviously I know all of us wish him the best in his fight against prostate cancer. What I think it gets at is the difficulty of hard reporting and investigative journalism when it comes to health issues. Observations and punditry are important and necessary, but the deep investigation of what

is going on behind the scenes and what is going on in terms of somebody's health, that is very tough. And as we all know, we don't have subpoena power. We can't break into doctor's offices. I have no reporting on when he found out about this. All we have, all the world has is their word. And if you believe their word, then you believe their word.

And if you don't, you're left with your skepticism. Yeah, there's certainly reason to doubt their word. And if you believe their word, then you believe their word. And if you don't, you're left with your skepticism. Yeah, there's certainly reason to doubt their word. Question for you, Jagen, on the reported front is, what do you do with these cabinet secretaries who didn't tell the truth about Biden's mental acuity, but now have told the truth to you, and then they want to come on your show, maybe some of them will run for president. I mean, now that you know, right, that they're not honest brokers, like you actually know, what do you do about that? It's interesting. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. It has been interesting watching some of the Democrats who talk to us for the book and what they say publicly versus what they say privately. That has been interesting.

Yeah, I saw one Congresswoman who we quote in the book, Susan Wild, former Congresswoman from Pennsylvania, was out there tweeting something like, fuck Andrew Yang. We need to move forward and focus on Trump and not Biden. She's quoted in the book during a meeting, a Zoom meeting of the ranking Democrats, saying something like Biden can't come to my district and he makes us all out to be liars. And it's just when it was pointed out to her that what she said, according to the book, was very different than what she was saying now. She, at least to her credit, fessed up to it.

She didn't deny it. But it is weird watching the dance between people who know how bad it was and are just keeping quiet or trying to change the subject and those who know how bad it was and are lying to the public. It's interesting. Well, I mean, one of them is Hakeem Jeffries, who you point out in the book. He knew he was there when Biden was having one of his many problems. And now he's out there like, we're moving forward. We're moving forward. Chuck Schumer, too, like we're moving forward. They knew Chuck Schumer is all over your book with big meetings where he went to Joe Biden, which was previously reported,

but a lot of details about him saying, you're not being told the truth. You've got to get out. You're going to lose. You're going to bring us all down. And now he's like, forward, moving forward. Anyway, okay, let me keep going because there's two other things I want to ask you about. Jake, we played a soundbite from Mark Halperin show where he interviewed a guy named Rufus Gifford, who is the campaign finance chair for Joe Biden's campaign. And he was at the now infamous Clooney fundraiser for Biden in June of 24. And he took issue with your reporting. We played the audience to sound, but I won't waste time on it now. But he says it didn't happen. What you report Clooney did not walk in there. Sorry, Biden did not walk in there

and go sort of through a bunch of people saying, nice to see you. Nice to say, thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. He said that that was impossible because he got there. He was announced by his handler and immediately the handlers handler said, you know, George Clooney, you know, Julia Roberts. He said, nice to meet and moved on. And he poured cold water on that story of your book. Care to respond? We're pretty confident about the sourcing and the event as described. And, uh, you know, we just went through as a country years and years of the Biden people lying and denying. And I'm not particularly interested in pretending any of that is credible. We are very sure of our story.

It wasn't just in our book. It was thoroughly fact checked in The New Yorker, who did an excerpt of it. And we stand by it. And I don't really care what Rufus says. And now do you care what the ladies of the view say? Because that's kind of in your, not your personally, but it's in the left wing ecosphere and they are having a very negative reaction. I'm sorry to tell you to original sin. They don't like your book guys, and they don't appreciate that it's being published now. And, um, Have they read it? Have they had you on? Have they invited you to

come on to discuss it? They have not. We have gone to them many number of times and said we would love to come on the show to discuss. They obviously were where President and First Lady Biden went for their pre-buttle of the book. And we thought it would only be fair to have us on. But The View, and for that matter, Fox News, seems to enjoy using our scoops, talking about everything we learned in the months of investigative journalism and what we're revealing in this book. But they're declining to have us on to discuss it, which is regrettable because I think this is an important thing for people to come to terms with when it comes to the view or to explore in terms of the depth of what Alex and I have been able to find

out in terms of Fox News. I will say that there is clearly a contingent of people on the left who want to bury their head in the sand on this issue and pretend it didn't happen and pretend that it's not part of the reason why Donald Trump and the Republicans control the White House and the House and the Senate and why Democratic poll numbers are in the toilet. I think that is part of why Democrats are where they are, this gaslighting. There was a comment by David Axelrod that we should set aside the discussion of your book and the allegations in it because of the diagnosis news. Jake, do you disagree with David Axelrod? Well, if I didn't, I don't think I'd be here. I mean, I think what happened to the

country— I'm pleased to hear you do. I think we need to be discussing this. I think obviously we have sympathy for President Biden, both in terms of the prostate cancer and in terms of whatever other health issue he is grappling with. And we talked to many neurologists who spent—you talk about how you were on a text chain with your producers the night of the debate. We talked to one of the top neurologists in the world who, you know, is on a text chain with a number of other top neurologists. And they spent much of 2024 trying to figure out what was wrong with Joe Biden, whether it's Lewy body dementia or Parkinson's or something Parkinsonian.

And they don't know. And they're not qualified to say from a distance. But it's Lewy body dementia or Parkinson's or something Parkinsonian, and they don't know, then they're not qualified to say from a distance. But it's a serious question. And the larger issue of transparency and groupthink, questions for the Democratic Party and the public and the news media, these are all really important conversations to have. I don't think that our story, I don't think that our book is mean. I think it is just accurate and clear-ed. And I think this is a conversation the country needs to have, not just about President Biden, but about all presidents. It's like, it's like I tell my kids, it is not mean to say something that is true, but not necessarily complimentary. I mean, it's not, if it's true and you are not saying it with the intention to hurt somebody, it's not, quote, mean.

They're not going to get away with that. Sorry, Alex, you wanted to weigh in. Go ahead. I actually just wanted to say one more thing about the media coverage and this question, which is, you know, Jake, when Jake came to me with this idea, you know, on every beat, there are some suck ups. There are some people that are lazy. But I never felt that Jake, even if he fell short on the age issue, I never felt he carried the water for the Biden people. And I hope your listeners who may be skeptical of Jake at least like give the book a chance. Yes, I don't think we've convinced them that Jake did not run cover for Joe Biden.

I'm going to be honest, but I do think we may have convinced them to buy the book, which is the purpose of your visit here. And that's fine. I mean, there's a, it's a big media landscape. They don't have to watch the lead. They can take it for what it's worth. I do want to ask you one question about Naomi Biden before I let you go guys. She weighed in. This is the president's former president's granddaughter. She called it a silly book. She says it's a political fairy smut. It is political fairy smut for the permanent professional chattering class. A bunch of unoriginal, uninspired lies written by irresponsible self-promoting journalists out to make a quick buck, relying on unnamed anonymous sources, pushing a self-serving false narrative. Alex, care to take that on?

I mean, I think the book very much shows the Biden family is very tight knit and I wasn't surprised to see it. That being said, I think we stand completely behind our reporting. All right. And Jake, I'll close with this. You've gotten so much blowback in the days that led up to today. Had to hire the crisis PR agent. How are you feeling so far? All right, whatever. But you've gotten a lot of blowback. So how are you feeling today? I just want to, yeah, telling the truth is always worth it. We hired Risa Heller because she's a political bro. And months ago, we did this. Well, you had a PR agent through your publisher.

Yeah, and they're great. But this is a very controversial political book, and we felt like it needed the eyes of a smart political team in addition to the great publicists at Penguin. I get it, but you're not denying that you've had massive blowback, are you? I mean, you've been under attack for days now. Oh, the left and the right are mad. Exactly.

The left is like, why are you covering this? You should be covering Trump. Your book is full of lies. And the right is doing what you illustrated earlier with your tough questions. I will say this. People were shocked on June 27, 2024, because there was, to a degree, a cover-up of how bad his decline had been. So even if, and not if, even though many folks, including you, were covering this, it still was shocking what people saw on June 27. And the only other point I'll say is I'm not disagreeing with the fact that conservatives were right on this and that people in the legacy media,

including myself, should have been paying closer attention and more attention. I'm granting all of that. But the reason why I think there is interest in this book is because people want to know more beyond what they saw in front of the camera. They want to know how this happened. And I think that is what we provide through this deeply sourced, unflinching account of what really went on behind the scenes. I got to steal one more minute because I just want to explain to the audience, Jake, how Jake Tapper and Megyn Kelly became friends because it's a very unlikely friendship in the eyes of a lot of people. But we've both been in media for a long time. We were at Fox and CNN together. We were friends even before you went to CNN.

I remember texting with you about the decision when you were leaving ABC. Where would you go? What did you want to do? We've bonded over news and it's insanity. We've bonded over the Philadelphia Eagles and your shared love with my husband, Doug, of that very complicated football team. And I just, I want people to understand like, notwithstanding that we have political differences and we have differences in the way we see news stories, like there's still room for mutual respect and kindness and friendship. And I think that's to our credit. I consider you a friend. I don't necessarily agree with everything you do or say, but that

doesn't really matter. And I think it's interesting what you've done and impressive what you've built since that, you know, you know what I think about what happened to you at NBC. It's flattering to you and not to them. But, yeah. And look, I mean, one of the things that you've said to me or said about me is that I might not always succeed, but I try to be fair. And I am trying to be fair. And I am not infallible and i have said i wish i had covered things differently there's a million things i wish had covered

differently this is obviously significant more significant i wrote a book about it with alex i mean like i think this is a big deal but this book isn't me trying to do anything other than what happened we need to know what happened. And if somebody had written this book, I would have bought it and I would have interviewed them, but they hadn't. And Alex and I got to work knowing that there would be a huge blowback, both from the right and from the left. And it was just important for us to tell the story of what happened. Well, listen, I appreciate it because I did learn a lot and I did find the debate absolutely shocking, though, as I say, not

entirely surprising, right? It's like the extent to which he had deteriorated was shocking. And by the way, before you go, thank you for all you do for our veterans as well. Guys, good luck with it. I'm sure it's going to be a big success. It is called Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. And it is available right now. All the best to you both. Thanks, Megan. Appreciate it. Thanks.