The Megyn Kelly Show - Truth About the Biden Cover-Up, and Revelations in "Original Sin," with Jake Tapper, Alex Thompson, and Batya Ungar-Sargon | Ep. 1076

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Megyn Kelly is joined by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, co-authors of "Original Sin," to discuss their new book, the revelations about Biden's cognitive decline and the cover-up by those around him, the way they each covered the story at the time, Tapper's viral interview with Lara Trump from 2020, whether the media was part of the cover-up, what Tapper was thinking behind-the-scenes at the June Biden debate meltdown, the criticism of the book and reaction to it from the left and right, and more. Then Batya Ungar-Sargon, The Free Press columnist, joins to discuss how top Dems and the entire establishment was involved in the outrageous Biden cover-up, why most of the corporate media was involved as well, and more. Tapper and Thompson- http://www.originalsinbook.com/Ungar-Sargon- https://www.amazon.com/Second-Class-Betrayed-Americas-Working/dp/1641773618 Select Quote: Get the right life insurance for YOU, for LESS at https://www.SelectQuote.com/MEGYNTax Network USA: Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit https://TNUSA.com/MEGYN to speak with a strategist for FREE todayGrand Canyon University: https://GCU.edu120Life: Go to https://120Life.com and use code MK to save 15%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

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, I'll 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 the...

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 Two, 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 Two. 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 to watch somebody on stage search for questions. It's so amazing to me that. And try and figure out an answer. A cognitive decline. You're trying to tell me that what I was suggesting was a stuttering. 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. 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 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 billion in coverage since 1985. And they do it fast, often in as little as 15 minutes. Other life insurance brokers might push generic, overpriced plans. But SelectQuote's licensed agents work for you, not for the insurance companies. Even if you have

a pre-existing condition like high blood pressure or diabetes, SelectQuote partners with carriers who can still offer coverage. And if you're healthy, you could get same-day coverage with no medical exam required. So don't wait for another what if. Consider taking a step to secure your peace of mind. Get the right life insurance for you, for less, at SelectQuote.com slash Megan. That's SelectQuote.com slash Megan. Select's selectquote.com slash Megan. Select quote. They shop, you save. Guys, welcome to the show. Thanks, Megan. Thanks for having us. Yeah, great to have you. All right. 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 coverup 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, Biden books were not selling well. And third, you know, there was a honestly like a difference

of what sort of book we were we wanted. And that was most manifest and 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 stuff, by the Obama comparisons, by the idea Trump could win again. And they wanted to call the book Soul Man or Shadow Boxer. And I said, I said no. And good hill to die on. I just just keep it was an expensive movie. It was an expensive hill to die on. So I returned them. I returned the advance. And then, you know, I obviously had some Biden reporting and I 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. 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 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 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. And 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 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, 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 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 at all, 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 are too old for this job. 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 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, 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. Well, 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 you covered the Biden 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. 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. You didn't seem interested. 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 so amazing. You're trying to tell me that what I was suggesting was a stuttering. 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.

OK, 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 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 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. Now, I mean, 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. No, I know. 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, too, because it was more than saying stupid things for decades. Okay. I get what you're saying, but, but that, 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, where 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- So that's- 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. OK, this is I do not have great connections with the Biden White House. Well, clearly, you have a lot of sources. You say you talked to over 200 sources for this book. So after the election, you could have called and worked. No, that's the point, is that they were not being honest.

That's the point that the source— 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 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. One of us didn't miss the biggest story of the century when it comes to presidential politics, and one of us did. OK. So 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've been talking about. I don't diminish the importance of the book. I don't. I have supported the importance of the book and we'll talk about the contents of the book at length. 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, there's a legion of articles about how comparing you in some instances to like OJ 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, wouldn't you acknowledge that he's lost a step? He's 81,

et cetera, et cetera. Like I said before, 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 on 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 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. But the people at the White House, I'm trying to answer the question, but 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 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 uh siobhan there for a second because you just said that their wall street journal story just scratched the service 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 I look, I don't know who Annie and Siobhan's 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. I get it. 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 questions. I mean, here you are on September 2023 saying that Biden'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. 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, nevermind 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 about President Biden. This was in September 2023. And I interviewed him about his book. And that was the end of that. Now, I suppose in retrospect, I say again, I 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 23.

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 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 LA 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. Your network at every turn was telling us those were, quote, cheap fakes.

And you were not combating that narrative. 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 coverage that I've already acknowledged. I wish I could do differently.

Let me bring Alex in. Thank you for your patience, Alex. And apologies for that. 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 this is all said in 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 9-11. I wish that I had covered the WMD with more skepticism. And there's, you know, a million things. This is definitely among them. And 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 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 are you talking about? He meant the we in the room. He was talking about the people in the room. Be quiet. It's not your turn to talk anymore. It's Alex's turn. Thank you.

Who is we? Thank you. I can defend myself. No, we were the people in the room. I mean, like, I was getting, it was 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, 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. Okay, I'm glad you asked me this question because I heard you rip me to shreds the Monday after the dinner. And at first I was— What I meant to say was congratulations and.

And at first I was defensive, but then I was—I thought about it also from your all perspective 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 um 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. 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's what it was the whole time, agape to the point where when I was reading, I listened to my news oftentimes on these apps that will read you the article. And the newsreaders, when I was reading, I listened to my news oftentimes on like these apps that will read you at the article and the newsreaders, the AI newsreaders pronounced that word agape. And all I heard for like, I must've 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 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 am actually Nancy Pelosi, as we write about in the book, has a 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 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. Mike Donilon is his top political advisor. Steve Reschetti is his top legislative advisor. Ron Klain, when he was chief of staff. Bruce Reed, his basically longtime policy advisor. Those are sort of the four. They were known as Paula Burrow, Gray Hairs,

Poo Boz, 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 Politburo, 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 Annie Tomasini, who's 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 gonna run run for re-election, 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? This is the politics of it all. This is not whether or not he should or should not have been president. This is about whether or not he could get reelected, which is a different level here. They would say the decision's been made. The decision's been made. And so there was a small group 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. She was a prisoner in Russia. Biden is outside the Oval

Office with 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 to and from. They would just had certain powers to the point that a lot of the resident staff, 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 resident staff that this was about hiding his deterioration. And we quote 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, you know, 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,

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All right, Jake. So I have been in the front row of the presidential debate in big moments. Oh, I remember. I remember. 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 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. And. And his refusal to wear 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 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 um it was really shocking also interesting at the 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's just, first of all, Jill helps him down from the stage. 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. And 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 commentators have to say or something like that. And he and Jill wander off. And it was just one of these, you know, sometimes you think like, did I just see that?

Was that, did I just see that? Was that, did, did I just witness this 90 minute event during it? Also, I'll just, I'll just say, um, 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 is that what you're reporting, that 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 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 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 keep going because I only have you for seven more minutes. I know you got a date with somebody else. 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 on Axios on Saturday and you guys releasing your book today? I can tell you, and 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 tragedy of a man undone. And I think this just further shows that tragic element and also, you know, how risky it was for him to run for reelection at such an old age. Is that a 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 cover up. 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, 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, 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 doctors' 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.

Question for you, Jagen, on the reportage 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 are 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. And 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, OK, let me keep going. There's two other things I want to ask you about. Jake, we had 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 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, 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 I wonder... 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 we, 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, then they're not qualified to say from a distance. But it's a serious question. And the larger issue of transparency and group think 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 eyed. 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 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 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. 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. You 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 even not if even though uh many folks

including you were covering this uh 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 its insanity. We've bonded over the Philadelphia Eagles and your shared love with my husband, Doug, 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 and impressive what you've built uh since uh that you know you know what i think about what happened to you at nbc it's flattering to you and not to them um um 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 i'd 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 um 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. See you soon.

Up next, Batya Ungar-Sargon is here. She's been watching, and she'll react to our exchange. Don't go away. Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American dream starts with purpose. By honoring your career calling, you can impact your family, friends, and your community. Change the world for good by putting others before yourself. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, GCU's online, on-campus, and hybrid learning environments are designed

to help you achieve your unique academic, personal, and professional goals. With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Let gcu.edu. Our friend Batya Angersargan is here now. She's a free press columnist and author of the book Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women. Batya, last week I interviewed your hero, Sean O'Brien of the Teamsters. I thought of you. He was just as awesome as you believe he is. And today, I don't think these were your heroes, but it was an interesting hour and a half. Your thoughts? Well, first of all, you were heroic. That interview was a masterclass in how to be both fair, but also vigorous and representing your

audience in the pursuit of truth. So Megan, huge kudos. I enjoyed every minute of it. It was just truly so inspiring. And as you always do, a masterclass in real journalism. A few things really stood out to me. The first being that he acknowledged that conservative media had gotten this right, that conservatives across the country, Republicans, realized this. In fact, a lot of Democrats realized this. My question that was left unanswered was, OK, so what are you going to do going forward to increase your humility a little bit vis-a-vis conservatives and Republicans who got this right. Why did they get it right? I think we know the answer to that.

Exactly. Right. You know, he's talking about bringing humility to that moment with Laura Trump. But that moment was, as you pointed out, Megan, fueled by contempt for how conservatives and Republicans see the world. And that question, really, he could not answer you, Megan, which is he admits that he should have done a better job at the time. Okay, why didn't you? And of course, Megan, the answer is very clear, because the interests of the legacy media and the interests of the Democratic Party in covering this up were one and the same. The mainstream media gaslit the American people because they didn't want Donald Trump to win. They have chosen a side.

And I think that this is such an important point going forward because in a way, Joe Biden is really being scapegoated here. The reason that Jake Tapper got the access now was because all of the people who did the covering up were certain that he, like the mainstream media, is still on the side of the Democratic Party. And so it is in their interest to act like all of the crimes were at Joe Biden's feet and his little coterie. And if we just put all of the crime there, we can move forward. And it's a way really, Megan, of hiding the fact that the Democrats have actually nothing to offer the American people

going forward in terms of a platform. So if they can only scapegoat Joe Biden enough, maybe nobody will notice. It's a bit of a, like a laundering of what really went down, right? It's like, had we known, we definitely would have done something, but this cabal around him was hiding it. But there's a little truth in that story because I believe there was this cabal around him was hiding it. But there's a little truth in that story, because I believe there was this cabal, this Politburo, Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, as he points out, and the others who were hiding the worst of the worst of it. I do believe that. If you read the book, you'll walk away believing that too. Doesn't mean we were in the dark, but they were actively working to cover up just how bad he had gotten and to run him again. I mean,

they, they, they wanted to keep it a secret so that we would put him back in the office. And I believe, I don't have the proof yet, but I believe he was also diagnosed with a terminal illness and they hid that from us too. Yeah. I don't think anybody could possibly believe at this point that it's an accident, that the horrifying and truly sad cancer diagnosis was discovered, you know, the day before this book was supposed to come out. That just beggars believe at this point. I mean, no one can truly believe that. They think we're fools. Yeah. And I think that the fact that they've gotten to this place where the lies have finally

caught up with them is very significant. And I don't want to minimize what President Biden himself did in defrauding the American people in this way, what Joe Biden did, what don't think a President Kamala Harris would have made or President Gavin Newsom or a different person would have made had he not run again and had there been an open primary. Those policies he enacted that were deeply unpopular, those are the Democratic Party's policies. And so in a way, I think this is a bit of a distraction from that. Of course, it's hugely criminal what happened here and worthy of discussing. But at the end of the day, the reason that there are people who are now willing to speak to someone like Jake Tapper is because they're hoping we won't realize the bigger problem here. leader in the House saying it's completely inappropriate, entirely inappropriate for Republicans to be discussing these, quote, conspiracy theories around Joe Biden and his

cancer diagnosis in connection now with these books. And, you know, given the news that he has cancer, this is totally inappropriate. These are conspiracy theories. That guy knew he knew. And the book points out here's just one example from chapter 11. Now that we're at liberty to discuss the contents of the book. Um, there was a meeting with president Biden on Ukraine and house and Senate Democrats and some GOP years, January 17th, 2024. And, uh, let's see, hold on. Uh, let's see. He stumbled over words. He started sentences, then stopped abruptly. He trailed off months later when the wall street journal reporters began hearing that the official readout

of what happened at the meeting did not reflect reality. The Biden white house circled the wagons and enlisted allies to push the narrative that in the meeting, Biden was quote, incredibly strong, forceful and decisive as leader Hakeem Jeffries insisted after reading Jeffrey's quote, a house Democrat who had been at the meeting responded, quote, that's not true. A second House Democrat who was also there, quote, it was a disaster. It was a shit show. One unnamed senior administration official, I can just never forgive this guy. Now this guy's running out there trying to tell us to shut up and stop talking about any of this, including the cancer diagnosis, or were conspiratorial ghouls?

Yeah, I mean, obviously, this is insanity, right? It's good to know what happened. It's good to know who lied and who is still lying and who is still carrying water for Joe Biden. But to me, Megan, the people who are now willing to come out against Joe Biden, kind of like George Clooney, who when this became undeniable to the American people, only then was he willing to admit what the rest of America had already seen with their own eyes. Those people who are now coming out against Joe Biden, now that he has no power, like to me, there's something about that that is also deeply disturbing, because, of course, the reason they're doing it now is it's a power grab. Right. They want power back. Jake Tapper wants us now to trust him again on his show because he's willing to talk about somebody who can no longer hurt him for telling the truth about him, right? Biden is down and out. He has cancer. He is no longer a threat to anybody in power in the Democratic Party. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be talking about what went down there. But what it does mean is the people speaking the loudest now about everything that happened. Ask yourselves why they're willing to do that now. And it's because

they're trying to get trust back from the American people by now telling the truth about someone who can no longer hurt them for doing so. But they will never reevaluate, for example, how they talk about Donald Trump. And that is very upsetting because, of course, the people who don't want to talk in this negative way constantly about Donald Trump are the people who knew the truth about Joe Biden and were willing to admit it. Who could see it and had no problem admitting it. They could see it too, but they did have a problem admitting it. I do want to tell you this one thing on the George Clooney delay from between the time he saw an infirm Biden at that fundraiser and then not publishing that op-ed in the New York Times until weeks later, nearly a month later, they write that George had compartmentalized his

encounter with the president at that LA fundraiser, chalking it up to the president's 81 spins around the sun and the long fucking trip from Italy. This is obviously straight from Clooney. That's my own speculation. Even if Biden had flown in on Air Force One. But then the debate had confirmed all the fears he had shoved aside, those that he had compartmentalized, Batya. And yet the compartment opened up and the compartments began speaking to one another. And then George Clooney to the rescue with his op-ed in July. It's amazing. I mean, Clooney really emerges from this as one of the chief villains, along with President Obama. He knew he knew and didn't tell until everybody else knew that moment where George where where George Clooney, we assume, or somebody told, you know, Tapper and Thompson that George Clooney had not recognized Joe Biden at the fundraiser. And then, of course, on Mark Halperin's show, as you pointed out, there was another version of that story told. You know, it's possible that both versions are true, Megan, because it's possible that what

happened is George Clooney just did not get the reception that he felt he was owed and interpreted that as Joe Biden not recognizing who he was, right? You know, the absolute arrogance here that he should be the one to decide the future of the Democratic Party, him attempting to get credit for basically stabbing Biden in the back after he could no longer hide what he had access to what he knew because he was so wealthy and such an elite. I mean, this to me really was the cherry on the cake here. And now, again, laundering his trying to launder his reputation for what purpose? To get power back. That's what this he knows. He's Clooney knows he's vulnerable. That's that's my belief is he definitely talked to Tapper. Tapper interviewed him about his show on Broadway. And so they definitely, we know that they've spoken and I don't know that

they've spoken about this, but it certainly seems like they have. And that's his, that clearly, I feel like we've now been given George's defense to not coming up. I compartmentalized, it was like hidden trauma. Maybe he did some like psychedel that brought out the trauma of what happened at that fundraiser. No, wait, it was the debate that ruined his electoral chances. There was no worse actor, whatever your feelings about Tapper, no worse actor in covering up the Biden dementia than Joe Scarborough. Number one, there were plenty of people at CNN, Oliver Darcy, Brian Stelter, Chris Eliza. Believe me, I've been neck deep in all of their sins in preparation for this

interview. But Scarborough blew them all out of the water with his, this is the best Joe Biden ever, ever. Roll the tape. Well, guess what? He went on Mark Halpern's show, Next Up, part of the MK Media Network. It drops later today. We have a sneak preview for you of Mark pressing him on this issue. This is fun. Watch. But looking back at that, do you say, well, it was misleading to say best Biden ever without caveating and say, except on the days when he's not the best Biden. Well, but I never I never saw those days.

Well, you did. You did because you saw him address a dead congresswoman and you saw him in South Carolina. A dead congresswoman, yeah. Yeah. Well, more than that. I mean, I can show you the RNC clip reels. There were plenty of days in public when he was not the best Biden ever. And, of course, shortly after.

He stumbled and bumbled around, Mark. I mean, yeah, he certainly did. Donald Trump did. Other politicians did. Based on what I saw with Biden, based on the time that I spent with Biden, based on the hundreds of hours that I talked to people who talked to Biden and people that worked with Biden and and were with him day in and day out. Good friends that I know that I that I trusted before Biden was president, that I trust now that Biden's not president. I mean, put in the proper context, I'm just not going to freak out, melt down on it on one or two clips here or there. That's a lie. Every word of that is a lie. And he's still lying, Batya. I think the thing that is most important to keep in mind is that none of this would have been possible if we had a functioning media that had respect

for the American people. It is their utter contempt for anyone who doesn't vote for their chosen people that allowed this to happen. Because as you pointed out, Megan, again and again, you had this story. You were showing the clips. Anybody listening to your program or any conservative media was exposed to this. So much so that even Democratic voters understood that he was too old. And it is their utter contempt for Republicans, for people who vote for Trump, for working class people, for the normies of this country who are looking at this, looking at the footage and saying, this is not okay, that allowed this to happen. And so what I want to know is, what are you in the media going to do to the class divide and the fact that journalists

are part of the elites, that the vast majority of American journalists are in the top 10%. These are people who have degrees from elite institutions, which actually make them much worse at their job because they think they are so much smarter and so much better and so much more educated than average people. The people telling the great American story absolutely hate the American people. That is the only way you end up in a situation like this, Megan. Well, this gets to really the heart of the issue, because I don't forgive any one of those Biden aides for covering this story up and lying and misleading. But I'm also not shocked. I mean, politicians lie,

the circles around them lie. It's happened since the dawn of time. But it is the press's job to try to expose those lies. It is our reason for being to press those who are in power to get to the truth. And the more blowback you get, the more you generally know you're right over the target. And the book actually has a story of some unnamed female reporter who got her cage rattled pretty significantly by the White House as she was about to come out with an article on the mental acuity. Alex Thompson got brushed back from the White House, too. There's a story about the James Rosen moment at that presser where Biden showed up at the White House briefing room and James asked him directly. People don't believe you can do this job with respect.

What's what are they what are they getting wrong? And how Jill Biden freaked out after it and yelled at the staff, why didn't somebody stop him? Why didn't somebody interrupt? They were gonna try to interrupt the report in the middle of his question, ridiculous. So whatever, that's what they do. But the press's job is to test these claims and to make sure we're not being spun and that we're not part of the lying conspiracy. Watergate was a group of officials lying to us, doing bad things, and then lying to us about what they did. And the reason we know that it happened is because you had a press corps that wanted to investigate Republicans and did. But we're just missing part two right now, at least in the so-called legacy press. And that's why people are having such a difficult time with right now, at least in the so-called legacy press.

And that's why people are having such a difficult time with his book, at least insofar as Jake is one of the authors, because they're like, you can't investigate yourself. And the book, without the chapter that has his not like the press doesn't know how to do it when there is a Republican in office, suddenly you remember how to do good journalism. Suddenly you remember that you should not give the benefit of the doubt to people with power, that it is your job to represent the American people. Of course, they go too far, right? I mean, their attacks on the Trump administration are completely in excess of what I think average Americans would think are appropriate. But it's just become so clear that the vast majority of the legacy mainstream media are in the can for one of the political parties and yet want the respect of being the fourth estate holding power to account when actually what they're doing is attacking Republicans because it is in their interests to do that because they are on the side of the Democrats. And the reason they're on the side of the Democrats is not just because of liberalism, but because Democrats represent the elites and they are part of the elites.

And that really, I think, is the take home message here. There was an exchange on Jake's show yesterday about the former president's diagnosis. And just to your question about whether there'll be a new leaf turned over. And the discussion was all about how hard the Bidens have had it, what a difficult life he's had, suffered a lot of tragedy and so on. There was not deep probing. There was no probing into the timing of the announcement, even though it's Jake's book that was coming out the next day. I just don't think there's any desire from anyone, anyone on CNN, nevermind MSNBC or any of these so-called mainstream outlets. I mean, one of the places they dropped an excerpt of this book was the Atlantic. You'd be hard-pressed to

find an online publication that ran more cover for the Biden dementia story than the Atlantic. You'd be hard pressed to find an online publication that ran more cover for the Biden dementia story than The Atlantic. They're absolutely disgusting. They didn't see a Biden dementia story that they didn't try to shit all over and run cover for. The whole thing is just this messy cabal that will not change and it will not learn. And my own feeling about it at this point is like, I, I don't know if I even want it to, like, we do need a robust press. There weren't, they weren't wrong that like, I do use reporting. I see in the New York times from time to time, you know, it's not all untrustworthy, but it's not political. Um, but I, I kind of enjoy making fun of them and necessity being the mother of all invention.

We've created a whole new lane, Batya, where we can have honest discussion. So it's not as important that they change. A hundred percent. And I think at the end of the day, this book, even though I believe that, you know, Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper did their best to report what people told them, 200 sources, it's a good number. Those sources spoke to them because the Democratic Party is trying to launder itself right now by scapegoating Joe Biden when the problem is so much deeper. It's that average Americans cannot trust the mainstream

media, to be honest. Yeah. And they know it. They know it. That's why Arlene is doing so well. You're a star. Thank you so much for playing today. It's a pleasure seeing you. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you for everything you do. I'll see you soon, Batya. I want to give you some of the highlights of this book that we didn't get to. They weren't necessary to be discussed with the authors, but there is some interesting stuff in here. So I'm going to give you some juicy nuggets. Stand by. We'll be right back. One in two adults have high blood pressure. Many don't even know it. That could be a ticking time bomb. But here's the good news. You have the power to take control naturally with 120 Life.

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They're so sure that 120 Life can noticeably lower your blood pressure in two weeks that they will give you your money back if you're not satisfied. So you have nothing to lose but those high blood pressure numbers. Go to 120life.com. That's 120life.com. And remember to use code MK to save 15%. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly Show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch the Megan Kelly Show on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey,

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Get your first three months for free. Go to SiriusXM.com slash MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MKShow and get three months free. Offer details apply. I just wanted to give you some of the highlights of this book, Original Sin. And maybe you'll buy it. Maybe you won't. But I want to give you a couple of highlights because

I did find them very telling. And what was so satisfying about it for me and reading it was so many of the stories that you and I have been discussing for years now, right? Like we knew, like I said to them about the jump cuts in those Biden videos, like you knew, you knew. It was like, do we have that, Deb? We're going to show you the example. And it's been confirmed in this book that they had to videotape him so many times from so many different camera angles and then try to splice it together because he couldn't spit out two sentences. Do we have it? Let's watch. Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hadn't shown up for debate. Now he's acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I'll even do it twice. So let's pick the dates, Donald. I hear you're

free on Wednesdays. Yeah. So that's we're not surprised. But it is confirmed in this book that that's what he was. That's what they were doing. They were trying to get enough cuts of him that they could make it usable. And sometimes it didn't work. Sometimes it did. And then they would cringe when they saw people like us discussing how it was obvious. They were really hoping they could pull the wool over. Um, there was this discussion with TJ Ducklow. It's sought six. It's from September, 2020. We played this. This is back when we were just babies, the show. And we talked about it, where he was a deputy campaign or deputy press secretary for the Biden campaign. And Brett Baier got in his grill about whether Biden was using a teleprompter during campaign events. Watch. Has Joe Biden ever used a teleprompter during local interviews

or to answer Q&A with supporters? Brett, we are not going to engage. This is straight from the Trump campaign. But yeah, they're using it. And what it does, and what it does, Brett, is it's trying to distract the American people. I'm just... Brett, they talk about it every day

because they don't have a coherent argument for why Donald Trump deserves re-election. But you can't answer the question. Brett, I am not going to allow a Trump campaign to funnel their questions through Fox News and get me to respond to that. It was true. He was using a teleprompter both at campaign events and to deal even at private fundraisers, some of which if he had to do online, he would use a prompter. And if he did it in person, the use of no cards. And they actually reported that they would

write down the Q's and the A's. President Biden would have both. And then the donors at these donor events would be given the pre-written Q's from the Biden team. It was just a question of like who would get which one. But no one came up with their own question. Nothing would get asked that hadn't been prescreened and come up with by Biden's staff. We talked a little bit with the guys about how they were cleansing the White House of as many resident staffers as they could so that they couldn't see Biden in the elevator and elsewhere. They report that one senior White House aide left, quit, because this person didn't think Biden should run again, confessed that, quote, we attempted to shield him from his own staff. So many people did not realize the extent

of the decline beginning in 2023. So this person had had enough of the cover up, but admitted that they'd been attempting to shield everybody. The White House staff treated him as, quote, very delicate. Many of his own aides were kept at arm's length. He met mostly with that so-called Politburo and his top national security aides. They do indict in that way Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken as on the inner circle and people who knew. There were note cards handed out for all cabinet meetings. And there too, he increasingly relied more on cards and pre-scripted exchanges,

even when it was in private. Four cabinet secretaries told them, quote, the cabinet meetings were terrible and at times uncomfortable. And they were from the beginning. I don't recall a great cabinet meeting in terms of his presence. They were so scripted. A second cabinet secretary told them, I hated the scripts for these meetings. You want people to tell you the truth and have a real dialogue. Those meetings were not that. David Axelrod, when he came out at one point and made a comment, you may remember this, about Joe Biden's age and whether like, that he'd be closer to 90 than 80 by the end of his second term. Remember that? He got his hand slapped by chief of staff, Ron Klain. There's nobody else acts. There's nobody else. He's the only one who's beaten Trump. And you hear that a lot in this

book. That's why they did the big coverup. They thought only the master Joe Biden who beat Trump in 2020 could beat him again. Um, and by the way, Mike Donilon is all over this book too. He's the one who at the bitter end was not showing Biden his polls. Chuck Schumer had to go in there and tell Biden the truth. And this guy, Mike Donilon knew in 2019, Biden was forgetting Mike Donilon's name on an eight day bus tour in Iowa. A guy had been with him for 30 years and Joe could not remember his name. He knew. Okay, going on. Back in 2020, when they were campaigning him the first time around during COVID, they read that voters were coming out of Biden's events less likely to support him. Precinct captains disappeared or said no thanks after attending a Biden rally. They did report, as you heard in the interview,

that the first signs were after Beau died in 2015, which I believe that can have a way of deteriorating somebody's mental health in general. In March of 2020, March 2nd, they refer to this time he forgot the words of the Declaration of Independence. I'm just going to read you what he actually said. It's on tape, but I'll read it because it's just kind of, sorry, amusing. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are created by the, you know, you know, the thing. April 2020 on CNN. This is on CNN. He struggled to explain the coronavirus. You know, there's, uh, um, uh, during world War, you know, where Roosevelt came up with a thing that, you know, was totally different than a than the it's called. He it the, you know, the World War Two.

He had the war, the the production board. That was April 2020 on CNN. OK, that was, by the way, before the, um, Laura Trump interview. That was before the Laura Trump interview, which was in October of 2020. So it was no mystery that Joe Biden was deteriorating and there was plenty of speculation and there should have been more about his cognitive decline. They talk about how he came as a surprise to everybody in the White House that he was announcing a second run that he was going to run again because there was this understanding that he was going to be a transitional president and only be one term.

And it was kind of announced to them by Joe's top guy and by this guy who is Jill Biden's chief of staff. And they get into this meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, where she let the cat out of the bag for apparently the first time. It was a meeting in December of 2022 between Macron, Nancy Pelosi, her daughter, Alexandria, Alexandra Pelosi was there. Jill was there. And they write that Jill started talking about getting in shape for the upcoming campaign. You know, you got to beat your best. And Joe looked totally clueless and didn't seem to have any idea what she was talking about because Alexandra Pelosi looked at him and said like, oh, do you have an announcement to make or you, he looked totally clueless. So not surprisingly, she was pushing it from the beginning. She wanted him out there. She didn't care how badly that racehorse was hurt.

She wanted it to run on the bad leg. That's Jill Biden. Oh, and by the way, they report that before state visits from foreign leaders, Jill Biden's team asked for talking points with which national security officials were like, what? Why does the first lady need talking points before a state that you're supposed to look pretty and be diplomatic? You're not the president's sweetheart, and you're not a doctor either. That she frequently asked White House personnel like Rear Admiral John Kirby, who's a spokesperson over at the Pentagon, to attend her briefings about state dinners. She thought she was president, guys. Those pictures of her with his jacket behind her chair

at his desk, she might have been president president to be honest. She might've been she and that Politburo were making the calls. Um, they, let's see going forward. Oh, this is a great story about the Biden victory fund razor. Okay. I got to find this one in my notes here so I can read it to you exactly. So this is a group of Hollywood people watching the debate in June of 2024. And those people included, among others, Rob Reiner, Jane Fonda, and Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris's husband, was there. They report a few minutes into the debate and the obvious meltdown. Rob Reiner in the main living room stated plainly, we are fucked. A few seats away, Jane Fonda was equally distraught. Reiner became angry. Soon he was

venting, standing, full of fury. He seemed to be looking at Doug Emhoff, daggers. Quote, we're going to lose our fucking democracy because of you. Reiner yelled because of me, Emhoff thought. So obviously they talked to Emhoff because how else would they know what was in his head? Biden Victory Funds finance chair, Chris Korge, was overheard saying, we are totally fucked. This is over. It's over, all over. Donors were putting their heads in their hands. That's a bit of color. Don't you think that's kind of interesting. Oh, and Hakeem Jeffries, who's now like move forward. There's nothing to see here. Um, there was a debate watch party sponsored by the caucus vice chair, Ted Liu. And, um, after the debate, a number of Democrats, they report surrounded

Hakeem Jeffries, worried. What just happened is not acceptable, one of them said. Something has to be done. They wondered, does he have a bad illness? Is there some sort of psychological thing that's temporary? Some believe there was no way he could stay in the race after what they had just seen. And Jeffries told them, calm is an intentional decision. So, I mean, he knew. he was trying to quiet the troops. Let's see reaction from Biden's own staff during the debate inside the white house and at campaign

headquarters. Some aides were defiant. Others were panicking. Many were feeling fury. Is he okay? Devastated the realization of the worst case scenario. Um, okay. Let me keep going because there's more. Oh, I love this one. And they talk, they get, have a lot of examples of how poorly he was doing. This one dovetailed perfectly with so many that we had seen. You remember when he kept reading the things out loud, like, please clap, you know, like, and, uh, like the, the anchor directions or the, like the teleprompter directions, he kept reading them out loud, like applause. I shouldn't laugh, but I'm going to. Here's one I hadn't known about. There was a progressive caucus meeting with him, Saturday, July 13th, 2024. Pramaya Jayapal, remember her? She was one of the squad,

had reached out to the president's team to set up a Zoom call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The Biden team set it up for that day. Throughout the call, Biden was defensive and angry in a way that many members of the Congressional Caucus, Progressive Caucus, had never seen before. He insisted that he was the real progressive in the room. It was insane, one of them later said. Jayapal was texting Biden's team during the meeting, and she let them know that it wasn't going well. He was getting way too defensive. A staffer in the room with Biden got the message, wrote it out, and handed it to him. Biden read it aloud. Stay positive. You are sounding defensive. Oh my God, you guys. I mean, okay. You're not shocked, but I mean, it's,

it's no, it's good to know these details. This is not, I'm enjoying it. Um, Biden began prepping, his team began prepping with news of the day cards for him. In late 2021, it began with a presidential cue card with news of the day in case reporters asked him something. By 2023, the news card had morphed into several cards a day, each bearing information that Biden's own aides sometimes felt was, quote, elementary. Here's the part about the cameras. Biden often couldn't make it through one or two minutes on camera doing video addresses or keynoting an event without stumbling. To compensate, aides began filming him with two cameras instead of one. If Biden messed up, the edit was less obvious with the jump cut. Other politicians used jump cuts, but Biden aides noted to themselves how much more often they had to use them for the president. When they recorded videos,

much of the footage was still unusable. The man could not speak, said one person involved. It wasn't his stutter. It was his inability to find words to remember what he was saying, to stay on one train of thought. Aides would sometimes make videos in slow motion to blur the reality of how slowly he actually walked. We know that was a Steven Spielberg recommendation. And just think of the irony that these guys are messing with videos in this way, being advised by the greatest filmmaker, probably of all time, certainly of modern America, on exactly how to fool us. And then their media allies are running out there saying the real videos of Biden, a hot mess or the cheap fakes. Those are the cheap fakes, not this shit they

were putting out to us. Every shoot they write was anxiety inducing for Biden's team. Doing the videos without the extra camera would have been impossible. At times, the president has such trouble communicating that the videos were unsalvageable and the team just opted not to release them. At other times, they released videos whose heavy editing was so obvious that they immediately regretted putting them out. In April 2024, the campaign held a stage town hall within a high school gym to film a campaign commercial. Biden took these prepared questions for about 90 minutes while the campaign cameras rolled. The campaign ultimately decided the footage was not usable. It was not usable. He had trouble pronouncing the names of world leaders. Staff began writing

president slash prime minister of X country rather than writing out the names of the leaders. We saw all that. Um, he, they would try to avoid Q and a, uh, if they had Q and a, they would pregame it so that they knew, um, exactly what was going to be asked. They talk about how he tripped on the sandbag and then they did the shorter walking paths and the short steps to air force one. We knew all that. Um, they do talk about threats to press saying the Biden campaign and white house operatives had a modus operandi for attacking any journalists who covered any questions about his age and listing a core of social media influencers, progressive reporters, and Democrat operatives to besmirch as unprofessional and biased those in the news media investigating this line of inquiry. Um, they do talk about, as I mentioned,

one female journalist who they made damn sure was not going to write this piece. That's a little bit later. Hold on. The reporter reached out to member of the White House press office to say she was going to report that he was having serious and disturbing moments, forgetting names and facts, seemingly very seriously confused at meetings. And Steve Ricchetti called her, disputed the reporting, and talked to her off the record so she couldn't use any of what he said or even attribute it. But he told her everything the others were saying was false and that he was at the meetings as a counselor to the president. The message from the White House was clear. This reporter believed if she went forward with a story from anonymous aides,

the White House would aggressively dispute it on the record and portray her as a liar. The tacit threat worked. They talk about a Biden fundraiser in 2023, where he retold the same story within three minutes of telling it the first time. And this was within his working hours, between 10 and 4. That was all true, that, you know, four to six hour workday, true. Shortly after 4 p.m. on a Wednesday, September 20th, 2023, for example, New York Times reporter Michael Shearer was among the small pool of White House reporters permitted to attend a Biden fundraiser at the Manhattan home of Carrie Fowler and Amy Goldman Fowler.

Before a crowd of roughly two dozen donors, he stumbled through remarks reading from note cards. He referred to the J6 insurrection as happening on J8, January 8th. How do you not know J6 happened on J6? It was on January 8th, according to him, and had trouble making basic arguments. But the biggest shock came when he told his campaign origin story. He wasn't planning on running for president after the Obama administration, but then came Charlottesville. He told the very fine people on both sides lie. He told the donors, and I mean this sincerely, that's when I decided I was going to run again. He talked about the Nazi signs. A young woman was killed. A young woman was killed. Next, Biden went through a story about

his family meeting to discuss whether he should run. And after describing some of the conversation, he said, you know, you may remember that, you know, these folks from Charlottesville, as they came out of the fields and carrying those swastikas and the torches. And in addition to that, there was white supremacists. Anyway, they were making the big case about how terrible this was. And a young woman was killed in the process. He then noted my predecessor and I, as I said, he said, there are very fine people on both sides. The same exact story, the young woman, the fine people, the torches, the swastikas, three minutes later. So I decided I would run. The room, Scheer noticed, was stone cold silent. Two days later, as the White House press secretary

was asked about the president repeating the same story mere minutes apart, Karine Jean-Pierre said, quote, the president was making very clear why he decided to run. F this woman. She added that he was speaking from his heart and doing so in an incredibly passionate way. Villain. She knew and she lied. A couple more. The wheelchair stories in here. We talked about that the other day. This guy, Dr. O'Connor, we believe he's the one who did all the physicals and may or may not have done the PSA test. He had been consistent in his assertion that Biden's gait had changed largely because of significant spinal arthritis, in addition to mild post-fracture foot arthritis and a mild sensory periphery neuropathy of the foot or the feet.

Biden's team was offering new explanations that were more politically palatable. Multiple people close to the White House explained he walked this way partly because of his refusal to wear an orthopedic boot while suffering a hairline fracture in his foot before taking office. Lies, all lies. There's a history of him lying about his health and there's no reason to believe his current stories. They get into the cognitive exams. Oh, they didn't think that they were necessary. Um, threatening. I talked about, oh yeah. Um, Congressman Mike Quigley after the, you know, the big state of the union. Oh, he's so strong. He's back. Wow. Look at him go. He tell, they tell the story that Congressman Mike Quigley, who had not been this close to Biden since they

were in Dublin almost a year before, put his hand on the president's back. He could feel his ribs and his spine. It was like touching Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. The president's voice was soft and breathy. His eyes were darting from side to side. It again, disconcertingly reminded Quigley of his late father. There were a couple of memories like that with various people where being with Biden reminded them of their elderly parents, of somebody who they knew who had Alzheimer's, et cetera. And here's one more. Kamala Harris, after the debate, when the pressure was on for him to leave and some of his loyalists backed him, the Democratic governors came to the White House.

Remember that when they all went by planes, trains and automobiles? Their goal was to have a candid conversation with the president about what was going on in the different states and how they viewed the race. Before everyone got a chance to speak, the vice president wrapped up the meeting. We have to have the president's back, Harris said. It's our fucking democracy at stake. That's what this is all about, you guys. This is all about a little thing called the TDS. And once you get the TDS, it's very, very hard to get rid of the TDS and to interpret anything in your world without it being severely clouded by the TDS. This is about our fucking democracy. We will drag this infirm old man across the finish line if it kills us.

And we will not talk about agape or any of the multiple problems that we are seeing. And God knows how many of them may have known about a possible prostate cancer diagnosis that may have already been circulated amongst his top team. I don't believe for one minute he just found out about it. I just don't. The press, the aides, top Democrats, surrogates in the media, they all went along with the lie because of the TDS. And only now are they coming to grips with what they did to their party themselves and the faith and trust that some people had at one point in the Democrat Party. This story is not going away. All of these people who are going to be running for president the next time around will be asked what they knew. And anyone from inside the administration

is going to be held to account. I mean, Pete Buttigieg, he didn't know? Really? I can't wait until he comes under questioning because you know what? CNN is likely to get a debate and I bet you we'll see Jake Tapper sitting there. And I wonder if he sees any of these four cabinet secretaries who spoke to him, whether he will ask them about their role in the coverup. Won't that be an interesting moment? Thank you all for listening. More on this ongoing story in the days ahead. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. Thank you.