Earlier this week, The New Yorker ran an excerpt from “Original Sin.” In that piece, Tapper and Thompson tell the story of George Clooney’s astonishing interaction with Biden at a Hollywood fund-raiser and how it prompted him to write a scathing Op-Ed in the Times calling on his longtime friend to step down.

President’s reduced cognitive powers pushed the country toward Donald Trump.
By David Remnick

(Even now, the Biden circle insists that any talk of the former President’s diminishing faculties is false. Commenting on the New Yorker excerpt, a spokesman said, “No one has been able to point out where Joe Biden had to make a Presidential decision or make a Presidential address where he was unable to do his job because of mental decline.”) Here, in an interview for The New Yorker Radio Hour, Tapper and Thompson discuss some of the broader issues in their book. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Jake and Alex, I’m not a fortune-teller, but I’m going to guess in advance that one critique of your book—and the critique of all the coverage of Joe Biden’s decline and fall—can be summarized in the question: What took you so long? Before we launch into the details of your book, let’s wrestle with that question of “why now?” Why so late?

jake tapper: A lot of us have covered Joe Biden’s aging, and the accompanying inability to do things the way he used to, throughout his Presidency. But what we uncovered, after the election was over, when all the people that we had been talking to for months and years, and all of the people who had been saying, “He’s *ne, he’s *ne,” were suddenly willing to talk about what had been going on. It was only after the election that we were able to get the insider point of view. Before that, the only insider point of view we really got was from the Hur report, when the special counsel described what he saw behind closed doors, sitting down with Biden for an extended period of time. Before that, it was a lot of: “He’s *ne, he’s *ne, he’s *ne.” But Alex and I have spoken with more than two hundred people after the election. And, unencumbered by their fears of “if I say this, then Joe Biden won’t get elected or Kamala Harris won’t get elected,” they were much more candid.
It’s very important that folks were noting that he tripped onstage at a graduation at the Air Force Academy, but comparing that to him not being able to conjure the name of or recognize George Clooney, somebody he’d known for decades and somebody throwing the most lucrative fund-raiser in the history of the Democratic Party— those are two different things. Noting that he mistakenly thought that he’d had a conversation with François Mitterrand as opposed to Emmanuel Macron—we all saw that and we noted it and we talked about it. But compared to him not knowing the name of one of his top advisers, in December, 2022—there’s a difference. What we found by writing this book is that everything that we saw going on in front of the camera was much worse behind the scenes.

And what you’re saying is that while it was happening in real time, during Biden’s Presidency, the sources who were in the position to know—who actually knew and saw this—were not speaking clearly to journalists on any basis. Is that what we’re suggesting?

alex thompson: Yes. I don’t think they were speaking honestly. And, as Biden’s decline became precipitous, they also began to close ranks. The circle of people who had access to the President shrank considerably at the end of 2023, and throughout 2024, up until and leading to the debate.

Describe what that circle became. How did it shrink, and who was around him?

a.t.: The people they were excising were longtime aides, Cabinet members, senior officials. And the very, very inner circle—and I put in that category Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken—basically said, You brief us, we’ll brief him.

Antony Blinken was on this show on one of his last days in office as Secretary of State. I asked him about the aging question, and he answered it in the following way. He said, basically, When I was in the room with him, Joe Biden had all his powers. Yes, he might slip up on a name or something like that, but he was engaged, he was making decisions, he was doing what you would want of a President. Is that what he says in private, or was he just doing that on the record for a podcast?

a.t.: I’ll say that it’s sort of telling that not just Tony Blinken but basically every single senior adviser, with the exception of a few, will always say, Well, when I was with him. When I saw him. . . . Which is giving them plausible deniability.
j.t.: There are a couple of other things to unpack with that. One is that the issues that animated Joe Biden the most in his Presidency were national-security issues—nato, the Middle East, Ukraine- Russia. And so I don’t doubt that he was most engaged [with Blinken], and also that those meetings, when they scheduled them, were in peak-performance time—noon, one o’clock. But the other thing that Blinken says—

Well, hang on, Jake. Peak-performance time, you’re suggesting, was just a couple of hours in the middle of the day? ETC ETC....

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/jake-tapper-and-alex-thompson-on-president-joe-bidens-decline-and-its-coverup

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXe9M5yCthc&t=170s

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qypQX28kgy8

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYorjq9JOAk

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEYwHqEAbmg

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7L3Nn1-f-U

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THIS IS THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THE CENTURY...

ON THIS SITE, HERE, WE HAVE EXPOSE JOE BIDEN'S DECEIT (AS VICE-PRESIDENT) AND MENTAL DECLINE BEFORE HE BECAME PRESIDENT, FOR AS LONG AS WE COULD... TRUMP OR NO TRUMP, JOE HAD FRIED (AND NASTY) BRAINS...

THAT THE DEMOCRATS IN AMERICA ALLOW JOE BIDEN TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2020 IS BEYOND THE PALE. BY MID-2020, EVEN THE RUSSIANS KNEW THAT JOE WAS NOT THE FULL QUID — BUT INSANITY PREVAILED AND THE DOGS RAN THE WHITE HOUSE... THE DOGS? YES, OBAMA, BLINKEN, SULLIVAN, HUNTER BIDEN, JILL BIDEN, NANCY PELOSI AND THE PENTAGON LLOYD AUSTIN THE THIRD, PLUS THE TELEPROMPTER... BY MID 2024, THEY COULD NOT HIDE JOE'S MENTAL DECLINE ANY MORE... SOME OF THE MEDIA HAD SEEN THE SIGNS WAY BEFORE, SOMEWHERE IN 2019... JAKE TAPPER WAS NOT ONE OF THEM... HE WAS BLIND OR UNWILLING TO SEE... PROBABLY BECAUSE OF "TRUMP" LURKING FOR THE PRESIDENCY...

OBAMA DEMANDED GEORGE CLOONEY POST AN OP-ED TO DEMAND JOE RECLUSE HIMSELF FROM SEEKING ANOTHER TERM... WHILE PREPARING AN EXIT STRATEGY!

RATHER THAN ORGANISE A DEMOCRATIC CHOICE, THEY WHEELED OUT KAMALA (HARRIS) TO THE FORE — HOPING FOR A MIRACLE!. THEY NEARLY GOT AWAY WITH IT (A "WOMAN" OF "COLOR"). KAMALA HAD TO BE COAXED OUT OF "DRINKING TOO MUCH" APPARENTLY... AND EVERY TIME SHE WENT OFF SCRIPT, HER MIND WAS UNABLE TO BE MUCH MORE COHERENT THAN JOE'S, THOUGH HER LAUGHING "JOIE DE VIVRE" GOT A LOT OF VOTERS THROUGH. 

WILL THE DEMOCRATS (AND THE WILLINGLY BLIND MEDIA) PAY DEARLY FOR THIS DECEIT? PROBABLY NOT ENOUGH... LUCKY, THE WORLD HAS MOVED ON... UNLUCKY US, TRUMP IS TRYING HIS BEST TO MUCK UP EVERYTHING WITH "BRILLIANCE"... HOPING FOR SOME LUCK TO STICK FOR THE EMPIRE... READ ALL THE POSTS AND ARTICLES ON THIS SUBJECT ON THIS SITE....

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.