'Original Sin' argues Biden aides enabled his reelection bid, despite mental decline
12:15 Share

Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Books about current day politics can seem very insidery. They can come off as by Beltway types for Beltway types. But

But even if you don't care about rehashing the 2024 presidential election, there's something very human at the core of the new book, Original Sin. That's the new nonfiction book by reporters Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson looking at the alleged mental decline of then-President Joe Biden and the, quote, cover-up by those around him.

And here's where it gets to the human part. There are people in this book whose loyalty gets tested, who have to ask themselves, am I loyal to Joe Biden or am I loyal to the American people? Today on the pod, a special episode brought to you by our friends at the NPR podcast, Consider This, a conversation between NPR Scott Detrow and the authors of the book about their reporting and the reaction from President Biden's camp. That's after the break.

Support for NPR's Climate Solutions Week Rethinking Home comes from the Nature Conservancy. People from all walks of life depend on nature for the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe, for strengthening their communities, powering their livelihoods, and safeguarding their health. Nature is common ground for everyone, and uniting to protect nature can help solve today's challenges and create a thriving tomorrow for future generations. Discover why at nature.org slash NPR.

This message comes from Square. You probably know Square from your favorite local spots, but you might not know that there's a lot more to Square than meets the eye. What started as a little white card reader is now being used to rapidly scale, build loyal followings, cover cash flow gaps, and expand to new locations. Wherever your business is growing, Square meets you there. Go to square.com slash go slash NPR to learn more.

Former President Joe Biden has known Mike Donilon since 1981. He's been one of Biden's closest aides for decades. He had a White House desk just steps away from the Oval Office. Yet in 2019, on a campaign swing in Iowa, Biden struggled to remember Donilon's name.

That's according to the new book Original Sin by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson. It's one of several jarring moments reported out in the book, which chronicles Biden's decline over his time in the White House, as well as efforts by his top staff and family to keep that decline hidden from voters. Staff that included Donilon and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Steve Ruschetti.

When Thompson and Tapper dropped by our studios recently to talk about the book, Tapper said that disastrous June debate made him want to dig deeper into why Biden decided to run. Dana Bash, my co-moderator, and I had these iPads so that we could write to the people in the control room because obviously we can't talk to them and there was only one or two commercial breaks. And I wrote, holy smokes, like during that first rambling, awful non-answer where he said we finally beat Medicare. I just couldn't believe it.

Look, I mean, we had all seen him aging. We had all seen him tripping and misspeaking. We had all seen evidence of decline. But the Biden team, family and senior advisors were telling everybody, not just media, not just the public, but also Democratic donors and members of Congress, their own cabinet. He's fine. He's fine. He's fine. He's fine. I want to talk about the hiding as you frame it. Yeah.

Use the word cover up in the title. That's gotten a lot of attention. It's a strong phrase to use. Tell me why you justified using that framing when it came to President Biden's inner circle and the way that they protected him. If it wasn't a cover up, then why were so many people surprised by the debate? Mm hmm.

Beginning in fall of 2023, our reporting shows, based on the interviews with over 200 people, that there were two Bidens. There was a functioning Biden and a non-functioning Biden. And that goes back to 2019, but it was almost always functioning Biden. But beginning in 2023, the ratio of that functioning and non-functioning starts to change dramatically. And also non-functioning Biden is getting worse. Yeah.

And the White House, the people around them, we had one senior White House official who left and

because they were upset over what was happening and didn't think he should be running for re-election. And when you say non-functioning, what's the best way to define that? I would describe it as unable to come up with the names of top advisors or close friends. I would say, we look, we're all human. We forget, we all forget names. We all lose our train of thought. We're not talking about that. And also, we all witness that in people who are aging. I mean, again, I'm not talking about that. We're talking about to the point of ageing

You are not able to have a conversation. You are not able to come up with data, information, knowledge, names that you should have at the ready when he didn't recognize George Clooney.

That is somebody who is not only somebody he'd known for more than 15 years, not only somebody that he had had serious conversations about Darfur with, not only somebody that had raised millions of dollars for him and was co-hosting that very fundraiser. He's also one of the most recognizable people in the world. So I'm talking about that. I'm talking about what we saw at the debate, like that non-functioning Biden. I cannot articulate a sentence Biden.

You were talking about the framing of the cover-up, though, because it's odd, though. On one hand, he's the president of the United States. He's making a couple appearances of a – you know, some days he didn't make that many appearances, but he's giving speeches. He's appearing in public. He's carrying out the duties of the presidency. And yet, as you report it, there is a concerted effort to wall him off. What specifically was that circle of aides doing? Yeah, I mean, the one top aide who left the White House –

said that they intentionally shielded him from other members of the administration, other members of the cabinet, other senior White House officials. The inner circle became smaller and smaller, and this White House official said that was intentional so that they did not realize the extent of

You also saw the schedule become much tighter and more restricted. We have months of internal schedules that show that he would go up to the residence and have dinner at 4, 4.30, 5.00.

Other members of the administration also said that, you know, he just would go up to the residence very, very early and they just wouldn't see him, you know, after a certain point in the day. And the schedule just became much more oriented about making sure that the public did not and other aides did not see non-functioning Biden. And that's why, you know, the schedule became much more 10 to 4 and why, yes, he was doing those events, but they were often, you know, put in the middle of the day when, you

You know, those were his good hours. Enough of the book is out that you're getting a response. I want to read you one quote that we have from Biden's camp and I want to get your response. We're still waiting for someone, anyone to point out where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or make a presidential address where he was unable to do his job because of mental decline. What's your response to that? I mean, first of all,

That is setting the bar really low. That's their defense of our book? That, well, okay, well, where's the decision-making that was the wrong decision? I mean, I guess it's the key question for the president of the United States, though, right? Like, can this person make that key decision in that moment? Look, one of his most loyal top aides said to me, if the presidency is about two things, making decisions and being able to communicate those decisions to the American people, this person said, yes.

He was always good at making the decisions. He could never effectively communicate it, and it got worse and worse throughout his term. So I don't buy the idea that the president is just some like magic eight ball who just has to make decisions after the other and doesn't have to do anything else. So that to me is just a false premise. But beyond that, the book does describe situations where U.S. senators are very concerned about their interactions with President Biden. I'll just give you one.

There is an incident in June 2024. President Biden has a meeting at the White House, an event having to do with immigration.

And everybody listening, I ask you to go to Google and watch this moment. Biden has some sort of glitch while talking that neurologists told us was some sort of neurological event. They don't know what it was, but it was some sort of neurological event. It wasn't a stutter. It was something else. And Senator Bennett from Colorado, loyal Biden-supporting Democrat,

leaves that immigration event at the White House thinking, well, this is why the immigration policy in this country is so messed up. This president can't manage the portfolio. So I just, A, I reject the premise, but even if we're using that premise...

I don't buy it. It's not true. They haven't read the book yet, and that's fine. I wouldn't read it if I were them either. Alex, what to you was the moment that most alarmed you as a person who lives in the United States as you were reporting and learning these details about the things that were happening behind the scene? Another moment that sort of was jaw-dropping was I was interviewing a longtime Biden aide, and they're quoted in the book as saying, I'm paraphrasing here, all he had to do was win,

Then he could have disappeared for the next four years and only had to occasionally show proof of life. When you're electing a president, I think voters know that they're also electing the people around them. And that was their justification. This was their justification for they basically were acknowledging. Yeah, he's he's like having trouble. But like the threat of Donald Trump was.

which I think they felt very sincere about, was so great that they were justifying the

in some ways, undemocratic actions. Yeah, and these are the same people who say, hey, nobody elected Elon Musk. Well, no one elected Donilon and Reschetti. And yet we have a cabinet secretary telling us that Biden, Reschetti, and Donilon would make decisions about the economy without even talking to Secretary Yellen during the period that they cut off the cabinet. You talked to a lot of anonymous sources for this book. Did anybody regret not speaking out or

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

And who confronted him? Secretary of State Blinken kind of confronted him? Yeah, he had a meeting with him, he had a lunch with him in 2023 in which he basically was like,

You know, you have to think about how old you're going to be in the second term. You know, do you think you can handle it? Of course, Biden does. And that's kind of just dropped. You know, I think everybody in that circle, in that world should be should be thinking. I'm certainly thinking as a journalist, what should I have done differently? You know, Alex and I cover this, Alex, very aggressively from the White House beat me less so. And I wish I had been more aggressive. I there are there's a lot of regret. There's a lot of humility.

I want to end this interview the way you start the book, that the morning after the election, Joe Biden woke up convinced he could have won. He still thinks that. He still thinks he could have won. He went on The View to pre-butt this book, we think. And he was asked about that. And he said, well, look, I still got 7 million more votes than Donald Trump. Now, he's talking about the 2020 election. And the truth of the matter is,

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

And Biden's shocked to hear that. When I talked with one of the pollsters about that story, 5%, he said it was probably more like 1%. That's Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Their new book is Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Thanks for talking to us. Thank you.

And just a reminder that signing up for Book of the Day Plus is a great way to support NPR's book coverage and public media. And you'll get to listen to every episode sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash book of the day. This message comes from Thrive Market. The food industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, but not everything on the shelf is made with your health in mind.

At Thrive Market, they go beyond the standards, curating the highest quality products for you and your family while focusing on organic first and restricting more than 1,000 harmful ingredients. All shipped to your door. Shop at a grocery store that actually cares for your health at thrivemarket.com slash podcast for 30% off your first order plus a $60 free gift.

This message comes from Warby Parker. What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker, it's all the invisible extras without the extra cost, like free adjustments for life. Find your pair at warbyparker.com or visit one of their hundreds of stores around the country.

This message comes from Bombas. Socks, underwear, and t-shirts are the top three requested clothing items by people experiencing homelessness. Bombas makes all three and donates one item for every item purchased. Go to bombas.com slash NPR and use code NPR for 20% off.