Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on the ‘Original Sin’ Controversy
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim. Coming up on Forum, CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios journalist Alex Thompson are taking some heat for their new book, Original Sin, President Biden's decline, its cover-up, and his disastrous choice to run again. Some Democrats say the focus should not be on Biden and the past, with all the turmoil caused by the current administration's actions. But Tapper and Thompson say a reckoning is needed for the future of the Democratic Party. And they join us to explain why.

Listeners, what do you think? Forum is next. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. It's been less than a year since many Democratic voters watched with concern, then shock, as a shuffling President Joe Biden appeared to lose his train of thought on a question about the national debt during his first debate with then-candidate Donald Trump.

We'd be able to wipe out his debt. We'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do, child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with... Look, if...

We finally beat Medicare. Thank you, President Biden. President Trump? Jake Tapper moderated that CNN debate. And now, together with Axios national political correspondent Alex Thompson, has written a new book about how the public could have been so taken by surprise by what they witnessed on camera and what lessons to learn from that moment. Their new book is called Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice Today.

Alex. Thanks so much for having me. And welcome to you, Jake. It's great to be here. Thanks, Mina. So, Jake, I learned from the book that when you saw Biden stumble like that on the debate stage, just feet away from you, that you typed to the control room on your iPad, holy smokes. Yeah. I mean, it was it wasn't just the shuffling. It was that answer that you just play the clip of, which I

I still find shocking, and I've now heard it a dozen times during this book tour. And it's still just so painful because it is somebody who has no business being on that stage, somebody who is non-functioning. And look, we all lose our train of thought. We all forget names. You know, we're human. We're fallible. But...

What Alex and I set out to do after the election was over was find out how often did that non-functioning Joe Biden rear his head behind the scenes before the night of that debate. And we interviewed more than 200 people and we were shocked. Yeah. Alex, you'd been trying to raise awareness of Biden's possible decline, but even for you, was that moment pretty surprising? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I mean, just the... I had been reporting since 2021, but especially starting in 2023, about basically the ways the White House apparatus was adapting to his limitations. You know, a lot of people were talking about his age as a political liability, as like, you know, will it hurt him in the election? But what I was trying to report is how the White House was dealing with the limitations on his energy, the schedule, his physical decline. You know, you could see it in the shuffle and the way he walked.

um but like the white house was clear there was a concerted attempt um because i think the book clearly shows that the biden we saw in the debate stage it was not the first time he acted that way and galacta wasn't even close the first time and that especially in the period about like eight to nine months before the debate there were increasingly frantic efforts to shield him and shield that

debate Biden, not just from the public, but even from their own staff, from their own cabinet. Right. So by whom? Who were the people closest to him who would have known the stage that he was in and that he needed all of those, I guess, essentially reinforcements, readjustments and so on? First and foremost is his family. So you're talking about Jill Biden and Hunter Biden. And then beyond that, you have basically the closest

staff, what some people in the administration called the "pullet borough," which would be Mike Donilon, Steve Ruscetti, Bruce Reed, sort of like Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer as well, but basically people that had been with him for a long time and controlled access to him, controlled what decisions made their way to him and how they were presented. And then I'd say there's another sort of outer layer of that, which would be Jill's chief of staff.

arguably almost inarguably the most powerful chief of staff to a first lady perhaps ever in history, given how much control they had over personnel, the schedule events, and Annie Tomasini, who was sort of Bernal's deputy but on Biden's side. So Jake, could you help me better understand specifically what were some of the ways that they were trying to compensate for Biden's physical and cognitive changes?

Some of it started out innocently enough with the way that any staffer would want to try to help any president or primary politician appear his best, any principle. So with note cards and teleprompters, for example, or as Alex was first to report, limiting his public appearances, generally speaking, to between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

So, you know, and that that's almost understandable. He's, you know, 81 before the debate. And you would want somebody to be at their at their best. Any any staff would want their politician to look their best. But those aides soon became crutches. So it's very unusual for a politician at a fundraiser in front of, you know, in private, you know, before like 40, 50 people come.

to have a teleprompter. That's just not normal. Any politician should be able to talk for 10, 15 minutes to a small group of people. You can understand why you'd want a teleprompter for something being televised before the world, a major address, or at least even remarks, but just private comments is strange. But that was already happening in early 2023. And then by the end of 2023,

The there's a cabinet meeting in October 2023, and that's the last cabinet meeting for almost a year. And there are efforts being made. And we talked to White House officials who acknowledge this, one of whom left the White House because of this. There are efforts to hide him from people. So the cabinet doesn't meet with him. Or if they do, it's very limited. One cabinet official we spoke with said, no.

that they had a meeting with President Biden between the October 2023 cabinet meeting and the debate in June, and he seemed completely disoriented, completely out of it. Another cabinet official said that they thought by the end of the Biden presidency, he wouldn't be able to be relied upon for that meeting.

proverbial 2 a.m. phone call in the middle of the night for a national security emergency. So there were efforts to hide that from not just the public and not just the press, but Democrats and cabinet officials and White House staff.

Let me invite listeners into the conversation. What questions do you have for our guests today? Jake Tapper, CNN anchor and Washington correspondent, chief Washington correspondent there, Alex Thompson, national political correspondent for Axios, co-authors of the new book, Original Sin, President Biden's decline, its cover up and his disastrous choice to run again. Was there a moment that made you question whether Biden could effectively intervene?

lead the country. And of course, again, your questions or comments, the email address is forum at kqed.org. Find us on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, or threads at KQED Forum, or call us at 866-733-6786. Again, 866-733-6786. One of the other things that you spent quite a bit of time talking about in your book is the lengths that they would go to really

oppose people who presented a view of Joe Biden as frail. And you write in detail about the anger over special counsel Robert Herr, who was in charge of the investigation of Biden's mishandling of classified documents. And you describe Biden in a February 2024 report as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. Describe their reaction to that, Alex.

They tried to destroy his career. Robert Herr's. Robert Herr's career labeled him, called him a, you know, basically a politically motivated right-wing hack, essentially. The vice president, Kamala Harris, went out and used her own experience as a prosecutor in this state to

to suggest that he did a terrible job and tried to undermine his credibility, the entire apparatus of the Democratic Party essentially tried to undo what he had said. But even people at the White House at the time, I remember talking to somebody afterwards, this is after Joe Biden dropped out, and they said, you know, he said the thing. And once he said the thing,

you couldn't unsay it. And people in the White House realized, even the ones that were more honest with themselves, did, you know, think

He said what he said was true, but there was no room in that White House particularly for even suggesting it or whispering it to anybody because even suggesting it meant disloyalty. And so the White House essentially not just went to war over with Robert Herr, but with their own Justice Department, with Attorney General Merrick Garland, to the point that Garland later

seemed to realize that Joe Biden, while he made these big pronouncements that he wanted an independent Justice Department to reverse sort of the politicization of Trump's Justice Department. But Garland eventually came to believe that Joe Biden actually didn't want that, that he wanted a politicized Justice Department protecting him and his family.

Jake, your title, the title of your book together uses the word cover-up. So I'm wondering, did you feel like what they were doing rose to the level of like a conspiracy? You know, how do you define cover-up? Well, we talk about this diction at length, as you might imagine. And we did not use the word conspiracy.

and we do use the word cover-up. We're not alleging criminality, but the definition of a cover-up is when you are trying to hide something bad, and they were, and they did. And, I mean, the evidence of the fact that it was a cover-up was the fact that

Billions of people were shocked by what happened on the debate stage that night. I mean, if it wasn't a cover-up, then why were we all so surprised? And what did you uncover in your reporting about sort of how they justified this cover-up?

If, as you say, it was so clear that this person probably didn't have the capacity to be the president of the United States, a hugely demanding job for another four years. Yeah, I mean, it is. I mean, I think and I'd be interested to hear if there are listeners who disagree. But the idea that Joe Biden was ready to be president until January 2029, which is what he was running for, is just a staggering thought. Yeah.

The idea of what they were doing to hide this was something that they could justify to themselves because this is how they looked at it. One, Joe Biden is the only person that's ever beaten Donald Trump. Two, Joe Biden is therefore the only person that can beat Donald Trump. This is their thinking, not mine. Three, Donald Trump is an existential threat to the American people and to the American way of life.

Once you have once you accept those three premises, which I personally do not accept, but once you accept them, you can justify almost anything in terms of supporting Joe Biden. And the truth is somebody from the Trump White House after reading my book asked me, did they think that he was going to die in office in the second term? Like, what was their thinking? And I think and I think Alex agrees with me. I don't think they thought past Election Day. I thought I think they thought, let's just get him to the Election Day. Let's just beat Trump and we can worry about everything else after that.

We're talking with journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson about their book on Joe Biden. And it's called Original Sin. And you, our listeners, can join the conversation wondering if there was a moment that made you question whether Biden could effectively lead the country or if this incident changed your impression of the Democratic Party. What do you want to ask or tell the authors? What's your reaction to them writing this book? And do you hope that the Democratic Party has learned some things? We'll have more after the break. I'm Mina Kim.

Support for Forum comes from the University of San Francisco School of Management. Celebrating 100 years of partnership with the Bay Area business community, the USF School of Management connects students to the city's vibrant culture, hands-on internships, and a wealth of career opportunities.

where AI and sustainability are integrated into every facet of business education, and where students bring innovation, ethics, and entrepreneurial leadership to a planet in need. The University of San Francisco School of Management. Change the world from here. Support for KQED Podcasts comes from Earthjustice. As a national legal nonprofit, Earthjustice has more than 200 full-time lawyers who fight for a healthy environment.

They wield the power of the law to protect people's health, preserve magnificent places and wildlife, and advance clean energy to combat climate change. Earthjustice fights in court because the Earth needs a good lawyer. Learn more about how you can get involved and become a supporter at earthjustice.org. Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking this hour about the new book, Original Sin, President Biden's decline, its cover-up, and his disastrous choice to run again.

It's controversial, and it's written by my two guests, Jake Tapper, anchor and chief Washington correspondent at CNN, and Alex Thompson, national political correspondent at Axios. And you, our listeners, are weighing in with your questions and comments at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786, at the email address forum at kqed.org. And you can find us on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram, and threads at kqedforumnoel.com.

For example, on discord rights, the reckoning for the future of the Democratic Party is that they need younger leaders and Citizens United should be overturned. Campaign finance has corrupted the Democratic Party as much as the Republican Party has.

Another listener on Discord writes, the mainstream media and its journalists are missing the moment and sane-washing the actions of this administration. Before I get to more of the criticisms, I did want to ask you, Alex, about a particular chapter in the book that I found really fascinating, where you say it wasn't just people who were really justifying to themselves why they should basically downplay or even cover up Joe Biden's changes in terms of his mental and physical faculties, but there was something that you call sort of the methodologies

mythology of the Bidens that played a role, that the Bidens always bounce back or that Joe Biden in particular always bounce back. Can you talk about that mythology? Yeah. I mean, the fates have thrown everything they could think of at Joe Biden. You know, obviously he lost his wife and daughter and his sons were severely injured in the accident in 1972. He runs for president in 1987, is driven out of the race before

He even gets to Iowa. He has brain aneurysms. He loses the presidency, becomes vice president.

You know, Obama picks Hillary over him and prefers Hillary over him in 2016. People don't expect him to be able to win in 2020. He proves them wrong. So you can see that for the people that have been around him for a long time, there begins, you know, what became sort of mythology or just like, oh, he always comes back, becomes what we call a theology to the point that, you know,

dissent is not allowed, questioning is not allowed. And if you do, then you are cast out as a heretic, essentially. And this does set the culture in the White House and of which you never doubt Joe Biden and the Biden-ness. And if you are, then you are quickly pushed out of the inner circle.

Well, the CISNER Jeff writes, while we can hope those around a president will do what is best for the country, if there is blame to be placed on what happened with President Biden's health, it falls on the media, largely including you and others at CNN who hold yourselves out as being objective journalists covering national politics, now spending hours promoting this book. That is not time spent. That is time not spent covering politics.

What is happening now? It only serves to play into the public's growing distrust of the media. So I want to ask you about that, Jake. You are ready, I think, to answer. It's a criticism you've heard. Well, I mean, I have a show on CNN for two hours every day that I'm doing during this book tour in which we cover President Trump. And I wouldn't say we do so shrinkingly.

So I don't even understand the question. I am covering President Trump. I continue to cover President Trump. We are going through great pains to make sure that whatever city I'm in to talk about this book, I'm also doing my show. I will be doing it again today from 5 to 7 East Coast time from here in San Francisco and again tomorrow and again the next day and on and on. And we're not covering my Biden book on my show. We're covering...

Donald Trump and what's going on in the world today. I can walk and chew gum at the same time. We wrote this book, and I think it's an important piece of investigative journalism about something that has huge ramifications on

for the American people. I happen to personally think and a lot of Democrats agree that one of the reasons that President Trump is president right now is because Joe Biden decided to run for reelection and he and his team decided to try to hide his deterioration. I do disagree that it's the fault of the media that this happened. I think it is the fault of primarily Joe Biden

President Biden, I'm 56. I'm probably the oldest person in the room here. And I know how I am slowing down. And I know the limitations I have now that I didn't have when I was 40.

Joe Biden is 82 and he is well aware of the limitations he has. He might be lying to himself about how bad they are, but he's aware of them. And the idea that he is not first and foremost responsible for this, I think, is inaccurate. And you're talking about your coverage of Trump. I'm wondering how you assess your coverage of Biden's cognitive abilities during the time that he's

maybe you were getting some sense that things were happening. I know you've admitted, you know, to your own failings or feeling like there were things that make you not blameless in this time. Oh, I don't think, I think there are very few people in the legacy media who can look back and say they covered this as aggressively as they could have, knowing what I know now. And, you know, to be honest, I didn't know. I mean, all the stuff that we learned for the book,

that is there for your listeners to read, we learned after the election. I think I became aware that he was really starting to slip in 2023.

And 2024, at least that's what I saw in front of the cameras. That's what we all saw in front of the cameras. But I didn't know the extent of it until I started writing this book, not because I didn't ask, but because people behind the scenes were not being candid and were not being honest. And the reason they were not being candid and not being honest is because they feared that if anything they said that was critical of Biden would help elect Trump.

And so with that choice, so many of them decided to just be quiet until after the election. And let me also just say in terms of the conservative media, which was accurately skeptical of Biden's cognitive abilities from the beginning. And our reporting shows that the deterioration really started as far back as 2015. Right.

There is a difference between running a clip on TV and saying, look how old he looks or look how silly he is and making fun of him or commenting on the addlement and investigative journalism. And I'm not saying that running the clip is wrong. I did some of it myself and

surely it was appropriate and accurate. But what we have done with this book is provide a behind-the-scenes look into how bad things really were. And I think that there's a value of that. And I think if, look, if somebody else had written this book about what was going on behind the scenes, I would have bought it and I would have read it. But they hadn't. Let me go to caller Lisa in Los Gatos. Hi, Lisa, you're on. Join us.

Hi, thank you. And I appreciate you talking about you writing the book rather than allowing someone else to. I was a huge fan of Biden's and I saw him in person in 2020 and 2023 in the beginning. And I just really hope that in all of your talks about your book that you draw parallels to President Trump.

and his cognitive abilities and his enablers, because we really need to learn from this and take what you are uncovering right now to make better choices and lead this country out of the chaos and turmoil we're in. What are you hoping readers might take away with regard to how to look at

With a critical eye, and I mean that in terms of critical thinking, you know, look with scrutiny, look with an intelligent and thoughtful eye at the current president and some of his behaviors. Well, I'd say one of our takeaways, we hope that voters are skeptical of all presidents and their health and demand transparency.

transparency and disclosure because this is not the first time a president has covered up their health. George Washington hid some of his health all the way back. Woodrow Wilson, you know, obviously had a stroke and they hid his, you know, his short life.

shortcomings. FDR had no business running for president in 1944. JFK was lied about Addison's and on and on. You know, Joe Biden is not the first. He will not be the last. And, you know, with regards to, you know, Donald Trump, Donald Trump is older, was older on his inauguration day than Joe Biden was on his inauguration day.

Now, I do think while the president, you know, in some ways, like the president says things that are outlandish and lies and crazy, but he also has been doing that consistently for 10 years. And so it's unclear if there is the same thing. You know, Jake has a line where it's it's in a different wing of the hospital here, right?

And I do. But that being said, there's a lot about President Trump's health we don't know. And we hope that voters will demand more transparency for all presidents. It's not to excuse anything about President Trump, but the questions about him have historically been more about his personality and whether or not he has a personality disorder of some sort. And there certainly was.

of that in the first term. And there was, you know, there was reporting that somebody in his administration talked about the 25th Amendment, but that had to do with not a cognitive decline. It had to do with an alleged personality disorder. And again, I'm not excusing it. It's just different, which is not to say that the media shouldn't be aggressive and the like. And I agree with that. But I agree that with your caller and the idea that this should be lessons beyond Joe Biden. And we make that very clear in the book.

I would be I guess the caller is not there anymore, but I would be interested to know if she detected she said she met him in 2020 and then again in 2023. I would be interested to see if she what her personal experiences were, because that period, as we understand it, there was a lot of notable decline in how he presented himself, his ability to remember people, his ability. I'm talking about Joe Biden here, his ability to.

retain information and share thoughts. I'd love to know what her experience was. Yeah. We're talking with journalist Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios in that period of time when the Democratic Party was reckoning with Joe Biden's changes both mentally and physically in that very eventful year of 2024. Let me go next to caller John in San Leandro. Hi, John, you're on. Yeah.

Hi, thanks very much. My question covers a little bit of what was just said. Given as reporters and I'm the son of two journalists, I don't quite understand why in terms of priorities, you would cover the Biden campaign.

when Trump's decline and the unfitness for office that he presented from the beginning of his career seemed to be far more significant to our society.

national destiny. And as reporters, I heard you say you didn't get the information until after the Biden administration was out of office. But isn't Trump's current

unfitness for office, a far more dangerous condition for the state of the world. John, thanks. So you got the information after the election, right? Okay. And then the other thing, too, is in terms of the criticisms for diverting attention away from what people, especially Democrats, feel is a much more dangerous president, which is Trump. You say what, Jake?

I mean, again, I cover him every day. I cover Donald Trump every day of the week for two hours on my show on CNN. Your caller is making a political argument that Donald Trump is unfit to be president of the United States. And that is perfectly his right to have that opinion. We are not saying that Joe Biden politically was unfit to be president of the United States. We are saying that people around him said,

to us after the election that there were moments that he could not have carried out his duties. It's a different conversation. The caller is saying he disagrees with Donald Trump. He doesn't like what he's doing to the country. He is damaging the United States, et cetera, et cetera. That's a perfectly legitimate point of view. And I'm so glad we live in a country where he can make that argument and not worry about being arrested. But that's not... We're not saying Joe Biden...

was unfit to be president, we're seeing people close to him said he couldn't carry out the duties. You also put this in your author's note, which I was struck by. Sorry, Alex, just really quickly. This book is not an exoneration of the candidacy or presidencies of Biden's opponent, Donald Trump. Journalism about Biden does not excuse or normalize any actions and statements by anyone else, including the 45th and now 47th president.

Alex, go ahead. Well, I was going to say that I think that attitude of, well, what about Trump, cover Trump, is part of the reason why Democrats are in the situation they are in now. You know, when people like myself and other reporters were covering Biden's age when he was president, the answer always was, well, cover Trump, cover Trump. And, you know, I think Jake put it well, you can do both things at the same time. And the fact that

the that democrats did not recognize that their nominee was likely not gonna make it to the finish line is part of the reason why donald trump's president we just need to remember that this is basically a fifty fifty country and these elections are generally decided by about you know somewhere between a hundred thousand and four hundred thousand voters in five to seven states and those voters are the ones who say oh

Here are these two guys. I don't like either one of them, but one of them seems like he really should be retired. And the other one says and does things that I really disagree with, but I'm going to go with him. I mean, this is the reality that we're in. The country is not...

California, the country has lots of different people all over the map. And as difficult as it may be for partisan Democrats or partisan Republicans to understand it, there are people who voted for Barack Obama twice and then voted for Donald Trump. There just are. And those people ultimately had real issues with Joe Biden. In fact, the night of the debate, we have this in the book, there's this focus group

that the Biden pollsters are using. And they try to spin how bad Biden was by saying, well, our focus group showed that they didn't like Biden's performance, but they didn't like Trump's performance either. They had a real issue with that. And that was like, that became a Democratic talking point for, I don't know, until Biden dropped out. That focus group consisted of like 80% Biden voters. It wasn't like a cross section of the United States. It was mostly people who had voted against Donald Trump.

And they were appalled at what they saw. And they were going to either not vote or vote third party or maybe even vote for Trump. And, you know, that's the pool of voters that we're talking about here that swing elections.

I think some of the hand-wringing that I hear around criticisms or the reckoning of the Democratic Party is that it can be so politicized by the right. And, you know, there's reporting now, of course, that there is an effort for the GOP to launch its own investigation of

into the quote unquote cover up with targets being the media, for example, and what they did and also the family members as well who are closest to Biden. And I just love to get your thoughts on that, your reaction to that, Jake. I find it very hard to believe that those hearings will go anywhere. And for any number of reasons, first of all, you're not going to get

the family members of Joe Biden to testify against him. I would be amazed if they even, if that even came to like fruition where they're there before the committee. I just don't think that will happen. It would be unprecedented to have a first to haul a first lady or former first lady before a committee. And then all the people who, um,

We're closest to this. Every single one of them can invoke executive privilege. Every single one of them can say that they're not going to violate executive privilege and the president, former president, can invoke it. And in terms of the media, it's very rare that members of the media get hauled before Congress.

Congress. But if they think that they're going to find out our sources, that's just not going to happen. I mean, I don't disagree that there is something here worthy of investigation, but I don't know that Republicans in Congress are able to do this in a way that will be perceived as anything other than incredibly partisan. Yes. Alex, Jake was earlier saying that you don't think you uncovered anything that would rise to the level of

criminality, for example, though that is the stated purpose, or at least that's one of the things that was mentioned with regard to this was whether anything rose to that level as well. But just on this question of the fact that we live in a country now where even an honest reckoning of something ends up being massive ammunition,

in an environment where there may be a lot of people who don't know the full context. You know, how dangerous is that? I'm sorry, we're coming up on a break, so we have just 30 seconds. But just wondering what your thoughts are on that when people bring that up. I mean, when you put any real reporting into the world, it is automatically going to be politicized and weaponized by one side or the other. But that's just the country we live in. That doesn't mean that

you shouldn't report the truth anyway. We're talking with Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper and with you listeners. Stay with us. This is Forum. I'm Nina Kim.

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You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking with Jake Tapper, Ackner Chief Washington Correspondent for CNN and Alex Thompson, National Political Correspondent for Axios. They're co-authors of a new book called Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Some Democrats have raised objections to this, saying the focus shouldn't be on the past. It should be on this current administration's actions. But the authors say this conversation is needed for the future of the Democratic Party.

And this listener appears to agree. This listener on Discord writes, the Democrats objecting to the book sound exactly like the Republicans who respond to Trump's idiotic flip-flopping and past criminal actions by saying they're looking toward the future. We can't just ignore the complete failures of the 2024 elections that handed Trump the office. Let me go next to caller Susie. Oops, and I just got word that Susie dropped. So then let me read another comment from a listener, Christopher, who writes, do you believe that the Democrats are going to be able to win the election?

the Democratic Party actually has the will to change or do situations like this one and that with Ruth Bader Ginsburg show that there is too much complacency within the party to realistically change. I'll go to you first, Alex. You know, it's

Democrats rightly mock Republicans for saying one thing about Donald Trump in private and then going out in public and saying, yes, sir, dear leader, you're amazing. But they were doing the exact same thing here. Whether or not there actually is a reckoning, I think, is going to depend on what voters demand from Democrats.

What is the reckoning that you feel like the Democratic Party needs? What would an effective one look like, Jake?

I don't think it would be unlike what the Republican Party should have gone through after January 6th or should have gone through after the Iraq War weapons of mass destruction debacle, which is just an acknowledgement of a horror that we all witnessed. But it's hard to argue that the Republican Party did that in either one of those cases. January 6th, there was initially a lot of shock.

And then everybody rallied around, ultimately almost everybody rallied around Donald Trump in terms of the Republicans. And now all the criminals who beat up cops have been pardoned. And the Republican members of the House and Senate who know better don't want to talk about it. And so I'm not comparing January 6th to the Biden thing. They're all different. But look, we all saw what happened. We all know what happened.

What happened was they hid this from us. And then we all saw it on debate night. And the Democrats freaked out because not because, oh, my God, he's adult. He can't be president. It was like, oh, my God, we're going to lose the election. Right. There was a self-preservation and electoral component of this. There was only one member of the Democratic Congress elected.

who said what I think is the most obvious thing, which is Congresswoman Marie Glucenkamp Perez at a Washington stage. She said he can't be president right now, which I think is accurate. If you have cabinet officials believing, as they told us, he can't handle that 2 a.m. phone call, then he can't handle being president. That's what the job is. And thank God we didn't have a crisis like that, at least as far as we know. So, I mean, I think the party just needs to acknowledge that.

What just happened and that we were all lied to and that it can't happen again, but I don't see very many people in the Democratic Party Acknowledging that congressman Seth Moulton on Friday said something about that about how Democrats knew need to acknowledge that we were wrong on inflation wrong on the border and wrong about Biden's acuity but generally speaking the acknowledgement of

Generally speaking, I feel like the gaslighting is continuing. Just like, he's fine. He's fine. He's not fine. We all see it.

Well, this listener on Blue Sky writes, what do the guests think it will take for the Democratic Party to actually listen to people? The topic of this book paired with how Dem leadership portrayed Bernie Sanders is particularly depressing. Many of my friends are so disillusioned by the past three elections that they've stopped voting. So then do you draw a connection between this incident with regard to the cover up of Joe Biden's speech?

you know, aging and cognitive decline. And the Democrats struggle now to draw enthusiastic support from the country, even among their base. Yeah, because they didn't listen to voters. And I don't think you could argue that the last three Democratic

primaries, 2016, 2020, and 2024, were fair. The Democratic establishment put its hand firmly on the scale for Hillary Clinton. Then as Bernie Sanders looked like he was going to win, there was fear that he would hurt Democrats down ballot.

Biden was the establishment candidate of last resort, who was on his way to losing his third presidential primary before the establishment rallied around him to stop Bernie. And then in 2024, despite voters being very clear that they had serious concerns about Joe Biden, they essentially rigged the primary. The DNC said there would be no debates, that they supported Joe Biden, they changed the primary calendar, and they chopped anyone's head off who said anything different. And

And so I think one of the lessons you could take from this is listen to your voters. Yeah, just to touch base, I agree with that writer or the caller or whatever, whatever you call them, the discord person. I guess he's on blue sky. I agree with that person.

It is part and parcel of the same thing. It is the Democratic establishment not listening to their voters and fearing their voters and fearing Bernie Sanders would be horrible for the party. And I have no idea what the result would be if Bernie Sanders were the nominee. But I do know that there are millions of people who wanted to give it a shot. Millions of Democratic voters who wanted to give it a shot. I.

The idea that there hasn't really been an open primary process. I completely agree with what Alex just said. The last time there really was one was 2008. And even though the party was generally behind Hillary Clinton, they let the voters walk.

work their will and the voters ultimately picked Barack Obama who became president and a two-term Democratic president that was the last time there was one. I don't know why Democratic officeholders are so afraid of Democratic voters, but I think this is all part and parcel of the same thing. But even Democratic voters continue to put into office people who there have been reporting about.

Clear signs of aging and issues, right? We continue to keep voting in Dianne Feinstein here, for example. And, you know, when we did early shows on our concerns around that very much got pushback from the voters. Yeah. People will first of all, let me just say writing or broadcasting about health and aging issues. Yes.

People act like it's like the easiest thing in the world. In retrospect, it's difficult because you are saying something very sensitive and something very personal about somebody who, in many ways, is beloved. Whether it's Dianne Feinstein or Joe Biden, I could go down the list, Strom Thurmond for Republicans, or Thad Cochran or Ruth Bader Ginsburg and on and on and on. And it is very uncomfortable to talk about these issues. It's very...

You really put yourself up to criticism as I can see from in your in your face You're having trauma flashback to your Dianne Feinstein shows because people loved her. She was a trailblazer She did important things she obviously should have retired before she did and there was a primary remember There's a political primary I forget who ran against her but he was gingerly trying to raise the issue of she really should just retire but like even that was considered rude and a front and

And he lost handily in the primary. And and that's a shame. I mean, these are very uncomfortable issues to talk about and discuss. In retrospect, everybody's acting like we all knew this about Joe Biden. We did not know this about Joe Biden. We saw him aging. We didn't know how bad it was. Yeah. Yes. And fundamentally, as journalists, you're trying to keep hold power to account and at the same time trying to fundamentally change.

enable the voters to make informed choices about, you know, and if... Do you know how many House Democrats in the last year and a half have died in office? It's like six. Yes, a very large number. And it's been mainly, of the two parties, it's been Democrats who have died. And there are House Democrats who are very mad right now at all the members of House Democratic Party in their 70s who are going to run for re-election.

It's not just Democrats. It's Republicans, too. But it's an institutional problem in a system built around seniority. So talk about that system. Why, in some ways, too, part of the reason, Alex, that this was able to go as far as it did is because there is a culture of covering for an ailing politician. Right.

Well, and as Jake was mentioning at the top of the show, some of these things begin innocently enough, right? Like you want to make your principal look good. And sometimes principals have good days and bad days. But eventually, all those people, their careers rely on their boss and their boss staying in office.

And so I think what happens is people end up beginning to rationalize what is also in their self-interest and believing that, you know, it's fine if Dianne Feinstein doesn't even know what she's voting for. We're, you know, we're guiding her. And the country is better for us being there.

You mentioned Democrats. So are you saying that Democrats in particular seem to have an issue with this? Is it because they tend to abide by seniority rules in a way that maybe Republicans don't? Or I'm just curious what you attribute that to if you do. I just know that six House Democrats died in office and almost all of them were in their 70s and 80s in the last year and a half. Yeah, I think there were three just this term. And it's just and in fact, and that's look again.

For every one of those deaths, there is a family and friends and people who are in mourning and grief. And it's very, very awful. I mean, this is something that all of us, you know, the Grim Reaper is undefeated. We all are going to have to experience this. And it's very uncomfortable and disconcerting to cover. And, you know, people do write about this every now and then. Like every five years or ten years in Washington, somebody will write a story about some politician who was...

Completely out of it. And everyone is just pretending it's not happening. Strom Thurmond, there was like a decade when he was still in the Senate where he had no idea what was going on and like the entire institution covered up for him.

So a couple of comments that I'll read right now. Anita writes, I believe there should be an age limit on who can become president. Biden and Trump are just too old. We are quickly past 75, and that is just human nature. No president should be elected past 75. Are there structures being discussed right now about age limits? Let's just take Anita's question, for example. Or just even the fact that presidents need to be honest about their age.

like physical and mental states because

What was so interesting to me was your reporting about the fact that, you know, the doctor who was Joe Biden's doctor for so long didn't perform a cognitive test on him for decades. I think it may have been. I'm trying to remember, but it's like, oh, really? We can just do that and take people at their word. Yeah. And they in his explanation. Yeah. The doctor's explanation internally was, well, I see him every day. And most doctors, they only see their patients sometimes. So I don't need to do the cognitive test.

But some people that we talked to said the reason you don't do one is if you're scared of the result. And I think you're right to broaden this out that in terms of age limits, I also think, you know, there are, you know, there are young 75 year olds or old 75 year olds, you know, age, you know, affects other people differently. There are some people in their late 60s that are really struggling. So, you know, the age question, I think, is a little bit more complicated, but having a mechanism to force

transparency and disclosure under a penalty of perjury would take an act of Congress, but Congress could try to demand that level of transparency.

I don't think it would be constitutional to have an age limit. I think it would be, I think you can't say there, I mean, there are, there are, um, who did we just meet the other day that was just like incredibly sharp and he was like 80. I forget who it was, but I mean, it doesn't go by age. So then what could be a better system to ensure that our elected are being truly transparent about their cognitive abilities? Well, I mean, I think for the presidency of,

by law, not for Donald Trump, because you can't pass a law right now that will affect Donald Trump. That's just non-starter. Same thing that if Joe Biden were, you couldn't do it. But like for every future president, a fully transparent under penalty of perjury document of every medication the person is on, every test, every result, that is just not required. And I think like we are entering a world where

where people are going to start living to be like 120. I mean, for whatever reason, our science is devoted to making people live as long as is humanly possible. And that's a whole other subject for a whole other show. But if we're going to be doing that...

I don't think this is the last. How old is Donald Trump now? Seventy eight, nine, seventy nine. This is not three years. Yeah, this is not this last seventy nine year old president we're going to have. It's just going to keep happening and keep happening. We just need to know all the health information in terms of how else we avoid this.

I mean, I think right now people listening should like demand that the people they vote for are honest and just transparent. I haven't heard a lot of honesty and transparency about Joe Biden from any other Democratic official since our book came out or even since, you know, the debate. And then.

You know, right now we're in a period where Congress is very weak. The parties are very weak and the president is very strong. And it'd be good to have some shifting there. Let me remind listeners, you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Let me go to caller Marissa in Oakland. Go ahead, Marissa. You're on. Thanks for waiting. Hi. I didn't I didn't watch the debate because I knew Biden's condition. So honestly, I don't know why other people didn't know it. But my question is this.

Who is the Democratic Party? Who is making these decisions? And this whole discussion points to the need for restructuring of the party to be, frankly, more democratic. Because if it comes down to Biden making a decision about himself, honestly, that's idiotic. That's insane. Like, what kind of party do we have? I mean, there needs to be a restructuring of the party. I'd love to hear your comment. Marissa, thanks. Alex, you're not. She speaks to something that's true.

true is that the party infrastructures are incredibly weak and are basically submissive to whoever the leader of the party is. The fact is that now you, in some ways, it creates, you know, individual cults of personality around whoever the leader of the party is. And so as a result, there is no smoke-filled room or check and balance.

on whoever that person is. The DNC basically just did whatever the White House wanted, including, you know, acting undemocratically in the Democratic primary. Yeah, I mean, the days of strong party chairmen are really gone. Jamie Harrison of South Carolina was picked to be Joe Biden's DNC chair. And this is a guy that

Joe Biden, this was not somebody close to the president. And this is not somebody who could march up to the White House and tell the president some unfortunate truths. This was a lackey. This was a weak person. And that's why he was in that position. Can I ask you a question, Jake? Do you think Biden's ultimately accepting the reality that he was seeing coming in around him, right? And stepping aside and then endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, and

is the kind of extraordinary act, selfless act that a lot of people use as language to get him to do that. No, I don't. And I'll tell you why. The reason that Joe Biden...

Even with the egos and narcissism.

in which John Fetterman asked how many people here are... I'll clean it up because we're on the radio, but he said in his earthy way, how many people here are with Joe Biden? And it was maybe three people raised their hands. And it's a Democratic Senate caucus of 51. And when Chuck Schumer went to... Chuck Schumer went to Biden's top campaign aides after that meeting and said, you better tell President Biden what just happened here. Then he found out that they hadn't. So he met with President Biden and he told him...

You know, I can count votes. You only have the support of five Democrats in the Senate. So I think that realization made Biden think, OK, I have to go. This is this is going to be embarrassing. I don't think it was the time for selflessness was in 2023. And clearly the time for self-examination is now in your views. Jake Tapper is the president.

Washington correspondent, chief Washington correspondent for CNN and an anchor there as well. And Alex Thompson is national political correspondent for Axios. And their new book is Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Calla Lilly writes, I'm 75 and God knows I don't want to be president. My thanks to our listeners and my thanks as well to Caroline Smith for producing today's segment. You've been listening to Forum. I'm Nina Kim.

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