A bombshell book just dropped that’s shaking up the political landscape with revelations about President Joe Biden’s inner circle fretting over his age long before any public stumbles.
According to Fox News, the newly released book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, titled "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," dives deep into years of private worries among Biden’s aides and family about his cognitive capacity, painting a picture of a team scrambling to shield a leader they feared was slipping.
Let’s rewind to the beginning of this saga, where the book traces the first whispers of concern to the heartbreaking loss of Biden’s son, Beau, in 2015.
According to the authors, Beau’s battle with cancer and the family’s tight-lipped response—downplaying hospital visits by then-Vice President Biden—revealed a pattern of denial and secrecy around health matters that would later echo in Joe Biden’s own story.
“Beau's wife, Hallie, told people she didn't understand why they had to keep his illness a secret,” the book notes, hinting at a family instinct to hide vulnerabilities.
Well, that instinct might explain a lot, but it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when transparency is what voters crave from those in power.
Fast forward to the 2020 campaign trail, and Biden’s team was already sweating bullets, especially during an exhausting Iowa bus tour in December 2019, where he couldn’t even recall the name of a trusted aide who’d been with him since 1981.
“You know, you know,” Biden reportedly fumbled as aides exchanged uneasy glances, per the book—a moment that screams concern when you’re vying for the highest office.
Sorry, but if you’re forgetting the names of folks who’ve had your back for decades, maybe the rigors of a national campaign aren’t the best fit.
Biden’s team wasn’t just worried about one-off flubs; they were “white-knuckling” through debates and dodging tough interviews, fearing his changed communication style from his sharper days as a senator or vice president would show a diminished leader.
Voters in key battleground states didn’t miss it either, reportedly seeing a man who wasn’t always at his peak during the grueling 2020 schedule, with aides admitting the pandemic’s slowdown might have been the only thing saving the campaign from collapse.
Turns out, even a global crisis can’t fully mask struggles when you’re under the spotlight of a presidential run.
Even with COVID-19 slowing things down, Biden couldn’t stay on message, with aides tweaking Zoom setups, adjusting production designs, and even loading pre-written answers into prompters for local interviews to keep things smooth.
At the 2020 Democratic National Convention, virtual chats with voters through monitors left Biden floundering, while edited clips of these awkward exchanges had some Democrats fuming over his readiness for the job—and frankly, who can blame them for questioning?
Meanwhile, a Biden spokesperson pushed back to Fox News Digital, saying, “There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job,” insisting national security was never at risk and touting his empathetic leadership—nice try, but the optics of these revelations sting nonetheless.
