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Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Biden book authors pressed on why the media failed in covering cognitive decline scandal
CHICAGO – The journalists behind the bombshell book about Joe Biden's cognitive decline continue to face tough questions about the media's failure to report on it sooner. Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, the co-authors of "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," appeared in Chicago as part of their book tour and were confronted with an audience question submitted by Fox News Digital about the reckoning the media has been facing in recent weeks and months regarding their role in the Biden scandal. "I mean, it was a failing of the press," Thompson responded Thursday. "'I'd say, on the most basic level, if the press was completely on this story, then the debate would not have been such a shock." Biden Book Author Reveals How White House Staff Truly Felt About Karine Jean-pierre As Press Secretary The Axios reporter insisted newsrooms aren't a "monolith" and dismissed the notion that there was any coordination between news outlets in covering up for Biden, jokingly telling the Windy City crowd "they can't even plan a happy hour." "There are a lot of really great reporters and there are a lot of great reporters in the Biden White House," Thompson said. "And it does frustrate me a bit when there's this broad brush painted by, in my opinion, some bad-faith right-wing people trying to be like, 'They were all in the tank.' That being said, I do think there were a few things going on that allowed some reporters to miss this. One is, I do think some people let their own personal ideological leanings affect how they reported." Read On The Fox News App "The other thing I will say about the D.C. sort of circuit beyond reporters – D.C. is a liberal town. It didn't always use to be, but it is now. And if you are an aggressive, tough, fair reporter on Donald Trump, you get snaps all around town. If you are invited to every single garden party… You don't get as many yes snaps when you're covering Obama or when you're covering Biden," he continued, adding that the "social incentives" change between covering the Trump administration and covering the Biden administration. Cnn's Tapper Rips Media Smear Campaign Against Hur, Wsj On Biden Decline Without Mentioning Own Network "It's a complicated question," Tapper chimed in. "Yes. I wish I had been more aggressive about it, but I will say when we started writing this book after Election Day 2024, we did not know what we were gonna get or how many people were gonna talk to us… We talked to more than 200 people. And we were surprised at what we learned. Like we did not know that some of this dated back to 2015 after the tragic loss of his son Beau." "And so the idea is that this was all just sitting there waiting for the reporting, I wish it was so, it is not true," Tapper said. While the CNN anchor conceded that "right-wing media" was right in calling out Biden's cognitive decline before the rest of the legacy media, he swiped that sharing viral videos of Biden over the years isn't "investigative journalism." "If any of those outlets actually published any investigative journalism that had cabinet secretaries as we do, or senior White House staffers as we do, etc., saying these things as opposed to just pointing and laughing at him, then maybe I would be more receptive to the argument from them, 'Oh, we all knew this as we reported it at the time,'" Tapper said. Shielding Biden: Journalists Shed Light On The Media's Cover-up Of A Weakened President When asked what their takeaways from their reporting and the entire Biden saga were, Thompson called out journalists who rely on a "moral calculus" when determining whether to cover a major political story. "If reporters are doing a moral calculus, or they start doing some weird calculus where 'If I report this, would it help Trump and that's gonna be bad or good,' that is an endless path that I don't think reporters should be trying to do," Thompson said. "The job and the reporting is, is this true? Can we report it? And it's really up to the country to decide what to do with that reporting. I think sometimes reporters get caught up in thinking about the externalities and the consequences of putting this out into the world." "There are always going to be bad-faith people and bad-faith politicians that are gonna take the reporting and skew it and use it for their own partisan purposes. But if you start thinking that way in saying like, 'Oh, I don't want to report something that's true because bad-faith people are gonna take advantage of it,' I think you just end up in this, like, bad cul-de-sac," he article source: Biden book authors pressed on why the media failed in covering cognitive decline scandal
New York Post
05-06-2025
- Health
- New York Post
House GOP subpoenas Biden doctor, sets sights on Karine Jean-Pierre
WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer issued a subpoena Thursday to force Joe Biden's doctor, Kevin O'Connor, to appear for questions about the alleged cover-up of the ex-president's mental decline — and plans to invite Karine Jean-Pierre to appear after she divulged plans for a tell-all book about the 'broken' administration she served as press secretary. Dr. O'Connor refused to sit for a transcribed interview, citing patient-doctor confidentiality, but will now be called in for a grilling on June 27, according to the subpoena. 'In lieu of full compliance, your counsel suggest a set of written interrogatories that would afford them as well as an unnamed medical ethics expert the ability to 'closely evaluate' your answers,' Comer (R-Ky.) wrote to O'Connor. 'This is not acceptable and will not satisfy the Committee's legitimate oversight and legislative needs. Considering these facts, the attached subpoena is now necessary.' 3 Getty Images A source familiar with the House investigation said that the panel expects Jean-Pierre to be invited to give testimony as well — after she said Wednesday that she had left the Democratic Party and plans to release 'Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines' on Oct. 21. 3 David Lienemann/The White House 3 REUTERS O'Connor is the first person to be subpoenaed by Comer as part of his investigation of Biden's mental decline and the alleged concealment of his slipping health. Comer initially sought the doctor's testimony about 'the circumstances surrounding your assessment in February 2024 that former President Biden was 'a healthy, active, robust 81- year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.'' The chairman noted in his latest communication that his committee also was interested in 'whether your financial relationship with the Biden family affected your assessment of former President Biden's physical and mental fitness to fulfill his duties as President.' 'Given your connections with the Biden family, the Committee sought to understand if you contributed to an effort to hide former President Biden's fitness to serve from the American people,' he wrote. The oversight panel is in talks with attorneys for four other Biden aides about their potential testimony, including first lady Jill Biden's former chief of staff Anthony Bernal and the president's former West Wing aides Annie Tomasini, Neera Tanden and Ashley Williams. On Wednesday, Comer also requested appearances by former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, former de facto West Wing communications chief Anita Dunn and longtime Biden advisers Bruce Reed, Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti. Biden has brushed off claims that he was mentally fading while in office and last week suggested he was fit enough to beat up journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, the co-authors of 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.' 'You can see that I'm mentally incompetent and I can't walk and I can beat the hell out of both of them,' Biden bristled May 30 following remarks in his home state of Delaware — his first public appearance since the May 18 announcement he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Bill Clinton: Biden ‘was in good shape'
Former President Clinton said in a Sunday interview he thought former President Biden was 'in good shape' when they spoke recently. In an interview on 'CBS News Sunday Morning,' Clinton said he did not read the book 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again' by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson, but he said he never questioned whether Biden was fit to lead. 'No, I thought he was a good president,' Clinton said. 'The only concern I thought he had to deal with was, could anybody do that job until they were 86?' 'And we'd had several long talks,' he continued. 'I had never seen him and walked away thinking he can't do this anymore. He was always on top of his briefs.' Clinton also clearly said 'no' when asked whether he ever saw any cognitive decline. 'So I didn't know anything about any of this, and I haven't read the book,' he said. 'I saw President Biden not very long ago, and I thought he was in good shape, but the book didn't register with me because I never saw him that way.' On why he didn't read the book, Clinton suggested it was a distraction and a way to blame Biden for Trump's election. 'I didn't want to because he's not president anymore, and I think he did a good job,' Clinton said. 'And I think we are facing challenges today without precedent in our history, and some people are trying to use this as a way to blame him for the fact that Trump was reelected.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
02-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Bill Clinton: Biden ‘was in good shape'
Former President Clinton said in a Sunday interview he thought former President Biden was 'in good shape' when they spoke recently. In an interview on 'CBS News Sunday Morning,' Clinton said he did not read the book, 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again' by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson, but said he never questioned whether Biden was fit to lead. 'No, I thought he was a good president,' Clinton said. 'The only concern I thought he had to deal with was, could anybody do that job until they were 86?' 'And we'd had several long talks,' he continued. 'I had never seen him and walked away thinking he can't do this anymore. He was always on top of his briefs.' Clinton also clearly said, 'no,' when asked if he ever saw any cognitive decline. 'So I didn't know anything about any of this, and I haven't read the book. I saw President Biden not very long ago, and I thought he was in good shape, but the book didn't register with me because I never saw him that way.' On why he didn't read the book, Clinton suggested it was a distraction and a way to blame Biden for Trump's election. 'I didn't want to because he's not president anymore, and I think he did a good job,' Clinton said. 'And I think we are facing challenges today without precedent in our history, and some people are trying to use this as a way to blame him for the fact that Trump was reelected.'
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Biden says he could 'beat the hell out of' authors of new book arguing his cognitive decline
Former President Joe Biden joked Friday he could take on those who questioned his mental faculties following his first public remarks since announcing he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Biden's statement comes after several books have been released detailing his mental deterioration while in office, including the book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," that was released May 20. "You can see that I'm mentally incompetent, I can't walk," Biden quipped with reporters Friday after speaking at a Memorial Day event. "And I could beat the hell out of both of them." Biden appeared to be referencing the book's authors, Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios. Biden's First Public Remarks Since Cancer Diagnosis Honor Gold Star Families The reporters' book claims that Biden struggled to string together coherent sentences for campaign ad videos, that his Cabinet meetings were "so scripted" and that Biden's team allegedly plotted a cover-up to hide just how severely his mental faculties had declined. Read On The Fox News App But Biden's team has pushed back on the material included in the book. "There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy," a Biden spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the President wasn't otherwise engaged in the important matters of the Presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill." Biden Family Misled Public, Concealed Details On Son Beau's Cancer Diagnosis, New Book Says In addition to the publication of multiple books this year chronicling the deterioration of Biden's mental faculties, leaked audio recordings of Biden's October 2023 interview with former Special Counsel Robert Hur were released in May, showing that Biden struggled to not slur his words and even appeared to forget the year his son died. Biden revealed May 18 that he had an "aggressive form" of prostate cancer, and his office later said he had never received a prostate cancer diagnosis before. Biden told reporters Friday that he is "optimistic" about his diagnosis and is currently receiving treatment in the form of a pill. Biden's Sad Prostate Cancer Diagnosis: Unanswered Questions And Maga Attacks "My expectation is we're going to be able to beat this," Biden said. Earlier Friday, Biden appeared at a Memorial Day sponsored by the Delaware Commission of Veteran Affairs where he honored service members who had lost their lives. "We come together and remember the debt we owe to the American military," Biden said at the event, sponsored by the Delaware Commission of Veteran Affairs. "The military is a solid spine, the spine of our nation," he said. "Our troops, our veterans, our military families, and our Gold Star families in particular. Only around 1% of all Americans defend 99% of us — 1%. Just 1% of Americans risk the ultimate sacrifice. We owe them so much more than we can ever repay them."Original article source: Biden says he could 'beat the hell out of' authors of new book arguing his cognitive decline
