Latest news with #Tapper
New York Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Jake Tapper ripped on C-SPAN while plugging book on Biden's decline: ‘I really don't like you'
CNN anchor Jake Tapper faced sharp criticism from a caller on C-SPAN Tuesday over his new book about former President Joe Biden's cognitive decline, with the woman accusing him of unfair coverage and bias toward the current president, Donald Trump. Tapper appeared on Tuesday's edition of 'Washington Journal' to discuss 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,' the bestselling book he co-wrote with Axios reporter Alex Thompson. During the C-SPAN call-in show, Tapper was confronted by Sarah, a caller from Virginia who voiced frustration over what she saw as one-sided reporting. 4 A C-SPAN caller bluntly told CNN anchor Jake Tapper 'I don't really like you' while he was plugging his book about former President Biden's decline on Tuesday. C-SPAN 'I watch you on CNN,' she began. 'But right now, I really don't like you. I think you're doing a disservice to Joe and also to the American people.' Sarah questioned why Tapper hasn't applied the same level of scrutiny to Trump's behavior and fitness for office. 'When are you going to examine what is going on with Trump? Joe Biden conducted himself for four years taking care of the United States. He took meetings. He went overseas. He negotiated with other leaders,' she said. 'This president has been pure chaos, which indicates to me that there is something wrong with him. We will never get a straight answer on his medical examinations, what medication he is on, and yet you have gone after Joe Biden with a vengeance that… I'm very disappointed in you.' The caller said she used to enjoy Tapper's show 'The Lead,' but that his recent focus had changed her view. 'And I think right now you ought to start writing another book examining Trump and how erratic [he is] and what he is doing, calling out the National Guard, the Marines, and everybody,' she added. 'When has a president ever done that? It's pure erratic!' Tapper, who has acknowledged that he failed to adequately devote scrutiny to the question of Biden's fitness while he was president despite apparent signs of his decline, responded calmly, defending his coverage and encouraging viewers to tune into his daily CNN broadcast. 4 Tapper appeared on Tuesday's edition of 'Washington Journal' to discuss the book he co-wrote with Alex Thompson of Axios. Joe Biden via REUTERS 'Sarah, as you know from watching my show on CNN, we cover President Trump every day for two hours — every day from 5 to 7 Eastern — and we cover all the things you talk about, in terms of the current president's behavior,' he said. He pointed to past instances where Trump confused public figures, saying, 'We have covered the times that he has confused Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley.' 'I think some of the questions about President Trump's behavior have more to do with personality than with cognitive decline,' Tapper added. 'Whatever lessons we've learned from covering President Biden, we would apply to any politician,' he continued. 'So I'm sorry if I'm disappointing you by covering President Biden. But journalists, we are supposed to cover stories that we think the American people have a right to know, that we think will enhance their understanding of how the country is run.' Tapper closed the exchange by reaffirming his belief in the book. 'We are proud of this book,' he said, adding that CNN would continue to cover current events in the days ahead. 4 The book alleges that White House aides worked to conceal the then-president's deteriorating mental and physical condition during his time in office. REUTERS 'Washington Journal' is a live, daily call-in program on C-SPAN that gives viewers the chance to directly engage with elected officials, journalists, policy experts and other public figures about current political and policy issues. It typically airs every morning, seven days a week, and covers a wide range of topics including legislation, national events, and public affairs. The show is known for its unfiltered, interactive format whereby viewers call in and ask questions or share opinions live on-air — often divided by political affiliation. 'Everyone knows that C-SPAN callers are cranky and that's part of the charm of the show,' a media source told The Post. Unlike many news programs, 'Washington Journal' maintains a nonpartisan approach, providing a neutral platform for discussion and civic engagement. 4 The book, 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,' has become a bestseller. AFP via Getty Images The book alleges that White House aides worked to conceal the then-president's deteriorating mental and physical condition during his time in office. Since its release, Tapper has made headlines by calling the alleged cover-up 'worse than Watergate' and describing Hunter Biden as acting like the 'chief of staff of the family.' He has also stated that 'conservative media was right' to raise concerns about Biden's age. House Republicans have already cited the book to justify an expanded investigation into what they claim is a cover-up of Biden's health. A representative for Tapper declined to comment when reached by The Post.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Have Presidents Grown Too Powerful To Be Removed From Office?
The cover-up of President Joe Biden's cognitive decline is a scandal "maybe worse than Watergate," CNN's Jake Tapper opined recently. In this case, the key question is: "What didn't the president know and when didn't he know it?" Last week the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ramped up its efforts to answer these questions. Citing Tapper and Alex Thompson's book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, The committee's chairman, Rep. James Comer (R–Tenn.), issued demand letters to five senior Biden aides and subpoenaed the White House doctor who certified that the president was fit for duty. He clearly wasn't. Even in 2020, Biden struggled to feign lucidity in tightly scripted Zoom town halls. "He couldn't follow the conversation at all," said top Democrats who saw the raw footage; it "was like watching Grandpa who shouldn't be driving." The four Cabinet members who spoke with Tapper and Thompson described equally scripted Cabinet meetings with a president incapable of answering pre-screened questions without the aid of a teleprompter. One recounted being "shocked by how the president was acting" at a 2024 meeting: "'disoriented' and 'out of it,' his mouth agape." One campaign adviser asked himself after a post-debate conversation with Biden: "What are we doing here? This guy can't form a fucking sentence." Put more politely, the president was "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office"—just cause for removal. "This is why we have the 25th Amendment," Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) said recently, "it's clear now that it probably should have been invoked from the beginning." That key players instead propped up a semiconscious figurehead, hoping to gaslight their way to reelection, isn't just a scandal—it's a constitutional failure. That failure reveals an uncomfortable truth: As the presidency has grown ever more powerful, even manifestly unfit presidents have become nearly impossible to remove. Ratified in 1967, the 25th Amendment provides two ways the vice president can get the keys from a nonfunctioning president. Under Section 3, the president hands them over voluntarily; under Section 4, the VP can take them away when he or she and a majority of the Cabinet determine that the president is incapacitated. Section 4 was meant to cover cases of "mental debility," as one of the amendment's architects, Rep. Richard Poff (R–Va.), explained, where the president "is unable or unwilling to make any rational decision…particularly the decision to stand aside." Top of mind was avoiding a replay of the Woodrow Wilson debacle. Leveled by a pair of strokes in 1919, the 28th president spent the remainder of his term bedridden and incommunicado while first lady Edith Wilson essentially ran the executive branch of the government. "We dare not let that happen again," Rep. Emanuel Celler (D–N.Y.) warned during the House debate over the 25th amendment. Yet it arguably just did. In the six-decade life of the amendment, Biden's presidency is as close as we've come to the paradigmatic Woodrow Wilson case, complete with a latter-day Edith Wilson—Jill Biden—and a clique of advisers the Biden staff dubbed "the Politburo." An inert president may sound like a libertarian dream. Alas, it's not as if nothing gets done while he's checked out. The New York Times calls concerns about heavy use of the autopen a "conspiracy theory." But if reports from the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project are accurate, it's at least interesting that, from mid-July 2022 on, most executive orders issued by the administration were signed remotely, even when Biden was in Washington. Despite the Politburo's efforts to conceal the president's decline, the Cabinet knew. At any point, the vice president and eight Cabinet-level "principal officers" could have moved to replace him via Section 4. Why didn't they? For one thing, the 25th Amendment's "eject button" is almost impossible to trigger: Even broaching the possibility risks crashing the plane. Any single Cabinet member who disagrees could "short-circuit the process by informing the President, potentially triggering a cascade of firings." (Something similar happened in 1920, when Wilson's secretary of state, Robert Lansing, was forced out for suggesting a transfer of power to Vice President Thomas Marshall.) Another problem is that even with the support of the Cabinet, it was unclear whether Vice President Harris could garner enough GOP votes in Congress to ratify the switch. Without a supermajority of both Houses, Biden would come back from time-out and the firing frenzy would begin. According to Tapper and Thompson, the 25th Amendment solution was never even considered. Instead, the Politburo's reigning calculus was that Biden "just had to win and then he could disappear for four years—he'd only have to show proof of life every once in a while." Meanwhile, the same people hoping to defraud the electorate subjected the rest of us to lectures about threats to "our democracy." Worse still, it isn't just the 25th Amendment that's broken. The Constitution provides another method for ejecting an unfit president before his term is up: the impeachment process. In the last five years, we've pressure-tested both failsafe mechanisms. Neither one worked. In his first term, President Donald Trump was impeached twice, the second time for provoking a riot while trying to intimidate Congress and his own vice president into overturning the results of an election he lost. Even that enormity didn't earn him conviction and disqualification in the Senate trial. The fact that we've never managed to eject a sitting president via the impeachment process suggests that the framers set the bar for removal—conviction by two-thirds of the Senate—too high. For Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, which requires a supermajority of both houses, the bar is even higher. Lowering the bar to an impeachment conviction—say, to 60 votes—would better protect the public from an abusive president. It would also provide security against a future Biden/Wilson scenario. Though impeachment aims primarily at abuse of power, it was designed as a remedy for presidential unfitness generally: "defending the community against the incapacity, negligence, or perfidy of the Chief Magistrate," as James Madison put it. Properly understood, that covers cases of "mental debility." Of course, that reform faces a dauntingly high bar of its own: It would take a constitutional amendment, the prospects for which are dim. But making presidents easier to fire is only one way to tackle our fundamental problem; the other is to shrink the job. "Incapacity, negligence, and perfidy" in the presidency are bigger threats than ever, because presidents now have the power to reshape vast swaths of American life. They enjoy broad authority to decide what kind of car you can drive, who gets to use which locker room, who is allowed to come to the United States, and whether or not we have a trade war with China—or a hot war with Iran. That's more power than any one fallible human being should have. Making the presidency safe for democracy will require a reform effort on the scale of the post-Watergate Congresses: reining in emergency powers, war powers, the president's authority over international trade, and his ability to make law with the stroke of a pen. It's a heavy lift, but worth the effort. If we're worried about the damage unfit presidents can do, we should give them fewer things to break. The post Have Presidents Grown Too Powerful To Be Removed From Office? appeared first on
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
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
As Jake Tapper's Biden Book Promotion Faces Criticism, CNN's Ratings Drop For His Show and Others
Jake Tapper's new book, 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,' co-authored with Axios reporter Alex Thompson, has sparked a conversation about the ex-president's cognitive decline while in the White House. But the book's release, along with Tapper and Thompson's extensive media tour to promote it in the last month, has not helped the CNN star's ratings — or the shows that follow his. In fact, viewership for 'The Lead with Jake Tapper' suffered a noticeable year-over-year drop-off in May, posting its worst month since August 2015, according to Nielsen. And the three shows that follow his — 'Erin Burnett Upfront,' 'Anderson Cooper 360' and 'The Source With Kaitlan Collins' — all took significant hits as well, with each seeing its viewership drop 18% or more compared to a year ago. The ratings drop-off coincided with Tapper and Thompson's tour to promote 'Original Sin.' The book debuted in the top spot on The New York Times bestseller list, selling about 54,000 copies in its first week, and it currently ranks as the sixth-best seller on Amazon. Tapper's hosts on other CNN shows also heavily promoted the book. It was a tough month for CNN overall. After seeing its ratings rebound following a viewer exodus after the 2024 election, the channel lost that momentum in May, posting its second-lowest weekday primetime and total-day viewership ever; only December 2024 was worse. Here is a look at the ratings: 'The Lead With Jake Tapper,' per Nielsen data, dropped 25% from 701,000 viewers in May 2024 to 525,000 viewers last month. Cooper and Burnett's shows each lost more than 100,000 viewers compared to a year ago, dropping 18% year-over-year; and Collins' show took a 24% hit compared to a year ago, going from 611,000 viewers to 462,000. Tapper referred TheWrap to CNN's PR team when reached for comment. 'The award-winning program 'The Lead with Jake Tapper' reaches broad global audiences across CNN, CNN International and Max's streaming platform,' a CNN spokesperson told TheWrap. 'No single metric can capture the true reach and impact of a program driving the national conversation.' CNN shows like Tapper's are available on Max for streaming, which is not counted by Nielsen, although the channel did not share how much that may have boosted May ratings. MSNBC did not benefit from any disenchanted CNN viewers moving over to their channel, with its ratings dropping 24% month-over-month between April and May. Tapper and Thompson have made headlines while promoting the book — perhaps most notably when Tapper told Piers Morgan last week that the cover-up of Biden's cognitive decline was 'maybe even worse than Watergate.' During an interview on his own channel, Tapper said there was was 'not enough' coverage of Biden's health issues, including from himself. And while appearing on Megyn Kelly's show last month, Tapper said he called Lara Trump to apologize to her, after he ripped her in 2020 for claiming Biden was showing signs of cognitive decline. 'She saw something that I did not see at the time,' Tapper said. '100 percent. And I own that.' The media blitz hasn't appeared to help CNN's viewership, though, and has opened up the network, and Tapper, to criticism from both sides of the political aisle. Tapper and Thompson's mea culpas about the press' failings, and their own, haven't mollified conservatives, who have used the reporting in the book as evidence that the media downplayed Biden's health in an effort to prop up his candidacy, which Tapper has denied. 'Original Sin' has also faced attacks from the left, accusing Tapper of focusing on Biden when there are more pressing issues regarding the current administration. Weighing in on 'The Left Hook' podcast, writer Wajahat Ali described the book by saying, 'While the Trump Administration is galloping towards fascism and arguing to end birthright citizenship, corporate media remain complicit cowards by focusing on Joe Biden's age.'The post As Jake Tapper's Biden Book Promotion Faces Criticism, CNN's Ratings Drop For His Show and Others appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Opinion - Too little, too late: A media in crisis blames Democrats for the Biden cover-up
In May 2025, days before it was announced that former President Biden had been diagnosed with cancer, NBC ran a sensational headline: 'Biden didn't recognize George Clooney at June fundraiser: new book.' It cited 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,' co-authored by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson, detailing how the president's team concealed his cognitive and physical decline — and raising ethical questions about transparency. Tapper now claims that the White House 'was lying … to the press, the public, their own Cabinet.' But as a journalist, Tapper's surprise is both revealing and disingenuous. His book shifts blame to Democrats, ignoring how the media aided the cover-up. It's the latest in a string of reputation-saving moves from a media industry in crisis. Credibility in journalism — hard to earn, easy to lose — once demanded rigorous objectivity. Olivia Nuzzi was fired from The New Yorker merely for private contact with RFK Jr., not even for proven bias. But such standards already seem archaic. During COVID-19, CNN's Chris Cuomo used his show to flatter his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), masking Andrew's deadly mismanagement of nursing homes and corruption, behind jokes about Q-tips. The abandonment of objectivity accelerated with Donald Trump's rise. In 2016, New York Times writer Jim Rutenberg and Univision's Jorge Ramos argued objectivity should give way to moral clarity. But this rationalization led to partisan reporting, such as the Russiagate exaggerations and slanted pandemic coverage. In trying to 'save democracy,' journalists undermined the very pillar that sustains it. By Biden's inauguration, the press seemed to have learned nothing. CNN's David Chalian likened spotlights to Biden's 'arms embracing America.' Wolf Blitzer said Biden 'put his soul' into his speech. NBC's Chuck Todd dubbed him 'the Better Angels president.' Meanwhile, the media dismissed or mocked concerns about Biden's mental acuity, even as video evidence suggested otherwise. Biden confused even basic facts — calling himself the 'first Black woman' to serve in the White House and declaring that 'I wouldn't have picked vice president Trump to be vice president,' not to mention his glitch at a concert and his lack of focus at a G-7 event. Each time, the press downplayed the issue. MSNBC dismissed cognitive concerns as 'hysteria' and used terms like 'cheap fakes' to discredit video evidence. Others, such as The View's Whoopi Goldberg, dismissed the importance of the president's cognitive abilities, and exclaimed that she does not care 'if he's pooped his pants,' she is voting for him anyway. Similarly, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough responded to those questioning Biden's cognitive ability with an 'F you' on the air. Scarborough had argued a mere three months before the debate that Biden 'is far beyond cogent … in fact, I think he is better than he has ever been,' and this is 'the best Biden ever.' This dismissal continued even after a Department of Justice investigator, Robert Hur, described Biden as a 'well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.' In response, media personalities attacked Hur instead of engaging with the facts. However, now new audio has leaked of the interviews, giving weight to Hur's contention that Biden behaved like an unfocused and confused elder. Biden's disastrous June 2024 debate, where he blanked mid-sentence and claimed 'We finally beat Medicare,' ended the charade. He soon dropped out. When Kamala Harris's chaotic campaign also failed, media credibility cratered. MSNBC lost 61 percent of its key demographic post-election, while audiences turned to outlets like MeidasTouch. In response, some journalists tried rebranding. Chris Cuomo adopted populist critiques of both parties, conveniently forgetting his own CNN record. Tapper, meanwhile, portrays himself as deceived, positioning his book as a reckoning. But 'Original Sin' evades the real question: did this cover-up begin before the election? The answer is yes — and Tapper was part of it. Concerns about Biden's cognition emerged well before 2020. During a 2019 debate, Julián Castro asked the president if he was 'forgetting' his own statements. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) publicly worried about Biden's ability to 'carry the ball' without 'fumbling.' Yet the press framed criticisms as attacks on a childhood stutter. Around that same time, journalist Ryan Grim described Biden's debate performance as 'staggeringly incoherent.' -The press failed to adequately address these concerns until five years later. Even by 2020, the year of the election, the red flags were impossible to miss. Biden fabricated stories about being in a war zone, called a voter 'fat' for no apparent reason, told Charlamagne Tha God 'If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black' and misnamed his own campaign website as 'Joe 3-0-3-3-0' instead of These were just a few of the many moments, captured on video and widely shared on YouTube, that fueled concerns about Biden's cognitive decline before he ever took office. Tapper's interviews, so far, have conveniently sidestepped the question of whether this cover-up started before the election. For example, in 2020, just prior to the election, Lara Trump raised Biden's cognitive issues on Tapper's show. Tapper responded by dismissing her assertion, and scolded her for making children who stutter feel bad. The media knew Biden's mental decline was an issue in 2019. By 2020, it was impossible to ignore. But fearing a Bernie Sanders upset in the primary, Democrats and their media allies closed ranks. Tapper's post-facto outrage avoids this context — and his own complicity. Journalism isn't stenography. Blaming sources for lying ignores the journalist's job: to interrogate power, not merely repeat it. The public deserves better than a press that performs truth only when it's convenient. Now, with Trump back in office, journalists claim they'll be watchdogs again. But the public isn't buying it — not after watching the media abandon objectivity when it mattered most. Credibility, once lost, isn't easily reclaimed. And the damage isn't just to journalism, it's to democracy itself. Nolan Higdon is a founding member of the Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas, Project Censored National Judge and university lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, Santa Cruz. All of his work is available at Substack. He is the author of 'The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education,' 'Let's Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy' and 'The Media And Me: A Guide To Critical Media Literacy For Young People.' Higdon is a regular source of expertise for CBS, NBC, The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
