Biden's Decline Was ‘Much Worse Behind the Scenes,' Per New Book
People close to President Joe Biden hid the extent of his decline, new reporting shows. Free from fears that sharing the truth might help elect Donald Trump, they are finally coming clean to journalists. Had they spoken up earlier, maybe things would look different. A new book makes the argument that the 82-year-old's refusal to address his waning capabilities or accept defeat was a critical factor in Trump's path back to power.
Biden's decline has long been apparent. As far back as 2019, his eye was bleeding during a televised town hall, and he was saying 'look, fat' to an Iowa voter after challenging him to pushups. By early 2024, Biden was confusing the French president with a former French president who died in the 90s. The president was forced to drop out of the election last summer after a nightmarish debate performance against Trump revealed he was in terrible shape.
But the extent of Biden's deterioration was not a major topic of reporting for much of his presidency — and his decline was actively covered up, according to CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson.
Their new book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, uses interviews with more than 200 sources to show those close to Biden were trying to hide his plummeting cognitive abilities.
'What we found by writing this book is that everything that we saw going on in front of the camera was much worse behind the scenes,' Tapper told the New Yorker's David Remnick in an interview published Saturday. The journalists' longtime sources were much more forthcoming after the election when they no longer had to worry about hurting Biden's or Vice President Kamala Harris' chances.
It was clear to those around Biden that he was struggling. The people with access to the president shrank from the end of 2023 to 2024 as his decline became 'precipitous,' as Thompson put it.
When he decided to run for reelection, there were people close to the president who didn't think it was a good idea. But no one actually told Biden that another bid for office would be irresponsible. Thompson partly blames Biden for creating an atmosphere that discouraged dissent.
Tapper elaborated: 'The point with Biden was such that I have never seen, until maybe the current administration — an administration where the president is so surrounded by people who will never tell him anything negative, ever, and in fact will block negative stuff from coming to him.'
Biden Cabinet members told Tapper and Thompson that Cabinet meetings were 'disturbing and frustrating.' As early as 2021, meetings followed scripts. In 2022, he forgot the name of one of his top advisors, the journalists report.
October 2023 marked the beginning of what one Cabinet member called the 'weird period,' where members of the Cabinet, with the exception of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, did not interact with Biden. One secretary who did manage to meet with Biden in spring of 2024 found him 'mumbly and incoherent and difficult to understand,' Tapper said.
'But no one came forward,' Tapper said.' When they would complain internally, they were told, 'He's fine, be quiet.''
One person who did speak out was actor George Clooney. Thompson and Tapper report that Biden didn't recognize the movie star at the June 2024 fundraiser Clooney was co-hosting. Biden's aide even told him 'you know George,' which didn't spark the president's memory. The aide then said 'George Clooney.'
'And then he's, like, 'Sure, yeah. Hey, how're you doing?'' Tapper said. The incident prompted Clooney to write an op-ed in the New York Times where he argued that the Democrats needed a new nominee for president.
'No one has been able to point out where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or make a presidential address where he was unable to do his job because of mental decline,' a spokesperson told the New Yorker when they published an excerpt from the book detailing this incident.
And what if Biden had been reelected? People close to Biden think there would have been a constitutional crisis. Members of the Democratic party would have realized Biden was incapable of doing the job, and Biden's inner circle would have refused to give up power.
'There is more to being president than not being Donald Trump,' Thompson said. 'And I think that sort of speaks to the frustrating choice Democrats and the country faced in this last election. You had somebody who even members of his own administration believed was not up to doing the job he was running for, for four more years, versus someone who they sincerely believed was going to hurt the country in significant ways.'
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CNN
32 minutes ago
- CNN
Trump deploys National Guard to stop LA immigration protests, defying California's governor. Why experts call the move dangerous
Federal agencies US military Donald Trump Immigration FacebookTweetLink President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protests in Los Angeles, overriding California Gov. Gavin Newsom's objections in a rare move. This invocation of presidential powers that have remained dormant for decades signifies an escalation that challenges both state authority and long-established standards, some experts and political leaders say. Protests in and around Los Angeles erupted on Friday after federal immigration agents arrested at least 44 people. The arrests come amid Trump's crackdown on immigration, which has involved waves of raids and deportations across the country. Law enforcement used tear gas and flash bang grenades in an effort to disperse protesters over the weekend, but Trump said local officials had failed to deal with the unrest, and the federal government would 'solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!' he wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. Trump signed a presidential memorandum deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles under Title 10 of the United States Code to 'temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions' as well as federal property, he announced in a memo to the attorney general and the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security Saturday. Title 10 allows the president to deploy the National Guard as necessary to repel invasion, suppress rebellion or execute laws, which means the National Guard reports to the president rather than the governor. Trump's federalization of National Guard troops marks the first time a US chief executive has used such power since 1992, when the Los Angeles riots erupted after four White police officers were acquitted in the beating of Black motorist Rodney King. Dozens of people were killed, thousands injured and thousands were arrested during several days of rioting in Los Angeles. Property damage was estimated at more than $1 billion in one of the worst civil disturbances in US history. However, the deployment ordered by then-President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, occurred at the request of then-California Gov. Pete Wilson, another Republican. It is rare for a president to act without a governor's cooperation or request. In this case, Democrat Newsom has explicitly opposed Trump's deployment order. 'That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions,' Newsom said on X Saturday. 'This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.' Trump earlier Sunday on Truth Social praised National Guard troops he greenlit to quash ongoing immigration protests in Southern California for doing a 'great job,' despite no evidence the troops were yet on the ground. Minutes after Trump posted on Truth Social, LA Mayor Karen Bass said on X, 'Just to be clear, the National Guard has not been deployed in the City of Los Angeles.' About 300 members of the National Guard arrived in Los Angeles later Sunday morning following two consecutive days of protests over immigration enforcement action, Izzy Gardon, communications director for Newsom, told CNN in an email Sunday. The League of United Latin American Citizens condemned Trump's order, saying the move 'marks a deeply troubling escalation in the administration's approach to immigration and civilian reaction to the use of military-style tactics.' Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragán of California agreed. 'We haven't asked for the help. We don't need the help. This is him escalating it, causing tensions to rise. It's only going to make things worse in a situation where people are already angry over immigration enforcement,' said Barragán, who represents the city of Paramount, where troops have been deployed. On Sunday afternoon, aerial footage showed masses of demonstrators blocking lanes in both directions of a Los Angeles freeway, disrupting traffic. Bass said at a Sunday evening news conference hundreds of people managed to reach the freeway with thousands more occupying the streets nearby. Protesters took to the streets near an initial protest site at the Metropolitan Detention Center after the Los Angeles Police Department declared the gathering 'unlawful.' The California Highway Patrol said in a post on X some people were arrested as authorities worked to reopen the freeway. Other federal mobilizations of the National Guard since World War II were made to support enforcement of the expansion of civil rights and ensure public order during the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957; the University of Mississippi in 1962; and the University of Alabama and Alabama's public schools in 1963, according to the National Guard's website. Guard units also came under federal control in 1967 to restore public order during the Detroit riots; in 1968 following the assassination of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; and in 1970 during the New York postal strike, according to the National Guard. Congress first authorized presidential mobilization of state militias in 1792, to help repel foreign invasions and suppress domestic insurrections, the Guard's website says. The biggest ever federalization of state militias was made by President Abraham Lincoln, when he called up 75,000 troops to fight the Confederacy and later support Reconstruction. After that, no president federalized state militias to prevent or quell civil disturbances until the 1957 Little Rock action, according to the website. What makes this situation different from most past federalizations? To start, the deployment came without a request from the state's governor. The last time this happened was 1965, according to Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive policy institute. President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized National Guard troops to protect civil rights demonstrators in Alabama that year. Protesters who set out from Selma were protected by over 3,000 National Guard troops, according to the National Archives. The protest march – the third attempt after previous marches were met with violence from state troopers – was led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and thousands of protesters walked to the State Capitol in Montgomery, where they delivered a voting rights petition to the governor. Goitein described Trump's deployment as 'extremely rare' in an interview with CNN's Jim Sciutto. She noted Johnson invoked the Insurrection Act – a move Trump hasn't taken yet. Asked Sunday whether he was prepared to invoke the law, Trump told reporters in New Jersey it 'depends whether or not there is an insurrection.' Historically, presidents have federalized National Guard deployment when requested by a governor whose resources are overwhelmed, such as during the LA riots or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana – or when a governor defies a court order, such as the Little Rock desegregation case, when President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the National Guard to support the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision. CNN senior national security analyst and former DHS official Juliette Kayyem called the Trump administration's response to this weekend's protests an extreme overreaction and said it is 'not rational given the threat we're seeing.' 'This scenario – some urban unrest handled directly by police and state authorities overruled by a president who is defying a governor – is without modern precedent,' Kayyem said in a post on X. 'A democracy does not deploy military for unrest that looks like this,' Kayyem told CNN on Saturday. Following Hurricane Katrina, about 7,000 National Guard troops were federalized to support New Orleans; ports and prisons were closed, the police force was not functional, and nearly 2,000 people died. 'The numbers, when you just compare this to Hurricane Katrina … an entire city and court system underwater, you get a sense of why Governor Newsom and local law enforcement are very concerned,' Kayyem said. 'The comparison to 2,000 (National Guard troops) for a couple of hundred protesters, you can just get a sense of the sort of reaction that the Trump White House is having,' she said. The administration's diminishing of the standards for deploying and federalizing the National Guard under Title 10 is concerning, Kayyem added. 'This is part of an overall reaching by the Trump White House to utilize federal military resources in civilian society, without an insurrection, without a major flood, without a major crisis, and in defiance of political leadership.' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Trump called in the National Guard soldiers to 'address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester' and 'violent mobs attacked ICE Officers and Federal Law Enforcement Agents.' Even in the face of violence, disruptions and civil unrest, Kayyem said deploying the National Guard under Title 10 without the governor's cooperation, especially when local law enforcement is already handling safety concerns, is unnecessary. 'A car on fire, some unrest, people arrested – those are things that we have seen in our society for a long time. They're not unique, and that is why we have law enforcement,' Kayyem said. 'If they don't know how to deal with it, they then ask for state resources, and if the state resources are overwhelmed, then the state generally turns to the federal government.' In nearby Compton, a vehicle was set on fire where protesters began to gather Saturday, video from CNN affiliate KABC showed. On Friday, video showed several projectiles being thrown at officers equipped with body armor and protective shields outside a Los Angeles federal detention center. Elsewhere in Los Angeles County, a crowd of protesters in Paramount became 'increasingly agitated, throwing objects and exhibiting violent behavior toward federal agents and deputy sheriffs,' the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said in an advisory Saturday night. In response, the department requested extra resources countywide and deployed additional deputies. 'LA authorities are able to access law enforcement assistance at a moment's notice. We are in close coordination with the city and county, and there is currently no unmet need,' Newsom said in a post on X Saturday night. 'Trump is sending 2,000 National Guard troops into LA County — not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis,' Newsom said in another post Sunday. Officials from the Trump administration described protesters as 'lawless rioters.' The Los Angeles Police Department, meanwhile, said Saturday's demonstrations within the city 'remained peaceful' and 'events concluded without incident.' When asked about the LA County Sheriff's Department describing protesters as exhibiting violent behavior, congresswoman Barragán said the violence was not coming from anti-immigration protesters. '(The sheriff) told me the situation in Paramount was under control, the people that were peacefully (protesting) have left. The situation was now across the street into the Compton area, and (these were) the unruly folks — that Saturday night crowd. The people that were there to actually protest immigration were gone,' Barragán said. 'We agree that if you're being violent, you should be arrested, you should be prosecuted,' she added. Because Trump's deployment of the National Guard has occurred in defiance of the governor's request, Kayyem predicts there is a higher likelihood the move will incite conflict. 'Our federalized troops are trained to do something, and that something is the use of force. They are not trained to de-escalate a political situation, civil unrest,' she said. US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the National Guard soldiers are in Los Angeles to maintain peace amid ongoing tensions between immigration enforcement authorities and demonstrators this weekend – but the rules of engagement remain unclear. Although Noem said the soldiers are there to 'provide security for operations and to make sure that we have peaceful protests,' she did not provide specifics about their activities on the ground. Kayyem said if the troops also lack clarity of mission, problems can arise. 'Without a definitive mission statement and without rules of engagement … there will be mistakes, and those mistakes will not only potentially harm civilians, they will also potentially harm other law enforcement,' Kayyem said. 'This is dangerous for the troops … and it's dangerous for a population that, even if you view them as hostile, do not deserve to be put in harm's way because of that hostility.' US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized if the unrest continues. 'We need an administration that's not going to get to DEFCON 1 (the highest level of US military alerts) every time they see something on TV they don't like,' Kayyem said. 'Active Marines? That's just unheard of in the kind of situation we've seen.' Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard against Newsom's wishes comes on the heel of escalating tensions between the two leaders, with the president consistently targeting Democratic-led California in his efforts to use funding as leverage to enact his agenda. The administration is preparing to cancel a large swath of federal funding for California, according to multiple sources. Last month, Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from California over a transgender athlete's participation in a sporting event. The administration also recently cut $126.4 million in flood prevention funding projects, and even before his inauguration Trump repeatedly went after the state's handling of devastating wildfires earlier this year. The president and Newsom have also publicly feuded for years. 'I see these actions as kind of intentionally inflammatory from the White House, because they want this escalation,' CNN political analyst Astead Herndon said. 'They want this fight with Gavin Newsom, and they want to be able to use the levers of federal power in that fight.' 'It shows a feature of this administration, which is to use the levers of federal power against its enemies as a means of exerting its own ideological prism,' Herndon added. Human rights advocacy organization Amnesty International criticized the 'dangerous' deployment of National Guard troops, which the executive director says is 'to target and punish those who speak out in defense of human rights.' 'This is not about protecting communities,' the organization's executive director, Paul O'Brien, said in a statement. 'This is about crushing dissent and instilling fear.' CNN's Brad Lendon, Karina Tsui, Antoinette Radford, Zoe Sottile and Danya Gainor contributed to this report.
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How LA erupted over rumours of immigration raid at a hardware store
Juan and several friends huddled in the car park of a hardware store near Los Angeles, where protests have erupted against US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Typically, their gatherings include dozens of day labourers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, seeking work from shoppers or contractors. But on Sunday, only two small pickups advertised that they could help with roofing, repairs or paint jobs outside this branch of Home Depot in the suburb of Paramount, whose population is more than 82% Hispanic. It was one day after the store became the centre of immigration protests, sparked by rumours that day labourers here had been rounded up and arrested. Many who live in the community told the BBC they saw immigration enforcement vehicles in the area. It caused instant fear and panic. Then came reports about raids and arrests of day labourers at Home Depot, a place where many undocumented migrants across the US go to find work. Protests erupted in this Hispanic-majority city, turning violent as rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown. Authorities used pepper spray, rubber bullets and smoke bombs to subdue the crowd. But the demonstrations in Paramount appear to have spawned out of misinformation. While dozens of migrants have been detained by authorities elsewhere in the area, the rumours of raids at the store were misinformation, according to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). "Despite false reports, there was no ICE 'raid' at a Home Depot in LA," the DHS told the BBC. Follow our live updates on the LA protests A political fight Trump is eager to have As he leaned on the bed of a small Toyota pickup with his two friends, Juan said: "No-one really knows what happened. Everyone is afraid." The unrest in Paramount, which also saw a car set ablaze and businesses looted, became a catalyst for what federal authorities have described as riots throughout the Los Angeles area. On Saturday, President Donald Trump used his authority to call in the California National Guard, something typically decided by a state's governor, as a second day of protests convulsed the city. As the protests flared up for a third day on Sunday, armed National Guard troops guarded a gated business park across the street from the hardware store. They parked Humvees blocking the area and squared off with protesters hurling insults and waving Mexican flags and banners. "You're not welcome here!" one man with a Los Angeles Angels ball cap shouted to the soldiers as another protester uncapped spray paint and wrote an obscenity directed at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. DHS told the BBC that the guarded area is home to one of their offices and authorities were using it "as a staging area and rioters found it". The agency told the BBC they have arrested 118 illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area this week, including five they say are gang members. The agency said some of these migrants had previous criminal histories that included drug trafficking, assault and robbery. When can a president deploy National Guard on US soil? As he prepared to board Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, on Sunday, Trump told reporters there were "violent people" in Los Angeles "and they're not gonna get away with it". Dora Sanchez was still in disbelief from the shocking images that transformed her city the night before. She gathered on Sunday with others in the community at the Chapel of Change church, less than a block from the centre of protests the day before. She and others at the church talked about how this Hispanic community was revitalised over the years and became a close-knit community where neighbours know and watch out for one another. The protests felt like a "breaking point" for the immigrant community, she noted. Los Angeles is one of the biggest minority-majority cities in the US. Hispanics not only make up a larger share of the population than any other ethnic background, but immigrants, specifically those from just south in Mexico, are a core part of the history and culture here. The city boasts its status as a sanctuary city, which means it does not co-operate with federal immigration enforcement. Some here said they felt a bubbling tension that seemed to erupt when the Republican president's administration targeted LA's undocumented immigrants. "It was time to stand up," said Maria Gutierrez, who protested in Paramount. "These are my people." She said she was born in Mexico, but has lived here since she was a girl. She - like many here - say they have family members who are in the US illegally. "This is LA," she said. "It touches us all. "Everyone has family or knows someone who doesn't have papers." When can a president deploy National Guard on US soil? Trump orders National Guard to LA after clashes Trump's intervention in LA is a political fight he is eager to have
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Hundreds gather in Houston and San Antonio to protest immigration crackdowns in workplaces, courthouses
Crowds of hundreds gathered Sunday in Houston and San Antonio in protest of federal authorities' redoubled efforts to detain and deport undocumented immigrants. The protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Texas occurred after days of unrest in California, where demonstrators protesting immigration crackdowns in that state clashed with authorities. President Donald Trump responded by dispatching National Guard Troops to quell demonstrations in Los Angeles and vowing to 'have troops everywhere' should protests turn violent. Gov. Greg Abbott praised Trump's response, writing on social media that 'an organized assault has been waged against federal law enforcement officials.' 'It's time to put an end to it, and allow fed officials to fully enforce the laws of the United States,' Abbott wrote Sunday. The protests in Texas appeared to be peaceful. Images posted on social media and local news coverage showed people gathering, sharing snacks and marching down two of the state's largest cities. Across the country, demonstrators have repeatedly hit the streets since Trump returned to office with a promise to deport undocumented immigrants en masse. However, the latest protests followed what appears to be a new strategy from the Trump administration to target workplaces as pressure mounts on federal law enforcement to further escalate their efforts and deliver on the president's campaign trail promises. In recent weeks, federal immigration authorities have also arrested people at courthouses and while conducting wellness checks on children who arrived in the country alone. Big news: 20 more speakers join the TribFest lineup! New additions include Margaret Spellings, former U.S. secretary of education and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center; Michael Curry, former presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church; Beto O'Rourke, former U.S. Representative, D-El Paso; Joe Lonsdale, entrepreneur, founder and managing partner at 8VC; and Katie Phang, journalist and trial lawyer. Get tickets. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
