
Jake Tapper's past coverage of Biden's cognitive decline under scrutiny ahead of his new book
By Joseph Wulfsohn
Published May 14, 2025
The cognitive decline of former President Joe Biden has been described as one of the biggest cover-ups in American history. Now, one journalist who claims to be getting to the bottom of the scandal in a new book is facing criticism for his participation in it.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper has co-authored a new book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," set to be released next week.
"As viewers of 'The Lead' know, I've been covering the concerns about President Biden's age and health for years," Tapper told CNN viewers when announcing the book in February. "I literally asked him about it in October 2022, and we've challenged Democrats and White House officials about it."
Conservative critics have taken aim at Tapper since the announcement, alleging he was part of the cover-up and "trying to re-write history" with his book.
SHIELDING BIDEN: JOURNALISTS SHED LIGHT ON THE MEDIA'S COVER-UP OF A WEAKENED PRESIDENT
The book's co-author is Alex Thompson, an Axios correspondent who made a name for himself as one of the few members of the legacy media whose reporting scratched the surface of Biden's mental acuity long before the now-infamous CNN presidential debate (which Tapper co-moderated) that led to the president's ouster from the 2024 race.
Concerns over Biden's age and stamina go as far back as 2019 as he ran in the Democratic primary. The subject wasn't just raised by conservatives at the time, it was used as a cudgel by Democratic rivals Julián Castro and Cory Booker, who both cast doubt on the former VP's sharpness.
Once Biden clinched the nomination in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, he ran what many dubbed the "basement campaign," a name meant to signify Biden's limited public appearances on the campaign trail. Biden frequently went viral for incoherent word jumbles during various events. His campaign repeatedly claimed that his various verbal stumbles stemmed from Biden's lifelong battle of overcoming a stutter.
In October 2020, Tapper touted the Biden talking point, even showing a clip from the DNC convention of a 13-year-old Biden supporter with a severe stutter who turned to the Democratic nominee for inspiration, during a tense exchange with then-Trump 2020 campaign advisor Lara Trump (now a Fox News host), who drew attention to Biden's cognitive decline at a campaign event.
EX-CNN JOURNALIST SPEAKS OUT ON BIDEN COVER-UP, SAYS WHITE HOUSE AIDES MADE IT DIFFICULT ON PRESS
"How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that?" Tapper asked indignantly after showing a clip of Lara Trump commenting on Biden struggling for words.
"First and foremost, I had no idea that Joe Biden ever suffered from a stutter," Lara Trump responded. "I think what we see on stage with Joe Biden, Jake, is very clearly a cognitive decline-"
"Ok," Tapper quickly interrupted while talking over her. "It's so amazing to me- a 'cognitive decline.' I think you were mocking his stutter. Yeah. I think you were mocking his stutter and I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline. I would think somebody in the Trump family would be more sensitive to people who do not have medical licenses diagnosing politicians from afar."
After Lara Trump insisted Biden's cognitive decline was "very concerning," Tapper cut the interview short.
"Thank you, Lara. I'm sure it's from a place of concern. We all believe that," Tapper sarcastically told her before ending the interview.
Tapper did press Biden in a September 2020 interview about whether he would pledge to be transparent about his health if elected, to which Biden firmly responded yes.
Fox News Digital reviewed Grabien transcript search results of Tapper's coverage of Biden's decline throughout his presidency.
His most aggressive coverage took place in February 2024 in the wake of Biden's press conference responding in outrage to the Hur report. Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to bring charges against Biden in the classified documents case because he determined a jury would not convict someone perceived as an "elderly man with a poor memory," based on his interview with investigators.
In a tense exchange with former Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield, Tapper hammered Biden for mixing up the presidents of Mexico and Egypt in the press conference as well as confusing French President Emmanuel Macron with the late French President Francois Mitterrand, who had been dead for nearly 30 years, earlier in the week.
"It's about faculty and memory and whether or not somebody [voters] perceive is competent," Tapper said as Bedingfield shrugged off the leader mix-ups.
Tapper also challenged then-Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., over his party's outrage towards Hur, asking him what the special counsel said about Biden that wasn't accurate.
Shortly after the release of the Hur report, Tapper drew attention to the decision by the Biden White House to skip the traditional pre-Super Bowl interview two years in a row.
"Isn't the White House signaling with that decision, like, 'We're afraid of putting him out there?'" Tapper asked during a panel discussion.
CBS REPORTER SAYS MOST 'UNDERREPORTED' STORY IN 2024 WAS BIDEN'S 'OBVIOUS COGNITIVE DECLINE'
As he alluded to in his book announcement, Tapper did broach the subject of Biden's age in an October 2022 interview with the president, albeit ever so gently.
"You're about to turn 80 next month. Happy birthday ahead of time," Tapper told Biden. "Whenever anyone raises concerns about your age- you're the oldest president in the history of the United States- you always say, 'Watch me.' Voters have been watching you. Democratic voters approve of the job you're doing. Democratic voters overwhelmingly like you, but one poll shows that almost two-thirds of Democratic voters want a new nominee in 2024 and the top reason they gave was your age. So what's your message to Democrats who like you, who like what you've done but are concerned about your age and the demands of the job?"
Notably, Tapper offered Biden an assist during his response to the question when the president was at a loss for words.
"We've had, you know, dealing with, you know, making sure that veterans get compensated for the, for-" Biden struggled to finish his thought.
"Burn pits," Tapper chimed in.
"The burn pits," Biden repeated before listing other things on his agenda.
Tapper, however, pumped the brakes on covering Biden's cognitive decline in the heat of the 2024 election cycle.
In March 2024, following Biden's high-energy State of the Union address filled with shouting and attacking Republicans, Tapper took a swipe at the president's conservative critics who previously accused him of being "weak" and "senile."
"He certainly seemed like an 81-year-old, but he didn't seem incapable of doing the job," Tapper told his panel before dismissing "Weekend at Bernie's" comparisons from the right.
JEN PSAKI INSISTS SHE 'NEVER SAW' DIMINISHED BIDEN WHILE WORKING AS PRESS SECRETARY
Later in the year, Biden had a string of incidents that fueled questions about his acuity, like when he stepped away from other world leaders at the G-7 Summit to give a thumbs up to parachutists off-camera, prompting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to corral him back to the group for a photo-op.
There was also when Biden appeared frozen as others around him danced and swayed to a concert held on the White House lawn commemorating Juneteenth and when he stood still at his star-studded LA fundraiser until former President Obama grabbed his wrist and guided him off the stage with his hand behind Biden's back. Biden's White House and allies in the media insisted each of the viral moments, which occurred within the span of a few days in June 2024, were "cheap fakes."
The CNN anchor avoided covering all three incidents, according to transcripts. In fact, it wasn't until after George Clooney wrote a scathing New York Times op-ed about Biden's behavior at the LA fundraiser and urged the president to step aside that Tapper acknowledged the freezing incident.
"This was the same event, we should note, that Republicans later circulated cellphone video that seemed to show President Biden freezing on stage for about seven seconds before being led offstage by former President Obama," Tapper told viewers July 10.
Tapper similarly ignored Biden's "Where's Jackie?" gaffe from September 2022 when he called out for the late Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., at an event honoring her memory after she died in a tragic car accident weeks prior.
Fast-forward to September 2023, when Tapper asserted that Biden was mentally "sharp" while discussing Nikki Haley demanding cognitive tests for older politicians, suggesting that questions swirling around the president were only about whether he was "physically" able to do the job.
The CNN anchor also has a mixed record of putting a spotlight on Biden's physical stumbles. His program covered Biden tripping up the stairs of Air Force One in March 2021, and his nasty spill at the June 2023 Air Force Academy commencement ceremony, but avoided the viral moment when Biden fell from his bike in June 2022.
In June 2024, weeks before the debate that exposed Biden's cognitive decline on the world stage, Tapper addressed the Wall Street Journal's bombshell report on Biden showing "signs of slipping," which at the time faced intense backlash from Democrats and the liberal media. Tapper kept his focus on the White House's aggressive response to the "false" claims made in the report and repeatedly told viewers the report was "mostly based on observations of Republicans." He had a top Biden surrogate, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, on to defend the president and attempt to discredit the reporting as agenda-driven.
CNN'S JAKE TAPPER INSISTS HE WON'T 'SHY AWAY' FROM COVERING HUNTER BIDEN AFTER AVOIDING LAPTOP SCANDAL IN 2020
Earlier this month, Tapper's book publisher Penguin Press released a montage, perhaps to combat critics who accused the CNN anchor of not covering Biden's cognitive decline, of clips showing him and Thompson discussing the now-former president's age on-air. Notably, the vast majority of Tapper's comments featured in the video pertained to polls showing Americans believed Biden was too old to seek a second term.
While promoting his book on CNN, Tapper suggested that Biden's White House was solely responsible for the cover-up versus Democrats and the media broadly.
"Well, Alex Thompson and I were on the case, as were lots of other reporters trying to figure out what was going on behind the scenes. But the bottom line is the White House was lying, not only to the press, not only to the public, but they were lying to members of their own Cabinet, they were lying to White House staffers, they were lying to Democratic members of Congress, to donors about how bad things had gotten," Tapper said Tuesday, adding that their Democratic sources refused to speak candidly about Biden until after the 2024 election.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
A spokesperson for CNN strongly pushed back at the notion that Tapper offered insufficient coverage of the Biden scandal before the debate.
"Jake Tapper is a veteran journalist whose tenacious and thorough reporting has held those in power to account on both sides of the aisle for decades," the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "He fairly and accurately covered Senator, Vice President and President Biden through years of dogged Washington reporting, hitting every high and low of the former president's political career. From the campaign in 2020 to 2024 when he dropped out, Jake raised concerns about President Biden's mental stamina on his shows, questioned Biden officials directly about his health on air, and consistently encouraged open discussion and debate on the issue."
"Despite bad faith allegations otherwise, the record clearly shows Jake covered the Clooney op-ed, the Hur report, and Biden physical limitations. As noted, Jake also covered Biden's physical falls multiple times, and he happened to be on assignment in Chicago off air the day after his bike fall in June 2022," the spokesperson added. Print Close
URL
https://www.foxnews.com/media/jake-tappers-past-coverage-bidens-cognitive-decline-under-scrutiny-ahead-new-book
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Associated Press
8 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Muslim leaders increase security after vandalism reports at Texas and California mosques
After a spate of vandalism reports involving graffiti at a few mosques in Texas and California, Muslim leaders there have stepped up existing efforts to keep their sacred spaces and community members safe. The incidents and subsequent hypervigilance add to what many American Muslims say has already been a charged climate amid the fallout in the U.S. from the Israel-Hamas war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastated Gaza. The war started in October 2023 with a deadly attack by Hamas on Israel. 'The past two years have been extremely difficult for American Muslims,' said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. A constant stream of images showing the death, destruction and ongoing starvation in Gaza has taken a toll, said Mitchell, as has a rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bigotry in the U.S. He pointed to one of the most egregious examples of that bigotry: After the war started, an Illinois man killed a 6-year-old Palestinian American Muslim boy and wounded his mother in a hate-crime attack. Worry and frustration The recent vandalism reports have left some worried and frustrated — but not entirely surprised. 'Since October 2023, we've definitely seen rise in Islamophobia,' said Rawand Abdelghani, who is on the board of directors of Nueces Mosque, one of the affected mosques in Austin, Texas. 'Anti-Palestinian, anti-immigrant, all of that rhetoric that's being said … it has contributed to things like this happening.' Nueces security footage showed someone, their face partially covered, spray-painting what appears to be Star of David symbols at the property. CAIR Austin said similar incidents were reported at two other Austin mosques. They all seemingly happened on the same night in May, in what the group described as part of 'a disturbing pattern of hate-motivated incidents.' It called for increased security patrols and protective measures. Shaimaa Zayan, CAIR Austin operations manager, called them an intimidation attempt. Less than two weeks earlier, someone had spray-painted graffiti at the Islamic Center of Southern California, including the Star of David on an outer wall there, center spokesperson Omar Ricci said. 'In light of what's going on within Palestine and the genocide in Gaza, it felt like an attack,' said Ricci, who's also a reserve Los Angeles Police Department officer. Some specifics remained unresolved. The LAPD said it opened a vandalism/hate crime investigation and added extra patrols, but added it has neither a suspect nor a motive and noted that nonreligious spaces were also targeted. The Austin Police Department did not respond to Associated Press inquiries. Nueces had already increased its security camera use following three incidents last year, including someone throwing rocks at the mosque, Abdelghani said. After the May vandalism, it also added overnight security, she added. Nueces serves many university students and is considered a 'home away from home,' Abdelghani said. It's where they learn about their faith, meet other Muslims and find refuge, including during tense times, like when some students got arrested amid campus protests last year, she added. CAIR says that in 2024, its offices nationwide received 8,658 complaints, the highest number it has recorded since its first civil rights report in 1996. It listed employment discrimination as the most common in 2024. The group says last year, U.S. Muslims, along with others of different backgrounds, 'were targeted due to their anti-genocide … viewpoints.' Referencing former President Joe Biden, the CAIR report said that for 'the second year in a row, the Biden-backed Gaza genocide drove a wave of Islamophobia in the United States.' Israel has strongly rejected allegations it's committing genocide in Gaza, where its war with Hamas has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. The initial Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killed some 1,200 people, while about 250 were abducted. Tensions in multiple spaces The war has fueled tensions in myriad U.S. settings. After it started, Muslim and Jewish civil rights groups reported a surge of harassment, bias and physical assaults reports against their community members. Pew Research Center in February 2024 found that 70% of U.S. Muslims and nearly 90% of U.S. Jews surveyed say they felt an increase in discrimination against their respective communities since the war began. More recently, leaders of U.S. Jewish institutions have called for more help with security after a firebomb attack in Colorado on demonstrators showing support for Israeli hostages in Gaza that left one person killed and others injured, as well as a fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. Politically, the conflict loomed over last year's presidential election, leaving many pro-Palestinian U.S. voters feeling ignored by their own government's support for Israel. It has roiled campuses and sparked debates over free speech and where political rhetoric crosses into harassment and discrimination. There've been bitter disagreements, including among some Jewish Americans, about exactly what the definition of antisemitism should cover, and whether certain criticism of Israeli policies and Zionism should be included. That debate further intensified as President Donald Trump's administration sought to deport some foreign-born pro-Palestinian campus activists. The Islamic Center of Southern California has been targeted before, including vandalism in 2023 and separate threats that authorities said in 2016 were made by a man who was found with multiple weapons in his home. Incidents like the latest one cause concern, Ricci said. 'People see that it's not going to take very much to spark something in the city,' he said. 'There's a lot of emotion. There's a lot of passion' on both the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli sides. Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said 'if people think they can get away with graffiti, then the next step is to firebomb a mosque or even go attack worshippers.' Opening doors and receiving support Al-Marayati and others praised how many have shown support for the affected Muslim communities. 'The best preparation is what we did in Los Angeles and that's to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and be there for one another,' he said. In Texas, a gathering at Nueces brought together neighbors and others, including Christians and Jews, to paint over the vandalism, clean up the property and garden, Zayan said. 'It was beautiful,' she said. 'It's really important to open your doors and open your heart and invite people and to rebuild this trust and connection,' she said. 'For non-Muslims, it was a great opportunity for them to show their love and support. They really wanted to do something.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.


Fox News
9 minutes ago
- Fox News
'Where's the patriotism?!': Dems' Gen Z summit earns ridicule
'Fox & Friends Weekend' hosts react to Democrats hosting a Gen Z summit amid their struggle to retain young male voters.
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
What we know about the Epstein files
Federal prosecutors amassed millions of records during the sex trafficking investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. The question of what is actually in those pages — and whether the public will ever see them — has become central to a growing public relations crisis for President Donald Trump and his aides. Having said it would release case documents, now the Justice Department is trying to staunch the public outcry from some of Trump's ardent supporters along with some Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill who believe the administration has fallen short of its transparency pledge. It's unclear what new information, if any, is stuffed in the boxes of evidence within the Justice Department or what Maxwell would say publicly about Epstein and anyone else's connections to him. For months, Justice Department and FBI officials have wrestled with the fact much of the material they have requires redaction to protect the identities of victims and witnesses, and people who haven't been charged with crimes, according to people briefed on the matter. That raised the prospect that releasing thousands of pages covered with black ink for the redactions would only inflame people who believe the government is hiding evidence of additional criminal activity. The Epstein files are made of over 300 gigabytes of data, paper, video, photographs, and audio that live within the FBI's main electronic case management system, 'Sentinel.' These records would include investigative reports and records from the FBI Miami field division's original Epstein investigation. The bulk of the records would come from the second investigation carried out by the FBI's New York Office, including memorandums about the investigation and potential targets, locations to be searched, records to be subpoenaed, and hundreds of pages of '302s' which are the forms that FBI agents use to memorialize what witnesses, victims and suspects said in interviews by investigators. A large cache of records has already been made public through unsealing civil court cases, Maxwell's criminal trial, and news reports. Politicians, including Trump, and celebrities have been publicly linked to Epstein for years — sometimes by appearing in flight logs or at events — and all have denied any wrongdoing. Epstein's death by suicide before trial launched conspiracy theories and deprived many of his accusers a public airing of his conduct. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking minors following a four-week trial in 2021. She is appealing. The Justice Department asked federal judges to unseal grand jury transcripts from the Epstein and Maxwell cases. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met Thursday with Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence, in Tallahassee, Fla. 'If Ghislane Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,' Blanche said in a post on X. Blanche's post stands in contrast with the July 8 memo that was intended to close the books on the Epstein matter. In that memo, the Justice Department and FBI declared that they had done an exhaustive review and had determined that 'we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.' Here's what we do and don't know about the Epstein records: Grand jury The Justice Department has asked two federal judges in New York to unseal grand jury transcripts from Epstein and Maxwell's criminal cases. Former federal prosecutors say the transcripts likely contain a miniscule amount of evidence from the investigations. Federal prosecutors in New York generally call law enforcement agents to testify before the grand jury to present just enough evidence they need to support an indictment. Other witnesses, including accusers, are rarely called in to testify before federal grand juries in New York. The judges overseeing the two cases in New York asked DOJ for more legal argument for why they should unseal grand jury material, which is rarely done, and set deadlines that extend to August 5. Already one effort has failed. A federal judge in Florida denied DOJ's request to unseal grand jury transcripts from its 2005 and 2007 investigations into Epstein, stating the department didn't meet the legal hurdle to do so under the rules governing the circuit. The DOJ request is narrow: It isn't seeking to unseal all information that was derived from the grand jury proceedings, which if sought, could include information from financial institutions, emails or text messages, and returns from any other person or institution that was subpoenaed by the grand jury. Search warrants Federal prosecutors and the FBI obtained a trove of information during the searches of Epstein's homes in Florida, New York and Little Saint James, Epstein's private Caribbean island. That information is under the control of DOJ and is not blocked from public release by secrecy rules. FBI officials recovered thousands of nude and seminude photographs of young females, including at least of one minor, in a search of his Manhattan mansion in the days following his arrest. Binders of CDs containing the photos were seized. Agents used a saw to open a safe that had more than $70,000 in cash, 48 loose diamond stones, one as large as 2.38 carats, and a large diamond ring. They also collected documents from the New York home, including notes, messages with names and contact information for certain victims, and phone records. A search of Epstein's private island was conducted days after he was found dead in a jail cell about one month after his arrest. By then the investigation had shifted its focus to any co-conspirators of Epstein. In February the Justice Department provided an index of evidence it has. The index includes over two dozen computers, numerous hard drives, at least two cell phones, and four iPads. The index says there are boat trip logs potentially of who traveled to his private island — that information has not been made public. The Justice Department does not release child pornography so those records would not be expected to be made public under any circumstance. Florida DOJ case file Federal prosecutors in New York obtained the investigative record from the earlier investigations into Epstein conducted by their counterparts in Florida in 2007 and 2009. Any of those records that were not covered by grand jury secrecy rules could be released. Civil lawsuits Much of the public record relating to Epstein has derived from civil lawsuits brought by accusers, some filed under their own names and others using Jane Doe pseudonyms. Judges have ordered the release of thousands of pages of documents, including depositions taken under oath. Among the famous names referenced in those documents are Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Britain's Prince Andrew, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, French modeling scout Jean-Luc Brunel, American investor Glenn Dubin, and Leslie Wexner, the CEO of L Brands. Not all of them were accused of wrongdoing, and all of them have denied any wrongdoing. Maxwell trial Maxwell's four-week criminal trial was a public airing of her close relationship to Epstein and her role recruiting, grooming and at times participating in the sexual abuse of minors with Epstein. Four women testified about being sexually assaulted when they were minors. Epstein's former pilot testified and identified people he saw on Epstein's plane, including Trump, Senators John Glenn and George Mitchell, Prince Andrew, actor Kevin Spacey, and violinist Itzhak Perlman. The pilot said he never saw any wrongdoing. Gawker first published a copy in 2015 of Epstein's so-called 'black book' with names and phone numbers of his contacts. The Justice Department released a redacted version of it earlier this year as well as copies of the flight logs that were made public during Maxwell's criminal trial. The release was criticized by some of Trump's supporters because the information was already public — and did nothing to answer lingering questions. CNN's John Miller contributed to this report.