Latest news with #DavidAxelrod
Fox News
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Biden's chief of staff scolded Obama campaign architect for calling Biden's age an issue, book reveals
Former President Joe Biden's decision to run for re-election divided longtime Democratic advisors, a new book about Biden's cognitive decline and his administration's alleged cover-up revealed. Biden's former Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, shut down former President Barack Obama advisor David Axelrod for repeatedly calling Biden's age an issue. "The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue," Axelrod told The New York Times. Soon after the Times' story was published in June 2022, Klain called Axelrod fuming, CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson revealed in their book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again." "Who's going to beat Trump? President Biden is the only one who has done it. You better have a lot of certainty about a different candidate before you say the president should step aside. The future of the country depends on it!" Klain told Axelrod on the phone, according to Thompson and Tapper. Klain believed it was "sloppy thinking" that anyone other than Biden could beat Trump, the journalists said in the book. But Axelrod, like most Americans, worried about the first octogenarian president's age and his ability to serve four more years. The chief strategist for Obama's back-to-back winning campaigns, Axelrod was one of the last advisers to meet with Biden before Obama chose him as his running mate in 2008. Axelrod told Tapper and Thompson that they didn't expect Biden to run for president at 73 and eventually discouraged Biden from running for president in 2015. They certainly didn't expect Biden to run for president at 77. After Axelrod made some friendly comments about Biden to a reporter in 2018, Biden invited him to his rental home in Virginia, according to the book. "He was stunned by how much Biden had aged," Tapper and Thompson wrote. Axelrod told Biden that age would be an issue for his campaign but encouraged him to lean on his experience and wisdom, the journalists said. Axelrod's apprehension about Biden's age only grew, and when it came time for Biden to make a decision about his re-election, he knew Biden shouldn't run in 2024. The longtime political advisor told Tapper and Thompson he wished someone in the White House had "come to their senses and [convinced] Biden and his family that this just wasn't tenable." Pointing to unfavorable battleground polls from 2023, Axelrod encouraged Biden to drop out of the race in a series of social media posts. He said the "stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore." "Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it's in HIS best interest or the country's?" Axelrod questioned on social media. Klain fired back, this time for the public to see: "Man who called Biden 'Mr Magoo' in Aug 2019 is still at it," in reference to Axelrod's comments following the 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate. An excerpt from the book reads: "In response to Axelrod's 2023 post, Biden called Axelrod a 'prick' – a private insult until someone leaked it to Jonathan Martin of Politico. Axelrod received confidential messages of agreement from prominent Democrats who remained silent, they explained, because they were resigned to Biden's candidacy and did not want to weaken him as a looming rematch with Trump approached." Fox News Digital has written extensively, dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign, about Biden's cognitive decline and his inner circle's role in covering it up. "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 told 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."
Washington Post
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
The media's cover-up of Biden's decline further wrecked its reputation
In the wake of Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis, the debate over his mental decline in office 'should be more muted and set aside,' Democratic strategist David Axelrod suggests. The opposite is true. It is now clearer than ever that Biden was in no condition, either mentally or physically, to serve a second term. And the time has come to hold those who misled to the American people about his fitness for office to account — not just in the White House but in the media, too.
Times
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
Meet the Biden ‘politburo' accused of running the country in secret
'They did such a disservice to Joe Biden and to the country. The family as well. I don't understand how you could see him in the condition he's in and think, 'Yeah, you oughta go [run for president again].' To do that to someone you love?' This is the verdict of President Obama's long-time adviser David Axelrod in Original Sin, the new Biden tell-all by the journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on the inner circle that kept Biden in the race for a second term even when the president's own cabinet was raising alarm about his mental acuity. Since Biden's family announced on Sunday that the former president was suffering from stage 4 prostate cancer, Axelrod has been among the Democrats to
News.com.au
20-05-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Donald Trump is right: Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis should be investigated
Donald Trump is right. Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis, revealed to the world a mere four months after he left office, does demand a serious investigation. I'll begin with an obvious proviso: the former US president's diagnosis is tragic news, and everyone should hope for his treatment to proceed as successfully as possible. Nothing written below invalidates that. But the plea we've heard from some Democrats in the US, that Mr Biden's condition should quieten the already raging discussions about his health, defies sense. 'I think those conversations are going to happen, but they should be more muted and set aside for now,' said the former top political adviser to Barack Obama, David Axelrod, for example. Come on. It is entirely possible to have sympathy for Mr Biden, and to hold concerns about the way both he and those around him handled his ill health throughout his presidency. We're adults here, we can consider more than one thing at a time. And how very much there is to consider. Mr Trump can get us rolling. 'I think people should try and find out what happened,' he said today. 'I don't know if it had anything to do with the hospital. Walter Reed (where presidents receive medical treatment) is really good. They're some of the best doctors I've ever seen. I don't even know if they were involved. 'But a doctor was involved, in each case. Maybe it was the same doctor. And somebody is not telling the facts. It's a big – that's a big problem.' I started the article by saying Mr Trump is right. It's more that he's partially right. He's right about the most basic question here, and is getting a little too speculative about the rest. 'Somebody is not telling the facts,' is an assumption for which we do not have evidence. 'People should try to find out what happened,' however, is obviously true. We need more information before we can judge whether this was caused by negligence, or incompetence, or flawed medical guidelines. The concept of a cover-up, with which Mr Trump flirted, is being floated more openly by others. The idea here is that Mr Biden was diagnosed well before now, but for presumably political reasons, it went undisclosed. That remains far-fetched until any proof to support it emerges. Certain facts are already available. We know, from the public summary released after his most recent annual physical at Walter Reed, in February of last year, that Mr Biden consulted almost a dozen specialists, from fields including orthopaedics, neurology, cardiology, dermatology and radiology. We also know he underwent a range of tests; you can read about them yourself here. But those tests did not include a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, which is what eventually yielded the cancer diagnosis, having been prompted, at an as yet unspecified date, by the discovery of a nodule in his prostate. By then the cancer had developed into an advanced, aggressive form. And as Mr Trump pointed out today, that development typically 'takes a long time'. Potentially years. 'I'm surprised that the public wasn't notified a long time ago, because to get to Stage 9, that's a long time,' he said. There's no such thing as Stage 9 cancer. Mr Trump was presumably mixing that up with Mr Biden's Gleason score of nine, a measure which can range from six to ten, and measures the severity of prostate cancer specifically. (You can read about the Gleason score, and how it's calculated, here.) But the question Mr Trump skirted around, which is how Mr Biden's cancer remained undetected for so long, is an entirely valid one. 'Everyone is asking me that same question,' said Dr Kirsten Greene, a specialist in prostate cancer and chair of the urology department at the University of Virginia. 'I have two speculations. One is that prostate cancer screening guidelines in the US recommend stopping prostate cancer screening after age 75,' she told UVA Today, the university's news site. ' It's uncommon to continue to check a PSA every year beyond the age of 75 if your PSA has been fine prior to that.' That could plausibly fit with the timeline of Mr Biden's diagnosis. The former president is 82, and prostate cancer can take as many as seven years to develop to this extent. 'The other possibility could be that his prostate cancer is so aggressive or de-differentiated that it actually stopped making PSA. It's an unusual situation.' Dr Greene also noted it was possible that Mr Biden's previous biopsies had simply 'happened to miss' the cancer. The most likely explanation, then, is that Mr Biden didn't receive the PSA test during his presidency because America's guidelines don't recommend it at that age. But keep in mind, this is one of the most powerful, well-cared for people in the world, with the best medical specialists available to him at any time. Mr Trump did do the test during his annual physical three months ago, and returned a normal result. He, too, is above the age threshold where it's recommended. Whatever the reason for Mr Biden's cancer being missed, it should be found – at the very least, as a matter of public interest for the treatment of future, ahem, geriatric presidents. Biden health scandal keeps growing None of the above should distract too much (despite Mr Axelrod's suggestion) from all the other issues swirling around Mr Biden's health. This cancer news has emerged in the exact same week as a damning book, written by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios journalist Alex Thompson, which details Mr Biden's 'decline' while in office and a 'cover-up' orchestrated by those around him. Mr Biden's granddaughter, Naomi, has dismissed the book as 'a bunch of unoriginal, uninspired lies written by irresponsible self-promoting journalists out to make a quick buck', which would read as eerily Trumpy if she had only added a few words in all-caps. Wait, let me fix it. 'A bunch of Unoriginal, Uninspired LIES written by irresponsible self-promoting 'journalists' out to make a QUICK BUCK.' That's better. But look. Tapper and Thompson are respected, veteran journalists. They're not right-wing hacks. The book contains extensive reporting. And yes, many of their sources were given anonymity in return for speaking – I can't recall Ms Biden, or any Democrats, having a problem with that when tell-all books about Mr Trump were being published. So, through sheer weight of evidence, we know Mr Biden's inner circle was capable of obscuring the truth about his health. Mr Trump's Vice President, J.D. Vance, made a fair point while speaking to reporters today. 'We really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job,' Mr Vance said. 'You can separate the desire for him to have the right health outcome with the recognition that whether it was doctors, or whether there were staffers around the former president, I don't think he was able to do a good job for the American people. 'That's not politics. That's not because I disagreed with him on policy. That's because I don't think he was in good enough health.' Mr Vance said that, 'in some ways', he blamed Mr Biden himself less than those around him. 'Why didn't the American people have a better sense of his health picture? Why didn't the American people have more accurate information about what he was actually dealing with? This is serious stuff,' he said. 'We can pray for good health, but also recognise that if you're not in good enough health to do the job, you shouldn't be doing the job.'
Daily Mail
19-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Top CNN Dem says talk of Biden's senility should be silenced after prostate cancer diagnosis
CNN contributor and longtime Barack Obama aide David Axelrod said that all talk surrounding President Joe Biden 's mental fitness should stop following his recent cancer diagnosis. Axelrod, the network's chief political analyst, made the argument to Fredricka Whitfield while calling into CNN Newsroom Sunday, saying such discussions would be in poor taste and should be 'set aside' as the former president seeks treatment. Shortly before, Biden's office issued a statement saying the former president had been diagnosed with an 'aggressive form' of prostate cancer that had already spread to his bones. The news compelled Whitfield, the host of the show's weekend edition, to ask Axelrod whether he believed speculation about Biden's mental faculties would recede as a result. 'I think those conversations are going to happen, but they should be more muted and set aside for now, as he's struggling through this,' Axelrod, 70, responded. The Democratic aide contributed to a book spotlighting the subject, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, co-authored by CNN host Jake Tapper and set for release on Tuesday. Fueled by accounts obtained from roughly 200 people, the book covers the alleged cover-up of Biden's cognitive state. On X, the longtime Democratic operative elaborated: '@JoeBiden has confronted more heartache, illness and loss than anyone should have to deal with. 'Rooting for him now, as we all should, regardless of party or politics.' 'It shouldn't be stunning because prostate cancer is so common among men, at his stage in life, most men if they live long enough deal with prostate cancer,' he told Whitefield on Sunday. 'It's great news that they think it's manageable, but jarring nonetheless.' Axelrod, one of several Democrats who decided to turn on Biden following his disastrous debate performance in June, told CNN shortly after: '[Biden] hasn't come to grips with it. He's not winning this race.' After Donald Trump's election win, Axelrod called the speculation that Biden would have stood a better chance than Kamala Harris 'bulls**t.' Doctors declared Biden 'fit to serve' as recently as February of last year, fueling theories that he and his team knew about the disease and chose to delay public disclosure remain unfounded. Biden officials, in their statement, said the diagnosis came a week after the discovery of the small nodule on the former president's prostate. It also mentions 'increasing urinary symptoms' from the former president that occurred before the discovery. In a statement Monday morning, Biden, 82, personally addressed his diagnosis, sharing a photo of himself alongside former first lady Jill Biden and their cat Willow.
