Latest news with #mentaldecline
Fox News
29-05-2025
- General
- Fox News
Jill Biden should have to answer for 'cover up' of former president's decline, White House says
Former first lady Jill Biden should have to answer for her role in the "cover up" of her husband and former President Joe Biden's mental decline, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Multiple books published in 2025 have detailed the deterioration of Biden's mental faculties while in the White House, including in the book "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again" released May 20. "The former first lady should certainly speak up about what she saw in regard to her husband and when she saw it and what she knew, because I think anybody looking again at the videos and photo evidence of Joe Biden with your own eyes and a little bit of common sense can see this was a clear cover up," Leavitt said. "And Joe, by, Jill Biden was certainly complicit in that cover up." "There's documentation, video evidence of her clearly shielding her husband away from the cameras that were just on 'The View' last week," Leavitt told reporters Thursday. "She was saying, 'Everything is fine.' She's still lying to the American people. She still thinks the American public are so stupid that they're going to believe her lies. And frankly, it's insulting and she needs to answer for it." A spokesperson for Jill Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. "Original Sin," authored by journalists Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios, includes stories about how former President Joe Biden struggled to handle fairly routine aspects of a campaign. For example, the book says his team attempted to film a campaign video for ads on television in a high school gym, and have people ask questions akin to a town hall meeting. "The campaign was trying to make it look like the president was out there taking off-the-cuff questions from voters in public," the book said. "But the event was closed to reporters, and the campaign had the full list of questions that people would ask." Even so, former President Joe Biden encountered so much "trouble" answering questions that his team decided to cut the footage. Some blamed the poor lighting in the gym, but the book said that others said the real problem remained with the former president. Meanwhile, Joe Biden's team has pushed back on the material in "Original Sin," which chronicles the 2024 election cycle and how his team allegedly plotted a cover-up to hide just how severely his mental faculties had declined. "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 previously said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the President wasn't otherwise engaged in the important matters of the Presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill."
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jon Stewart Tears Into Jake Tapper for Keeping Biden ‘Secrets'
Jon Stewart began his monologue Monday by showing a montage of CNN anchor Jake Tapper promoting his new book, Original Sin, to his viewers. The book is an apparent bombshell tell-all about Biden's mental decline in the White House. In the last of the clips, Tapper hyped his book up to his viewers by saying, 'You will not believe what we found out.' A baffled Jon Stewart replied, 'Don't news people have to tell you what they know when they find it out?" 'Isn't that the difference between news and a secret?' Stewart said. ''You won't believe what we found out!' No, that's why I'm watching.' He joked further, ''Breaking news! In a week.'' Stewart also addressed the news on Sunday that Biden has been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. It's news that made it awkward for Tapper and other CNN pundits to promote Original Sin, but as Stewart noted, that didn't stop them from trying. 'Can they thread the needle?' Stewart mused, before showing a montage of various CNN pundits expressing condolences to Biden before segueing into a promotion for Tapper's book. Stewart pointed out 'how f---ing weird it is that the news is selling you a book about news they should have told you was news a year ago, for free.' Stewart ultimately argued that the media excitement over Original Sin, even ignoring Biden's recent diagnosis, has been excessive for one big reason: 'I understand the excitement over an insidious Democratic cover-up about Joe Biden's mental decline,' he said. 'The thing is though, it was a terrible cover-up, because we all f---ing knew." 'Poll after poll showed vast majorities of the public thought Biden was too old and too out of it to run again. Dean Phillips mounted an entire primary campaign because of it,' Stewart said. 'That's what's so hilarious about politicians,' Stewart said. 'The cover-up doesn't work when everyone knows you're lying.'
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Joe Biden's granddaughter rips Jake Tapper's new book on former president's hidden decline
Joe Biden's granddaughter has ripped a new book on the former president's reported hidden physical and mental decline in the White House as 'political fairy smut.' 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again' by CNN journalist Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson is due out Tuesday, but was leaked early. It has been published shortly after the former president revealed he is battling aggressive prostate cancer. 'Just read a copy of this silly book, and if anyone is curious for a review from someone who lived it first-hand: this book is political fairy smut for the permanent, professional chattering class,' Naomi Biden posted on X. 'Put simply, it amounts to a bunch of unoriginal, uninspired lies written by irresponsible self-promoting journalists out to make a quick buck,' she continued. 'It relies on unnamed, anonymous sources pushing a self-serving false narrative that absolves them of any responsibility for our current national nightmare. 'All [at the] expense of a man so completely good and honest that it is impossible for these people to ever understand the why or how of it all.' The book includes damning allegations about Biden's mental and physical decline while in office in 2023 and 2024, which aides reportedly helped him hide from the public, before he launched another bid for the presidency. It includes accounts of startling instances of Biden's reported mental decline, including times when he failed to recognize actor and friend George Clooney, as well as other close friends and colleagues. That was eventually followed by a befuddled presidential debate against Donald Trump. As for Biden's 'physical deterioration — most apparent in his halting walk,' it had become 'so severe that there were internal discussions about putting the president in a wheelchair, but they couldn't do so until after the election,' Tapper and Thompson write in the book. Biden's spokesperson Chris Meagher said that he was 'still waiting for someone, anyone, 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.' 'In fact, the evidence points to the opposite — he was a very effective president.' The authors could not immediately be reached for comment. Meanwhile, revelations about Biden's cancer have raised questions about how doctors could have missed it when he was still in the White House, and triggering conspiracy theories that it, too, was covered up.
Daily Mail
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
MAUREEN CALLAHAN: Biden whistleblowers are finally revealing who REALLY ran America... but I know an even sicker scandal that's yet to be outed
Make no mistake: This book about the Biden health cover-up is just another cover-up. Exhibit A is Jake Tapper of CNN, who purports — along with co-author Alex Thompson of Axios — to 'blow the lid' off the Biden White House cabal that kept the president's steep mental and physical decline a secret.
The Independent
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
‘Diminished' Biden didn't recognize George Clooney at actor's fundraiser, book claims
Former President Joe Biden didn't recognize one of the most famous men in America and perhaps the entire world — actor George Clooney, whom he's known for nearly two decades — at a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser where his former running mate had to step in, a new book reports. Biden was in a state of serious mental decline throughout the 2024 election to a point that seriously alarmed those outside of his inner circle long before his disastrous June debate with Donald Trump signaled the end of his campaign, according to first-hand accounts reported in Originan Sin by CNN 's Jake Tapper and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson. His decline was evident months earlier, but family and close aides supported his run for president to the bitter end — an end Democratic A-listers like Sen. Amy Klobuchar and many others now openly say was a mistake that robbed their party of a proper primary contest last year. The former president's stubbornness, on the side of his diminished capabilities, was present throughout, the book claims. According to an unnamed 'Hollywood VIP' who witnessed the interaction, Biden seemed a shell of his former self at the fundraiser, which took place in June of 2024. Two weeks before the debate that would herald the beginning of the end of his career, the president shuffled around a room with film industry A-listers organized by Clooney and producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, appearing 'almost catatonic' and showing 'clear signs of mental decline', according to the authors' description of attendees' accounts. The interactions took place on the sidelines of the Democratic Party's biggest fundraising night of the year up until that point: a panel discussion with Biden and former President Barack Obama hosted by talk show host Jimmy Kimmel. 'It was like watching someone who was not alive,' the VIP who saw the pre-show interaction with Clooney recalled. 'It was startling. And we all looked at each other. It was so awful.' During that interaction the 46th president, who was being led around by an aide, had to be prompted to remember who Clooney was, according to the VIP's firsthand account. 'It was not O.K.,' they recalled to the authors. 'That thing, the moment where you recognize someone you know — especially a famous person who's doing a f*****g fund-raiser for you — it was delayed. It was uncomfortable.' 'You know George,' the aide said, repeating the actor's full name, with stress on the surname: 'George Clooney.' 'Oh, yeah!' Biden reportedly responded. 'Hi, George!' The awkward moment was one of several that night which, according to the authors, spurred Clooney to pen his now-famous op-end urging Biden to drop out of the race and for the Democrats to run with a new nominee in the November election, which at the time was a little more than 100 days away. Onstage, Biden would go on to give 'downright confusing' answers, according to the authors, and once again sounded quiet and whispery — neither of which was reflected in immediate coverage of the event, which focused on the record-smashing total of $30m raised by the campaign over that Saturday and the following Sunday. His onetime running mate would often complete sentences for him or push him back on track, according to the book. Emily Favreau, a Democratic campaign consultant and wife to Pod Save America host and Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, told Tapper and Thompson bluntly: 'I wanted to make everyone stay in this theatre and say, 'No one is going anywhere until we have a plan, because this can't be it.'' An unnamed spokesperson for the former president told the authors: '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. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite—he was a very effective president. Evidence of aging is not evidence of mental incapacity.' Clooney was criticized sharply for speaking out, but other members of Biden's party in elected office moved to work both behind the scenes and publicly to pressure the president to step down. He did one month later. In the end, even former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was hinting publicly that it was time for the president to step aside. Harris would go on to lose the presidential election to Donald Trump, ushering in the second Trump presidency with a drubbing in which the vice president's party lost every major battleground state to the Trump campaign. David Plouffe, a longtime Democratic campaign veteran called in to rescue Harris in the wake of her running mate's withdrawal, laid the blame entirely on the former president: 'He totally f***ed us.'
