A recently released book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson, has reignited discussions among White House correspondents regarding President Joe Biden’s mental acuity and whether his administration attempted to mislead the public about his fitness for office.
The book alleges that the Biden White House engaged in a cover-up by downplaying concerns about the president’s cognitive abilities to reporters and voters. In response to the book’s publication, Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy shared past instances on X where his questions to Biden and the White House about the president’s cognitive decline were dismissed.
One White House reporter, speaking anonymously to Fox News Digital, asserted, “This was a cover-up by any definition, but a quixotic one for the Biden team to have undertaken.” This reporter described both private strategies of “secretive strategizing and decision-making” and public tactics involving “brazen lies,” such as labeling videos of Biden appearing confused as “cheapfakes” and silencing reporters who raised the issue. The reporter noted that bold journalists like Doocy were often shut down by press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre when questioning the president’s fitness. “The subject that was denounced as so rude and fringe-y to ask about back then eventually emerged as the defining issue of the Biden presidency,” the reporter stated.
Another White House reporter echoed sentiments expressed by “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, who criticized CNN for heavily promoting a book that covered news they should have reported earlier. This reporter told Fox News Digital, “Sources are always more eager to talk after the fact, but it’s not a good look that CNN — a heavy hitter with plenty of weight to challenge the White House as the decline happened — barely scratched the surface of the story that Tapper now reports.”
In contrast, a third White House reporter initially attributed Biden’s perceived issues to aging or potential lingering effects from COVID-19 and did not believe the press was at fault. “You know, it’s one of those things; the guy is old. He speaks like an old person, and it’s getting more pronounced as time goes by,” the reporter said of the 82-year-old president. This reporter recalled observing a significant difference in Biden’s demeanor between when he took office and the start of his second year, speculating about possible COVID-19 aftereffects, including brain fog. The reporter expressed skepticism about how journalists could have definitively reported on his declining health in real-time, given the challenges of obtaining such information and the daily demands of White House coverage.
Margaret Chadbourn, a Cheddar correspondent and member of the White House Correspondents’ Association, believes the narrative surrounding Biden’s fitness has damaged trust in the media, as Americans question what might have been missed and why. She suggested that reporters should engage in introspection about their coverage of Biden, questioning whether they approached the topic with the appropriate scrutiny and whether further investigation was warranted. Chadbourn, who has covered Biden intermittently since 2005, acknowledged his past affability and engagement with voters but believes there is now public anger over perceived “misinformation about his health.”
The first anonymous White House reporter concluded by suggesting that more information will emerge over time through aides’ memoirs and archival disclosures of White House documents, potentially revealing the inner workings of the alleged cover-up and clarifying who was truly directing the country.
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