‘What are we doing here?’: Democrats were shocked at Biden’s decline but stayed quiet, according to new book

By Jeremy Herb, CNN

(CNN) — In the final two years of his presidency, Joe Biden had private moments where he could not recall the names of top aides, had an increasingly limited private schedule, was prone to incoherence and losing his train of thought, and was hidden from the public eye to shield the extent of his decline, according to a new book from CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson.

The book details episode after episode where Democratic lawmakers, White House aides, members of Biden’s Cabinet and Democratic donors were shocked at Biden’s diminishing mental and physical capabilities while the president embarked on an ill-fated 2024 reelection bid. But nearly all did not speak out publicly or try to stop him from running.

“What the world saw at his one and only 2024 debate was not an anomaly. It was not a cold; it was not someone who was underprepared or overprepared. It was not someone who was just a little tired,” Tapper and Thompson write. “It was the natural result of an eighty-one-year-old man whose capabilities had been diminishing for years. Biden, his family, and his team let their self-interest and fear of another Trump term justify an attempt to put an at times addled old man in the Oval Office for four more years.”

The new book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” was released on Tuesday. The book is based on more than 200 interviews, mostly with Democratic insiders, almost all of which occurred after the 2024 election was over.

The focus on Biden’s age and health has intensified in recent days. On Sunday, Biden’s office said in a statement that the former president was diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. The statement said Biden and his family “are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”

The cancer diagnosis sparked an outpouring of support and well wishes for the former president, including from President Donald Trump, who posted on Truth Social: “Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”

But the debate about Biden’s choice to run for reelection has continued. Vice President JD Vance told reporters Monday that he wishes the best for Biden’s health but added that “we really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job.”

“In some ways I blame him less than I blame the people around him,” Vance said. “We can pray for good health but also recognize that if you’re not in good enough health to do the job, you shouldn’t be doing the job.”

On Friday, audio from Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur over his handling of classified documents was published by Axios, adding context for why Hur’s report concluded Biden was “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Top aides closed ranks

Tapper and Thompson report that concerns about Biden’s health from those working for him dated all the way back to 2020, but his mental and physical diminishment accelerated in 2023 and 2024 before his disastrous June debate with Donald Trump.

At one point in December 2022, Biden could not remember the names of his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and communications director, Kate Bedingfield, the authors write. In fall 2023, he did not appear to recognize Jamie Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee (Harrison disputes this). And in early 2024, Tapper and Thompson report that Biden did not recognize movie star George Clooney, whom Biden has known for years.

Some members of Biden’s Cabinet told Tapper and Thompson they did not believe Biden could be relied upon to perform at 2 a.m. if there was a national emergency.

“Things that would have been considered a disaster in 2023 — by 2024, we would have said, ‘Okay, we got through that,’” a top aide told the authors.

Tapper and Thompson write that Biden was protected by an insular group, including his wife, his son and a group of longtime aides nicknamed the “Politburo,” a reference to the leadership committee of a communist party.

Biden’s top aides — Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed — valued loyalty to the president. Those not in the inner circle, including campaign staff, pollsters and members of Biden’s Cabinet, believed the aides were protecting Biden from negative information as the president decided to run for reelection with no discussion or input from others in the White House or campaign, according to the book.

“It was a theology that bordered on zealotry: In January 2025, Donilon continued to hold the viewpoint that while Biden might forget and mix up names, when the president decided what the proposal should be for a peace deal between Hamas and Israel, he was pretty damn smart,” Tapper and Thompson write.

In a statement to CNN, a Biden spokesman criticized the book, saying: “We continue to await anything that shows where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or where national security was threatened or where he was unable to do his job. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite — he was a very effective president.”

“It was like a different person”

Tapper and Thompson found that concerns about Biden’s health issues dated back to his 2020 campaign. Biden shot campaign videos talking to voters on Zoom ahead of the convention but the hours of footage were largely unusable and stunned some on Biden’s team.

“It was like a different person. It was incredible. This was like watching Grandpa who shouldn’t be driving,” said one Democrat, according to the book. “I didn’t think he could be president.”

Some close to the president said Biden’s deterioration was tied to moments of intense stress, particularly with his son Hunter’s legal troubles, the authors write. One Cabinet secretary said Hunter’s June 2024 trial and conviction was “akin to a five-hundred-pound weight dropping on the president’s head,” Tapper and Thompson write.

Multiple lawmakers told the authors the Biden they saw reminded them of ailing parents and grandparents.

Publicly, questions swirled in 2024 about Biden’s health, fueled by the scathing report from Hur, who opted not to charge Biden for mishandling classified information in part because of how a jury would view his age.

Privately, Tapper and Thompson report Democrats were shocked at their interactions with Biden last year, both in closed-door meetings and donor gatherings. Democratic senators told the authors they saw a noticeable change in Biden during private meetings in early 2024, which they found alarming but gave their former colleague the benefit of the doubt.

One senior administration official angrily confronted a White House colleague after a meeting with Biden’s task force on reproductive health-care access. “What the f**k are you guys doing?” the official said. “I don’t get how this guy can do any campaigning to run for reelection.”

“Even though he did so many good things for this country, I can never forgive him,” the official told the authors after the election.

After Biden’s rousing March 2024 State of the Union speech — a performance many Democrats pointed to in justification he could run for reelection — some White House aides who didn’t normally get access to him were disturbed at his deteriorating condition when he addressed a room of high schoolers later that night and gave a rambling speech. One aide, the authors write, couldn’t help asking “what on earth they had just seen.”

“This isn’t going to work,” the aide thought, according to the book. “He can’t do it. This is crazy. Crazy. Crazy.”

Post-debate pressure

After Biden’s disastrous June debate with Trump, Tapper and Thompson report that Biden’s closest aides tried to move past the debacle as though nothing happened.

“If anything, the debate made Biden aides more watchful for signs of disloyalty,” the authors write. “They saw the debate as just the latest instance of counting Biden out.”

Behind the scenes, Democrats urged Biden’s inner circle to get the president out there in unscripted events. But the authors write that Biden “couldn’t do what folks were calling on him to do to prove his acuity.”

One campaign adviser recounted a post-debate discussion with Biden aboard Air Force One. “What are we doing here? the adviser thought as the president spoke. This guy can’t form a f**king sentence,” according to the book. “If I had a conversation like this with someone who wasn’t the president, I would be worried about his health. And here he is, the sitting president of the United States.”

As a growing number of Democrats called on Biden to step aside, the president and his family initially dug in. When Jill Biden visited Michigan on July 3, then-Sen. Debbie Stabenow offered a full-throated defense of the president. The senator asked for a minute with the first lady, telling her that his former Senate colleagues were worried about him.

“We don’t know if this was a onetime thing or if there’s something more going on with the president, Stabenow said to the First Lady. But you know,” the authors write. “The First Lady didn’t answer the senator’s implied question, but she later fumed about it to White House staffers.”

Biden and his wife defended his performance as president in a joint interview on ABC’s “The View” earlier this month, pushing back on suggestions he experienced cognitive decline in his final year in office.

“The people who wrote those books were not in the White House with us, and they didn’t see how hard Joe worked every single day,” Jill Biden said.

Former President Barack Obama and then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer were both concerned that Biden’s top aides were not giving the president the unvarnished data he needed to see how dire his reelection chances were, the authors write. Obama told Schumer he should talk to Biden and bring the data.

White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients kept it to himself but thought that Biden should drop out after the debate, Tapper and Thompson report. Zients tried to set up a meeting for Biden to get the data directly from his pollsters, but the president tested positive for Covid that week and had to isolate, so the pollsters instead just briefed Biden’s senior staff.

In the leadup to Biden’s July 2024 decision to exit the race, Schumer insisted on meeting with the president and traveled to Delaware for the difficult conversation. The authors write that Schumer told Biden that he would only get five votes if there was a secret ballot of Senate Democrats on whether he should keep running.

Schumer warned him that he wasn’t “getting the information as to what the chances are” and spoke to Biden’s legacy, the authors write. If there was a Democratic wipeout, Schumer warned that Biden would “go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.”

“Do you think Kamala can win?” Biden asked Schumer.

“I don’t know if she can win,” Schumer responded, according to the book. “I just know that you cannot.”

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