presidential legacies tend to be debated for decades But in the four months since Joe Biden left office a consensus seems to have emerged on two key issues His decision to stand for a second term all but guaranteed Donald Trump's return to power and that efforts to hide his infirmities were disastrous and dishonest Tonight on a special edition of Washington Week Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson answer questions about Joe Biden's original sin Next this is Washington Week with the Atlantic Corporate funding provided by Consumer Cellular Certified financial planner professionals are proud to support Washington Week with The Atlantic CFP professionals are committed to acting in their clients best interest More information at let'smakeplan.org Additional funding is provided by Coup and Patricia Euan through the Euan Foundation committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities Sandra and Carl Delay Magnus Rose Herschel and Andy Shrieves Robert and Susan Rosenbomb the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you Thank you once again from the David M Rubenstein studio at Weta in Washington editor-inchief of The Atlantic and moderator Jeffrey Goldberg Good evening and welcome to Washington Week Tonight we'll discuss a book that has enthralled Washington and much of the nation Original Sin: President Biden's Decline Its Cover Up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again Joining me are its authors Jake Tapper CNN's lead anchor and chief Washington correspondent and Alex Thompson a national political correspondent at Axios Gentlemen thank you for being here and what is only your third interview of the day I appreciate it But the best certainly no save the best for the middle Um the um let's start with uh let's jump into the the the key moment a key moment in American history One of the most dramatic moments in American political history um at the debate co-odderated by you Jake uh June of last year in which Joe Biden essentially lost the election for the Democrats perhaps certainly lost the nomination I just want you to watch this key moment with me and we'll talk about it we'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do child care elder care making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the uh with with with the co excuse me with um dealing with everything we have to do with uh look if we finally beat Medicare Jay it's painful It's painful to watch You're sitting 15 feet away Yeah something like that Maybe next to Dana Bash your co-odderator What are you thinking at that moment i'm thinking well what I wrote on the iPad to communicate with the control room is what I was thinking a very clean version of what I was thinking which is "Holy smokes."

That's what I wrote Holy smokes I I couldn't believe it We had all watched Joe Biden through the years And we'd watched him becoming elderly But this was something else This was adult This was non-functioning This was not able to follow his own train of thought And and you know this isn't just like catching him at the beach and asking him a question when he's not in the right spirit not in the right state of mind This is the debate the debate where he needs to prove his acuity and ability to be president uh because so many Americans were worried uh that he did that he didn't have that ability Right Right You're watching it I assume Yeah In Atlanta And you're um you've already been reporting obviously on Biden and some of the doubts and worries about Biden What was going through your mind uh that even though that honestly I thought it was bad I did not think it was this bad And it was sort of shocking that they had let him go out on that stage especially given that so many of the people around Joe Biden have been around him for so long and uh say they love him And the fact that they and now we know from our reporting in this book that this was not the first time or even close to the first time that he had acted that way behind closed scenes behind closed doors and the fact that they let him go out there um with the potential that this could happen and let him you know in some ways um hurt his legacy and embarrass himself on the world stage I I was I just felt sad So is this when you realize that the White House was lying to the public lying to the media about Joe Biden's condition or was this I'm wondering how how you moved cognitively through the the stages here did you immediately think to yourself "Oh my god I've been lied to," or "Wow he's having a really bad night."

I thought that they had been um misrepresenting his acuity for a little bit then at that point Like and our reporting suggests that he really started to deteriorate in uh the summer and fall of 2023 Um I didn't see him all that often Uh and I didn't know how bad it was but it seemed odd Uh in retrospect I I I mean I asked people about it and I heard what I'm sure you heard what I'm sure Alex heard which is he's fine He's fine He's fine He's 81 of course He's elderly but he's great behind you know his decision-m solid He's great in meetings blah blah blah And um I didn't believe them but I didn't have any evidence to report that they were lying When he came out and he could not deliver what any politician should be able to do a 90-minute debate discussing why you should be elected Straightforward questions Yeah actually I mean some of the questions were honestly like issues that he should have wanted to talk about and should have been able to talk about brilliantly Yeah And that's when I realized it wasn't even about oh my god I've been lied to It was uh I had the same thought that that some Democrats told us Democrats who worked for Biden told us they had that during that debate which was oh my god who's running the country well who who was running the country in I just wanted to f first added you know beginning in April 2023 I'd really started honing in on this issue because of what some people in the White House were saying about their concerns not necessarily in the moment but certainly that he could not do a re-election campaign or serve four more years And in response to that reporting the White House said false They denied it They denied it They denied it And I was hearing otherwise So I had stopped believing their denials uh for a while But in terms of who was running the White House uh it's a small group of people that have been around Some people within the administration called them the pullet bureau That's the term we use in the book Give us the names of the three or four Mike Donalan Biden's longtime political liaison Steve Rashetti who was sort of the legislative liaison plus like a friend Bruce Reed uh at times depending on his situation with the Biden people Ron Clay And then there are some people outside the pull-up bureau that are closer to family which would be obviously Jill Biden Hunter Biden but then Jill's main uh chief of staff Anthony Bernal and sort of his sort of like deputy in some ways Annie Thomasini who is often Biden's traveling chief of staff And Joe Biden himself also is is part of this Joe Biden is not like um it's not weekend at Bernie's right he has some purchase here He has some agency and he uh he's aware uh of some of what's going on on He might be in denial about it but he's aware of the fact that they are keeping the cabinet away from him They are keeping some White House staffers away from him They are keeping members of Congress away from him He knows what's certainly keeping the press Oh sure Absolutely No it's it's interesting you know and we talked about this on your show um a couple of weeks ago when when I saw President Trump a few weeks ago He started by saying uh I bet Joe Biden would never do this which is you know and and and I took that as and this is the the conversation we had Uh I I took it as oh man he never stops talking about Joe Biden And you took it as well that that is actually true And it's true I I interviewed Donald I've interviewed Donald Trump more than I've interviewed Joe Biden I remember during the Biden years because people don't know that you and I are friends Uh that you would you were frustrated You had interviewed you were you had interviewed Obama several times about his presidency you wanted to you're a very serious journalist and you know a lot about foreign policy and you wanted to talk about this which was like a a section of his job that he really enjoyed and and liked talking about and they wouldn't let you do it when it wasn't and it wasn't just about you or the Atlantic either This is the first president in decades perhaps actually ever It's hard to know with going back decades who never sat for an interview with reporters with the New York Times the Washington Post the Wall Street Journal or Reuters did not do it all four years So he only did one interview with a national newspaper and that was on his way out the door with USA Today That was it Yeah No no no And so this brings and we're getting granular but this is Washington week We're supposed to be granular Uh Anita Dunn who is kind of the she was the zar of communications in in the Biden White House And I asked Anita periodically for four years and and Anita done strung me along for four years Strung a lot of other people along four years You didn't name her as part of the pilot bureau but she was right outside it Yes Incredibly powerful But so so the but the question that that comes to mind I think for a lot of people is was this group around bite who are obviously trying to keep people from understanding how diminished he was Were they were they lying to themselves or were they just lying i think both Yeah But I I think I think I think there were honest people that realized that uh you know we have one person quote in the book that the interview that Jake did in 2022 that by the next year he was no longer capable of handling that 15-minute interview It was a nothing interview that you know was a 15-minute interview straightforward question Yeah Just like you have like six questions or whatever One's on Putin one's on people think you're too old one I forget what they all were but I mean it was it wasn't like a really we this is this is going to be more in depth than that But even that uh top aid told us he could not have done that in 2023 one year later Let me let me hone in on this This group of people who were essentially running the country or at least I think you used in the in the book you talk about Biden as kind of the chairman of the board A senior member of the board senior member but that's not us That's a that's a cabinet secretary No I understand I understand And by the way by the way the only people who were kept further away from Biden than the press were the members of the cabinet But that's a separate subject Um you you did these people um really believe that he was okay I think they believed this Did they convince themselves of that one Joe Biden is the only person who has ever beaten Donald Trump Two Donald Trump is an existential threat to the country Three Joe Biden's the incumbent president and he has decided he's going to run for reelection for all we have to do is get through election day and then we can figure it out after that Then it could be weekend at Bernie's for or then yeah who knows after that Number three it's also in their self-interest to believe that though demands before he goes over to the Biden campaign in 2024 he demands that they pay him $4 million for that the the campaign chair the the campaign manager essentially Jenna Mali Dylan was paid 300,000 for for for running the campaign $4 million Biden says "Pay him and they pay him $4 million."

So I don't know if people out there who donated to the Biden campaign knew that that's where some of their money was going $4 million to McDonald Right So you use the term let's go on to this the co cover up Define cover up I think that the so the way that we define cover up is the Biden that was on that debate stage It was not the first time that that Joe Biden appeared and over the course of the nine months preceding it you had an increasingly you know hectic effort to try to hide that the extent of the decline from the American people from reporters from members of the Democratic party from members of their own cabinet Literal hiding in a kind of way like he's not going to go do this he's not going to go do that right and we're going to and and we're not going to let him meet with these cabinet officials And we're not going to let him meet with these White House staffers or we're not going to or or when he does a a a an event with donors when he does a fundraiser of just 40 people we're going to put a teleprompter in the back of the room so he can speak Uh even though that's something that any politician should be able to do without a teleprompter That the a cover up is defined as hiding something bad That's what's happened We're not alleging criminality You're allowed to lie to the American people That's not a crime Politicians have been doing that for since this country was founded Yeah Yeah You know one of the one of the interesting subjects here that's come out in the past week as you guys are talking about the book is the role of the media I don't I don't want to do like an extended media criticism here especially because I'm not sure it's actually correct You were doing reporting That's true Um in 2023 you were bringing this up I There's a quote that I I I want to show you It's actually I mean it's not just you guys Ezra Klein was asking questions the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal I want to show you a quote from Mark Leovich writing in the Atlantic in June of 2022 100% I mean and and and the article is called Why Biden Shouldn't Run in 2024 Uh Biden is by no means the more eloquent character he was in his younger days It could be painful to watch him give prepared speeches His tone can be tentative and certain sentences can become hopscotching journeys His aids in the room look visibly nervous at times and so on Um I don't understand how this narrative has developed that no one in the media or that the media was covering for Biden I think what might be going on here is a lack of understanding about how reporting works In order to prove that he's diminished you have to have people sources inside telling you this Give me your thoughts on on this question Certainly it's it's certainly there there were a lot of folks in the conservative media in the proTrump media at Fox and elsewhere who were running clips of Biden and saying uh I think it was one Fox anchor called him sippy Joe Sippy Cut Biden or whatever They were saying things along those lines and they were making a bigger deal about doubts about his acuity than it could be said the the legacy media was And I think that's fair for them to say we were making a bigger deal But as you point out there is a difference and I'm not belittling the importance of airing those clips I aired some of them too There is a difference between airing a clip and saying "That's odd That's unusual He seems it seems like something's going on."

And what Alex and I have been able to do which is after the election all those Democrats we talked to more than 200 sources for this book uh almost all of them Democrats uh all almost all of them after the election uh who were telling us what was really going on behind the scenes and the anecdotes and the concerns that we bring forward in this book is investigative journalism and that is different from observational punditry I would also just add that you know and I understand the the the the push back that you know Biden's age was constantly a topic right you know the Mark Lieovich story is a perfect example Um but that was about sort of uh in a political lens a horse race lens I do not feel there was a ton of investigative reporting about his ability to do the job and how his age was really affecting it And I think also I mean look at the reaction to the Wall Street Journal story in June of 2024 just weeks before the debate There are a lot of reporters that sort of threw shade at that story There was not as much solidarity That's sort of There were people that attacked Andy journalists who attacked Andy Linsky and Siobhan Hughes to excellent Wall Street Journal reporters who were who were ra through the polls by not just the White House and Democrats but by their own colleagues for just reporting the truth about what they could find out at that moment in time Right Well talk talk a little bit about Well I want you to I want you to watch uh something because because I this goes to the question of cover up Watch this clip from Joe Biden speaking in 2016 at the convention We have the most productive workers in the world And give it a fair shot Give it a fair chance Americans have never ever ever ever let their country down Never Never That's 2016 16 Yeah I mean so here here's the thing That's like watching a different person Well how do you that's that's maybe maybe this is a semantic uh debate Uh but how how do you It was all there It's all right in front of your eyes That is a vital man with a full voice energy although I will say our reporting suggests that his diminishment began a year before that that his diminishment began in 2015 with the death of Bo Because what what seemed to happen Jeffrey is there were two Joe Biden There was the fine Joe Biden that we just saw in that clip right there and then there was the nonfunctioning Biden that we saw during the debate And the nonfunctioning Biden would rear his head increasingly and more distur more more and more disturbingly as time went on So when Barack Obama told Joe Biden that he didn't think he should run or suggested you should take care of yourself part of what I think Biden what Obama was seeing in Biden was the non-functioning Joe Biden Now the question is when did the non-functioning Biden emerge so often it was it was a real question as to whether he should serve as president and I think that is probably not till 2023 and 2024 Right And and I would just add that yes a lot of this was out there but if but what was happening in front of the scenes was much worse behind the scenes they were propping up the best version of him through like through those times And if I believe that if the media had done a better job then the debate would not have come as been so shocking to so many people Right Right Well you can lead people to stories that you write but you can't make them read them And I think that's part of the issue I'm not trying to make excuses You you've been very forthright about your critique of softness on the part of the media on the question But let let me ask you this because this is the actual serious matter here Um by 2023 2024 Joe Biden was being limited according to your reporting in even the number of hours where he was functioning as president It's a 24-hour a day job It's become a cliche but if you've woken up at 3:00 a.m to find out that a North Korean missile is heading toward Japan you've got to react And we have cabinet secretaries in the book as you know who are telling us that by 2024 they do not have faith that Joe Biden could be relied upon for that 3:00 a.m phone call And that's chilling Chilling How do you I feel like I'm asking a question on behalf of of just the average citizen or average voter How do you as a Washington professional as a senior member of the White House staff look at that situation reach that conclusion and then say "We're just going to to use your language cover it up I just don't understand."

It's tough to understand it But if you can first of all in in the historical context one of the things that it's important for people out there to understand is the presidency has maybe never been stronger and political parties in the legislative branch have never been weaker The political parties I mean it's it Jamie Harrison who was the DNC chair I don't know one person who thinks he could call up President Biden and tell him anything Yeah You know um and that's not even necessarily his fault the parties are just so weak and he was picked to be uh the weak leader of a weak party and the Republican the GOP isn't particularly strong either I right I I would also say the how you justify it if you believe Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy right you can justify almost anything including doing at times undemocratic a mannequin would be better from the perspective of a lot of critics of Donald Trump there are tens of millions of people in this country that would prefer Joe Biden at 100 years old to Donald Trump right now that's no I mean that's an interesting it's an obviously an interesting point but it's also beside the point one of the interesting things about the the larger con the larger conversation that you guys opened is that that there's a lot of um criticism of Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress not checking his power not playing their role on behalf of their branch of government But what this book is about is also we haven't really talked about it that much and people aren't talking about it that much Democrats in Congress were very very late and very very soft on this issue They could have in 2022 said enough Yeah In 2023 enough Where were they well first of all a lot of them were shunted off to the side and didn't get a lot of access uh starting in 2022 2023 And and so some of them would uh we have members of Congress in the book who see Biden at the Christmas party in 2022 and then don't see him again in person until the next Christmas party in 2023 And it's like he's aged 20 years in that one year and they remark to each other But where are the incentive structures in our politics for people to be brave where are the incentive structures for people in our politics to to raise their hand and say the emperor has no clothes there aren't any I mean I understand one congressman one congressman Dean Phillips who ran against uh Joe Biden uh and was defenistrated And you know who knows what he's going to do next He's out of Congress He was utterly uh destroyed and humiliated Robert Herr the special counsel tried to tell the truth about what he saw behind the scenes We've now all heard the her tapes And oh my god that's the same Joe Biden that was uh at the debate And the White House was upset with Merrick Garland for even have I mean there was talk about they were upset at Merrick Garland for not editing the her report to remove the section that said I'm not even though Joe Biden mishandled classified information I'm not going to prosecute because I don't think I could get a conviction because the jury would see him as a well-meaning sympathetic old man with a poor memory which was the nicest thing he could say about Joe Biden Right There's so much more to talk about One quick question and then one slow question for you Uh the Kla Harris where was she well she after the her report she became the main outfront validator for Joe Biden's fitness She and she chose to do that and she said that the her report was politically motivated used her background as a prosecutor to say it was sloppy and she became you know she basically put all of her chips in with Joe Biden Now was she in every meeting no So maybe she can claim plausibly that maybe she never saw the nonfunctioning Biden Um I'd also say within this context you know the Joe Joe Biden is in her circle had a very dim view of her Did not think that she could beat Donald Trump still are like they'll still point to her and say "I told you so."

Right And they use her you know political standing as an excuse to justify running for re-election Right Jake I want to ask you this What based on you based on your reporting on Biden what do you what have you learned about how the press should cover Donald Trump right now i don't think that the press should cover any president going forward uh a without demanding full and complete transparency about health records which we're not getting from Trump Uh we still don't know why he went to Walter Reed in 2019 Um and I think that we need to be skeptical of everything that we are told by people in power Uh and I mean that obviously should be the mantra of of being a journalist to begin with If your mother tells you she loves you get a second source But we just need to remember that like politicians lie white houses lie power is an aphrodisiac and we just need to all remember that and not take at face value anything that we're told Thank you gentlemen Um this has been very interesting We're going to have to leave it there for now but I want to thank our guests for joining me and thank you at home for watching us I'm Jeffrey Goldberg Good night from Washington Corporate funding for Washington Week with the Atlantic is provided by In 1995 two friends set out to make wireless coverage accessible to all with no long-term contracts nationwide coverage and 100% US-based customer support Consumer Cellular Freedom Calls certified financial planner professionals are proud to support Washington Week with the Atlantic CFP professionals are committed to acting in their clients best interest More information at let'smakeup plan.org Additional funding is provided by Coup and Patricia Euan through the Euan Foundation committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities Sandra and Carl Delay Magnus Rose Hershel and Andy Shreves Robert and Susan Rosenbomb the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you Thank you You're watching PBS