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freeze up. power home, power struggle. security detection, protection. you can have this or that. this is miacom, and this is where it is at. >> mediacom supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> first guest of the money is a host of the biden's decline and corrupt and disastrous towards. thanks for joiningke us. >> thanks for having me. >> wondering your reaction with various criticisms from a lot of different sites. >> i don't really have reaction.

in the night of the debate. was it the first time he reared his head? was the decision-making that went on behind some of really not up to the task running for president and run for the election? so we got to work and made a list of morest than 200 people. . democrats, people that worked for the white house, congress, donors, etc., and talked to as many people as we could. the result is this book, which goes into what a lot of democrats feel like was the biggest mistake, which was president biden deciding he was going to run for reelection. and then mistake that followed,

which include the effort by him, his family, and his top aides to hide the degree to which he was cognitively deteriorating. as we saw the night of the debate. the book has been selling very well, and the reviews from the new york times and washington post, etc., have been positive. you know, any time anybody does anything this day and age i don't need to tell you there is going to be criticism from the left and right. but generally speaking i -- we are really pleased with the receptions of the book. host: what was the tension behind -- between you and your co-author of collecting this material, holding onto it for a book, but not releasing it previous to the election? guest: we did not start until after the election. there was no book until the day after the election, when alex and i got together and started working on the proposal and then

started doing the reporting. so, there is not anything in this book we knew before election day at all. and, in fact, alex and i often joke about this. i know there is this perception that there are a lot of writers who saved the best stuff for after the election. i don't know how true that is, but it is certainly not the case for me and alex. djokovic -- we joke about the fact that if we knew about any one of the scoops in the book -- for instance, that george clooney did not think biden recognized him the night of that june 2024 fundraiser. if we had known that at the time anyone of us would have reported that the time. -- that at the time. his family and his top aides convinced the democratic party that, one, only he had ever been donald trump, which is true.

two, therefore only he could beat donald trump in 2024, which i don't know is true. and three, donald trump, in their view, pose an existential threat to the nation. and so if you convince yourself of those three facts you can pretty much justify anything. and any criticism of president biden was therefore really kept quiet during the presidential campaign by democrats. because they were afraid that any admission he was slipping behind the scenes would only help donald trump. but after election day, finally, people that alex and i had been reaching out to either started returning our calls or emails, or started being a lot more candid. there is nothing in the book that we knew before election day. everything we learned after. host: if you started writing after election day, but was the moment you both figured out you

were onto something as far as the theme of this book? guest: i will admit that when we proposed the book we did not know how much good stuff we were going to get. but i probably within the first few weeks we would just check back with each other after and share the notes we had with each interview and realize, my god, it was much worse than we thought, and we traced the first time president biden showed some signs of decline, according to a top aide, was 2015, towards the end of his vice presidency with barack obama as president. and it was just tracking all of the developments as seen through these top aides, who felt like this -- a burden had been lifted that they could be honest about what they had seen. host: as far as sourcing is concerned, one of the critics --

and you have seen this already. saying it relies on unnamed, anonymous souespushing a narrative that resolves -- absorb them of any responsibility. what would your reaction be to that? guest: naomi biden is the president's grandfather, and she is going to defend her grandfather. the biden family is a very tightknit family, and they support each other. removing naomi from it, because i'm not going to criticize a young woman defending her grandfather, there are a lot of anonymous sources in the book. there are named sources as well. it is pretty well-sourced, for anybody who reads it. some of the anonymous sources are -- like, for instance we have a number of cabinet secretary's that are identified as cabinet secretary number one, cabinet secretary number two. i imagine that they are remaining relatively anonymous because they don't want to

experience the wrath of angry democrats or the biden family. what is more important, i think, is what these sources told us. for example, there are cabinet secretary's who told us they did not think toward the end of the biden presidency that president biden could be relied upon for that proverbial 2:00 a.m. phone call in the middle of the night with a national security emergency. and that is a chilling thought. why the cabinet secretary's don't want to go on the record with that, that is probably because they don't want to experience the wrath and harshness of coming you know, democrats criticizing them. but it is still more important than the issue of whether or not -- of who the sources are and why some of them are anonymous. host: our guest with us until 8:45. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats.

for independents, (202) 748-8002 . you and your co-author talk about the decline of president biden, but you also trace it to the death of beau biden. guest: a lot of the diminishment in president biden's cognitive ability seems to have come -- and this is not unusual -- seems to have come during periods of intense stress. obviously joe biden is somebody that has withstood a lot in his life. it is one of the reasons why his supporters love him so much. he is somebody that is able to get off the floor after life throws some of the cruelest twists of fate imaginable. in 2015 he lost his beloved son to brain cancer and a top aide told us that it was like watching the then-president -- then-vice president's psyche, like watching somebody pour water on sand.

that kind of horrific family tragedy really had a powerful, dilatory its effect on then-vice president biden. we were also told two of the most intense moments of diminishment occurred in 2023 and 2024, during his presidency, during moments of intense stress for his son, hunter, who i'm sure your viewers and callers know had some legal problems in 2023. he had a plea deal for a gun charge, and that the deal fell through, and then in the summer, june 2024, he was tried and convicted, hunter biden, of that gun charge. what is significant -- and i don't say this with anything other than sympathy for the family -- but what is significant is, hunter biden, who as we all know is also experienced tragedy, losing his

brother. president biden lost his wife and daughter in 1972 in a car crash. hunter biden struggles with addiction, and hunter was very outspoken during the period of 2023, 2024, saying he thought the republicans and those prosecuting him were trying to drive him into relapse and trying to drive him to suicide. and what we ascertain from our reporting is that that fear that president biden had, a very real, understandable, and tragic fear that he would lose a third child, that he would lose hunter. that was, to a large degree, one of the other reasons why his cognitive abilities declined in the summer of 2023 and the summer of 2024. and that explains a lot about, and fact, why his performance at the debate was so awful.

because that came right after that verdict, the guilty verdict of hunter in delaware. and why the decision was so bad and not well thought out. because his decline was so significant in 2023-2024. host: the first call for jake tapper is from susan. republican line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. jake tapper, i have been watching you for a long time, and i do appreciate your work. i will say, i am a republican, but i have been a lifelong fan of joe biden. i have loved his passion for people. he has had a very compassionate heart for people. i was going to ask you, what was the motivation to even think, why did you think we needed to hear this? but then i heard you at the very end say, you believe the decline happened from all of the stress

based upon the fear of losing another son. i think you answered my question, and i do have now a more open mind as far as even thinking about getting your book. i watched your interview previously on c-span where you and your co-author discuss this. if you want to talk more about his fear, that would help, but i just wanted to put that out there. i was kind of a little close minded. i was like, no, rejecting any criticism against joe biden because i'm such a fan. i have such a love for him. but now i think you have answered the question. if you could just elaborate more on his fear i would appreciate it. guest: thank you for your call and your open mind. i want to make clear that people understand this is not a mean the book. we have sympathy for the horrible situations and the horrible things president biden has gone through in his life.

and i think anybody can sympathize with a father who is watching his son go through something very difficult. i the same token it is a clear eyed folk, because this is not just one family's tragedy. the decision to run for reelection and then the decision to hide his diminishment were decisions that had repercussions on the entire world. there are a lot of democrats who feel that -- not just democratic voters, but democratic officials, strategists, lawmakers who feel president biden should have abided by his implicit promise to be a one-term president and be a bridge to the next generation of democrats. and that if there had been a democratic primary process then whoever emerged from that -- and perhaps it would have been vice president harris or somebody else -- have been a stronger candidate and had a better chance of defeating president trump.

now, president trump team doesn't think that is true. that he was going to win no matter what. we will never know, but it is also true that the decision to run for reelection, and the decision to hide his diminishment, or decisions that have ramifications for all of us right now as we wake up and try to figure out, what is president trip -- trump going to do when it comes to iran? what is president trump going to do when it comes to tariffs? what is president trump going to do when it comes to foreign students? and all of the issues that c-span callers discuss every day. i think it is important and i think it is essential that the united states voters understand what just happened and why it happened, and how it was allowed to happen. frankly, voters, when it comes to the incredibly powerful presidency in the united states, i think voters have a right to demand health information about the presidents.

and alex thompson, my co-author, and i, we quote a dr. in the book who is an advisor to the white house medical team, and he thinks whoever the white house physician is, that person should have to give the health report that is given annually for the president should have to give it under penalty of perjury. now, look, as we all know, no law congress passes would apply to the president. forget president trump. let's talk about future presidents. whoever the future presidents are, i think the american voter has a right to know every medication they are on, every test and the result of every test that they experience. you know, we have a very powerful executive branch. it is not this powerful in the u.k. it is not this powerful in australia. it is not this powerful in canada.

therefore, i think we voters have a right to know. i think that is also part of the lesson of this book we have learned. host: from virginia, this is sarah, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i watch you on cnn, but right now i really don't like you. i think you are doing a disservice to joe, and also to the american people. when a you going to examine what is going on with trump? joe biden conducted himself for four years, taking care of the united states. he took meetings, he went overseas, he negotiated with other leaders. this president has been pure chaos, which indicates to me that there is something wrong with him. we will never get a straight answer on his medical

examinations, what medication he is on. yet you have gone after joe biden with a vengeance that i am very disappointed in you. i enjoy watching your show, but not anymore, and i think right now you want to start writing another book examining trump and how erratic and what he is doing , calling out the national guard, the marines, and everybody. when has a president ever done that? host: ok, sarah, they're in virginia. thanks. guest: sarah, as you know from watching my show on cnn, we cover president trump everyday for two hours. every day from 5:00 to 7:00 eastern, and we cover all the things you talk about. in terms of the current president's behavior, we have covered times that he has

confused nancy pelosi with nikki haley. i think some of the questions about president trump's behavior have more to do about personality than with cognitive decline, but whatever lessons we have learned from covering president biden we would apply to any politician, any future politician or present politician. i'm sorry if i'm disappointing you by covering president biden, but journalists, we are supposed to cover stories we think the american people have a right to know, that we think will enhance their understanding of how the country is run, and i think alex and i are proud of this book. but if you turn on cnn later today, tomorrow, you will see we are continuing to focus on the today in our tv coverage. host: you write about the mythology of joe biden, the way he approaches things. how did that contribute to not only the decline, but how that decline was handled within the white house? guest: to understand how it is president biden thought he could

run for reelection in 2024, despite being 82 years old, and obviously physically frail or than he had been, as happens to all of us, one has to understand the legend of joe biden. all politicians have a methodology or legend about them, and joe biden's is about his ability to rise up, to get up, as he would say, when talking about the lessons his father would tell him. get up. so, for example, he has a debilitating stutter as a child. he learns how to talk and get past it, to a degree. he has that horrible car accident with his wife and daughter, killed, in 1972. he is able to get up off of the floor for that. he runs for president in 1987. it doesn't go well. he has two brain aneurysms that doctors are not even sure he will ever talk again.

get up. again, this is one of the things about joe biden that his supporters find so compelling. his ability to get up no matter what life throws at him. now, at a certain point the biden methodology becomes almost like a theology. almost like a religion in a sense that's cap timid -- that skepticism is not permitted and the ability of joe biden to prove the naysayers wrong, to prove the elites wrong, to prove the news media wrong and all of the democratic tractors, that becomes part of this mythology or theology. that is one of the things you have to understand when looking at, why did president biden think he could run for reelection despite the fact that he was 82? it was because his has been a life of getting up off the floor and proving the naysayers wrong.

it is part of the reason why he made the decisions he did. host: this is patty. patty is in new jersey, independent line. caller: good morning. can you hear me? i want to thank c-span. it is a great service that citizens get to call in. i would say to cnn and other networks, you can screen the questions, but maybe have three questions a day by citizens it really would go a long way. hello, jake. i was born in philadelphia and the rest of my times in the suburbs of philly. i just want to say that you are pretty much way off as far as the book. i understand your reason for writing the book with alex thompson, but what i don't understand is, you know, when we have somebody like trump -- and i understand you say you cover

him, but there are so many things about trump -- maybe not cognitively, but definitely psychological problems. as far as joe biden, you know, the one thing i agree with you is that he should not have ran for a second term. but, you know, that was a problem. but to focus so much on such a good person, such a good man and a good president too. he did a lot of things. you know, he was just overrun about maga, which is so strong and dangerous. right now americans are in a precarious situation, and i just feel that the book you wrote is just too much of a focus on joe biden, and i feel it is unfair.

that is how i feel. host: patty in new jersey, atlantic city. guest: one of the things i think a lot of democrats feel is that the reason trump's president is because joe biden made this decision to run for reelection and then try to hide the degree he was deteriorating before it was exposed the night of the cnn debate, june 20 seventh, 2024. there are a lot of crowds who look at the electoral college and see that even the president trump won the popular vote by millions of votes that actually the electoral vote victory comes down to about 250,000 votes in about three states. and had kamala harris or any other democratic nominee been able to perform slightly better in michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania, donald trump not

be the president. there are a lot of democrats that feel because joe biden made the decision he did to run for reelection and that because he and his team and his family made the decision they did to try to hide as much as possible his diminishment that they basically set the stage for donald trump's return. look, maybe that is a premise you don't agree with, but there are a lot of very intelligent democrats who think that they were doomed and that donald trump is guaranteed to be reelected because of the decision made by president biden. so, if you disagree, you disagree. i say, go birds, to you, and i appreciate your philadelphia roots, if not your take on my book. host: which were the strongest democrats making the case for joe biden to step aside, and how were they received by the inner circle? guest: not a lot of them were doing it at the time, but there

were democrats trying to make the argument behind the scenes that they didn't think he should run. one was a guy named bill daley. who you know, who was an obama chief of staff and bill clinton commerce secretary, who had known joe biden forever, and just could not believe that joe biden was making the decision to run again. he was political director for biden's 1987-1988 presidential campaign, and he would try to talk to democratic governors to see if none of them will consider challenging biden in the primaries, but nobody would. congressman dean phillips, no stranger to c-span viewers, a democrat who, again, saw this happening behind the scenes, tried to convince governors like newsom or bashir or pritzker or witmer to run against biden in the primaries. nobody would come also dean

phillips ran. and he wanted to show the world, he says, what -- that biden is not up to the task of running for president in 2024 and wanted to get him on the debate stage. but biden and the democrats avoided any sort of direct debate with dean phillips. there were not a lot of people making the argument in front of the cameras, or even directly to president biden. that is one of the things that was so shocking about this. how little process that was behind the scenes. host: from hurst in mississippi, republican line. you are on with our guest. caller: i would like to know whether him -- why the news media did not talk about biden. he would mess up, do all kind of stuff like that. i think the news media failed at their jobs. i don't think they are doing their job like they should be doing it.

and that is all i've got to say about it. host: that is hurst, in mississippi. guest: i think the media did cover the fact that president biden had fewer press conferences than previous presidents, and in terms of the gaffes the gentleman alluded to, those would be aired. it is difficult to argue, now that i have written this book with alex thompson, my co-author, it is difficult to argue that we knew everything, because in our reporting after the election we were able to find out so much more that shocked us about how bad things were behind the scenes. and if that is a failure of the news media, then i think we should take our lumps on it. i do think to a large degree this is the responsibility of president biden and his family and top aides, and democrats who saw things behind-the-scenes and convinced to not say anything to reporters.

the reporters that would write about this on occasion, peter baker wrote a piece in the new york times i think in 2023 about biden's age, meaning they would not do long trips instead of a europe trip and middle east trip. they would split them in two. and he also covered a number of speaking events that president biden held, in contrast with trump and obama. there were some reports by the wall street journal titled something like "behind closed doors biden shows signs of slipping," that was published in 2024. they get attacked by democratic members of congress. so, there were attempts to get to the bottom of this. but the bottom line is, now that

i have learned and alex and i have learned what we know obviously we wish that we had known it before and that there had been more investigative reporting on it. host: you mentioned you felt humility, and i think that is the quote, because of what you know now versus what has been out there. can you elaborate on that? guest: sure. look, anytime anyone learns something as a journalist that you wish you had been more aggressive on or trusted your instincts more or dug a little harder, i think it is a natural result of being an adult to realize shortcomings or failings. i feel this way about, you know, the weapons of mass destruction in iraq's story. i was a reporter skeptical of the wnd claim, but certainly in

hindsight i wish i had been more skeptical. and there are any number of stories along those lines. certainly when it comes to president biden's acuity it is an issue i'd covered. i had asked him about it in september 2020, when i interviewed him. i ask him if he would pledge to be transparent about his house, and he said he would. there are a number of times i covered it or ask people about his age. but i wish i had covered it more aggressively. i can't imagine there are many reporters with a handful of exceptions that do not feel that way, knowing as soon as the debate made it clear, oh my god, look how bad his acuity is, at least at this moment. i'm sure most reporters feel that way. host: there is a story in your book, dana basher and you a note saying he just lost the debate. what is going to your mind? guest: dana bash and ir come

moderators and we are at the atlanta studios of cnn, and first of all it is really interesting because both trump and biden had been invited to do a walk-through at the debate site, which is standard operating procedure. both of them did not show up on time. not surprisingly. and then president trump does show up, and the editor-in-chief of cnn, mark thompson, gives him the tour. president trump is a student of television. because of "the apprentice." he's finding out, where is he standing, which is his camera? is he going to be on air while president biden is talking. all of the normal questions one would ask. the debate is set for 9:00 p.m. eastern. at 8:00 p.m. president biden has still not arrived at the studios. we know he is in atlanta,

because he is the president and we know from pool reports that air force one has touched down in atlanta, but he is still not there. he finally shows up around 8:32, which is really late for a politician to show up for -- before debate. just half an hour before the debate. he does his walk-through. dana and i go out at around 10-of i'm thinking, wow, it is late. i am 56 now, and you are a younger man than i, but there will come a time when you will appreciate sleep more than you do right now. and c-span callers know what i'm saying. anyway, when i was walking out there i was like, this is late, it is almost 9:00. this is going to be going until 10:30. this is way past my bedtime. and president biden walked out and i thought, what is it like for him? because at that point we know

from alex's reporting that they tried to keep his activities between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on an average day. at least public activity. because he is 81 at that point. anyway, he comes out, he starts speaking. biden obviously has a cold. his voice is thinner and reedy year, and he is coughing. ok, he has a cold. the first answer and rebuttal goes fine. but then he gets lost. i think it is the second answer, and he is listing things he wants to do for the american people. and he just completely loses his train of thought. he is talking about childcare and eldercare, and then he loses his train of thought and he grabs onto, like, just a placeholder clause, and it's very painful to watch. i think i have watched it since

on tv. i think it was even worse in person, because of how sad the moment was. and, anyway, we have ipads so we can write down and communicate with the control room, and i write, "holy smokes," to the control room. i kept it clean because i didn't know who was back there. dana passes on a piece of paper to me, he just lost the election. because the bar for president biden was that so many voters, democrats, republicans, independence already had concerns about his aging, his energy, his acuity. they already had those concerns before the debate. it was a major issue. and what he needed to do and what his aides hoped he would do that night was come out and give an energetic performance input those issues to rest. and he did the exact opposite. he made those issues the number

one issue in the campaign. more so than anything president trump had to say, more so than the chaos the democrats would complain about, or some of our callers this morning talking about the chaos of the trump presidency. they made his ability to do the job the number one story. rahm emanuel, another obama former chief of staff, who was president biden's ambassador to japan, calls jake sullivan. he says, this is irretrievable. you can't go back from this. this is now the issue. so, it was very stunning. host: let's go to eddie in new york, independent line. caller: hi, jake. in 2020 you had an interview with laura trump. if you watch fox news or newsnation or even newsmax, every night they would bring up

what the problems were, how he could not talk, how he did not know what he was doing. every time when he had an interview he would ask the reporter her name, and even the answer to the question. mike johnson in 2022 had an interview where they were talking about how he signed away the pipeline. guest: that was 2024. caller: he said, no, i signed a thing for him to be in -- for it to be investigated. no, you signed a thing to get rid of it. so, the news media covered up for him. that is all i have to say. host: ok. eddie in new york. guest: so, i mean, i ran those clips on my show too. i mean, i understand that people feel like a lot of these clips

and a lot of these acuity issues were known, and i don't disagree. it is the reason why so many voters had so many concerns about president biden's ability to do the job. because of what we saw happening in front of the cameras. especially starting in -- i would argue, at least according to our reporting -- in 2023, 2024. the speaker mike johnson story the gentleman was referring to was from a private conversation speaker johnson had had with president biden in early 2024 i think a really important demarcation moment in the story of president biden, his acuity, came in february 2024 with the publication of the special counsel report. robert hurt had been appointed special counsel in 2023 to

investigate president biden's mishandling of classified information. and robert hurt did a report that came out in february 2024 in which he said while he thought president biden -- i'm paraphrasing here -- basically he said, he thought president biden had mishandled classified information, but he wasn't going to prosecute because he thought president biden would come across any jury as an elderly man with a poor memory. and the biden white house freaked out. at first they tried to come up before the report was released they tried to get the attorney general to remove that from the special counsel report. attorney general merrick garland said, absolutely not. we are not going to remove that. when the report came out the democratic party, the white house, vice president harris, and others attacked special counsel her. as unprofessional, as a republican hack, as gratuitous.

that was the line they used. and what special counsel her had done was give us, the american people, a window into what it was like for him and his prosecutors to sit back and listen and talk to joe biden for five hours. in october 2023, when they interviewed him. and that window into president biden's acuity is -- his rambling answers, his inability to recall dates, in a very significant way -- let me give you an example. the question about when president biden had mishandled classified information was in 2017, 2018, after the vice presidency, before he was elected president. and special counsel her brought up that time, 2017, 2018, and president biden, this is during his presidency, said what you

have to remember is during that period my son was either deployed or dying. now, beau biden, who served in iraq, actually had been deployed in 2008, 2009. beau biden, as we discussed, died tragically in 2015. that is the kind of issues president biden was having in terms of not being able to come up with dates for major life events. what the biden administration did to robert her, in terms of their effort to discredit him, he had difficulty finding work for several months after that. it really is, i think, one of the most important moments of the biden presidency. i would also argue, i would judge news media behavior based on how they covered that. because coverage of robert

hurt's report really split between some in the news media who took what he was saying seriously and others in the news media who ran to defend president biden and attack robert her. that is a significant moment we had not yet talked about. host: one more call. this will be from catherine. go ahead. caller: good morning, pedro. jake, i usually watch your show and i like you a lot, but i was disappointed in the book about president biden. but my question for you is, how did you come up with the title, "original sin?" i will take my answer off the phone. guest: hello to the garden state. as a philadelphian, we would spend a lot of time in new jersey during the summers. original sin was a term that some of the democrats we spoke with, who were bemoaning what

happened in the election of 2024, talked about. because obviously the questions about biden's acuity were top of mind because of what we all went through as a country, starting with the debate, and then the three weeks-plus before president biden dropping out of the race, which has never happened before in this country. a truly historical moment. but people would say, just in conversation, you know, but the original sin was that he ran for reelection. it was a way of pinpointing the moment that they thought history could have changed. that if he had not run for reelection maybe things would have turned out differently. there would have been a robust democratic primary. you could have had governors newsom and witmer and pritzker. you could have had pete buttigieg. you could have had senator

klobuchar, senator warnock, evan or schapiro. but there would have been a very robust list of democratic candidates. and it would have been a fierce contest, and then there would have been, in the views of these necrotic officials, a winner who would have had the backing and support of the democratic party, and a better chance at defeating donald trump. so, it was a term used by democrats with whom we spoke. so, there you go. host: jake tapper cowrote the book with alex thompson. "original sin: president biden's decline, its cover-up, and his disastrous choice to run again." thanks for giving us your time today. guest: thank you, and thanks for all of the callers with the tough questions and curveballs,

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