Before the announcement of Biden’s cancer diagnosis, Matt Frei caught up with Jake Tapper for the latest episode of The Fourcast.
He asked Tapper about what inspired his book, Original Sin, which examines President Biden’s health during the last presidential campaign.
Jake Tapper: The original sin was the decision to run for re-election. When Joe Biden ran for president, there was an implicit promise that he would run as a one-termer. And yet, he decided, no, you know what, I’m going to go for two. And that decision – even when polls were already showing that vast numbers of Americans, tens of millions of Americans, had concerns about his age and acuity – was the original sin. And from that flowed everything else, every other bad decision.
Matt Frei: But do you think that they thought, they believed that, or were they lying at the time when they said, when they implied that it would be a one-term president.
Jake Tapper: I think that it is the decision of politicians in an election, which is like the decision of a car salesman in a showroom. What do I have to do to get you to leave the showroom in this car today? But what they didn’t count on is, and our reporting suggests, that as far back as 2015 after the death of his son, Beau, there was a psychic toll being taken on him. And then throughout his presidency, that non-functioning Biden would rear his head increasingly. And by non-functioning, I mean forgetting the names of close friends, not able to identify George Clooney, who he’d known for decades. Not being able to come up with the names of top aides.
Matt Frei: Jake Sullivan, the former national security adviser, gave an interview to the Financial Times earlier this year. And he said that when he saw the debate performance that you and Dana Bash chaired in June of last year, he was deeply shocked. It came as a complete surprise to him, out of the blue, that the president could be this faltering. That begs belief, doesn’t it?
“Throughout his presidency, that non-functioning Biden would rear his head increasingly. And by non-functioning, I mean forgetting the names of close friends.”
– Jake Tapper
Jake Tapper: I think it is fair to say that Biden was most animated and most engaged on issues of national security. And less so on issues like immigration or inflation. But I also think it’s quite possible that he was willing to discount or immediately ignore what he was saying. He claims, for example, there’s a scene in the book where President Biden in December, 2022, is not able to come up with Jake Sullivan’s name, even though he’s his national security adviser. He calls him Steve. And then he’s not able to come up with the name of his communications director, Kate Bedingfield. He calls her Press. Jake Sullivan claims he doesn’t remember that. Does that mean he really doesn’t remember it? I can’t speak for him. I think the human capacity for self-denial is quite strong.
Matt Frei: The Republicans and people around Trump have for long referred to the Biden family as the Biden crime family. Now, that, of course, was deemed to be far-fetched, typical Trump talk, et cetera. But when it comes to deceit, deceit and cover-up of the president’s cognitive abilities, they sort of have a point, don’t they?
Jake Tapper: We do not allege a criminal cover-up. When the Republicans talk about a Biden crime family, they mainly talk about ways that Biden’s brother and his son Hunter cashed in on the Biden family name and. There’s certainly a lot of smoke there. I don’t know if there’s any fire. There’s certainly a lot of sleaze there. I don’t know if there is any criminality. But this might be. And if this is what you’re driving at, I agree with you, truly the most appalling thing that the Biden family ever did.
Matt Frei: The big thought that occurs to me in all this is that there’s an enormous amount of deference in your republic about the office of the president. Who kind of sometimes behaves like an elected monarch and you could argue that the current one wants to be, you know, treated a bit like a monarch. But the deference towards the president. Is that what was going on here with Biden?
Jake Tapper: I’m glad you brought it up. Because I do think that your system, because of question time, because of the parliamentary process, because of the fact that if you are the leader of the party and you’re not measuring up, you know who’s coming for you right behind you. I think this could not have happened in Great Britain. I just don’t think that your system would allow it.
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