The Biggest Biden Bombshells From Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s New Book

A bombshell new book from CNN‘s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson paints a damning portrait of then-President Joe Biden during the 2024 election, depicting a president with diminished physical and mental faculties that aides and advisers concealed from the public.

Newsweek reached out to Joe and Jill Biden‘s office via online form for comment on Tuesday evening.

Details and excerpts from Tapper and Thompson’s book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, were published by multiple media outlets, including The New York Times, The New Yorker and Axios.

Why It Matters

Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race in July, following a disastrous debate performance against then-Republican nominee Donald Trump, in which Biden repeatedly stared at Trump while slack-jawed and made halting statements where he appeared to lose his train of thought.

Then-Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee after he withdrew from the race, but she faced an uphill battle with less than four months to assemble a team, craft a coherent messaging strategy and build a massive get-out-the-vote operation.

Harris and the White House also had to field frequent questions about Biden’s cognitive abilities, as well as allegations that the administration intentionally hid the extent of the former president’s decline from the American public during primary season.

What To Know

Here are some of the biggest bombshells about Biden chronicled in Original Sin, which Newsweek was not able to independently verify:

Harris Adviser Says Biden ‘Screwed’ Democratic Party

David Plouffe, veteran Democratic strategist and ex-adviser to former President Barack Obama who also spearheaded Harris’ campaign, torched Biden in Original Sin.

Biden’s delayed decision to drop out of the race—instead of choosing not to run for a second term from the get-go, as he had previously promised—”totally f—– us,” Plouffe said, according to an excerpt published in The New Yorker.

“We got so screwed by Biden, as a party,” Plouffe said.

The strategist went on to say that the Harris campaign recruited him after Biden withdrew from the race, describing the move as a “rescue mission.” He added that the expedited timeline Harris was faced with was a “f—— nightmare.”

Biden Did Not Recognize George Clooney

Ahead of the 2024 election, Hollywood superstars and Democratic activists George Clooney and Julia Roberts held a record-breaking fundraiser with Biden and Obama.

As soon as Biden arrived, Clooney saw him and had a “knot in his stomach” while watching the president take small steps and shuffle around greeting donors, The New Yorker’s excerpt said.

Tapper and Thompson reported that when Biden reached Clooney, he appeared not to recognize the actor, who is a longtime friend of Biden’s and was hosting the fundraiser.

“Thank you for being here,” Biden said to Clooney, per the excerpt. The greeting prompted Biden’s aide, who was standing next to him, to say, “You know George,” even though it was evident Biden did not recognize Clooney.

“Yeah, yeah,” Biden said, according to the book. “Thank you for being here.”

“George Clooney,” the aide specified.

“Oh, yeah!” Biden said, according to The New Yorker. “Hi, George!” The interaction left Clooney “shaken to his core,” Tapper and Thompson wrote.

A spokesperson for the former president defended Biden’s behavior at the fundraiser, telling the reporters in a statement: “No one has been able to point out where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or make a presidential address where he was unable to do his job because of mental decline. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite—he was a very effective president. Evidence of aging is not evidence of mental incapacity.”

Obama Had to Help Biden Offstage at Fundraiser

Later on at the same fundraising event, Obama appeared to have to guide Biden offstage, according to the Original Sin excerpt published in The New Yorker.

The moment came after Obama, Biden and late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel had a friendly conversation onstage where the president fielded genial questions from his predecessor and the comedian that highlighted his political and legislative achievements.

After the conversation wrapped, the excerpt said, “Obama began to walk offstage, but Biden walked to the edge and, after waving and giving a thumbs up, stopped and stared blankly into the crowd.”

That prompted Obama to turn around, grab Biden’s arm and guide him backstage, Tapper and Thompson reported. Biden’s team told Tapper and Thompson he was “basking” in the audience’s support and lambasted clips of the moment as “cheap fakes.”

Biden Aides Wanted to Put Him in a Wheelchair

In a piece published by Axios, Thompson adapted another story from the book, saying Biden’s “physical deterioration had become so severe” that his advisers considered whether he would need a wheelchair if he were elected for a second term.

Biden’s aides were aware of his diminished physical abilities during the 2024 campaign, the authors wrote, but they felt they “couldn’t” put Biden in a wheelchair “until after the election.”

The discussions, as well as concerns around the timing and optics of Biden using a wheelchair, highlighted the extent to which those in his inner circle went to conceal his condition from the public.

Tapper and Thompson reported that the president’s aides brushed off reporters’ questions about his halting walk, saying it was because Biden did not consistently wear a boot after previous foot fractures.

But Thompson said that explanation appeared to contradict remarks from Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, who said, “both small fractures of his foot are completely healed” and that “this injury has healed as expected.”

O’Connor said publicly that Biden had “mild post-fracture foot arthritis” but attributed changes in the president’s walk to “significant spinal arthritis.”

A spokesperson for Biden told Axios of his physical state that a “medical exam made clear that he had a stiffened gait caused, in part, by wear and tear to his spine — but that no special treatment was necessary and that it had not worsened.”

What People Are Saying

Biden said on ABC’s The View last week that he would have won if he’d stayed in the 2024 presidential race: “I was confident I would beat Trump. He’s a loser.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer dodged questions on Tuesday about whether Biden was fit for office during the 2024 election, telling CNN’s Kasie Hunt: “Kasie, we’re looking forward. We have the largest Medicaid cut in front of us—”

Hunt pressed Schumer, asking, “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” the New York Democrat said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries offered a similar response to reporters when asked about Biden, saying Monday: “We’re not looking backward. We’re looking forward at this particular moment in time.”