Megyn Kelly's FULL Interview with Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson - on the Truth About Biden Cover-Up and "Original Sin" Revelations
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 18 minutes
Words per Minute
178.79889
Summary
In his new book, Original Sin, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson document the behind-the-scenes panic among Democratic officials over Joe Biden s cognitive decline. They detail never-before-heard stories from those very close to the president, and a true reckoning about the media s role in the Democratic Party s attempted cover-up.
Transcript
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Did you miss our viral interview with Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson last week
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If you did, you can catch the whole thing right here.
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Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.
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Hey, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show.
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Today, a deep dive into the decline of President Biden's cognitive health while in office,
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including never-before-heard stories from those very close to the president
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and a true reckoning about the media's role in the Democrat Party's attempted cover-up.
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In minutes, I will be joined by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson regarding their new book.
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It's called Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run
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Again. This will be their first long-form interview. The book does include some shocking
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new details, including from some of Mr. Biden's own cabinet secretaries, who said that by 2024,
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the president could no longer be relied upon for being able to perform at 2 a.m. if there were
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some sort of emergency. He was not able to answer that call. Another revelation from the book,
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quote, five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board.
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Who were those five people running the country? And who exactly perpetrated this attempted cover-up?
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We will ask for and receive names in just a moment. But first, I'll look back at the president's
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decline that we reported on at the time that was called nothing more than a conspiracy theory.
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We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created by it go, you know the thing.
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Signs of a slipping Joe Biden were everywhere, even in the run-up to the 2020 election.
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For a politician long known for gaffes, this was something different. Concerning brain freezes,
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You know, there's a, during World War II, you know, where Roosevelt came up with a thing
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that, you know, was totally different than a, than the, it's called, he called it the, you know,
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the World War II, he had the war, the war production board.
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But raising questions about Mr. Biden's mental fitness back then was risky.
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Just ask Laura Trump, who dared to go there in an interview with Jake Tapper weeks before the 2020
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election. I think what we see on stage with Joe Biden, Jake, is very clearly a cognitive decline.
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That's what I'm referring to. It makes me uncomfortable.
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You are, you are, you are, it's so amazing. It's so amazing to me that,
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and try and figure out an answer. A cognitive decline.
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You're trying to tell me that what I was suggesting was, I think that you were mocking his stutter.
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Yeah, I think you were mocking his stutter. And I think you have absolutely no standing
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to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline. Less than four and a half years later,
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it's Tapper doing the examining. Starting in around 2019, 2020, there were two Bidens. There
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was a Biden that was perfectly workable, serviceable, seemed fine. And then there was a non-functioning
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one. In his new book, Original Sin, co-authored with Axios' Alex Thompson, the pair document the
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behind-the-scenes panic among Democratic officials over Joe Biden's decline. Tapper claims he was on
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the case all along, but couldn't report fully until after the election, when more people were
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finally willing to talk. But it was a story most Americans had already seen with their own eyes.
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The best way to get something done, if you, if you hold near and dear to you that you, uh,
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um, like to be able to, anyway. Forgetting the names of world leaders. I want to thank, uh,
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that fellow down under. Thank you very much, pal. And then the moment that shocked even casual
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observers. Jackie, are you here? Where's Jackie? Asking for Congresswoman Jackie Walorski,
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who had died in a car crash seven weeks earlier. The president had publicly mourned her death when it
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happened, even lowering White House flags in her honor. But he remembered none of it. Tapper did
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occasionally press White House officials. Watch him, right? Watch him. And he, uh, he, I've, I've-
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They are watching him. That's what I'm saying. That's the 77% who are concerned. No, no, no.
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It is hard for us to keep up with this president. The, uh, the same president who couldn't remember
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the name of Hamas. There's been a response from the opposition.
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Then came the bombshell, her special counsel report. Mr. Herr described President Biden as
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an elderly man with a poor memory who could not remember when he was vice president or the year
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his son Bo died. I think anybody sitting down for an interview like that where you're being asked
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specific dates over and over again, you're not going to remember every single one.
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In early June, 2024, a Wall Street Journal story exposed concerns from members of Congress
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about a diminishing president. There's been a relentless focus in some news outlets
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on minor slips by our president that I frankly think are typical of anyone who's keeping a demanding
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14-hour-a-day schedule. A coordinated message claimed conservative media was deceptively editing clips.
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In major areas where people get their news, this lie or this concept about Joe Biden is being
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validated. Fake videos of President Biden that are being referred to as cheap fakes.
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They're cheap. They're just distorted, out-of-context videos, chopped up in certain ways,
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constructed in certain ways. He's far beyond cogent. In fact, I think he's better than he's ever been.
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Joining me now, Jake Tapper. He's the host of The Lead with Jake Tapper on CNN and Alex Thompson.
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Alex is a national political correspondent for Axios.
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They shop, you save. Guys, welcome to the show.
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Yeah, great to have you. All right. First of all, Jake, explain why it's called Original Sin.
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It's called Original Sin because right after the election, we started talking to Democratic sources
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who were telling us how horrible things were, not just in front of the cameras and all those clips you
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showed, but how much worse it was actually behind the scenes. And one of them said to me that the
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Original Sin was that Biden should not have run for re-election to begin with, which then necessitated
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the cover-up of how bad things actually were. And that term, Original Sin, just stuck with me.
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When Alex and I talked about doing the book, I think the day before Election Day,
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I already thought Original Sin would be the perfect title because it just gets at how momentous
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a decision this way it was, how momentous a mistake this was to run for re-election and then,
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Alex, we understand that you originally had drafted a book along these lines, but then
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the deal fell apart. So how did it get revived? When did publishers get interested in what you were
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Well, my book project actually was different. I mean, it was a Biden book, but it was with Simon
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and Schuster. They signed the deal in January of 2021, and it was supposed to come out before the
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election. And there was maybe going to be some age stuff, but it was much more about the family
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dynamics and how they affected the president and the presidency. Ultimately, the book deal
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did fall apart. Simon Schuster canceled the book in October of 2023. There are a few reasons for that.
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One was I was running behind. Two, Biden books were not selling well. And third, there was honestly
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a difference of what sort of book we wanted. And that was most manifest in sort of a debate or clash
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over the title of the book. And I wanted to call the book Haunted because the thesis of the book was
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he's haunted by his son, Beau. He's haunted by the Hunter stuff, by the Obama comparisons, by
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the idea that Trump could win again. And they wanted to call the book Soul Man or Shadowboxer.
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It was an expensive hill to die on. So I returned the advance. And then I obviously had some Biden
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reporting and was interested in trying to revive some sort of project on Biden because I'd covered
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him for so long. And it was really the book was Jake's idea about making it focused on this one
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issue of the Biden presidency. Yeah, this is the issue. OK, I got it. Let me keep going.
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Let's just let's let's go right to the controversy around the book and then we'll get to the contents
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of the book, which I definitely want to spend time on. As you know, this book, it's right in the
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subtitle. It involves coverage of the so-called cover up. But Jake, the criticism has been that
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you're complaining about a cover up about Joe Biden's mental acuity that failed, that right wing
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pundits saw, the right wing in general saw, that independent media saw and reported on.
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And that was no mystery even to left wing and so-called mainstream reporters who were not fooled,
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but chose willful blindness instead of honest reporting and that you were part of it. How do you respond?
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It's a it's a tough and fair question. I would say that Alex and I, after Election Day,
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interviewed more than 200 people, 200 mostly Democratic insiders. And all these interviews
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were almost all of these interviews were after the election. And they justified to themselves what they
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had done in terms of misrepresenting how the president was, not just to me and Alex and other
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reporters, but also just to each other and to the world and to Democrats and to the cabinet, etc.
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By by saying that there was this existential threat of Donald Trump and only Joe Biden could beat Donald
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Trump. And that justified everything in their minds. After that existential threat was over because the
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election was over and Donald Trump won, they were, we found, Alex and myself,
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remarkably willing to talk to us either off the record or on background or in some cases on the
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record about what they saw. One of the things that emerged was that there were two Bidens. One was the
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fine Biden, serviceable, adequate. And the other one was a is a non-functioning Biden. And that's the one
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we saw the night of the debate. And that's the one we saw some clips of here and there that you just
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showed. And that non-functioning Biden, the one that lost his train of thought in a significant
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way, not in the way just that every human loses their train of thought, but in a way that shows
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that he's having trouble articulating his very views. And the one who forgot the name of close
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aides, who was not able to come up with George Clooney's name, didn't seem to recognize him, all that
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sort of thing. That non-functioning Biden was, according to our reporting, showed up as far back
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as 2015, after the death of Beau, where one top aide said that that tragedy, the loss of Beau,
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was like watching somebody pour water on sand. That was the effect on his psyche.
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And there were other moments, 2017, 2018, you hear some, the Her Report, one of the reasons he came to
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that conclusion was because of the recordings they heard of Joe Biden in 2017 talking to his ghost
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writer, in which he was similarly inclined. Obviously, in 2019, 2020, there were other moments
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like that. Most of his campaign staff and others would say, look, he's 78, he's 79, he has senior
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moments, but he's fine, he's fine, he's fine. Well, he wasn't fine. And throughout his presidency,
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that non-functioning Biden would show up more and more and more, and he was worse and worse and worse,
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really deteriorating tremendously the next time there was a really horrible family incident, which
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was when Hunter Biden's plea deal fell apart in the summer of 2023. And then obviously in June, he was
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convicted. And the thought, the fear of losing his son, not to jail, but maybe to another, to a relapse,
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to an overdose, to a suicide, who knows, was a very real fear. And the threat of losing a third child
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really just diminished him tremendously, according to top aides. So all of which is to say that this
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was a deterioration, this was a progression. And look, knowing what I know now, obviously,
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I feel tremendous humility about my coverage, that Laura Trump interview, for example,
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et cetera. She saw something that I did not see at the time, 100%. And I own that. I did ask Joe Biden
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to be transparent about his health records in an interview in 2020. I did ask him about the fact
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that voters thought that he was not transparent at all. He promised you that he would be transparent
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about his health records. And then he wasn't. And when you sat with him again, including one month,
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including one month after the Jackie Walorsky thing, you didn't ask him about it. You didn't
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follow up on the fact that he was falling up the stairs, that he was losing his train of thought
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regularly, that he was slurring, that he was incomprehensible, that he was getting lost on the
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White House lawn. You sat right across from him and you asked none of that, notwithstanding the fact
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that he had promised you he would be fully transparent about his health issues.
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That's true. But I did ask him about his age and the fact that the American people had concluded that
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even though he said, whenever anybody brought up the subject of his age, watch me. And I said,
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yes, they're watching you and they are concerned that you were too old for this job.
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You know, you know, as well as I do, that there's a way of you can say, hey, there's this poll on your
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age. Or you could say you just forgot that Jackie Walorsky was dead. You you asked where she was
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moments after watching a videotape tribute to her. You lowered the flags at the White House
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after she died. This happened 13 days before you sat with him. There is a way of pressing a man like
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that on the actual infirmities to bring it home to him and to the audience. And you didn't do it.
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That's correct. I didn't. And like I said, I feel humility about my coverage. I mean,
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it's not like I was asking him his favorite movie or his favorite color. We were talking about
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Putin. We were talking about other issues of national importance. But yeah, I mean,
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of course, I've said I look back at my coverage with humility. And and I wish I did cover the issues
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of age and acuity, but I wish I had covered them much more. And I wish I mean, of course, in
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it's May 2025. Do I wish that in that 10, 15 minute interview I had with Biden in October 2022,
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that this had been the only subject because I had then. It wasn't just that, though, Jake.
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It wasn't just that. I mean, you sat with him a couple of times in the course of his presidency
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and these issues were not pressed. Well, there was at least that time. And then there was the
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time at the beginning. And but apart from that, you covered the Biden's presidency. No, no, no.
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Let me let me just finish my point. I'm just saying I had one interview with him during his
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I had one. OK, right. And it was 13 days after the Jackie Walorski thing. But you covered the Biden
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presidency aggressively throughout the four years. And and you didn't cover mental acuity hardly at all.
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I mean, time and time again, when issues came up, you seem to be running cover for the president.
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I don't think interested. Well, I mean, we'll start with the Laura Trump issue that you referred.
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Here it is. This happened in 2020. Joe Biden, as we all know, his work to overcome a stutter.
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How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that?
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First and foremost, I had no idea that Joe Biden ever suffered from a stutter. I think what
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we see on stage with Joe Biden, Jake, is very clearly a cognitive decline. That's what I'm
00:18:31.400
referring to. It makes me uncomfortable. You are. You are. So amazing. You're trying to tell me that
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what I was suggesting was I think you were mocking his stutter. Yeah, I think you were mocking his
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stutter. And I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline.
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And it's very concerning to a lot of people that this could be the leader of the free world.
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OK, that is all I'm saying. I genuinely feel sorry for Joe Biden. I appreciate it. I'm sure
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it was from a place of concern. We all we all believe that. Laura Trump, thank you so much.
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I've already apologized to her. I called her months ago.
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I mean, I don't want to disclose the contents of a private conversation, but I thought the
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conversation went well. And she said she has said this publicly, so I feel fine sharing it. She said
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that she would never mock anybody's stutter. But I mean, you know, after we did the research
00:19:25.980
for this book and I realized how bad his acuity issues were, I like I mean, I I called Laura
00:19:40.180
She was totally right. That's the thing, because when I watch that clip and I'm giving voice to
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what a lot of people watching the show are feeling, Jake, I feel angry because she was
00:19:49.520
right. And not only did you not allow her to make her comments, but you you seem to try to
00:19:55.440
humiliate her. You you had a hostility toward the position, but she was totally right. And then you
00:20:02.040
lectured her on how she was in no position to diagnose cognitive decline, which you guys do at
00:20:08.660
length, including on page four of your book. You describe at length his cognitive decline, which is
00:20:14.660
all she tried to do with you. But you had such a visceral reaction to her. And my feeling is that's
00:20:22.580
Now, I mean, we can I'm happy to talk about this. I didn't come here thinking that you weren't going
00:20:27.440
to ask me about this. I'm happy to talk to you about it. The first time I saw the coverage of
00:20:32.440
Laura Trump's comments, which were interpreted as her mocking Joe Biden's stutter, was in January 2020.
00:20:40.780
I read it in conservative media. I read it in the Daily Mail. And that's where I saw that her
00:20:48.280
comments were being interpreted that way. After those comments were publicized, it got a lot of
00:20:54.700
coverage. And Sully Sullenberger wrote an op ed in The New York Times criticizing her about this.
00:21:02.220
So that's the context for that, that I was following up on a story that had been out there
00:21:12.100
months before. This is also in the context of October 2020, a very intense time. People on the
00:21:18.560
Biden side are saying crazy things about Trump. People on the Trump side are saying crazy things
00:21:23.140
about Biden, including Don Jr. suggesting that Joe Biden is a pedophile. So that is the larger context.
00:21:29.440
But as I said, her comments have aged well. My comments have aged poorly. I own that. But I
00:21:38.600
think what is significant is, in addition to me owning that, the reporting that Alex and I have done,
00:21:45.480
which is beyond just, and when I say just, I don't mean to diminish it. But the comments of Joe Biden
00:21:53.260
making gaffes, saying things stupid, tripping are all important and all deserved to be aired and all
00:22:02.200
deserve scrutiny. But as you know, Megan, because even though you look 30 years younger than me,
00:22:06.920
we're roughly the same age, Joe Biden has been saying stupid things for decades.
00:22:11.500
I get what you're saying, but this minimizes it too, because it was more than saying stupid
00:22:16.420
things. But I'm just, I'm telling you like over here in my ecosphere, we were covering all of
00:22:22.380
these. It wasn't just falling down. It was getting lost. It was some of the stuff you report in your
00:22:27.000
book. We knew, and we were reporting on like the multi jump cuts in the videos of him, where it was
00:22:33.800
obvious he couldn't get through a one minute take. So they had to use those. It was clear to us that he
00:22:39.160
was using teleprompter in, and, and there was some reporting on that at the time, all of which the
00:22:43.700
White House was denying. Now with the current White House, I have some connections with the
00:22:48.660
Joe Biden White House. I had none, but you did, you did. And so while you've been in Washington 30
00:22:55.820
years, Jake, you guys, you and CNN have White House connections, but there was no effort, none to get
00:23:01.840
to the bottom of this. And now for you guys to write this book, like there was a coverup. It's like you,
00:23:06.980
there was a coverup and there was an attempted coverup. It could only ever work if you allowed it,
00:23:12.740
if the press allowed it. Some of us tried not to, and some of us were complicit.
00:23:19.100
First of all, the Biden White House did not like me. Okay. This is, I do not have great
00:23:26.340
connections with the Biden White House. Well, clearly you have a lot of sources. You say you
00:23:29.840
talked to over 200 sources for this book. So you have some you could have called and worked.
00:23:34.780
No, that's the point is that they were not being honest. That's the point.
00:23:39.420
The Wall Street Journal will get it in June of 2024. And Jake Tapper and CNN couldn't find
00:23:43.660
sources for this story then before he dropped out. Annie Linsky and Siobhan Hughes did an amazing
00:23:50.680
job in their reporting and, and they should be heralded. And I heralded them. I had them on my
00:23:56.400
show right after the debate to talk about their great reporting. But Annie Linsky.
00:24:00.540
But you did not put them on when they published that story, which was before the debate.
00:24:07.600
Correct. I don't know what the booking situation was, but it wasn't because I didn't want them. I'm
00:24:11.380
sure I said that day, let's book. I'm sure I said that day, let's book that. Did they? Yeah. You,
00:24:16.300
you put on a Democrat and, and you allowed the Democrat to rip on the report as a Rupert Murdoch,
00:24:21.540
Murdoch sponsored hit piece. It's just, if we're going to, if we're going to, if we're going to do
00:24:28.480
this, let's just stick to the facts here. Okay. When there is a damaging report, that's what I've
00:24:34.960
been doing all along. I'm talking about what you just said. I just missed the biggest story of the
00:24:40.100
century when it comes to presidential politics. And one of us did. Okay. So the, uh, there is a
00:24:49.520
difference, okay. Between the clips of Joe Biden falling on a stage, uh, at the Air Force Academy
00:24:58.380
graduation. There is a difference between the clip of Joe Biden embarrassingly forget, forgetting
00:25:03.460
that a Republican member of Congress who he's talking about has died. Those are embarrassing.
00:25:09.580
Those are important, but there is a difference between that and the investigative journalism that
00:25:15.760
Alex and I were able to do and only able to do after the election. And I know, you know,
00:25:20.700
this because you've been talking about the scoops in the book and you've been talking about,
00:25:24.100
I don't diminish the importance of the book. I don't, I have supported the importance of the
00:25:29.280
book and we'll talk about the contents of the book at length, but there is no way we can have that
00:25:34.000
conversation with an audience that is as skeptical of your ability to tell the story as mine is
00:25:40.680
without addressing your role in this, right? Like Alex is a different story, but you know,
00:25:45.660
you've watched the coverage since it came out that you wrote this book. There are, there's a legion of,
00:25:51.800
of articles about how comparing you in some instances to like OJ instead of if I did it,
00:25:57.920
this is if I hit it, that like, you are not the right messenger to bring the story about the coverup
00:26:04.640
because you helped, you allowed it. And you likely did that out of a desire to help Joe Biden
00:26:11.420
and hurt Donald Trump. You didn't want to do anything that might improve Trump's chances.
00:26:18.900
I do not think that that is accurate. I do not think that that is true at all. The idea that
00:26:24.800
Siobhan and Annie do their piece and we have on the co-chair of the Biden campaign is not me trying
00:26:31.060
to cover for the Biden campaign. That is me putting the questions of the reporting that were made
00:26:36.620
to him and saying things like, so you really haven't seen any moment or you would acknowledge
00:26:41.540
that you, wouldn't you acknowledge that he's lost a step? He's 81, et cetera, et cetera.
00:26:45.820
Like I said before, do, if I had known then what I know now, would I have been more aggressive?
00:26:55.780
How did I know? And you didn't know. I'm just curious because when I saw that Wall Street Journal
00:26:59.520
report in June of 24, I scoffed at it like, okay, it's an attempt, but it's lame. Everybody
00:27:07.500
on the right wing ecosystem and the independent media ecosystem knew it was a lame attempt that
00:27:11.880
only scratched the surface. We had all been discussing his serious cognitive problems for
00:27:17.840
years by that point. Jake, in June of 2022, this show did a full two hour program on his
00:27:25.200
cognitive decline. I heard it. It was, I know we want to pretend I'm mentioning the Wall Street
00:27:29.420
Journal as a courtesy, but those of us on this side of the aisle had been reporting in depth
00:27:34.280
on his multiple problems and the obvious lies we were being told for years, for years. You really
00:27:40.140
want the audience to believe you were fooled? What do you mean I was fooled? I'm not saying I was
00:27:47.460
fooled. I'm saying we all saw these moments before the camera and they were obviously concerning and
00:27:52.920
he was obviously aging and that was significant. But the people at the White House, I'm trying to
00:27:59.280
answer the question, but so the people at the White House, when I would call, when others would call,
00:28:03.840
when Alex would call, would lie. He's fine. He's fine. You'd call Democrats and say, what are you
00:28:10.280
seeing behind the scenes here? Because this is concerning. He's fine. He's fine. This is just a
00:28:15.700
moment. He's 79. He's 80. He has moments like that, but he's fine. His decision-making is fine.
00:28:19.980
They're still saying that. They're still saying that. And let me defend Annie and Siobhan there for
00:28:25.420
a second, because you just said that their Wall Street Journal story just scratched the service.
00:28:30.720
They got what they could get in June, 2024. And I went back and Alex and I went back to report some
00:28:38.320
of the same things that they reported on. For example, there was a meeting in the White House about
00:28:43.600
Ukraine funding in January, 2024. And we were able to get people to say things as a Democratic member
00:28:51.040
of Congress that I, look, I don't know who Annie and Siobhan's sources are, but they were not able
00:28:56.240
to get them to do that. I assume that, you know, they had dozens of sources for that article, but not
00:29:03.180
one of the Democrats that they talked to would even talk on background. It is a complicated thing to try
00:29:09.060
to get to. But your commentary on your show. Yes, I'm going to bring you in. But your commentary
00:29:14.500
on your show, Jake, consistently ran in one direction. Occasionally you would ask tough
00:29:19.580
questions. I don't think that's true. I mean, here you are on September, 2023 saying that Biden
00:29:24.700
was sharp mentally. September of 2023. No, no, no, no. You said, hold on. You said he's sharp
00:29:31.380
mentally. I think the question is physically, right? He's sharp mentally. And then you pointed out
00:29:35.800
that his opponent, Donald Trump, was only a couple of years younger than he was. There are many
00:29:39.760
examples where you're doing that kind of coverage. OK, so let's let's be honest and and full about
00:29:45.760
what you're talking about. Frank, there's no problem with honesty on this show. OK, yeah,
00:29:52.580
Frank, let's watch it. Let's watch it. Yeah. Frank, for it came on with a biography about Joe
00:29:57.200
Frank, for it came on to talk about his biography with his biography with Joe Biden. And I'm trying
00:30:01.840
to summarize what his conclusions were. So he is saying that Biden was. Where is the part where you
00:30:09.180
say he's not sharp mentally, Frank? We've seen the following 10 examples in the past year. Never
00:30:15.980
mind three years. I wasn't. I've already said I wish I had covered this more aggressively. Frank
00:30:25.200
four had come to the show to talk about his book about President Biden. This was in September 2023.
00:30:33.100
And I interviewed him about his book. And that was the end of that. Now, I suppose in retrospect,
00:30:41.700
I say again, I wish I had been more aggressive. I do. Yeah. But our reporting suggests. And like I said,
00:30:48.640
we've talked to more than 200 people, Democratic insiders, that the real deterioration of President
00:30:55.560
Biden. And yes, there was a degression, a regression, whatever you want to call it, deterioration
00:30:59.940
since 2015. But it really started to intensify in the summer of 2023 when Bo Biden, I'm sorry,
00:31:08.920
when Hunter Biden's plea deal fell apart and Joe Biden was terrified about what that effect would have
00:31:14.460
on his son. I accept that. And people close to him say that was a real demarcation. And in October
00:31:23.840
2023, there is the last cabinet meeting for almost a year. And cabinet secretaries tell us that that
00:31:32.380
began that fall 2023 began what they call a weird period where they were kept at bay, where they were
00:31:40.000
kept away from President Biden. And now we're getting this substance, which I do want to talk about. I'm
00:31:43.940
about to switch to that. But let me let me just ask you, because when we got to leading up to the
00:31:48.260
debate, which you anchored that June 27th debate 2024, there was a ton of news leading into that
00:31:54.160
debate in that month. And we look back at your coverage and found that you ignored it. Not only did
00:32:00.600
you ignore the Jackie Walersky moment when you had him 13 days later, but you ignored the freeze up that
00:32:06.520
he had at the Juneteenth celebration. You ignored what happened at the G7 when he wandered off in Georgia
00:32:11.920
Maloney, prime minister of Italy, had to go find him. You ignored the freeze up at the George Clooney
00:32:18.380
L.A. fundraiser. You didn't cover it. You only covered it after the debate, after George Clooney
00:32:25.040
wrote his op-ed. Jake, nobody made you do that. There was your network at every turn was telling us
00:32:33.180
those were, quote, cheap fakes. And you were not combating that narrative. You were at CNN was actively
00:32:39.900
misleading us on what our very eyes were showing us. That's the truth. That's the record.
00:32:46.860
I will acknowledge that after I was named moderator, co-moderator of the debate,
00:32:56.360
I tried to make sure that my coverage was fairly vanilla, both about Trump and about Biden,
00:33:03.080
because I just wanted to get to the debate. And, you know, the Biden people and the Trump people,
00:33:09.560
I'm kind of frankly surprised that either one of them agreed to have me as a moderator because both
00:33:17.080
sides disliked me so much. But yeah, I remember that moment. And I remember that moment, the glitch
00:33:24.560
at the immigration event and not getting much attention outside of conservative media at all.
00:33:29.720
And Alex and I are here to say that conservative media was right and conservative media was correct
00:33:36.980
and that there should be a lot of soul searching, not just among me, but among the legacy media to
00:33:44.840
begin with, all of us, for how this was covered or not covered sufficiently. 100%.
00:33:50.260
So, I mean, I'm not here to defend coverage that I've already acknowledged. I wish I could do differently.
00:33:59.800
Let me bring Alex in. Thank you for your patience, Alex. And apologies for the back.
00:34:04.320
I think he's fine. I think he's fine. You're not going to him.
00:34:07.240
Based on what just happened. But Jake and I are actually friends. And this is all said in the context of
00:34:13.780
I know what my audience wants to hear asked. And Jake has told me before he wanted the opportunity
00:34:18.640
to answer these questions. So that's what we're doing here.
00:34:21.040
Megan, we didn't come on the show thinking that this was going to be a softball interview.
00:34:28.260
I understand. Like, listen, listen, as a – first of all, nobody flagellates Jake Tapper more than Jake
00:34:36.120
Tapper, OK? Like, I get it. I understand. I am fallible. I make mistakes. It's not just the Biden
00:34:42.760
coverage. I mean, I go back and I look at, like, I wish I had been covering terrorism more before 9-11.
00:34:48.020
I wish that I had covered the WMD with more skepticism. And there's, you know, a million
00:34:51.800
things. This is definitely among them. And conservative media absolutely has every right
00:34:58.720
to say we were hip to this and the legacy media was not. Now, I do not accept that I was part of
00:35:06.480
a cover-up. I do not accept that I was just providing cover for Joe Biden. I think a lot of these
00:35:12.600
clips are not fair. The one that is fair is the Laura Trump clip. And I own it. And I regret it.
00:35:18.900
And I've told her that privately. And that's completely fair. But what we uncovered after
00:35:26.220
the election, what people were willing to tell us after the election was so shocking. And yeah,
00:35:33.660
the Jackie Walorsky thing is awful. But I would posit that President Biden not being able to come
00:35:39.080
up with the name of his national security advisor in December 2022 is important information. And I
00:35:47.720
I'm not arguing that the book has no place or importance. Let me ask Alex something. So you
00:35:53.080
may be aware, the hard time I've given you on this show is not because of your coverage of the Biden
00:35:58.300
mental decline. I've given you a hard time over the past couple of weeks because you were honored by
00:36:04.320
the White House Correspondents' Dinner for covering this story, which honestly is like getting the
00:36:09.520
award for being the thinnest kid at fat camp. I mean, there was literally no competition at the
00:36:14.980
White House Correspondents' Association dinner that they would even consider. You know, they're not
00:36:19.980
going to give awards to anybody in the right-wing ecosphere who covered this from the beginning.
00:36:24.040
With all due respect to you, Alex. But when you got up there, you actually got up there and said,
00:36:29.720
we, myself included, missed a lot of this story. And we bear some responsibility for faith in the
00:36:37.100
media being at such lows. But we, the media, did not miss this story, Alex. We did not miss this
00:36:43.420
story. We were all over this story. We were night and day covering this story.
00:36:48.020
The we. We knew you hated the we after he said it. We talked about this.
00:36:52.460
It was insane. It was an insane comment to make. Who were you talking about?
00:36:56.160
He was talking about the people in the room. Be quiet. It's not your turn to talk anymore. It's
00:36:59.140
Alex's turn. Thank you. Who is we? Thank you. I can defend myself. No, we were the people in the
00:37:05.540
room. I mean, like, I was getting, it was the White House Correspondents' Dinner. I was talking
00:37:09.480
to the people in the room that covered Joe Biden. All right, so here's my follow-up. Got it. Here's
00:37:13.360
the follow-up. We, if that's who we is, did not miss the story. We, in that room, intentionally
00:37:21.420
chose not to cover the story or dig into the story, which is a massive story that we have
00:37:33.340
Okay, I'm glad you asked me this question because I heard you rip me to shreds the night
00:37:37.540
out, the Monday after the dinner. And at first I was-
00:37:42.920
Yeah. Um, and, um, at first I was defensive, but then I was, you know, I thought about it
00:37:49.000
also, you know, from your all perspective, especially like the missed part and like your
00:37:54.540
readers, your readers that were saying, Hey, there's a problem here or not your readers
00:37:59.800
for your listeners saying there's a problem here and I'm not seeing it reflected in the
00:38:03.980
media. And, and after the debate happens, everyone to be like, Oh my God, there's a
00:38:10.140
problem. Um, I'd be pissed too. Cause you would feel like you weren't listened to. And
00:38:14.200
that, um, and I'm sure that a lot of people felt that it was because, um, some reporters
00:38:20.280
let their own personal politics get in the way. And let's be honest, like a lot of newsrooms
00:38:25.420
in DC and New York are more liberal than not. And they, I mean, I'll just say for myself,
00:38:32.940
I think some of them let their own personal politics get in the way. But in terms of the
00:38:36.940
missed part, uh, the reason I said missed is because I think there were a lot of really
00:38:41.640
great reporters on this beat. And I know you may disagree. I know your listeners may
00:38:46.160
disagree, but I was in the white house, you know, every day. And I think, um, a lot of
00:38:51.040
them really do try and do some really great work every single day that sometimes you also
00:38:57.460
use on this show from the New York times and others. And I felt that basically saying
00:39:04.160
that, uh, calling everyone in the room, not a good faith reporter, I didn't think was
00:39:09.980
fair. And so I was, I said, miss to sort of give grace for both.
00:39:16.460
Well, that's sweet. I I'm less graceful than you are and, uh, less forgiving, but that's
00:39:21.460
fine. Takes all kinds. Let's go, let's do some substance. Okay. Of the book is we still
00:39:26.080
have some time and I want to get into it. You guys write in original sin out today. The
00:39:31.200
Biden coverup may not be unique, but it is arguably the most consequential. So what do
00:39:36.300
you mean by that? How, how so Alex? Well, we've seen this before Wilson, uh, you know,
00:39:45.260
and Edith Wilson, his wife after a stroke, FDR was incredibly sick during the 1944 campaign.
00:39:50.920
Um, you know, we obviously know a little bit more now about JFK, um, and Ronald Reagan.
00:39:57.040
And I'd say two reasons. One is, you know, the FDR one wasn't as consequential because
00:40:01.840
he won. Um, we, so you mean amongst health coverups. That's what you mean?
00:40:08.160
Yes, that's what I meant. I think that's what we mentioned in the book. Um, yeah, sorry.
00:40:12.820
All right, let's keep going. Um, you, you write that you spoke with at least four cabinet secretaries
00:40:18.240
of Joe Biden's and that they said he could not be relied upon to quote, perform at 2 AM during
00:40:23.420
an emergency. So, uh, and here's just a little bit more. They said access by the end of 2024
00:40:29.240
quoting here from your reporting access dropped off considerably in 2024. And one of the cabinet
00:40:34.780
secretaries, number one, you referred to said, I did not interact with him as much. I didn't get
00:40:39.860
an explanation. Instead, that cabinet secretary would brief other senior white house aides who
00:40:45.320
then brief the president. Yes, the president is making the decisions, but if the inner circle is
00:40:49.060
shaping them in such a way, is it really a decision? Are they leading him to something?
00:40:53.460
Said this one, a different cabinet secretary, number three, October, 2023, the cabinet was kept
00:40:59.580
at bay with the exceptions of Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken quote for months. We did not have
00:41:04.860
access to him. There was clearly a deliberate strategy by the white house to have him meet with
00:41:08.700
as few people as possible or as necessary at one rare meeting during that time. Cabinet secretary
00:41:13.680
three was quote shocked by how the president was acting. He seemed disoriented and out of it.
00:41:18.560
His mouth agape. All I can think when I see that word agape, Jake, is that debate that you hosted
00:41:25.120
that I just, that that's what it was the whole time agape to the point where I, when I was reading,
00:41:32.140
I listened to my news oftentimes on like these apps that will read you at the article and the news
00:41:37.680
readers, the AI news readers pronounce that word agape. And all I heard for like, I must've heard 200
00:41:44.900
times agape the day after that debate. So it was a pattern. The cabinet secretaries were saying it,
00:41:51.020
you saw it, we all saw it. Um, and yet what did they tell you behind the scenes about what,
00:41:58.120
Well, nothing. I mean, that's, that's the thing. Uh, there is very little in terms of actual action
00:42:08.440
that happened. And one of the reasons for that, I think is because by the end of 2023 and then
00:42:15.300
throughout 2024, so many people had been sequestered off from president Biden, uh, that there weren't
00:42:24.740
people that had any reliable information about his current condition. It's actually one of the
00:42:31.860
interesting parts of the post debate coverage. There are people in the white house that the
00:42:38.640
communications effort, uh, communications office of the Biden white house are trying to get them to
00:42:43.140
go out and defend the president, uh, and say, you, you know, I, I just met with him. He's fine,
00:42:50.340
blah, blah, blah. And they had not seen him in weeks or even months. They could not attest to his
00:42:57.840
fitness. When Ron Klain, the former Biden white house chief of staff is calling around and trying to
00:43:04.300
rally Democrats after the debate to speak about Biden's acuity. Many of them tell Klain, I haven't
00:43:13.420
seen him in a year or I haven't seen him in a year and a half. Um, now Klain and Klain interprets that
00:43:19.780
as his successor, Jeff Zients is managing the portfolio poorly and should be doing more to have
00:43:26.880
like, you know, make nice with Congress stuff. But Alex and I interpret that as they are hiding
00:43:33.800
Biden from as many people as they can. So there aren't as many people who have seen him. I didn't
00:43:39.260
actually Nancy Pelosi, as we write about in the book has a, has a private and secret meeting with
00:43:44.520
Biden after the debate where she's urging him to look at the polling information. And I don't know
00:43:48.800
when the last time she had had a one-on-one with him was because she suggests that after she stepped
00:43:55.220
down as democratic leader, after the midterms of 2022, she barely saw him. And this is a theme
00:44:03.000
throughout, uh, 2023, especially the last half of 2023 and 2024, how many people didn't have access
00:44:10.740
to him, how many people didn't see him. And that, and this, this was by design you write in the book
00:44:15.920
that, uh, Alex, I'll bring you in because there was a so-called what you write as about as a politburo
00:44:21.420
surrounding him. It was four people plus Biden to make five. Can you tell us who those people were?
00:44:26.980
And is the theory then that those are the four people who did know and worked as this,
00:44:32.920
as sort of cabal to keep everybody else at arm's length so that they wouldn't also have full
00:44:40.040
That's me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, so the people that we're naming would be Mike Donilon,
00:44:50.840
Steve Reschetti. Mike Donilon's his top political advisor. Steve Reschetti's his top legislative
00:44:54.500
advisor. Um, Ron Klain, when he was chief of staff, Bruce Reed, uh, his basically longtime policy
00:45:01.980
advisor. Um, you can, those are sort of the four. They were known as a politburo, gray hairs,
00:45:07.860
poobahs, and they were with him the most of anybody. Now, if you were to ask them,
00:45:13.180
and I still think even if you put them on truth serum today, they would say he was fine. Um,
00:45:18.680
you know, I think, um, I don't know if they're lying or lying to themselves or it doesn't matter.
00:45:25.120
Then there's this other sort of group that aren't the politburo, but are just as powerful.
00:45:29.540
And they were the ones that kept the schedule, uh, affected personnel and really built the bubble.
00:45:35.620
And that would be Annie Tomasini, who was deputy chief of staff and previously oval office
00:45:40.460
operations. And then Anthony Bernal, who was the top aid slash enforcer for first lady Jill Biden and
00:45:48.260
had incredible influence to the point that even people in the Biden white house would refer to
00:45:54.260
her as one of those powerful first ladies in history. You write about this guy Bernal a lot.
00:45:59.680
And it's, it's, you suggest Jake, it was very tough to find anybody with a nice word to say
00:46:04.680
about this guy who was Jill Biden's top person. Yeah. And he, he acknowledged that he had a tough
00:46:09.960
reputation. He was the chief of staff for Jill Biden and perhaps the most powerful first lady
00:46:15.420
chief of staff in, in the history of this country. Uh, he is somebody that enforced what Jill Biden
00:46:21.560
wanted. And at the end of the day, one of the things that was interesting when,
00:46:24.360
when we wrote this book and researched this book was trying to figure out why was there no discussion
00:46:30.020
of whether or not he should run for reelection? Why was it just a foregone conclusion that he was
00:46:34.660
going to run for reelection, especially after he had made this kind of vague promise that he would
00:46:39.000
be a one-term president. And it came down to two people, one of whom spoke for Biden, that's Mike
00:46:44.600
Donilon. And the other one spoke for first lady Jill Biden, and that's Anthony Bernal. And basically,
00:46:49.500
they communicated to the rest of the staff. Um, Bernal would say, you run for two terms,
00:46:56.640
you serve for two terms, you don't do one. And, uh, and Mike Donilon would say, you know,
00:47:02.200
Biden's made the decision he's running. That's it. There's no discussion. And when people would
00:47:06.300
try to raise it, although nobody directly with Joe Biden, but when people would try to raise,
00:47:11.020
you know, Anita Dunn said something, I'm like, are we sure this is a good idea? A different pollster was
00:47:15.220
like, shouldn't we, um, figure out if like, this is even a good idea. This is the politics of it all.
00:47:19.920
This is not whether or not he should or should not have been president. This is about, uh, whether or
00:47:24.640
not he could get reelected, which is a different level here. Um, they would say the decision's been
00:47:29.360
made, the decision's been made. And, and so there were, there was a small group of people running the
00:47:35.000
train. And I think that it's not a star chamber so much cause they weren't like, it wasn't like five of
00:47:40.900
them in a room, uh, making these decisions, but definitely Rashetti and Donilon, definitely
00:47:45.820
Bernal and then different individuals hopping in and out, whether Jen O'Malley Dillon, who was a
00:47:51.440
deputy chief of staff and then ran the campaign, whether Anita Dunn, whether Ron Klain or Jeff
00:47:56.520
Zients, the chiefs of staff all played different roles. Well, how about, can you follow up Jake on
00:48:01.440
what you said earlier? Because just this week, Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor was out
00:48:05.980
saying, geez, what I saw at that debate shocked me. But you have reporting in this book that
00:48:10.300
Jake Sullivan was well aware that Joe Biden was having some serious memory problems going back
00:48:15.180
years. In December, 2022, um, the day, uh, that, um, and I'm, her name is escaping me,
00:48:23.540
which is ironic. Brittany Greiner, the name, I'm sorry, I'm not a big WNBA fan. The, the time that
00:48:29.220
Brittany Greiner gets out, that gets out of Russian, uh, control, uh, Russian, uh, you know,
00:48:35.400
she was a prisoner in Russia. Um, Biden is outside the Oval Office, uh, with, and Jake,
00:48:41.660
Jake Sullivan, his national security advisor and Kate Benningfield, his communications director
00:48:47.760
are there and he can't come up with their names. This is December, 2022. He calls Jake, Steve,
00:48:53.280
Steve, and then he calls Kate Benningfield press. And then he beckons them to come with him. So I don't
00:49:00.080
know. Uh, I saw in that same interview that, uh, that Jake said he did. Jake Sullivan said he didn't
00:49:04.500
remember that. Um, I can't attest to what people remember, what they don't. I just know that that
00:49:09.780
happened. That happened. And you also report Alex, that there was interference run by, I think this
00:49:15.320
same Politburo, this cabal against the white house residents staffers so that they would not witness
00:49:22.780
what the inner circle was witnessing with his deterioration. Can you fill that out a bit?
00:49:28.340
Yeah. The resident staff were really stunned with how, especially the first lady's office took over
00:49:34.920
really through Bernal and Annie Tomasini. Both of them also unusual had resident staff passes,
00:49:41.820
which is not normal for aides in the white house to be able to go like to and from they would, you
00:49:47.340
know, just had certain powers to the point that a lot of the resident staff, you know, they felt they
00:49:52.800
were being kept at bay, that they were not trusted and that they often were there just twiddling
00:49:57.900
their thumbs. They would have to go. They often went home early. They didn't have a lot to do.
00:50:02.560
And there was a feeling among some in the resident staff that this was about hiding his deterioration.
00:50:09.680
And we quote one resident staff, um, you know, official that said he would just sometimes look
00:50:15.500
at you and I'm paraphrasing. He would just sometimes look at you like he doesn't even know
00:50:23.040
They would, um, keep somebody out of the elevator. Uh, there was the elevator is the elevator in the
00:50:28.080
white house normally manned? Cause you seem to be reporting that they ejected that person from that
00:50:31.860
post. Yes. They basically said your services will no longer be necessary. And they, again,
00:50:38.600
it was part of this larger pattern of, uh, where we are taking over the residents. Now,
00:50:44.320
your services are needed sometimes, but not, uh, as much as they almost always are.
00:50:54.340
I mean, she was first and foremost, a protector, um, and she and loyalty enforcer, and she would
00:51:02.820
had tremendous, uh, control over, um, over the schedule over keeping, you know, that circle very,
00:51:10.200
very close. And I think, um, you know, even though she would never admit that, uh, you know,
00:51:15.760
that he has any problems, I think by her very actions, you saw it on the view, but privately
00:51:20.500
to, you know, jumping in with answers, trying to help him along, guiding him, introducing. So he
00:51:26.080
remembers who they are, you know, that by her action shows that she knows that he needs help,
00:51:33.980
All right, we'll pick it up there. We have to get into the presidential debate and what Jake's
00:51:38.320
reaction was when he had that onstage meltdown. And what is, uh, the reaction from these guys
00:51:43.920
to the announcement about Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis on the eve of their pub date. Stand
00:51:50.500
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the IRS makes the next move. All right, Jake. So I have been in the front row of a presidential
00:53:02.760
debate in big moments. Oh, I remember. I remember. One of the interesting things is always like,
00:53:09.460
what's the dynamic between the anchors on the set when you know big news is being made? So walk us
00:53:15.640
through that moment when he completely fell apart with the, I killed Medicare and everybody was left
00:53:21.100
with their own agape moment. Does your, I guess, presumably your, your viewers and listeners know
00:53:28.300
the agape reference by now. Um, so that for that front row seat was, um, really disturbing. Um, and
00:53:38.460
again, as you say, we have all, we all watched president Biden age. We all watched his gaffes. We all
00:53:45.100
watched these moments that were uncomfortable and obviously, uh, representative of, of a decline
00:53:53.260
going on. But there was something about that debate that was utterly shocking. And maybe, maybe you and
00:53:59.740
your listeners were not shocked. Maybe, maybe you thought that this was going to happen and, and this
00:54:04.420
was all, you know, I think it was one of those shocked, but not surprised moments for us. So he comes
00:54:10.400
out and, you know, he's obviously shuffling as, uh, had, had been going on with him for years because
00:54:18.040
of his degenerative spine. And although, by the way, that was another thing that the white house
00:54:22.840
wasn't being honest about. They were saying it had to do with his, like breaking his ankle or something
00:54:27.420
in December, 2020 and not wearing the boot. And his refusal to wear the, the, like the foot cast or
00:54:33.700
support. It was another lie. Yeah, not true. Um, so he comes out and he, he has a cold also. Um,
00:54:39.860
and he sounds, so even his voice, obviously you go back and listen to him in 2020, his voice is much
00:54:44.860
deeper and more and stronger. And then, you know, he comes out, it's, it's, it's thinner,
00:54:49.600
it's readier. He obviously is coughing a lot, but there was something about that.
00:54:53.500
My first text to my, my producing team read phlegm. And I saw that same word in your book
00:54:59.320
referencing what, what you were thinking. It was phlegmy. He was definitely very phlegmy.
00:55:03.740
So, so it was, it was, it was a few minutes in, I mean, his first answer was not good,
00:55:09.760
but, um, that, you know, that wasn't ultimately particularly surprising. I think it was the
00:55:14.920
second answer, the second long answer in that, uh, economics block that we did where he just
00:55:21.140
completely lost his train of thought, um, in such a way that he was like grasping for words.
00:55:26.640
And look, he has those crutches where he starts wandering off. And then he says, anyway,
00:55:32.880
because he's lost his train of thought. That's something that we've seen,
00:55:35.540
but this was something else. This was something more shocking. And he said,
00:55:40.660
then he says, we finally beat Medicare. And I, I presumably he was trying to say we finally beat
00:55:45.940
COVID, but, um, it was really shocking. Uh, also interesting at the, at the time was
00:55:52.200
Trump obviously was very Trumpy during the debate. He did his thing. If you like it,
00:55:57.740
you like it. If you don't, you don't for Trump, given what was going on to his left,
00:56:03.560
he was fairly restrained. He wasn't really commenting on the self immolation that was
00:56:11.180
going on. I think he only made one comment that night about Biden's incoherence. He said something
00:56:16.340
like, I'm not really sure what he just said. And I'm not sure that he does either or something
00:56:21.040
like that. I'm paraphrasing, but it was shocking. Get to the text that you sent to your control room
00:56:25.820
and the correspondence between you and Dana. So, so we have, um, iPads cause you can't
00:56:31.780
communicate, obviously, uh, talking to your control room during a debate. We have iPads where you can
00:56:36.680
write on them. And I recommend it if you don't have one, by the way, it's fantastic. And, and, um,
00:56:42.440
I wrote cause I had no idea who was back there. So I tried to keep it clean. I wrote,
00:56:46.780
holy smokes. Now what I was thinking was, holy fuck. I mean, it was just shocking,
00:56:51.720
but I kept it clean. Dana wrote, Dana writes to me on a piece of paper. He just lost the election.
00:56:58.860
Um, and I, it was just, I mean, it is, I don't think this is hyperbole at all.
00:57:04.320
The worst debate in the history of presidential debates going back to 1960. I just can't think of
00:57:10.260
anything even remotely close to it. And then you saw him immediately after you write in the book
00:57:15.660
and he seemed like unaware that something extremely problematic had just occurred.
00:57:23.640
Well, it was just, first of all, Jill helps him down from the stage. It's like a one,
00:57:28.500
it's a one step stage. Maybe it was a little distracting cause there were weird lights or
00:57:33.300
whatever, but that looked weird too. But they come over to the table. Trump, Trump is long gone. He's
00:57:39.260
probably, he's probably in the air at that point. And, um, he, they come over and they really didn't
00:57:46.380
seem to have any idea that this had been as bad as it was. And it was very awkward. He said something
00:57:53.200
about, sorry about, sorry about my cold. And I can, you, like, he tried to like say something about
00:57:58.720
how much Trump lies. And then he said something like, uh, I guess, I guess we'll go see what the
00:58:03.940
commentators have to say or something like that. And he and Jill wander off. And it was just one of
00:58:09.080
these, you know, sometimes you think like, did I just see that? Was that, did, did I just witness
00:58:14.940
this 90 minute event during it? Also, I'll just, I'll just say, um, so I'm 56. So I'm now at the age
00:58:22.520
where like, I love sleep. Like sleep is something that when you're a kid, you hate it so much. But when
00:58:28.000
you're an adult, you're like, I can't get enough of it. And I even thought, as this debate started,
00:58:33.640
why are we starting at nine? This is so late. Um, and then when Biden started to fump around,
00:58:41.840
I thought, man, starting this at nine was really a bad idea. Why didn't they ask for like five?
00:58:46.220
They never should have agreed. They never should have agreed. Following up on a point from earlier,
00:58:49.980
Alex, because we talked about the cabinet secretaries unnamed, and we talked about the
00:58:54.320
Politburo protecting him. And you gave us the names. There is a suggestion in the book,
00:58:59.580
though. It's never written explicitly that president Biden wasn't always making the calls
00:59:03.920
as president. Is that, is that what you're reporting that, that he was not in full command
00:59:08.940
of the decision-making for those four years? Well, some members of the cabinet told us, um,
00:59:15.920
that they felt that one of them put it to us this way is because what happened is they closed ranks.
00:59:23.700
They had the cabinet members come in and brief senior staff, and then they, and then the senior
00:59:29.060
staff would brief the president. And one member of the cabinet put it to us this way. Yes, the
00:59:34.180
president is officially making the decision, you know, putting the sign dotted line. But if the,
00:59:40.240
if the decision is framed in a certain way, is it really a decision? And are really they the ones
00:59:46.000
making the decision? And there was a feeling that, that, um, they were, you know, putting their hand
00:59:52.120
on the scale one way or another. And, you know, some people also felt that this began, you know,
00:59:58.160
as early as 2021, when, you know, the Biden administration, uh, you know, went pretty
01:00:03.640
far to the left of where Joe Biden had been for a lot of his career. And many people attributed to
01:00:10.400
that, um, to Ron Klain, who is more progressive being chief of staff. And they felt some people,
01:00:16.420
um, including in the cabinet felt that if Biden had been 20 years younger, um, it may have been
01:00:21.600
different. One cabinet member said, you know, he's an old man. He's got four to six hour,
01:00:26.080
good hours a day. And if that's the case, sometimes things are missed, you know, he's not in the weeds
01:00:32.860
as much. Yeah. So just to be made by other people. Wait, wait, let me, let me keep going. I only have
01:00:38.280
you for seven more minutes. I know you've got to, you've got to date with somebody else. Um,
01:00:41.580
follow up to you on this, Alex. So right before you guys launched your book, as you know,
01:00:47.740
on Sunday night, they came out with an announcement that he's suffering from prostate cancer. That's
01:00:53.280
metastasized to his bones. We've had multiple doctors come out and say that has to be at least
01:00:59.220
a five to seven year run. Some have acknowledged is a very, very small percentage who could potentially
01:01:04.580
have like that had prostate cancer that went into the bones, but extremely rare. Anyway, what do you make
01:01:11.320
of the timing of that announcement? And do you think it's any accident that it came in between
01:01:15.380
you releasing the, her audio tapes and on Axios on Saturday and you guys releasing your book today?
01:01:25.480
I can tell you, and I wrote in a story with Marco Pudo this morning that some people that even worked
01:01:31.780
in the Biden white house, um, are suspicious of the timing and are, they are skeptical of it. I don't
01:01:38.440
want to get into skepticism. I try to just report and not speculate. Um, but I can tell you that,
01:01:43.900
you know, some people that worked for him, um, were, uh, felt very strange about the sudden,
01:01:51.900
uh, timing of this. And, um, you know, I'm going to continue to report it out. It's obviously
01:01:58.400
very sad. And I also think, you know, we framed this book as a, as a tragedy of a man undone.
01:02:03.980
Um, and I think this just further shows that tragic element and also, you know, what, how risky,
01:02:11.480
uh, it was for him to run for reelection at such an old age.
01:02:16.280
Is that at all an oh shit moment? Is it all an oh shit moment where you're like, oh my God,
01:02:20.740
the whole book is about his health and a coverup. And we miss the fact that he, he's got cancer.
01:02:26.860
He's got terminal cancer. I mean, like, like, I don't know. Is that, do you feel like what's your
01:02:31.980
odd? What, what, what are your, what do you think the odds are? Because your whole book is about how
01:02:35.860
he covers up about his, his health problems. So, I mean, I mean, you're in an interesting
01:02:41.040
position now as reporters who are continuing to report on politics and whether you give credence
01:02:47.340
to this story that he just found out and he didn't know while he was the sitting president.
01:02:52.980
How are you going to, how do you handle that? I certainly, I certainly understand the skepticism.
01:02:58.280
And, uh, I think if there's anything, this book instructs us as we should be very skeptical and
01:03:03.440
we should also demand more from our leaders when it comes to health records. There was a moment in
01:03:08.500
the book, um, where Senator Debbie Stabenow, uh, a Democrat of Michigan is with, is alone with first
01:03:15.900
lady Jill Biden. This is after the debate before, but before Biden drops out and Senator Stabenow says
01:03:21.460
something like, we don't know what's wrong with Joe Biden. We don't know if there's a condition,
01:03:28.460
but you do. And first lady Biden doesn't answer the question. And then later fumes about the
01:03:38.280
temerity of Senator Stabenow saying that. And I think what we've learned in the last couple of days,
01:03:44.100
uh, about, um, president Biden's health. And obviously I know all of us, um, wish him the
01:03:49.680
best in his fight against prostate cancer. What, what I think it gets at is the difficulty of
01:03:55.260
hard reporting and investigative journalism when it comes to health issues, uh, observations and
01:04:02.980
punditry, uh, are important and, uh, necessary, but the deep investigation of what is going on behind
01:04:13.640
the scenes and what is going on in terms of somebody's health, that is, that is very tough.
01:04:18.700
And as, as we all know, we don't have subpoena power. We can't break into doctor's offices. Um,
01:04:24.220
I have no reporting on when he found out about this. All we have, all the world has is their word.
01:04:31.960
And if you believe their word, then you believe their word. And if you don't,
01:04:35.460
you're left with your skepticism. Yeah, there's certainly reason to doubt their word.
01:04:38.960
Question for you, Jagan, on the reportage front is, do you, what do you do with these cabinet
01:04:44.040
secretaries who didn't tell the truth about Biden's mental acuity, but now have told the truth to you
01:04:52.460
and then they want to come on your show? Maybe some of them will run for president.
01:04:57.400
I mean, now that you know, right, that they are not honest brokers, like you actually know,
01:05:03.700
It's interesting. Um, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Uh, it has been interesting
01:05:10.460
watching some of the Democrats and, you know, who talked to us for the book, uh, and what they say
01:05:18.460
publicly versus what they say privately. Uh, that has been interesting. Yeah. I saw the one Congresswoman
01:05:24.300
who we quote in the book, Susan Wilde, former Congresswoman from Pennsylvania was out there tweeting
01:05:28.920
something like fuck Andrew Yang. Like we need to go move forward and focus on Trump and not Biden.
01:05:36.620
And she's quoted in the book during a meeting, a zoom meeting of the, of the, uh, ranking Democrats
01:05:42.200
saying something like Biden can't come to my district and he makes us all out to be liars.
01:05:46.900
And it's just, when it was pointed out to her, that her, that what she said, according to the book
01:05:53.280
was very different, uh, than what she was saying now, she, at least to her credit, uh, fessed up to
01:05:59.120
it. She didn't deny it, but it is weird watching the dance between people who know how bad it was
01:06:06.540
and are just keeping quiet. We're trying to change the subject. And those who know how bad it was
01:06:12.180
and are lying to the public. It's interesting. Well, I mean, one of them has is Hakeem Jeffries,
01:06:18.180
who you point out in the book, he knew he was there when Biden was having one of his many, um,
01:06:25.800
problems. And now he's out there like, we're moving forward. We're moving forward. Chuck Schumer
01:06:32.200
too. Like we're moving forward. They knew Chuck Schumer's all over your book, um, with big meetings
01:06:37.900
where he went to Joe Biden, which was previously reported, but a lot of details about him saying
01:06:43.400
you're not being told the truth. You've got to get out. You're going to lose. You're going to bring
01:06:46.640
us all down. And now he's like forward moving for anyway. Okay. Let me keep going. Cause there's two
01:06:50.440
other things I want to ask you about. Um, Jake, we had, we played a soundbite from Mark Halperin show
01:06:56.020
where he interviewed a guy named Rufus Gifford, who is the campaign finance chair for Joe Biden's
01:07:02.500
campaign. And he was at the now infamous Clooney fundraiser for Biden in June of 24. And he took
01:07:09.660
issue with your reporting. We played the audience to sound, but I won't waste time on it now, but he
01:07:13.760
says it didn't happen. What you report. Clooney did not walk in there. Sorry. Biden did not walk in
01:07:20.240
there and go sort of through a bunch of people saying, nice to see you. Nice to say, thanks for
01:07:24.660
being here. Thanks for being here. He said that that was impossible because he got there. He was
01:07:30.240
announced by his handler. And immediately the handers handler said, you know, George Clooney,
01:07:36.260
you know, Julia Roberts. He said, nice to meet him and moved on. And he poured cold water on that
01:07:40.700
story of your book care to respond. We're pretty confident about the sourcing and the event as
01:07:47.380
described. And, uh, you know, we just went through as a country years and years of the Biden people
01:07:55.080
lying and denying. And I'm not particularly interested in pretending any of it is credible.
01:08:04.080
We are very sure of our story. It wasn't just in our book. It was, uh, thoroughly fact-checked in the
01:08:09.180
New Yorker who did, uh, an excerpt of it and we stand by it. And I, I don't really care what Rufus
01:08:16.400
says. And now do you care what the ladies of the view say? Because that's kind of in your,
01:08:22.920
not your personally, but it's in the left wing ecosphere and they are having a very negative
01:08:28.520
reaction. I'm sorry to tell you to original sin. They don't like your book guys and they don't
01:08:33.940
appreciate that. It's being published now. And, um, I wonder, have they read it? Have they had you
01:08:39.840
on? Have they invited you to come on to discuss it? They have, they have not, they have, they have,
01:08:44.660
we have gone to them any number of times and said, we would love to come on the show to discuss.
01:08:48.920
They obviously were where, uh, president and first lady Biden went for their pre-bottle
01:08:53.780
of the book. Um, and we thought it would be, it would only be fair to, uh, have us on, but the
01:09:00.900
view and, and for that matter, Fox news, uh, seems to enjoy, uh, using our scoops, talking about
01:09:07.940
everything we learned in the months of investigative journalism and what we're revealing in this book.
01:09:11.980
Uh, but they're declining to have us on to discuss it, which is regrettable because I think this is an
01:09:17.780
important thing for, for people to, to come to terms with, um, when it comes to the view or to
01:09:23.820
explore in terms of the depth of what we, Alex and I have been able to find out in terms of, uh,
01:09:28.400
Fox news. I will say that there is clearly a, a, a contingent of people on the left who want to
01:09:35.720
bury their head in the sand on this issue and pretend it didn't happen and pretend, uh, that
01:09:41.860
it's not, uh, part of the reason why Donald Trump and the Republicans control the white house and the
01:09:47.760
house and the Senate and why democratic poll numbers are in the toilet. Uh, I think that is
01:09:53.280
part of why Democrats are where they are. This, this gaslighting.
01:09:57.840
Mm-hmm. There was a comment by David Axelrod that we should, we should set aside the discussion of
01:10:03.280
your book and the allegations in it because of the diagnosis news. Jake, do you disagree with
01:10:09.500
David Axelrod? Well, if I didn't, I don't think I'd be here. I mean, I think what happened to the
01:10:16.180
country, I think we need to be discussing this. Um, I think obviously we have sympathy for president
01:10:24.620
Biden, both in terms of the prostate cancer and in terms of whatever other health issue he is
01:10:29.620
grappling with. Um, and we talked to many neurologists who spent, you talk about how you
01:10:34.820
were on a text chain with your producers the night of the debate. We talked to one of the top
01:10:39.060
neurologists in the, in the world who, um, you know, has, is on a text chain with a number of other
01:10:44.880
top neurologists and they spent much of 2024 trying to figure out what was wrong with Joe Biden, whether
01:10:50.880
it's Lewy body dementia or Parkinson's or something Parkinsonian, and they don't know, then they're
01:10:56.740
not qualified to say from a distance, but it's a serious question. And the larger issue of
01:11:01.960
transparency and group think questions for the democratic party and the public and the news media,
01:11:07.180
these are all really important conversations to have. I don't think that our story, I don't think
01:11:12.400
that our book is mean. I think it is just accurate and clear eyed. And I think this is a conversation
01:11:16.960
the country needs to have, not just about president Biden, but about all presidents.
01:11:20.860
It's like, it's like I tell my kids, it is not mean to say something that is true, but not
01:11:28.260
necessarily complimentary. I mean, it's not, if it's true and you are not saying it with the intention
01:11:33.320
to hurt somebody, it's not quote mean. Um, they're not going to get away with that. Sorry, Alex,
01:11:38.320
you wanted to weigh in. Go ahead. I actually just wanted to say one more thing about the media
01:11:44.200
coverage. And this question, which is, you know, Jake, when Jake came to me with this idea,
01:11:50.940
you know, on every beat, there are some suck ups, there are some people that are lazy.
01:11:55.580
But I never felt that Jake, even if he fell short on the age issue, I never felt he carried the water
01:12:01.180
for the Biden people. And I hope your listeners who may be skeptical of Jake, at least like give the
01:12:06.800
book a chance. Yes, I don't think we've convinced them that Jake did not run cover for Joe Biden.
01:12:12.260
No, I'm going to be honest, but I do think we may have convinced them to buy the book, which is
01:12:16.040
the purpose of your visit here. And that's fine. I mean, there's a, it's a big media landscape.
01:12:19.900
They don't have to watch the lead. They, they can take it for what it's worth. I do want to ask you
01:12:24.520
one question about Naomi Biden before I let you go, guys, she weighed in. This is the president's
01:12:28.160
former president's granddaughter. She called it a silly book. She says it's a political fairy smut.
01:12:34.140
It is political fairy smut for the permanent professional chattering class,
01:12:37.980
a bunch of unoriginal, uninspired lies written by irresponsible, self-promoting journalists out
01:12:42.560
to make a quick buck, relying on unnamed anonymous sources, pushing a self-serving false narrative.
01:12:53.220
I mean, I think the book very much shows the Biden family is very tight knit and I wasn't surprised to
01:13:00.480
see it. That being said, I think we stand completely behind our reporting.
01:13:04.700
All right. And Jake, I'll, I'll close with this. You've gotten so much blowback
01:13:08.940
in the days that led up to today, had to hire the crisis PR agent.
01:13:15.220
How are you feeling so far? All right, whatever. But you've gotten a lot of blowback. So how are
01:13:24.260
Yeah. Telling the truth is always worth it. We hired Risa Heller because she's a political
01:13:29.040
bro. And months ago, we did this. Well, you had a PR agent through your publisher.
01:13:35.360
Yeah. And, and they're great, but this is a very controversial political book. And we felt like it
01:13:40.660
needed the eyes of a smart political team in addition to the great publicists at Penguin.
01:13:47.320
I get it. But you're not denying that you've had massive blowback. Are you? I mean, you've been
01:13:53.800
Oh, the left and the right are mad. The left is like, why are you covering, why are you covering
01:13:59.380
this? You should be covering Trump. Your book is full of lies and the right is doing what you
01:14:06.120
illustrated earlier with your tough questions. I will say this. People were shocked on June 27th,
01:14:13.600
2024, because there was to a degree, a coverup of how bad his decline had been. So even if,
01:14:22.620
and not if, even though many folks, including you, were covering this, it still was shocking what
01:14:31.680
people saw on June 27th. And the only other point I'll say is I'm not disagreeing with the fact that
01:14:40.220
conservatives were right on this and that people in the legacy media, including myself, should have
01:14:45.200
been paying closer attention and more attention. I'm granting all of that. But the reason why I think
01:14:51.900
there is interest in this book is because people want to know more beyond what they saw in front of
01:14:59.480
the camera. They want to know how this happened. And I think that is what we provide through this
01:15:05.180
deeply sourced, uh, unflinching account of what really went on behind the scenes.
01:15:10.760
I got to steal one more minute because I just want to explain to the audience, Jake, how Jake
01:15:15.440
Tapper and Megyn Kelly became friends because it's a very unlikely friendship in the eyes of a lot of
01:15:21.800
people. But we've both been in media for a long time. We were at Fox and CNN together. We were friends
01:15:29.300
even before you went to CNN. I remember texting with you about the decision when you were leaving ABC,
01:15:33.660
where, where would you go? What did you want to do? We've bonded over news and it's insanity. We've
01:15:39.700
bonded over the Philadelphia Eagles and your shared love with my husband, Doug of that very complicated
01:15:45.800
football team. And I just, I want people to understand, like notwithstanding that we have
01:15:50.500
political differences and we have differences in the way we see news stories, like there's still room
01:15:54.640
for mutual respect and kindness and friendship. And I, I think that's to our credit.
01:16:00.380
I consider you a friend. Uh, I don't necessarily agree with everything you do or say, but that
01:16:07.780
doesn't really matter. And, uh, I think it's interesting what you've done and, and impressive
01:16:13.300
what you've built, uh, since, uh, that, you know, you know what I think about what happened
01:16:19.700
to you at NBC. It's flattering to you and not to them. Um, um, but yeah. And look, I mean,
01:16:25.940
one of the things that you've said to me or said about me is that I might not always succeed,
01:16:31.700
but I try to be fair and I am trying to be fair and I am not infallible. And I have said,
01:16:37.340
I wish I had covered things differently. There's a million things I wish I'd covered differently.
01:16:41.740
This is obviously significant, more significant. I wrote a book about it with Alex. I mean,
01:16:45.560
like, I think this is a big deal, but this book, isn't me trying to do anything other than what
01:16:52.260
happened. We need to know what happened. And if somebody had written this book, I would have bought
01:16:57.620
it and I would have interviewed them, but they hadn't. And Alex and I got to work, um, knowing
01:17:04.380
that there would be a huge blowback both from the right and from the left. And it was just important
01:17:11.020
for us to tell the story of what happened. Well, listen, um, I appreciate it because I did learn
01:17:17.560
a lot and I did find the debate absolutely shocking though. As I say, not entirely surprising,
01:17:22.400
right? It's like the extent to which he had deteriorated was shocking. Uh, and by the way,
01:17:28.900
before you go, thank you for all you do for our veterans as well, guys, good luck with it. I'm sure
01:17:33.320
it's going to be a big success. It is called original sin. President Biden's decline,
01:17:38.260
it's cover up and his disastrous choice to run again. And it is available right now. All the
01:17:43.620
best to you both. Thanks, Megan. Appreciate it. Thanks. Your business doesn't move in a straight
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