Former President Joe Biden's inner circle considers first lady Jill Biden one of the most powerful first ladies in history, CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson reveal in their new book, "Original Sin."

Jill Biden, who has a doctoral degree in education and whom White House staffers called "Dr. B" for short, was a reluctant political spouse in the early days of her husband's career. During his presidential campaigns and into his presidency, the first lady became his staunchest defender and a "political partner in addition to a spouse," Thompson and Tapper wrote. 

"Dr. B was a strong, protective force in the White House. She was also, without question, one of the chief supporters of the president's decision to run for reelection, and one of the chief deniers of his deterioration," the authors wrote. 

President Donald Trump's White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Jill Biden should have to answer for her complicity in the "cover-up" of Biden's cognitive decline. 

JILL BIDEN SHOULD HAVE TO ANSWER FOR 'COVER-UP' OF FORMER PRESIDENT'S DECLINE, WHITE HOUSE SAYS

Leavitt pointed to how Jill Biden jumped in to defend her husband during their joint interview on "The View" this month as evidence the former first lady is still covering for her husband. 

'INTENSELY LOYAL' JILL BIDEN AIDE DESPISED BY WHITE HOUSE STAFFERS, NEW BOOK CLAIMS

As Biden's sister, Valerie "Val" Biden Owens, and his adult children, Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden, stayed away from Biden's 2020 presidential campaign, Jill Biden took on a more prominent role, the book revealed. 

"She weighed in on potential hires and reviewed many of the campaign ads before they were aired. She campaigned hard and peppered aides with questions about how many reporters would be at her events," Tapper and Thompson said. 

Jill Biden sat for job interviews for White House aide candidates, and she "kept score" of which staffers were most loyal, with the help of her most trusted aide, Anthony Bernal, the book revealed. 

The White House began referring to Jill Biden's "spousal programming" events on foreign trips, and her team would request talking points, which Tapper and Thompson said some national security officials found strange. 

"[Bernal] had already begun planning the first lady's 2025 international travel schedule," Tapper and Thompson said.

The first lady made an off-hand comment to French President Emmanuel Macron at a state dinner in 2022 about the difficult nature of campaigns and how she needed to stay in shape. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra, overheard and found it odd, according to "Original Sin."

"Alexandra then turned to the president and asked if they should toast to another campaign. He looked back at her like he didn't understand. Alexandra thought her mom looked shocked. Everyone quickly gathered themselves. With Macron, they toasted to four more years," the authors said. 

Dr. B was particularly sensitive when asked about Biden's age and ability, according to the authors. 

After Biden's consequential debate performance in the summer of 2024, The Associated Press reported that Jill and Hunter Biden were urging the president to continue his re-election campaign. Sources told AP the family "questioned how he was prepared for the debate by staff and wondered if they could have done something better."

"Hunter privately talked about it as being the family against the world. People sensed a more manic quality in him post-debate. He was determined to save his dad," according to Tapper and Thompson. 

Soon after the debate, Jill Biden joined Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., on the campaign trail. After defending the president's re-election campaign to reporters, Stabenow brought up some of her colleagues' concerns about Biden continuing in the race. 

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"The First Lady didn't answer the senator's implied question, but she later fumed about it to White House staffers," the book alleged. 

A week later, Gov. Josh Shapiro, from the pivotal battleground state of Pennsylvania, told the president, "I have some concerns." However, before Biden could fully respond, the first lady was ushering him away. 

"Jill fumed with resentment about all the Democrats who she considered friends now pushing Biden out. She knew she had blundered in the aftermath of the debate with her belittling praise. She was only trying to help her husband in his moment of need. In the end, she told Biden: ‘This is your decision. This is for you to decide,’" according to the book. 

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Fox News Digital has written extensively dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign about Biden's cognitive decline and his inner circle’s alleged role in covering it up.

A Biden spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. 

Former President Joe Biden joked Friday he could take on those who questioned his mental faculties following his first public remarks since announcing he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Biden’s statement comes after several books have been released detailing his mental deterioration while in office, including the book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," that was released May 20. 

"You can see that I'm mentally incompetent, I can't walk," Biden quipped with reporters Friday after speaking at a Memorial Day event. "And I could beat the hell out of both of them."

Biden appeared to be referencing the book’s authors, Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios. 

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The reporters' book claims that Biden struggled to string together coherent sentences for campaign ad videos, that his Cabinet meetings were "so scripted" and that Biden’s team allegedly plotted a cover-up to hide just how severely his mental faculties had declined.

But Biden’s team has pushed back on the material included in the book. 

"There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy," a Biden spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the President wasn’t otherwise engaged in the important matters of the Presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill."

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In addition to the publication of multiple books this year chronicling the deterioration of Biden's mental faculties, leaked audio recordings of Biden's October 2023 interview with former Special Counsel Robert Hur were released in May, showing that Biden struggled to not slur his words and even appeared to forget the year his son died.

Biden revealed May 18 that he had an "aggressive form" of prostate cancer, and his office later said he had never received a prostate cancer diagnosis before. Biden told reporters Friday that he is "optimistic" about his diagnosis and is currently receiving treatment in the form of a pill. 

BIDEN’S SAD PROSTATE CANCER DIAGNOSIS: UNANSWERED QUESTIONS AND MAGA ATTACKS

"My expectation is we're going to be able to beat this," Biden said. 

Earlier Friday, Biden appeared at a Memorial Day sponsored by the Delaware Commission of Veteran Affairs where he honored service members who had lost their lives. 

"We come together and remember the debt we owe to the American military," Biden said at the event, sponsored by the Delaware Commission of Veteran Affairs. 

"The military is a solid spine, the spine of our nation," he said. "Our troops, our veterans, our military families, and our Gold Star families in particular. Only around 1% of all Americans defend 99% of us — 1%. Just 1% of Americans risk the ultimate sacrifice. We owe them so much more than we can ever repay them."

Former President Joe Biden's Cabinet meetings were overly "scripted," CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson reveal in their book, "Original Sin," an outline of Biden's cognitive decline and his administration's alleged cover-up. 

"The Cabinet meetings were terrible and at times uncomfortable – and they were from the beginning," a Cabinet member told the authors. "I don't recall a great Cabinet meeting in terms of his presence. They were so scripted."

The White House's speechwriters shortened Biden's remarks and shrank his vocabulary to adapt to "Biden's diminished capabilities," according to Tapper and Thompson. During his one-term presidency, Biden's aides told the journalists that he became increasingly reliant on teleprompters and note cards, even for private conversations and in Cabinet meetings. 

Four Cabinet members who spoke with Tapper and Thompson described Biden's meetings as overly scripted. One Cabinet secretary said he hated "the scripts" for Cabinet meetings, while another doubted in 2022 that he could run for re-election. 

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"You want people to tell you the truth and have a real dialogue, and those meetings were not that," a Cabinet member told Tapper and Thompson. 

NEW BOOK REVEALS BIDEN'S INNER CIRCLE WORRIED ABOUT HIS AGE YEARS BEFORE BOTCHED DEBATE PERFORMANCE

However, as Biden's bad speeches and reliance on note cards became common practice, a speechwriter told Tapper and Thompson that over time, "they just got used to it."

The story behind closed doors was inconsistent with the White House's narrative, according to "Original Sin."

In January 2024, the White House convened a meeting with Biden, his national security advisers and congressional leadership to urge Congress to continue financially supporting Ukraine against Russia's invasion. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries described Biden as "incredibly strong, forceful, and decisive," and the official White House readout said Biden was "clear" about protecting national security and "underscored the importance of Congress ensuring Ukraine has the resources it needs." 

However, a House Democrat who attended the meeting said, "That's not true," Tapper and Thompson wrote. A second House Democrat described the meeting as a "disaster," and a "s---show."

"For the first twenty minutes of the meeting, the president listlessly read bullet points out of a binder. For many at the table, he was difficult to hear. He stumbled over words; he started sentences and then stopped abruptly; he trailed off," Tapper and Thompson said. 

A House Democrat said he was "not capable of making a strong, forceful argument," and deferred to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and National Intelligence Director Avril Haines to answer questions, as outlined in "Original Sin."

Tapper and Thompson described a concerning event for senior administration officials on the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. After reading a "weak, slurry" speech from a teleprompter, Biden confused Alabama with Texas and then his own Cabinet members, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. 

"I blame his inner circle, and I blame him," an official who found the event "crazy" told the authors a year later. 

As Cabinet members observed concerning practices that accompanied Biden's day-to-day meetings, Tapper and Thompson described how the president's circle grew smaller and smaller in 2023 and 2024. 

"Access dropped off considerably in 2024, and I didn't interact with him as much," a Cabinet secretary told the authors. "I didn't get an explanation."

The Cabinet secretary said they briefed senior White House aides who would then communicate the information to the president themselves. They questioned if it was the White House's way of filtering information to shape his decisions. 

"I think the people around him had their own agenda, and they didn't want more people around him," another Cabinet member told Tapper and Thompson. 

The Cabinet members who spoke to Tapper and Thompson described a "weird period" when they didn't have any access to Biden for months between 2023 and 2024. They described it as a "deliberate strategy by the White House to have him meet with as few people as necessary." When they did see him, they said they were shocked at how "disoriented" and "out of it" he seemed, mumbling and "not making much sense."

Fox News Digital has written extensively dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign about Biden's cognitive decline and his inner circle’s alleged role in covering it up.

A Biden spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. 

Former first lady Jill Biden should have to answer for her role in the "cover up" of her husband and former President Joe Biden’s mental decline, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. 

Multiple books published in 2025 have detailed the deterioration of Biden’s mental faculties while in the White House, including in the book "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again" released May 20. 

"The former first lady should certainly speak up about what she saw in regard to her husband and when she saw it and what she knew, because I think anybody looking again at the videos and photo evidence of Joe Biden with your own eyes and a little bit of common sense can see this was a clear cover up," Leavitt said. "And Joe, by, Jill Biden was certainly complicit in that cover up." 

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"There's documentation, video evidence of her clearly shielding her husband away from the cameras that were just on ‘The View’ last week," Leavitt told reporters Thursday. "She was saying, ‘Everything is fine.’ She's still lying to the American people. She still thinks the American public are so stupid that they're going to believe her lies. And frankly, it's insulting and she needs to answer for it." 

A spokesperson for Jill Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

"Original Sin," authored by journalists Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios, includes stories about how former President Joe Biden struggled to handle fairly routine aspects of a campaign. 

For example, the book says his team attempted to film a campaign video for ads on television in a high school gym, and have people ask questions akin to a town hall meeting. 

BIDEN STRUGGLED TO FILM 2024 CAMPAIGN VIDEOS AMID DECLINING HEALTH, NEW BOOK CLAIMS: 'THE MAN COULD NOT SPEAK'

"The campaign was trying to make it look like the president was out there taking off-the-cuff questions from voters in public," the book said. "But the event was closed to reporters, and the campaign had the full list of questions that people would ask."

Even so, former President Joe Biden encountered so much "trouble" answering questions that his team decided to cut the footage. Some blamed the poor lighting in the gym, but the book said that others said the real problem remained with the former president. 

NEW BOOK REVEALS BIDEN'S INNER CIRCLE WORRIED ABOUT HIS AGE YEARS BEFORE BOTCHED DEBATE PERFORMANCE

Meanwhile, Joe Biden's team has pushed back on the material in "Original Sin," which chronicles the 2024 election cycle and how his team allegedly plotted a cover-up to hide just how severely his mental faculties had declined. 

"There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover-up or conspiracy," a Biden spokesperson previously said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the President wasn’t otherwise engaged in the important matters of the Presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill."

FIRST ON FOX — Senate Republicans plan to launch their own investigation next month that delves into the alleged "conspiracy" behind former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. 

Senators Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, announced plans to hold a Senate Judiciary hearing June 18 to look into the alleged cover-up of the 82-year-old former president’s mental decline while in office by the media and those closest to him.

The lawmakers are still gathering witnesses for the probe, which would be the first full congressional committee hearing on the subject.

"It’s time to expose how a cadre of Biden aides and family members were the de facto commander in chief, while President Biden was sidelined," Schmitt said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "I look forward to getting the American people the answers they deserve."

SCOOP: GOP PUSH FOR NEW HOUSE COMMITTEE TO PROBE BIDEN DECLINE 'COVER-UP' GAINS STEAM

Both lawmakers contend Biden’s decline was hidden for "years." 

Cornyn argued the country depended "on having a president who has the mental capacity to do the job, and it's clear that President Biden did not, so we must use this hearing to uncover the facts."

KEY BIDEN STAFFERS ASKED TO TESTIFY ON ALLEGED ROLE IN MENTAL DECLINE ‘COVER-UP’

"For this conspiracy between the mainstream media, Joe Biden’s family and his inner circle to have hidden the impairment of the president of the United States for years, and lied consistently to the American people about his capacity to make decisions, which are solely vested by the Constitution, is unacceptable," Cornyn said in a statement to Fox News Digital.  

Schmitt and Cornyn join a growing chorus of Republicans demanding answers about what really went on behind the scenes during Biden’s presidency. 

In the House, lawmakers are pushing to create a select committee that would investigate the Biden administration’s alleged cover-up. 

Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., is leading the charge to create the panel and introduced legislation Thursday to start the committee that would dive into "the potential concealment of information from the American public" regarding Biden’s health.  

And House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has called on several high-ranking staffers from the Biden White House to participate in transcribed interviews regarding their alleged roles in covering up the former president’s decline. 

Comer called on Neera Tanden, the former director of the Domestic Policy Council; former assistant to the President and deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini; former senior adviser to the first lady Anthony Bernal; former deputy director of Oval Office operations Ashley Williams; and Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, to participate. 

The growing fervor among Republicans to uncover whether Biden’s allies and family hid concerns about his health from the public comes after the release of "Original Sin" by CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson. 

Their book claimed the Biden White House was trying to control the narrative about the former president’s health and that his allies worked to cover up his decline. 

FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are mounting a push to start a new select committee focused on investigating the Biden administration for allegedly "covering up" signs of the 82-year-old former president's decline.

Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., is introducing legislation Thursday that would establish a panel of congressional investigators to "investigate and report upon the facts of President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.’s cognitive and physical health decline and the potential concealment of information from the American public," according to bill text obtained by Fox News Digital.

Republicans have unleashed a tidal wave of scrutiny on the previous Democrat White House as new reports – as well as old concerns previously dismissed by mainstream media – surface about Biden's mental state while in office and what lengths those closest to him took to allegedly hide it from others. 

SCOOP: HOUSE GOP MEMO HIGHLIGHTS REPUBLICAN WINS IN TRUMP'S 'BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL'

Carter's text calls to investigate former Vice President Kamala Harris and former first lady Jill Biden as well as whoever took part in keeping the audio tapes of Special Counsel Robert Hur's interview with Biden from the public.

The select committee would also focus on whether Biden allies "concealed" his prostate cancer diagnosis before it was announced publicly last week. 

Biden's spokesperson denied prior knowledge of the diagnosis in a statement to the New York Times.

The resolution also specifically called for a probe into the use of the autopen in Biden's White House to sign meaningful legislation.

"This is potentially the biggest political scandal of our lifetime, and the American people deserve to know the truth about who was really running the White House during Biden’s tenure as president," Carter told Fox News Digital of his legislation.

"From using the autopen to pardon his own family members to likely concealing a cancer diagnosis, our government must restore trust with the public by fully investigating the former administration’s lies and getting to the bottom of one of the most consequential coverups in history."

Carter, who is currently running for Senate in Georgia, was among several Republicans who demanded Biden take a cognitive test last year.

"The American people can no longer be left to wonder about their safety and security because of the President’s deteriorating mental state," Carter wrote in a June 2024 letter to the White House.

MIKE JOHNSON, DONALD TRUMP GET ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL’ WIN AS BUDGET PASSES HOUSE

His new resolution comes on the heels of House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., opening his own investigation into revelations surrounding Biden's cognitive decline.

Comer spent much of the last Congress investigating whether Biden and his family unjustly profited from foreign cash.

The House Oversight chair sent letters to former senior White House aides, including Biden's doctor, Kevin O'Connor, announcing a probe into "the role of former senior Biden White House officials in possibly usurping authority from former President Joe Biden and the ramifications of a White House staff intent on hiding his rapidly worsening mental and physical faculties."

Meanwhile, first-term Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Fla., called for a similar select committee on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden's aides consider first lady Jill Biden one of the most powerful first ladies in history, according to the new book, "Original Sin," by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson. 

By proxy, the first lady's top aide, Anthony Bernal, became one of the most influential people in the White House, Tapper and Thompson said in their new book about Biden's cognitive decline and the administration's alleged cover-up. 

"He would not be welcome at my funeral," a longtime Biden aide told the authors. 

Operating in a White House anchored in loyalty, Bernal wielded loyalty as a weapon to weed out the defectors, Tapper and Thompson said. 

'THE KAMALA EXCUSE': TENSIONS BETWEEN BIDEN AND HARRIS PLAGUED THEIR CAMPAIGNS, NEW BOOK REVEALS

"He considered loyalty to be the defining virtue and would wield that word to elevate some and oust others – at times fairly and at times not. ‘Are you a Biden person?' he would ask West Wing aides. ‘Is so-and-so a Biden person?’ The regular interrogations led some colleagues to dub him the leader of the ‘loyalty police,’" the journalists wrote in "Original Sin."

NEW BOOK REVEALS BIDEN'S INNER CIRCLE WORRIED ABOUT HIS AGE YEARS BEFORE BOTCHED DEBATE PERFORMANCE

During the pandemic, Biden traded the campaign trail for lockdown. Two aides, Bernal and Annie Tomasini, found their way into Joe and Jill Biden's pod, shifting the power dynamic of Biden's so-called "Politiburo," the group of advisors who steered Biden's political orbit. 

Tapper and Thompson describe the "intensely loyal" duo as taking on an "older-brother-and-little-sister vibe." Thompson even had the title of deputy campaign manager, which Tapper and Thompson said was "unusual for a staffer to a spouse." The duo were the masterminds behind loading a teleprompter for Biden ahead of a local interview, a misstep that followed Biden's campaign.

"The significance of Bernal and Tomasini is the degree to which their rise in the Biden White House signaled the success of people whose allegiance was to the Biden family – not to the presidency, not to the American people, not to the country, but to the Biden theology," the authors wrote. 

Tapper and Thompson said it was difficult to find many Bernal defenders and described him as using his power to cast out "potential heretics."

As Bernal earned a reputation for trash-talking fellow aides, "some even described him as the worst person they had ever met," Tapper and Thompson said. 

Bernal and Tomasini took on some of the residence staffers' roles in the White House. Tapper and Thompson said the aides "had all-time access to the living quarters, with their White House badges reading ‘Res’ – uncommon for such aides."

When the Biden campaign began gearing up for a re-election campaign and some voiced fears about his age or battleground state polling, Bernal and other senior staffers reacted dismissively about Vice President Kamala Harris launching a bid. Bernal is quoted in the book as having said, "You don't run for four years – you run for eight."

"He had already begun planning the first lady's 2025 international travel schedule," Tapper and Thompson said. Bernal worked overtime to elevate Jill Biden's "profile and glamour," freely criticizing her looks and outfits and even calling her "Jill," according to the authors. 

Jill Biden and Bernal worked in tandem, keeping score of "who was with them and against them." The book described the first lady as "one of the chief supporters of the president's decision to run for reelection, and one of the chief deniers of his deterioration." 

Bernal's loyalty to the Bidens never faltered, and even after the disastrous debate performance in July 2024, Jill Biden and Bernal were determined to keep pushing on through November, Tapper and Thompson said. 

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Fox News Digital has written extensively dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign about Biden's cognitive decline and his inner circle’s role in covering it up.

A former White House staffer fired back against Tapper and Thompson's allegations about Bernal in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

"A lot of vignettes in this book are either false, exaggerated, or purposefully omit viewpoints that don’t fit the narrative they want to push. Anthony was a strong leader with high standards and a mentor to many. He’s the type of person you want on a team - he’s incredibly strategic, effective, and cares deeply about the people he manages," the former White House staffer said. 

Alex Thompson, co-author of the recently released exposé on former President Joe Biden, told Fox News Sunday that top aides ‘rationalized’ doing ‘undemocratic’ things to hide the president's cognitive decline, because failing to do so would have been too beneficial to Donald Trump. 

During an interview with "Fox News Sunday's" Shannon Bream, Thompson was asked whether any officials close to Biden, such as his cabinet secretaries, expressed remorse for their potential complicity in covering up Biden's health.

"There was definitely a lot of self-reflection about what — if anything — they should have done differently," Thompson said. 

"I think there was a feeling — like a lot of members of the Democratic Party that were seeing this, or saw moments of [Biden] seeming out of it — that going public wasn't going to change his mind. It was only going to help Donald Trump. And I think that's how a lot of them rationalized it." 

AXIOS' ALEX THOMPSON CALLS DONALD TRUMP'S HEALTH 'FAIR GAME' AFTER BEING 'UNTRANSPARENT' ABOUT RECORDS

"Now, whether or not history will judge them as being right for doing that, we will see. But this is also part of the reason why the White House was shielding [Biden] from as many people as possible, including cabinet secretaries."

Bream went on to question Thompson about an aide he spoke to who said Biden "just had to win and then could disappear" because Biden's "aides could pick up the slack." Bream described the quote as essentially "admitting" Biden shouldn't be running again.

EX-DNC CHAIR CALLS BOOK'S CLAIM THAT BIDEN DIDN'T RECOGNIZE HIM A 'BOLD FACED LIE'

"Who would have been running the White House in a second Biden term?" Bream asked Thompson.

"Well, this person went on to say, 'When you're voting for president, you're voting for the aides around him.' But these aides were not even Senate confirmed aides - these were White House aides, these were unelected people." Thompson replied. "One of the things that really comes out in our reporting here is that if you believe — and I do think a lot of these people do sincerely believe that Donald Trump was and is an existential threat to democracy — you can rationalize anything, including sometimes doing undemocratic things — which I think is what this person was talking about."

Thompson and CNN's Jake Tapper have been doing the rounds discussing and promoting their new book titled "Original Sin," which has garnered a lot of attention for detailing what critics have said shows Biden's cognitive decline while he was in the White House was even worse than most people suspected. 

The book has been compounded by other revelations showing Biden's cognitive abilities were likely hidden from the public by those closest to him.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris had 107 days to convince the American people to elect her the next president. 

Tension between Harris' team and former President Joe Biden's inner circle did not do her any favors, a new book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson reveals. 

"Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," has returned questions about Biden's cognitive decline and his administration's alleged cover-up to the national conversation. 

The book also pulls back the curtain on the complicated relationship between Biden and Harris, spotlighting the distrust that had been brewing between their teams since Biden tapped Harris as his running mate in 2020. 

NEW BOOK REVEALS BIDEN'S INNER CIRCLE WORRIED ABOUT HIS AGE YEARS BEFORE BOTCHED DEBATE PERFORMANCE

The choice for Biden's vice president came down to Harris or Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich., according to Thompson and Tapper.

NEW BOOK EXPOSES HOW TOP BIDEN COMMS STAFFER WAS 'TIP OF THE SPEAR' COVERING UP BIDEN'S COGNITIVE DECLINE

"Many on the Biden team felt that Harris didn't put in the work and was also just not a very nice person. Several quietly expressed buyer's remorse: They should have picked Whitmer."

To Biden's 2020 presidential campaign, Whitmer represented the "next generation of Biden Democrats," Thompson and Tapper said. 

Additionally, former first lady Jill Biden resented Harris after hitting him hard during the first Democratic primary in 2019 for opposing the Department of Education's busing program to integrate public schools. "That little girl was me," Harris said on the debate stage.

"Still, Biden's advisers did not fully trust her. Harris and her advisers felt it. Her aides got the impression that doing more than the bare minium to help was considered an act of disloyalty to Biden," Tapper and Thompson said of Harris' involvement in the 2020 campaign. "Some of that culture carried over into the White House."

Biden privately called Harris a "work in progress" and was not confident she could beat then-former President Donald Trump in 2024. 

However, Harris' team thought building up the vice president should have been a priority for Biden's transitional presidency as a "bridge" for the next generation of Democratic leadership, as he said back in 2020. 

An excerpt of the book reads, "In the eyes of Harris's team, the Biden White House was setting her up to fail. They gave her assignments her team considered politically toxic, such as dealing with the migration crisis, rarely offered to help, and knifed her to reporters along the way. Harris's camp didn't understand the hostility and the reluctance to offer her opportunities to shine."

The Fox News Voter Analysis in 2024 found that 52% of voters said Trump was the better candidate to handle immigration, while just 36% said Harris. Additionally, it was a top issue for voters, with 20% saying it was the most important issue facing the country. 

Harris faced the brunt of criticism for the surge in border crossings during the Biden-Harris administration as the Trump campaign trolled her as the "border czar."

When Biden dropped out of the race after his disastrous debate performance in summer 2024, Harris inherited his struggling campaign, and her old boss soon became a "liability."

"From the beginning of her campaign in July to the August weeks of picking a running mate, presiding over the convention, rolling out wave after wave of ads, and on through September debate prep, it was clear that Biden was a liability," Tapper and Thompson wrote. 

Harris was caught in the crosshairs of Biden's relentless gaffes and missteps as she tried to walk a fine line between loyalty to Biden and distancing herself from his failing campaign, as the journalists described. 

While Harris had "great affection for Joe," her loyalty fired back when she told "The View" she would not have done anything differently than Biden as president. 

"There is not a thing that comes to mind," Harris said – an instant attack ad for the Trump administration as they highlighted the Biden-Harris administration's record on immigration, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and inflation. 

"What is he doing?" Harris asked her team after Biden donned a Trump 2024 hat at a 9/11 memorial gathering at the Shanksville Fire Station, less than a month before the election. 

"This is completely unhelpful. And so unnecessary," Harris told her team, according to the book. "That would be, the Harris campaign decided, the last time she would do a public event with the president before the election."

However, Biden still wanted a role in the campaign, Tapper and Thompson said, as he saw former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama speaking at rallies on the campaign trail. 

"He didn't seem to understand what a liability he had become."

When one of Trump's supporters called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage" during a Madison Square Garden rally about a week before the election, what should have been a political layup for Democrats, became another mess for Harris to clean up. 

"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters," Biden said on a Voto Latino Zoom call.

While Biden was creating a political mess for Harris to clean up, Trump seized the opportunity to claim the narrative, sporting a high-visibility vest at a rally in battleground Michigan and hosting an impromptu press gaggle from the front seat of a garbage truck that was decked out in Trump decals. 

"By the end of the campaign, she had helped the Democratic Party, but her own candidacy was barely treading water. And the albatross that was Joe Biden kept getting heavier," Tapper and Thompson said. 

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Fox News Digital has written extensively dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign about Biden's cognitive decline and his inner circle’s role in covering it up.

Representatives for Biden and Harris did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. 

Former President Joe Biden's decision to run for re-election divided longtime Democratic advisors, a new book about Biden's cognitive decline and his administration's alleged cover-up revealed. 

Biden's former Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, shut down former President Barack Obama advisor David Axelrod for repeatedly calling Biden's age an issue. 

"The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue," Axelrod told The New York Times. 

Soon after the Times' story was published in June 2022, Klain called Axelrod fuming, CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson revealed in their book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again."

BIDEN STRUGGLED TO FILM 2024 CAMPAIGN VIDEOS AMID DECLINING HEALTH, NEW BOOK CLAIMS: 'THE MAN COULD NOT SPEAK'

"Who's going to beat Trump? President Biden is the only one who has done it. You better have a lot of certainty about a different candidate before you say the president should step aside. The future of the country depends on it!" Klain told Axelrod on the phone, according to Thompson and Tapper. 

FOX NEWS' PETER DOOCY REVEALS HISTORY OF QUESTIONING BIDEN'S MENTAL FITNESS

Klain believed it was "sloppy thinking" that anyone other than Biden could beat Trump, the journalists said in the book. 

But Axelrod, like most Americans, worried about the first octogenarian president's age and his ability to serve four more years. 

The chief strategist for Obama's back-to-back winning campaigns, Axelrod was one of the last advisers to meet with Biden before Obama chose him as his running mate in 2008. Axelrod told Tapper and Thompson that they didn't expect Biden to run for president at 73 and eventually discouraged Biden from running for president in 2015. 

They certainly didn't expect Biden to run for president at 77. 

After Axelrod made some friendly comments about Biden to a reporter in 2018, Biden invited him to his rental home in Virginia, according to the book. 

"He was stunned by how much Biden had aged," Tapper and Thompson wrote.

Axelrod told Biden that age would be an issue for his campaign but encouraged him to lean on his experience and wisdom, the journalists said. 

Axelrod's apprehension about Biden's age only grew, and when it came time for Biden to make a decision about his re-election, he knew Biden shouldn't run in 2024. The longtime political advisor told Tapper and Thompson he wished someone in the White House had "come to their senses and [convinced] Biden and his family that this just wasn't tenable."

Pointing to unfavorable battleground polls from 2023, Axelrod encouraged Biden to drop out of the race in a series of social media posts. He said the "stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore."

"Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it's in HIS best interest or the country's?" Axelrod questioned on social media. 

Klain fired back, this time for the public to see: "Man who called Biden ‘Mr Magoo’ in Aug 2019 is still at it," in reference to Axelrod's comments following the 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate. 

An excerpt from the book reads: "In response to Axelrod's 2023 post, Biden called Axelrod a ‘prick’ – a private insult until someone leaked it to Jonathan Martin of Politico. Axelrod received confidential messages of agreement from prominent Democrats who remained silent, they explained, because they were resigned to Biden's candidacy and did not want to weaken him as a looming rematch with Trump approached."

Fox News Digital has written extensively, dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign, about Biden's cognitive decline and his inner circle’s role in covering it up.

"There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover-up or conspiracy," a Biden spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the president wasn’t otherwise engaged in the important matters of the presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective president who led our country with empathy and skill."

Former President Joe Biden struggled to get through filming campaign videos, or quick, filmed keynote addresses for various groups during the 2024 campaign due to his declining health, according to a new book. 

The book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," said that Biden stumbled through filming campaign videos so much that the footage was ultimately deemed "unusable." The nonfiction book was published Tuesday and is authored by journalists Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios.

BIDEN FAMILY MISLED PUBLIC, CONCEALED DETAILS ON SON BEAU'S CANCER DIAGNOSIS, NEW BOOK SAYS

In one case, Biden’s team sought to film a video for the campaign for ads on television in a high school gym where people could ask questions like they would at a town hall meeting. 

"The campaign was trying to make it look like the president was out there taking off-the-cuff questions from voters in public," the book said. "But the event was closed to reporters, and the campaign had the full list of questions that people would ask."

However, Biden had so much "trouble" getting through the questions that his team decided to scrap the footage. While some attributed challenges to poor lighting in the gym, the book said that others identified Biden as the real problem. 

BIDEN MADE HARRIS CAMPAIGN A ‘NIGHTMARE,' DESTROYED HER CHANCES BY STAYING IN 2024 RACE TOO LONG, AIDES CHARGE

Similarly, when groups requested a five-minute video address of Biden for keynote events, the White House would work to provide a one- or two-minute video, the book said. Still, given the time constraint, Biden "often couldn’t make it through one or two minutes without botching a line or two," according to the book.

"The man could not speak," one person familiar with the effort said, according to the book. The person said Biden faced an "inability to find words, to remember what he was saying, to stay on one train of thought."

BIDEN AIDES ‘SCRIPTED’ EVERYTHING, ALLOWED HIS FACULTIES TO ‘ATROPHY,’ NEW BOOK CLAIMS

"Aides would sometimes make the videos in slow motion to blur the reality of how slowly he actually walked," the person said. "If he was off, editing footage in a way that cast him in the best light would require hours of work."

The book also pinned the blame on Biden for then-Vice President Kamala Harris' unsuccessful run in the 2024 election after Biden took so long to exit the race. David Plouffe, former President Barack Obama’s campaign manager in 2008 and a senior advisor on Harris’ 2024 campaign, said that Harris' campaign was "a f---ing nightmare" because of Biden. 

A former Biden staffer pushed back on the claims included in the book, and told Fox News Digital, "This isn’t true. The book is riddled with falsehoods."

Biden's team has also challenged the material in "Original Sin," which chronicles the 2024 election cycle and how Biden’s team allegedly plotted a cover-up to hide just how severely his mental faculties had declined. 

"There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy," a Biden spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the President wasn’t otherwise engaged in the important matters of the Presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill."

The book is one of several that detail Biden’s decision to run in 2024 and details the deterioration of his cognitive function.

A new book about President Joe Biden's cognitive decline and his administration's alleged cover-up has forced a reckoning in the Democratic Party. 

Biden's aides worried about his age long before his consequential 2024 presidential debate against then-former President Donald Trump, CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson reveal in their book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," which was released on Tuesday.

"During an eight-day, grueling bus tour in Iowa in December 2019, Biden gave his aides pause. While doing prep, he struggled to remember the name of longtime aide Mike Donilon. ‘You know, you know,’ he said, groping for it. His aides side-eyed one another–Donilon had worked for Biden since 1981," Tapper and Thompson wrote. 

That was not the only time aides worried about Biden on the 2020 presidential campaign trail, according to the book. The journalists described aides "white-knuckling" through debate performances as they "shied away from tough interviews" because Biden no longer communicated the way he did as senator or vice president. 

BIDEN FAMILY MISLED PUBLIC, CONCEALED DETAILS ON SON BEAU’S CANCER DIAGNOSIS, NEW BOOK SAYS

The book details his aides' concerns on the 2020 campaign trail that voters in battleground states were seeing a "diminished man" who was "not always 100 percent" during the relentless campaign schedule. 

YOUNG DEMS BLAME BIDEN AND THEIR OWN PARTY FOR LOSING IN 2024 AS THEY DISTANCE THEMSELVES FROM THE OLD-GUARD

Without the COVID-19 pandemic, his aides "doubted Biden could have otherwise kept up the pace of campaigning through November."

However, even during the pandemic, Tapper and Thompson described Biden as struggling to stay on message as his aides tried to soften his blunders. Two aides who grew closer to Biden during lockdown, Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal, "loaded a written Q&A into a prompter ahead of a local interview – a document that the campaign had used in prep with Biden," according to the book. 

"The team was constantly trying to change the Zoom configurations and production designs to adapt to him. Aides privately noted that they couldn't rely on him to stay on message, and he often had a very short attention span."

Tapper and Thompson describe a turning point during the 2020 campaign when Biden struggled to follow virtual conversations with American voters through a series of monitors for the Democratic National Convention. 

"It was like a different person. It was incredible. This was like watching Grandpa who shouldn't be driving," one Democrat told the journalists. 

After watching the short, overly edited videos of Biden struggling to interact with voters, Democrats told Tapper and Thompson that they did not think Biden could be president. They said Democrats became angry imagining his aides seeing him like this every day. 

A Biden spokesperson, however, pushed back on the narrative of the book, telling Fox News Digital that "there is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover-up or conspiracy."

"Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the President wasn’t otherwise engaged in the important matters of the Presidency," the spokesperson continued. "In fact, Joe Biden was an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill."

However, those close to Biden told Tapper and Thompson that the "first signs he was deteriorating emerged after the death of his beloved son Beau in 2015."

"Beau's cancer treatment also demonstrated the Bidens' capacity for denial and the lengths they would go through to avoid transparency about health issues, even when the person in question is an elected official, in this case the sitting attorney general of Delaware."

Tapper and Thompson described how the Biden family went through great lengths to downplay or mislead the media about then-vice president Biden visiting his son in the hospital. 

"Beau's wife, Hallie, told people she didn't understand why they had to keep his illness a secret."

Fox News Digital has written extensively dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign about Biden's cognitive decline and his inner circle’s role in covering it up.

Fox News' Peter Doocy has some unique insight on former President Joe Biden as questions continue to persist about whether there was a coverup to hide his declining mental state while serving as commander-in-chief. 

Doocy, a senior White House correspondent, posted multiple videos to X on Wednesday showing him questioning Biden and the White House about the then-president's cognitive decline. 

"I have some unique insight on President Biden, having dedicated six years of my life to covering him," he wrote. "If you are wondering why nobody asked about his mental fitness, and why nobody asked if White House staffers were covering up his decline… then you weren’t paying attention."

WASHINGTON POST URGES CONGRESS TO ACT TO PREVENT ANOTHER COVER-UP OF PRESIDENT'S HEALTH AMID BIDEN REVELATIONS 

In one video, Doocy is seen questioning Biden about Special Counsel Robert Hur's report that concluded that one of the reasons Biden wasn't charged for his handling of classified Obama-era documents found in his former office and at home was because he was a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."

"I'm well-meaning and I'm an elderly man and I know what the hell I'm doing. I put this country back on its feet. I don't need his recommendation," Biden replied.

Doocy then asked how bad Biden's memory was and would he be able to continue to serve as president. 

"My memory is so bad, I let you speak," Biden shot back. 

Much of the media has been criticized for its reluctance to question Biden or the White House about his health concerns. The former president's health is once again in the headlines after CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson's new book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," was released on Tuesday.

The book alleges that Biden’s inner circle concealed his cognitive decline for years and was released just days after news broke that Biden had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.

In one instance, during a news briefing, Doocy questioned then-White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about a campaign event in which Biden was present. 

"At a fundraiser this week, President Biden told donors about how Charlottesville inspired his campaign, and according to the pool, a few mins later he told the story again nearly word for word. What's up with that?"

CBS NEWS REPORTER SAYS WSJ'S 'COURAGEOUS' 2024 REPORT ON BIDEN'S DECLINE SHOULD HAVE WON THE PULITZER

"What I can tell you is, and I'm going to be careful not to talk about it because this was a campaign event,… the president was making very clear why he decided to run in 2019," Jean-Pierre responded. 

In another briefing, Jean-Pierre said Biden was making a "light-hearted joke" and "speaking off the cuff" when she was asked by Doocy about Biden's remarks that his "health is fine. It's just his brain."

In another video, Jean-Pierre was asked about Biden's gaffe when he appeared to mix up French President Emmanuel Macron with François Mitterrand, the former president of France who died in 1996.

"How is President Biden ever going to convince the three-quarters of voters who are worried about his physical and mental health that he's OK even though in Las Vegas he told a story about recently talking to a French president who died in 1996?"

WALL STREET JOURNAL CALLS OUT TAPPER FOR SNEERING AT PAPER'S STORY ABOUT BIDEN'S DECLINE

"I'm not even going to go down that rabbit hole with you," she replied. 

Doocy also asked if Biden had been tested for Parkinson's Disease or dementia following his disastrous debate performance against then-candidate Donald Trump.

"What we shared with you was comprehensive, but he's had a full physical. We've shown the results of those this past three years," Jean-Pierre said. "We showed it just four months ago, and it is in line with what we have done, similar to President Obama, similar to George W. Bush. We are committed to continue to be transparent. We are committed to continue to show the results of those physicals, and look, it's the president's medical team that makes a decision."

In another briefing, Jean-Pierre was questioned about why Biden was treated by White House staffers "like a baby."

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"No one treated the president of the United States, the commander-in-chief, like a baby," she replied. "That's a ridiculous claim."

Fox News Digital's Kristine Parks contributed to this report.

As she ran for the White House in the 2024 election cycle, Nikki Haley made her calls for "new generational leadership" a key component of her Republican presidential campaign.

And front and center from day 1 of her campaign as the former South Carolina governor and former United Nations ambassador declared her candidacy in February 2023 was her call for "mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old."

As Haley challenged then-76-year-old former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination in hopes of eventually facing off in the general election against then-80-year-old President Joe Biden, the proposal became one of the most visible and at times controversial parts of her campaign stump speech.

DEMOCRATS RUN THE GAUNTLET AS THEY FACE QUESTIONS OVER BIDEN'S COGNITIVE ACUITY

Haley faced charges of ageism from a host of politicians opposed to the idea, including a now-83-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who at the time called her idea "absurd."

While Haley's campaign took off, and she ended up being the last Republican candidate standing against Trump during last year's primaries, she eventually bowed out of the race in March 2024 as Trump marched toward clinching the presidential nomination.

BIDEN STRUGGLES WITH WORDS, KEY MEMORIES IN LEAKED AUDIO FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL HUR INTERVIEW

Fast-forward to today, and long-standing questions about Biden’s physical and mental fitness – and whether Democrats should have more forcefully urged him to bow out of the 2024 race – haven’t gone away; they’re front and center.

This as Biden's condition is once again making headlines, courtesy of excerpts from a new book being released this week, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," which offers claims of a White House cover-up of the then-president's apparent cognitive decline.

Additionally, last week's leaked audio of Biden’s 2023 interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, in which the then-president appears to suffer memory lapses, is also fueling the conversation.

Hur, who investigated whether Biden years earlier had improperly stored classified documents, made major headlines early last year when he decided not to charge Biden but described the then-president as an "elderly man with a poor memory."

Last week's developments were followed by Sunday's blockbuster announcement that Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.

The news, while eliciting sympathy from both sides of the political aisle, is unlikely to sidetrack the current firestorm over the former president's mental acuity.

BIDEN'S DIAGNOSIS: CANCER DESCRIBED AS AGGRESSIVE

"While the media may have been shocked by Nikki's call for mental competency tests, Americans never were," a source in Haley's political orbit told Fox News. "It was common sense. Nikki always believed our leaders should be completely transparent and remember who they serve: the American people. After a yearslong cover-up, those who hid President Biden's mental decline must finally acknowledge what Nikki and the American people always knew to be true."

Haley, who was 51 when she announced her candidacy in 2023, reupped her calls for a mental competency test throughout her campaign.

In January last year, during the heat of the primary battle, Haley pointed to some verbal stumbles by Trump on the campaign trail.

"He's not what he was in 2016. He has declined. That's a fact," Haley said at the time.

Trump repeatedly fired back as he touted acing a cognitive test he took five years earlier and said, "I think I’m a lot sharper than her."

A month later, after the release of Hur's written report regarding Biden's mental acuity, Haley said, "Joe Biden can't remember major events in his life, like when he was vice president or when his son died."

"That is sad, but it will be even sadder if we have a person in the White House who is not mentally up to the most important job in the world," she added as she reiterated her calls for Biden to take a mental competency test "immediately."

Haley, in a Fox News op-ed in May 2023, spelled out the specific test she recommended for politicians over age 75.

"The Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test is a widely used tool for detecting cognitive decline," Haley wrote at the time.

And she elaborated, "This is not a qualification for office. Failing a mental competency test would not result in removal. It is about transparency. Voters deserve to know whether those who are making major decisions about war and peace, taxation and budgets, schools and safety can pass a very basic mental exam."

Veteran political scientist Wayne Lesperance, noting the current media spotlight on Biden, said it has "renewed concerns many Americans have about the age and ability of our elected officials. Public service demands clarity of thought, sound judgment, and the ability to manage complex issues."

And Lesperance, president of New England College, said "Americans must conclude that a fair and nonpartisan cognitive assessment, perhaps irrespective of age, is important to ensure all who seek to lead are equipped to serve with the sharpness and clarity the role requires."

Sen. Chris Murphy says "it was a mistake" for his party to allow then-81-year-old President Joe Biden to remain on the 2024 ballot as long as he did.

The Democrat from Connecticut, who is viewed as a possible contender for his party's 2028 presidential nomination, during an appearance on the Sunday morning talk shows was the latest Democrat to face questions about the former president's cognitive abilities.

"I saw a president who was in control," Murphy said during an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" as he pointed to his experience working closely with Biden on legislation in 2023. "That’s my experience."

However, the senator added "that by 2024 the American public had made up their mind, right, that they wanted the Democratic Party to nominate somebody new, and it was absolutely a mistake for the party to not listen to those voters."

NEW BOOK PLACES BLAME ON BIDEN FOR HARRIS 2024 LOSS TO TRUMP

He also noted that Democrats "all bear responsibility" for President Donald Trump's White House victory last November.

However, longtime Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, a longtime Biden ally and confidant, said on the Sunday talk shows that he never doubted the then-president's ability to lead the nation.

"I never saw anything that allowed me to think that Joe Biden was not able to do the job," Clyburn argued in an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union."

Top Democrats like Murphy and Clyburn are facing a litmus test over Biden's mental acuity during his final years in office and whether Democrats should have been more strident earlier in the 2024 election cycle in calling on Biden to abandon his bid for a second term in the White House.

The grilling comes as Biden's condition is once again making headlines, courtesy of excerpts from a new book being released this week, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," which offers claims of a White House cover-up of the then-president's apparent cognitive decline.

BIDEN STRUGGLES WITH WORDS, KEY MEMORIES IN LEAKED AUDIO FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL HUR INTERVIEW

Additionally, last week's leaked audio of Biden’s 2023 interview with special counsel Robert Hur, in which the then-president appears to suffer memory lapses, is also fueling the conversation.

Hur, who investigated whether Biden years earlier had improperly stored classified documents, made major headlines early last year when he decided not to charge Biden but described the then-president as an "elderly man with a poor memory."

The first question thrown at former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as he briefly met with reporters following a town hall with veterans and military families in Iowa last week was,"Did President Joe Biden experience cognitive decline while in office?" Buttigieg was asked.

"Every time I needed something from him from the West Wing, I got it," answered Buttigieg, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who served four years in Biden's cabinet. He, like Murphy, may have national ambitions in 2028.

After a second reporter followed up, asking, "Would the party have been better off if he had just not run for re-election?" Buttigieg answered, "Maybe. Right now, with the benefit of hindsight, I think most people would agree that that’s the case."

Longtime New Hampshire-based radio host Chris Ryan pointed to his listeners on his popular morning news/talk program as he told Fox News, "I think that is one of the top things that they do want to know about."

"The Democratic voters are still trying to sort through what happened and why," said Ryan, who has interviewed scores of White House hopefuls over the years.

How the Democratic presidential hopefuls answer these questions will be an early test of their truthfulness in the eyes of voters who had serious concerns over whether Biden was mentally and physically up for another four years handling the world's most grueling job.

However, Ryan noted that "it’s different for each potential candidate based on their level of proximity to President Biden."

While 2028 is far off in the distance, next year's midterms are just around the corner.

And the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), taking aim at House Democrats up for re-election in 2026, charged that "they knew."

"Americans deserved the truth, and House Democrats blatantly lied to their faces while voting to bury the evidence. Every single Democrat is complicit in the political coverup of the century," NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella claimed in a statement.

BIDEN'S DIAGNOSIS: CANCER DESCRIBED AS AGGRESSIVE

It is doubtful the questions will be going away in the coming days, even after Sunday's blockbuster announcement that Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.

Biden dropped out of the White House race last July, one month after a disastrous debate performance with Trump that sparked a chorus of calls from fellow Democrats for the then-president to end his re-election bid.

He was replaced at the top of the ticket by then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who ended up losing November's presidential election to Trump. Democrats also suffered down ballot, losing control of the Senate and failing to win back the House majority from the Republicans.

During an appearance on ABC's "The View" two weeks ago, Biden pushed back against accusations that he had suffered significant cognitive decline during the final year of his presidency.

Rep. Ro Khanna of California was a leading supporter and surrogate on the campaign trail for Biden during the 2024 election cycle. After last June’s debate, as a trickle of Democrats urging Biden to step aside turned into a steady stream, Khanna likened the embattled president to Rocky Balboa—the underdog boxer of big-screen legend.

TARGETED BY TRUMP, THIS WELL KNOWN DEMOCRAT SPARKS 2028 SPECULATION

"To rebuild trust, Democrats must be honest. In light of the facts that have come out, Joe Biden should not have run for reelection, and we should have had an open primary," Khanna wrote in a social media post.

Khanna, in a statement, said, "I have always admired Biden’s resilience and the grit he has shown after the loss of his son — and often compared that strength to Rocky. I was a surrogate for the president of my own party whose policies I backed.

"But obviously we did not have the full picture, and in hindsight it is painfully obvious that President Biden should have made the patriotic decision not to run," Khanna added.

LESS THAN FOUR MONTHS INTO TRUMP'S SECOND TERM, DEMOCRATS ALREADY EYEING 2028 PRESIDENTIAL RACE

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another possible White House candidate who was a top 2024 surrogate for Biden, said in a recent CNN interview when asked about Biden's cognitive abilities, "As a governor in a state halfway across the country who was working her tail off, 160 stops on a bus tour that I had lined through swing states, I was busy working. I was busy doing the voter connection and registration, and so can't speak to that directly." 

"I didn't see the president frequently."

However, she added that "it does make me question a lot of the things I thought I knew over the course of the last year and a half."

While the potential contenders are answering questions concerning Biden in different ways, there is one consensus.

"We're not in a position to wallow in hindsight. We've got to get ready for some fundamental tests of the future of this country and this party," Buttigieg noted. 

Former President Joe Biden joked that he was a "young man" during an October 2023 interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur over his mishandling of classified documents, newly released audio shows.

Axios released audio on Friday from Biden's interviews with Hur in which the then-president appeared to struggle to remember when his son Beau died, when he left office as vice president, what year President Donald Trump was elected to his first term or why he had classified documents that should not have been in his possession.

In addition to Biden's memory lapses, the recordings showed him slurring his words and muttering when speaking to Hur.

BIDEN STRUGGLES WITH WORDS, KEY MEMORIES IN LEAKED AUDIO FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL HUR INTERVIEW

Transcripts of the interviews — conducted on Oct. 8 and 9, 2023 — were released on March 12, 2024.

On the first day of the interview, Hur stressed the importance of answering truthfully and urged Biden to make his best effort to recall the events in question, which the prosecutor acknowledged happened years ago.

"I'm a young man, so it's not a problem," Biden, now 82, jokingly responded.

"Okay, great. Glad to hear it," Hur replied. 

BIDEN REPEATEDLY SAYS 'I DON'T REMEMBER' REGARDING CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS IN NEWLY RELEASED HUR INTERVIEW AUDIO

Hur, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Biden's handling of classified documents, said in his report, released on Feb. 5, 2024, that he declined to bring charges against the president, in part, because a jury would find him a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory." The report acknowledged that the documents were "willfully" obtained by Biden during his time as vice president and as a senator.

"I'm well-meaning and I'm an elderly man and I know what the hell I'm doing. I've been president, and I put this country back on its feet. I don't need his recommendation," Biden said when questioned by Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy days after Hur released his report. 

The special counsel's report, in addition to Biden's gaffe-prone public appearances, amplified pressure from Republicans who said he lacked the mental fitness needed to serve as president.

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Democrats and Biden's White House initially criticized Hur for his report, insisting the then-president was "sharp" and that the special counsel was politically motivated.

Later in 2024, during Biden's re-election campaign, Democrats urged him to drop out of the race over his performance in the June presidential debate against Trump, citing his age and mental acuity. Biden formally dropped out of the presidential race in July and finished his term. His vice president, Kamala Harris, was defeated by Trump in November's general election.

Former President Joe Biden early last year dismissed Special Counsel Robert Hur's report that sparked additional concern about his mental acuity, just months after he was interviewed about his mishandling of classified documents.

Axios on Friday released audio from Biden's October 2023 interviews with Hur. In the recordings, Biden seemed to struggle to remember when his son Beau died, when he left office as vice president, what year President Donald Trump was elected to his first term, or why he had classified documents that should not have been in his possession.

The recordings not only showed Biden's memory lapses, but also slurring his words and muttering when speaking to Hur. Transcripts of the interviews — conducted on Oct. 8 and 9 of 2023 — were released on March 12, 2024.

In February 2024, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy was the first to question Biden about Hur's report on his mental fitness.

BIDEN STRUGGLES WITH WORDS, KEY MEMORIES IN LEAKED AUDIO FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL HUR INTERVIEW

"Something the special counsel said in his report is that one of the reasons you were not charged is because, in his description, you are a ‘well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,'" Doocy said to Biden at a press conference on Feb. 8, 2024.

Biden responded: "I'm well-meaning and I'm an elderly man and I know what the hell I'm doing. I've been president and I put this country back on its feet. I don't need his recommendation—"

Doocy then asked Biden how bad his memory was and if he could continue as president.

BIDEN REPEATEDLY SAYS 'I DON'T REMEMBER' REGARDING CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS IN NEWLY RELEASED HUR INTERVIEW AUDIO

"My memory is so bad I let you speak," Biden told him.

Hur, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Biden's handling of classified documents, said he declined to bring charges against him, in part, because a jury would find him to be a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory," despite the acknowledgment that the documents were "willfully" obtained by Biden during his time as vice president and as a senator.

The special counsel's report, in addition to gaffes seen during Biden's public appearances, amplified pressure from Republicans who said he lacked the mental fitness needed to serve as president.

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Democrats and Biden's White House initially criticized Hur for his report, repeatedly insisting he was "sharp" and that the special counsel was politically motivated.

Later in 2024, amid Biden's re-election campaign, Democrats called on him to drop his candidacy over his performance in the June presidential debate against Trump, citing his age and mental acuity. Biden, now 82, ended his presidential campaign in July but finished his term, and his vice president, Kamala Harris, was defeated by Trump in November's general election.

It was the first question thrown at potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg as he briefly met with reporters following a town hall with veterans and military families in Iowa this week:

"Did President Joe Biden experience cognitive decline while in office?" Buttigieg was asked.

"Every time I needed something from him from the West Wing, I got it," answered Buttigieg, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who served four years as Secretary of Transportation in the Biden administration.

After a second reporter followed up, asking: "Would the party have been better off if he had just not run for re-election?" Buttigieg answered: "Maybe. Right now, with the benefit of hindsight, I think most people would agree that that’s the case."

NEW BOOK PLACES BLAME ON BIDEN FOR HARRIS 2024 LOSS TO TRUMP

Welcome to the 2028 White House race pre-season, where Democrats mulling a presidential run are starting to take the earliest of steps.

And as they do, they're facing an initial gauntlet – questions about former President Joe Biden's mental acuity during his final years in office and whether Democrats should have been more strident earlier in the 2024 election cycle in calling on Biden to abandon his bid for a second term in the White House.

"I think that is one of the top things that they do want to know about," longtime New Hampshire-based radio host Chris Ryan told Fox News, as he pointed to his listeners on his popular morning news/talk program.

"The Democratic voters are still trying to sort through what happened and why," said Ryan, who has interviewed scores of White House hopefuls over the years.

BIDEN AIDES ‘SCRIPTED’ EVERYTHING, ALLOWED HIS FACULTIES TO ‘ATROPHY,’ NEW BOOK CLAIMS

How the presidential hopefuls answer these questions will be an early test of their truthfulness in the eyes of voters who had serious concerns over whether Biden was mentally and physically up for another four years handling the world's most grueling job.

But Ryan noted that "it’s different for each potential candidate based on their level of proximity to President Biden."

The grilling of potential 2028 contenders and other Democrats comes as Biden's condition is once again making headlines, courtesy of excerpts from a new book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," which offers claims of a White House cover-up of the then-president's alleged cognitive decline.

Biden dropped out of the White House race last July, one month after a disastrous debate performance with now-President Donald Trump that sparked a chorus of calls from fellow Democrats for the then-81-year-old president to end his re-election bid. 

He was replaced at the top of the ticket by then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who ended up losing November's presidential election to Trump. Democrats also suffered down ballot, losing control of the Senate and failing to win back the House majority from the Republicans.

During an appearance on ABC's "The View" last week, Biden pushed back against accusations that he had suffered significant cognitive decline during the final year of his presidency.

Rep. Ro Khanna of California was a leading supporter and surrogate on the campaign trail for Biden during the 2024 election cycle. After last June’s debate, as a trickle of Democrats urging Biden to step aside turned into a steady stream, Khanna likened the embattled president to Rocky Balboa—the underdog boxer of big-screen legend.

TARGETED BY TRUMP, THIS WELL KNOWN DEMOCRAT SPARKS 2028 SPECULATION

"To rebuild trust, Democrats must be honest. In light of the facts that have come out, Joe Biden should not have run for reelection, and we should have had an open primary," Khanna wrote in a social media post.

Khanna, in a statement, said, "I have always admired Biden’s resilience and the grit he has shown after the loss of his son — and often compared that strength to Rocky. I was a surrogate for the president of my own party whose policies I backed."

"But obviously we did not have the full picture, and in hindsight it is painfully obvious that President Biden should have made the patriotic decision not to run," Khanna said.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, another Democratic lawmaker who vouched for Biden last year, said that "there's no doubt about it" when asked by Politico whether Biden had experienced cognitive decline. "The debate is whether it was enough that it compromised his ability to act as chief executive."

Murphy, who is viewed as a potential 2028 contender, said that Biden staying in the 2024 race as long as he did was detrimental to the Democrats.

"I mean, isn’t that self-evident? We lost," he said. "Obviously, in retrospect, we should have done something different."

LESS THAN FOUR MONTHS INTO TRUMP'S SECOND TERM, DEMOCRATS ALREADY EYEING 2028 PRESIDENTIAL RACE

But Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another possible White House candidate who was a top 2024 surrogate for Biden, said in a CNN interview this week when asked about Biden's cognitive abilities: "As a governor in a state halfway across the country who was working her tail off, 160 stops on a bus tour that I had lined through swing states, I was busy working. I was busy doing the voter connection and registration, and so can't speak to that directly." 

"I didn't see the president frequently."

But she added that "it does make me question a lot of the things I thought I knew over the course of the last year and a half."

While the potential contenders are answering questions concerning Biden in different ways, there is one consensus.

"We're not in a position to wallow in hindsight. We've got to get ready for some fundamental tests of the future of this country and this party," Buttigieg noted. 

Former President Joe Biden's second campaign ruined former Vice President Kamala Harris' chances of defeating President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, according to a top Democratic consultant. 

David Plouffe, former President Barack Obama’s campaign manager in 2008 and a senior advisor on Harris’ 2024 campaign, detailed how dire Biden’s run was for the Democrats in a new book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again." 

"And it’s all Biden," Plouffe said in the book, authored by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, about Biden’s choice to stay in the race so long and how the White House assured him Biden was capable of winning another election. 

"He totally f---ed us." 

As a result, Plouffe said that Harris' brief campaign against Trump turned into "a f---ing nightmare," pointing the blame on Biden. 

CRITICS PILE ON BIDEN FOLLOWING ABC INTERVIEW, BLAST HIS REFUSAL TO COMMIT TO COGNITIVE TEST: 'DISQUALIFYING'

Plouffe is far from the only one who believes that Biden undercut his own party running again in 2024 as his faculties began to decline. 

A senior White House aide described in the book that "we attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn’t realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023." 

The aide, who ultimately departed the White House because they did not believe Biden should run in 2024, described Biden's decision to run for a second term as a "disservice" to the country and Democrats. 

"I love Joe Biden. When it comes to decency, there are few in politics like him," the aide said in the book, which is slated for release Tuesday. "Still, it was a disservice to the country and to the party for his family and advisers to allow him to run again."

Spokespeople for Biden and Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

"Original Sin" details the 2024 election cycle and how Biden’s team orchestrated a cover-up to hide just how severely his mental faculties had suffered. 

The book is one of several that detail Biden’s decision to run in 2024 and assert the dramatic decline of his cognitive function. 

BIDEN AIDES ‘SCRIPTED’ EVERYTHING, ALLOWED HIS FACULTIES TO ‘ATROPHY,’ NEW BOOK CLAIMS

For example, the book, "Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History," also detailed how the White House kept Biden from socializing even with those he regarded as friends and allies.

However, that book, authored by Chris Whipple, a former producer for CBS’ "60 Minutes," said that one White House aide suggested "walling Biden off from the world was a grave mistake." 

"‘They were afraid he might say the wrong thing or might feed the mental acuity narrative,’ he told me. ‘And so he started seeing fewer and fewer people. They allowed his faculties to atrophy. But I think, like knives, they have to be sharpened. They get sharpened by rubbing them up against steel. And they don’t get sharpened by sitting in a drawer,’" Whipple wrote.

The Biden administration engaged in a "cover-up" by failing to disclose details about the health of former President Joe Biden, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. 

"I can tell you there was certainly a lack of transparency from the former president, from the entire former administration," Leavitt told reporters on Friday. "And frankly, a lot of people in this room, when it came to the health in the competence of the former President of the United States, Joe Biden — there was one of the greatest cover-ups and, frankly, political scandals this nation has ever seen. It's been unraveled in some recent books that are being written by journalists who engaged in that cover-up in scandal, which is quite ironic." 

A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

BIDEN AIDES ‘SCRIPTED’ EVERYTHING, ALLOWED HIS FACULTIES TO ‘ATROPHY,’ NEW BOOK CLAIMS

New books out have detailed Biden’s mental and physical well-being during his time in the White House. 

"Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History," published Tuesday and authored by Chris Whipple, a former producer for CBS' "60 Minutes," claims that the White House kept Biden from socializing with those who previously worked alongside him — a tactic that backfired and contributed to his declining mental agility. 

EX-BIDEN AIDE SAYS FORMER PRESIDENT WAS 'FATIGUED, BEFUDDLED, AND DISENGAGED' PRIOR TO JUNE DEBATE: BOOK

Leavitt’s remarks come as President Donald Trump is receiving an annual physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday. The White House says it will provide a readout of the appointment. 

"But this president is clearly committed to transparency," Leavitt said. "You in this room see him and hear from him on a daily basis. You in this room know from covering him. It's hard to keep up with him. He is a machine working around the clock every single day. And the physician, after today's physical, will provide an update on the report in the effort of transparency."