CNN’s Jake Tapper is claiming he has been covering former President Joe Biden‘s cognitive decline “for years” as he hawks a new book titled Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, And His Disastrous Decision to Run Again, based on interviews with many Democratic Party insiders.
Despite once claiming that “Joe Biden has dementia” was a narrative pushed by “the Russians,” Tapper is now denouncing Biden’s decision to seek reelection. Tapper and co-author Alex Thompson, of Axios, now say that Biden’s declining faculties were hidden from the public, with Tapper claiming CNN viewers “know” he has “been covering the concerns about President Biden’s age and health for years.” However, he was, in fact, one of Biden’s top apologists.
.@AlexThomp and I have spent the last few months getting the real story on what was going on behind the scenes at the White House —https://t.co/6OyJq7ooty pic.twitter.com/B8VYbxfl5z
— Jake Tapper 🦅 (@jaketapper) February 27, 2025
In a 2020 interview with Lara Trump, for instance, Tapper slammed Lara Trump for highlighting Biden’s mental deterioration, alleging she was “mocking” people with stutters—including “little kids”—and that she had “no standing” to “diagnose” the elderly Democrat.
The book comes as Tapper faces legal challenges. He was central to a defamation case in which Navy veteran Zachary Young accused CNN of misrepresenting him as an “illegal profiteer” during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. CNN was ordered to compensate Young with $5 million in damages.
Jake Tapper wrote a book on Biden’s mental decline and the coverup by the media
HE WAS THE COVERUP
Roll the tape… https://t.co/tdk4ROYAdP pic.twitter.com/YAxJt3UlTN
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 26, 2025
Jack Montgomery contributed to this report.