The MAGAverse is in meltdown mode over CNN host Jake Tapper’s book on Joe Biden’s health decline, and its apparent cover-up.
Jake Tapper has announced Original Sin, a book written alongside fellow journalist, Axios political correspondent and CNN contributor Alex Thompson. The pair say the book, out in May, will look at “Biden’s decline, its cover-up, and how it allowed Trump to return.”
They claim that in the lead-up to Kamala Harris taking over Biden’s White House bid last year, the former president wasn’t fit for office, but this was kept from the public. Eventually, as we all know, Harris failed to beat now-President Donald Trump.
“This book is as much of a human story as a political one. Stay tuned — you won’t believe what we’ve found,” Thompson teased in a chat with Axios.
A segment of the book, shared by Axios, reads: “Biden, his family, and his team let their self-interest and fear of another Trump term justify trying to put an at times addled old man in the Oval Office for four more years.”
Thompson and Tapper, the lead Washington anchor for CNN, have now been targeted by a who’s who of MAGA talking heads keen to share their critique on the Penguin publication.
“What a hypocrite,” Elon Musk wrote, sharing a post that features a clip of Tapper strongly rebuking Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump after she “mocked” Joe Biden’s stutter and doubled down in an interview, saying it was evidence of “a cognitive decline.” However, this clip is from 2020, and the book focussed on the 2024 election.
In it, Tapper said that Trump was “diagnosing” Biden “from afar.” Musk pointed out that is what the book appears to do.
Tapper had also grilled the former president on his age, pre election. He sat down with Biden in October 2022 and cited a poll that said a sizeable chunk of Democratic voters would have preferred a younger nominee.
In 2023, he covered polling about both Trump and Biden’s “mental sharpness,” as well as several other instances were he covered Biden’s fitness for another term.
Despite Tapper’s balanced reporting, conservatives saw it as duplicitous for him to release the book. Contributing editor of British conservative magazine The Spectator Stephen L. Miller appeared to side with the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX chief. He said: “Here’s Jake Tapper incensed over Joe Biden’s ‘stutter’ and outraged over claims of Biden’s cognitive decline,” he said on X, sharing the same CNN head-to-head between Lara Trump and Tapper. “Now he’s cashing in on a book about Biden’s cognitive decline and media cover up. There is no bottom for these people,” he added.
Right wing X account ‘End Wokeness’ said: “Tapper then: ‘It’s a conspiracy theory to say Biden has cognitive decline. It’s a stutter.' Tapper now: A book on the cover up.” ‘Libs of TikTok’ added: “HE WAS THE COVERUP.”
The ever-present Laura Loomer, of course, also had something to say. “I remember when people said I was lying when I said Biden had a medical emergency on Air Force One even though my source was a WHITE HOUSE STAFFER. I was always right,” she wrote, referencing a claim she made without evidence that was rebuffed by the White House.
“Jake Tapper ran cover for Biden!” she had earlier barked, claiming that “grifters” stole her story. A community note on this post contradicted her claim.
