Original Sin

President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again

De: Jake Tapper, Alex Thompson

Narrado por: Jake Tapper

THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Financial Times, Kirkus Reviews, and The Associated Press

"Superbly reported . . . Reads like a Shakespearean drama on steroids." — Los Angeles Times

"Explosive." —The New York Times

"[The] most significant book to date about Biden’s cognitive decline." — The Atlantic

"Destined to stand alongside classics like Theodore White’s The Making of the President 1960 and even Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s All the President’s Men as one of the great books about American electoral politics.” — Richard Aldous, Persuasion

From two of America’s most respected journalists comes an unflinching and explosive reckoning with one of the most fateful decisions in American political history: Joe Biden’s run for reelection despite evidence of his serious decline—amid desperate efforts to hide the extent of that deterioration.
In Greek tragedy, the protagonist’s effort to avoid his fate is what seals his fate. In 2024, American politics became a Greek tragedy.

Joe Biden launched his successful 2020 bid for the White House with the stated goal of saving the nation from a second Trump presidential term. He, his family, and his senior aides were so convinced that only he could beat Trump again, they lied to themselves, allies, and the public about his condition and limitations. At his debate with Trump on June 27, 2024, the consequences of that deception were exposed to the world. It was shocking and upsetting.

Now the full, unsettling truth is being told for the first time. Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson take us behind closed doors and into private conversations between the heaviest of hitters, revealing how big the problem was and how many people knew about it. From White House staffers at the highest to lowest levels, to leaders of Congress and the Cabinet, from governors to donors and Hollywood players, the truth is finally being told. What you will learn makes President Biden’s decision to run for reelection seem shockingly narcissistic, self-delusional, and reckless—a desperate bet that went bust—and part of a larger act of extended public deception that has few precedents. The story the authors tell raises fundamental issues of accountability and responsibility that will continue for decades.

The irony is biting: In the name of defeating what they called an existential threat to democracy, Biden and his inner circle ensured it, tossing aside his implicit promise to serve for only one term, denying the existence of health issues the nation had been watching for years, dooming the Democrats to defeat. The decision to run again, the Original Sin of this president, led to a campaign of denial and gaslighting, leading directly to Donald Trump's return to power and all that has happened as a consequence. Rarely does hubris meet nemesis more explosively. Wherever you stand on the political spectrum, Original Sin is essential reading.

The media finally gets honest..

While it's ironic that Jake Tapper, of all journalists, is suddenly trying to pretend as if he was not part of this massive cover up himself and didn't denigrate much more courageous journalists reporting until it was impossible to continue to gaslight people, it is atleast somewhat commendable that he decides to be honest now. The main problem I have is that you get the strong feeling that we're still only being told the tip of the iceberg here, especially when multiple journalists and politicians claim to Jake that they never saw or heard of Biden acting like this privately, let alone Jake himself. It's an obvious lie. The next time you see the mainstream media cry and whine about it's decreased influence, how it's "under attack", or how they report on the objective truth just do a quick search on YouTube of Jake Tapper defending Biden's mental state. It's a gloriously effective comparison between this and his "reporting" during the Biden years as to why you have to have a room temperature IQ to take anything these ghouls say at face value.

Chaotic storytelling

Seriously hard to follow. I cannot tell whether the story suffers from too little information, bad editing, or both. There is a lot of jumping around in time, which doesn’t seem purposeful, just confusing. Additionally, no sources went on the record nor lent much specific detail of an actual “cover up”. Just that he had a small inner circle. I don’t think this qualifies as the major exposé that it is billed as. Bummer that nobody seems to have enough remorse to the American people to actually share the truth here.

Very unfortunate news about Biden’s diagnosis, but also sad he won’t just apologize to the country. The legacy of honest Joe is tainted.

Disappointed

After I heard the words “breathing machine” for C-PAP, everything else became questionable. Of course, we all saw Biden grow old and witnessed the disastrous debate, and I agree 100% that he should not have attempted to run for a 2nd term, all of that was obvious to everyone. This book is full of exaggerations and needless drama.

Thanks for gaslighting the public…

Don’t get me wrong, the book is good. It is engaging. It is thought provoking, and was necessary.

What it does NOT DO, though, is erase the right to ten years prior. It doesn’t suddenly delete all of the questions I had prior to either of his elections, nor does it make the MANY MANY moments I had of “wait, am I really the only person in the country that thinks Biden has a serious neurological issue? How can that be? Why isn’t the press covering this (outside of conservative media?!?)” Moreover, why does the legacy media go so far as to not only say that what I’m seeing isn’t true - but that I am somehow an awful person for seeing it?

I was a big fan of Jake Tapper once. I trusted him. Believed he was fair, and at one time, I honestly knew what he was reporting would be true. Then he began working for CNN, and Trump came along…and fairness went out the window. It is clear to me that unfortunately, either Tapper and his fellow “journalists” were told to softball an entire presidency and never say a scornful word in the direction of Biden, or they did it of their own accord. Either way, they chose to allow personal feelings to color their journalism. It was and is appalling. One book isn’t going to fix any of that. I am still so angry and honestly disappointed by Jake Tapper that I don’t know if I’ll ever trust or watch legacy media ever again. I’d rather take my chances with a variety of YouTube channels . If Jake really wants to know why CNN lost its audience, I’d hope he’d take a look at his reviews. More importantly, I would hope he’d see that his job should truly be to tell the news. I don’t need it INTERPRETED by any network. I just want to know, truthfully, what is taking place. Do that, and you’ll have an audience begging for more. We can decide, for ourselves, who is bad, who is awful, and what should be done.

On the other hand, Alex Thompson is an excellent writer. I don’t know a lot about his journalistic merits, but I appreciate a book based in truth, investigative interviews and almost an oral history. Jake’s narration (and of course his writing) was fantastic, and I’ll admit I enjoyed hearing his imitations of Obama, Biden, Trump, and others. It added color to a already vibrantly written book.

I cannot give 5 stars to a book that either could have at least been started 10 years ago, nor can I quite buy into the thought that Jake didn’t see what so many of us, even without conservative media pointing it out, could plainly see. My mother has undiagnosed dementia, and so many times I sat watching the President thinking “someone needs to know that there are grave issues here”. And I don’t believe for one single second that Biden could make decisions on his own. Not a chance. Someone else (or many somebodies) ran our country and kept it from us. So, so wrong. 😑

Jake Tapper is a journalist, not an Audible author

Finished it quickly the day it dropped so I could stay keenly attached to the breaking news of Biden’s breaking diagnosis. It’s all such a shame. The book is well researched and of course, chock full of facts and heartbreaking truths. There are no winners. My primary complaint with the book as an Audible book is Jake’s pithy, mocking cadence. I disliked his voice-acting and more importantly his strident tone. Just read the book, brother. Someone should have advised you. Just read it. Don’t act it. His strident voice resulted in me wanting to turn down the volume and get to the end.