Reporters Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson say Biden’s family and senior aides routinely assured donors, Cabinet members, and the public he was 'fine' while his periods of nonfunctioning increased from 2023 onward. They describe a 'two Bidens' pattern and cite the 2024 debate as a public inflection point revealing the issue.
— If inner circles can successfully mask a president’s cognitive capacity, democratic consent is weakened and strengthens calls for independent medical disclosures or fitness assessments for candidates and officeholders.
Nate Silver
2025.12.01
92% relevant
Silver’s piece reiterates the core claim that Biden’s cognitive decline was visible and systematically downplayed by aides and partisan defenders; it cites the June 27 debate, staff/aid denialism, and later reporting that confirmed the decline — the same phenomenon tracked in the existing idea about campaigns masking leader capacity.
2025.10.07
90% relevant
The article leans on new reporting in Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin (e.g., Biden not recognizing George Clooney, curtailed 'uptime,' aides smoothing over incidents) to argue the White House and allies concealed Biden’s condition from the public and press.
2025.10.07
95% relevant
Alex Thompson recounts that from late 2021 Biden gave far fewer interviews and press conferences than any modern president, avoided sit‑downs with NYT/WaPo/WSJ/Reuters, and that staff counseled him not to answer questions—framed as a 'new media strategy' or a 'stutter' defense—matching the claim that inner circles hid cognitive decline and misled the public.
2025.05.19
100% relevant
NPR interview on 'Original Sin' with claims from 200 interviews that the White House hid episodes where Biden couldn’t recall key names or sustain conversation, plus Biden’s Stage 4 cancer announcement.