Table of Contents
Two mainstream journalists expose the shocking truth behind Biden's presidency: a small group of advisers effectively ran the country while hiding the president's severe cognitive decline from the American people.
Key Takeaways
- Biden's cognitive decline began in 2015 after his son Bo's death, with sources describing the effect as "pouring water onto sand"
- A tight group called the "Pilot Bureau" effectively ran the government, limiting Biden's schedule to 10 AM-4 PM and scripting even private cabinet meetings
- The White House used teleprompters for intimate fundraisers with 40-50 people and provided detailed note cards for basic interactions
- Cabinet secretaries told reporters that Biden was "not capable" of handling a 2 AM crisis call by 2024
- The cover-up involved lying not just to the press and public, but to Democratic donors, cabinet members, and members of Congress
- Media complicity included dismissing legitimate concerns as "cheap fakes" and attacking those who reported on Biden's condition
- The debate performance that ended Biden's candidacy was actually representative of his regular functioning behind closed doors
- Hunter Biden played a crucial role in encouraging his father to run for re-election despite obvious limitations
The Beginning of the Decline
According to extensive reporting by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson, who interviewed over 200 sources for their book "Original Sin," Biden's cognitive deterioration began much earlier than most Americans realized. The decline started in 2015 following the death of his son Bo, with one aide describing the psychological impact as "pouring water onto sand."
People who worked closely with Biden noticed dramatic changes by 2017-2018, saying he appeared to have "aged a decade in just two or three years." Special Counsel Robert Hur's investigation revealed audio tapes from this period showing Biden struggling to follow conversations and losing his train of thought even then. By 2019, campaign staff were already witnessing moments where he would forget the names of longtime advisers, including Mike Donilon, who had worked with him since 1981.
The authors emphasize that aging isn't a straight line, and Biden experienced both good days and bad days. However, the ratio began shifting dramatically, with the bad moments becoming more frequent and severe. A particularly concerning escalation occurred in late 2023, coinciding with family stress over Hunter Biden's legal troubles and failed plea deal.
The Pilot Bureau: Shadow Government in Action
The most disturbing revelation involves what Biden administration insiders called the "Pilot Bureau" - a tightly controlled group of senior advisers who effectively ran the government. This inner circle included Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Ron Klain (as chief of staff), Anita Dunn, and key figures from Jill Biden's staff including Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini.
Cabinet secretaries described Biden as "at best the senior member of a board" rather than a functioning president. The Pilot Bureau coordinated him off from direct contact with his own cabinet members, filtering all information and decisions through their network. As one cabinet secretary explained, if they weren't allowed to speak directly to the president and their evidence was being presented by intermediaries, "what kind of choices are really being made?"
This arrangement went far beyond normal presidential staff structures. While every president relies on advisers, the level of control exercised over Biden was unprecedented in modern American politics. The group didn't just manage his schedule - they managed his access to information and decision-making processes.
Unprecedented Accommodations and Scripting
The lengths to which Biden's team went to accommodate his limitations shocked even Washington insiders. Cabinet meetings required advance scripts, with aides asking secretaries beforehand what questions they might ask and what answers they would give. These rehearsals occurred even when cameras weren't present, creating an artificial environment that many participants found deeply unsettling.
Biden's last cabinet meeting occurred in October 2023, with almost a year passing before another was held. This represented an extraordinary departure from normal presidential governance. Even small meetings were avoided, with cabinet members reporting they were systematically shielded from one-on-one interactions with the president.
The use of teleprompters extended to intimate settings that would seem absurd for any functioning executive. By 2023, Biden required teleprompters for fundraising events with just 40-50 people in private homes. The note card system became so elaborate that it included not just talking points but basic social cues like "say thank you" and photographs of reporters he might encounter.
The Schedule That Revealed Everything
Perhaps nothing illustrated Biden's condition more clearly than his daily schedule. The reporting reveals days where his official activities ran from 10 AM to 1 PM, followed by extensive "POTUS time" - essentially unscheduled periods lasting hours. One particularly stark example from October 2023 showed him having just a few meetings, then 2 hours and 15 minutes of downtime, followed by a half-hour of "desk time," one meeting with his chief of staff, and then "dinner/down" at 4:30 PM.
This wasn't an anomaly but became the standard pattern. Sources indicate that Biden was effectively unavailable for presidential duties outside a narrow window each day. Multiple cabinet secretaries expressed concerns about his ability to handle a crisis call at 2 AM, with one stating flatly that "Biden was not capable of that in 2024."
The scheduling constraints had real policy implications. At international summits, Biden would participate as little as possible and typically skip evening dinners, sending Secretary of State Anthony Blinken instead. This pattern of avoidance became so pronounced that foreign leaders and their staff began to notice.
The Robert Hur Controversy and Media Complicity
Special Counsel Robert Hur's characterization of Biden as "a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory" triggered a coordinated attack campaign that exemplified the broader cover-up strategy. Hur, described by the authors as a serious civil servant who took the job believing in the Justice Department's mission, was shocked by what he encountered during his investigation.
The audio tapes revealed Biden in 2017 struggling with basic recall and displaying signs of cognitive difficulty years before his presidency. More disturbing were Hur's direct interactions with Biden in October 2023, where the president appeared similar to his disastrous debate performance - meandering, losing his train of thought, and displaying severe memory gaps, including confusion about when his son Bo died.
Rather than address these legitimate concerns, the White House launched a systematic smear campaign against Hur. Vice President Harris attacked him publicly, and media figures dismissed his observations as partisan editorializing. The strategy worked temporarily, but at the cost of suppressing legitimate scrutiny of the president's fitness for office.
The "Cheap Fakes" Deception
One of the most cynical aspects of the cover-up involved the "cheap fakes" narrative. The White House successfully convinced major news organizations to dismiss legitimate video evidence of Biden's struggles as deceptively edited content. The term itself was created as a play on "deepfakes," suggesting technological manipulation where none existed.
The strategy exploited minor editing decisions to discredit entirely valid concerns. For example, when Biden froze in place during a Normandy anniversary event, the clip showed him appearing confused and immobile. The White House argued this was misleading because it didn't show him eventually sitting down, but this explanation ignored the obvious fact that a functioning president shouldn't freeze in place regardless of the eventual outcome.
Similarly, when Biden wandered away from other leaders at the G7 summit in Italy, the White House claimed this was misrepresented because he was walking toward paratroopers. Again, this missed the point entirely - the concerning behavior was his wandering away and needing to be redirected by other leaders, regardless of his destination.
Media organizations bought into this framing, with major outlets running stories about "cheap fakes" that effectively discouraged further scrutiny of Biden's condition. White House sources later admitted to the authors that they "could not believe" they successfully placed these stories.
Family Dynamics and Hunter's Role
The book reveals Hunter Biden's crucial role in encouraging his father's re-election campaign despite obvious signs of decline. Following Bo Biden's death, Hunter became the surviving son from Biden's first family, carrying the weight of redemption and family legacy. His legal troubles, particularly the collapse of his plea deal in 2023, created additional stress that coincided with Joe Biden's steepest decline.
Hunter viewed supporting his father's re-election as an opportunity to redeem himself and prove his worth to the family. However, his addiction struggles and legal problems made him an unreliable adviser. White House staff, including Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer, pushed back against Hunter's influence, particularly his desire to turn the White House into what they called "the Hunter Biden defense organization."
The family dynamics created a toxic feedback loop where those closest to Biden were least equipped to provide honest assessment of his capabilities. Jill Biden emerged as a key enforcer of the decision to run, but the authors reject simple characterizations of her as a manipulative Lady Macbeth figure, instead describing her as an enforcer of what Joe Biden himself wanted.
Policy Consequences of Presidential Incapacity
The book draws direct connections between Biden's cognitive decline and policy failures. Senator Michael Bennet, after witnessing a particularly disturbing immigration event in June 2024, concluded that the administration's border crisis resulted from Biden's inability to manage competing interests within his own White House.
Ron Klain's outsized influence as chief of staff led to policies significantly to the left of Biden's historical positions. Administration sources suggested that a younger, more engaged Biden would have been less deferential to progressive priorities. The result was a presidency that departed dramatically from the centrist platform on which Biden had campaigned.
The Afghanistan withdrawal, southern border crisis, and inflation all occurred during periods when Biden's capacity was clearly diminished. While the book doesn't definitively attribute these failures solely to his cognitive state, it raises serious questions about decision-making processes during critical moments.
Media Failure and Institutional Cowardice
Perhaps the most damning aspect of the entire episode was the systematic failure of American media institutions to report obvious truths. Reporters who attempted to cover Biden's condition faced coordinated intimidation campaigns from the White House and ostracism from colleagues.
The Wall Street Journal's Siobhan Hughes and Annie Linskey faced particularly vicious attacks after their reporting on Biden's struggles. Other reporters received similar stories but were successfully intimidated into silence by White House officials who threatened to go on record calling them liars.
The incentive structure in Washington journalism created an environment where truth-telling carried professional costs that most reporters weren't willing to bear. Access journalism, where maintaining relationships with sources trumps reporting uncomfortable facts, enabled the cover-up at every level.
The Debate That Ended It All
Jake Tapper's firsthand account of moderating the June 2024 debate provides the most vivid illustration of Biden's condition. Tapper describes the experience as "worse in person than it was on TV," with the "sadness and patheticness" immediately apparent to anyone present.
Biden's team initially refused to do the standard walkthrough, claiming he didn't need it after doing "a million of these." This arrogance reflected their belief that simply getting Biden on stage next to Trump would be sufficient "proof of life" to reassure voters. The strategy backfired catastrophically when Biden couldn't complete basic answers on topics like the economy and abortion rights - issues that should have been home runs for any Democratic candidate.
The aftermath involved weeks of additional spin attempting to explain away what millions of Americans had witnessed. Focus groups that supposedly showed the debate was "a wash" were actually composed of Biden voters who needed to be won back, not undecided voters. The dishonesty continued even as the evidence became overwhelming.
The Cancer Revelation and Ongoing Questions
The timing of Biden's prostate cancer announcement, coming just days before the book's publication, raised additional questions about transparency during his presidency. Medical experts noted that Stage 4 prostate cancer couldn't have developed in the few months since Trump's election, suggesting it had been present for years during Biden's term.
The revelation highlighted the broader problem of presidential health transparency. The American people remain dependent on the honor system for crucial information about their leaders' medical conditions. Whether Biden had received PSA tests, standard screening for men his age, remains unclear despite the obvious importance of such information.
Institutional Damage and Democratic Accountability
The Biden cover-up represents a fundamental failure of democratic accountability. Voters were systematically deceived about the cognitive capacity of their president by the very institutions meant to inform them. The deception involved not just political operatives but extended to media figures, Democratic donors, and party leaders who all knew the truth but chose silence over transparency.
The long-term damage to institutional credibility may prove more significant than any immediate political consequences. Americans already struggling with declining trust in media and political institutions now have clear evidence that their suspicions were justified. The "unsayable" truth that Biden was unfit for office was apparent to millions of ordinary citizens who were dismissed as conspiracy theorists.
Common Questions
Q: When did Biden's cognitive decline actually begin according to the reporting?
A: The decline started in 2015 after his son Bo's death, with noticeable deterioration by 2017-2018 and significant worsening in late 2023.
Q: Who was really running the government during Biden's presidency?
A: A group called the "Pilot Bureau" including Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Anita Dunn, and key Jill Biden staff members effectively controlled government operations.
Q: Why didn't cabinet members speak out about Biden's condition?
A: Loyalty was the defining virtue in Biden world, with dissent treated as disloyalty resulting in exclusion from the inner circle.
Q: How did the media fail to report this story earlier?
A: Reporters faced intimidation campaigns, loss of access, and professional ostracism for pursuing the story, while editors dismissed concerns as partisan attacks.
Q: What role did Hunter Biden play in his father's re-election decision?
A: Hunter strongly encouraged his father to run again, viewing it as an opportunity for personal redemption and to prove his worth to the family.
The Biden presidency reveals how easily democratic institutions can be subverted when elite consensus prioritizes political outcomes over democratic accountability. The cover-up succeeded for years because everyone with power to expose it had incentives to remain silent, leaving ordinary Americans to rely on their own eyes rather than institutional gatekeepers.
