Jake Tapper’s original sin may have been the decision to co-author a book.
The CNN anchor’s expose, titled ‘Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,’ claims to reveal an alleged effort by the White House to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline from the American public.
Although the book (set to release on Tuesday, May 20) is receiving early reviews, these are being overshadowed by accusations that Tapper himself may have been involved in the very ‘cover-up’ he aims to uncover.
‘Tapper was among those defending Biden in the media, so for him to now criticize the media for not covering the story adequately is ironic, as he’s essentially addressing himself,’ said Fox News contributor Joe Concha to the Daily Mail.
Then, Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he has been diagnosed with ‘aggressive’ prostate cancer has added a new layer of complexity to the rollout of Tapper’s book, co-written with Axios correspondent Alex Thompson.
On Monday, oncologist and major Democratic supporter Dr. Zeke Emanuel, also known as the architect of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, said that he suspects Biden had cancer as far back at 2021.
It all raises the question: did the mainstream news media – of which Tapper is a prominent member – fumble their reporting on the president alleged cognitive decline as well as his worsening physical health?
Media critics tell the Daily Mail that ‘Original Sin’ may mark a devastating blow to press credibility and, specifically, the reputation of it’s co-author, even as Tapper has hired a well-known public relations firm that specializes in ‘crisis and reputation management,’ with specific attention to ‘navigating complicated issues that risk long-term reputational harm.’
Jake Tapper’s (pictured) new book claims to blow the lid off an alleged White House campaign to hid Biden’s cognitive decline from the American people
However, early reviews have been overshadowed by allegations that Tapper was complicit in the very ‘cover-up’ that he purports to expose
While it may be standard practice to hire a communications consultant for a book launch, Tapper has enlisted the expertise of crisis PR maven Risa Heller, who has represented the likes of convicted Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, Hollywood sex predator Harvey Weinstein and disgraced CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
Tapper confirmed hiring Heller, saying she’s helping him with ‘advice’ as they make the book’s ‘rollout as smart as possible.’
‘It seems like the criticism is unrelenting. Why else do you have to hire a PR firm like this?’ Concha asked. ‘That’s a big problem.’
And this week, after several days of criticism directed at Tapper, even he acknowledged that his hands are not completely clean.
‘I think some of the criticism is fair, to be honest, of me,’ he told CNN colleague John Berman on Wednesday. ‘Certainly, I’m not going to speak for anybody else, but knowing then what I know now, I look back at my coverage during the Biden years and I did cover some of these issues, but not enough. I look back on it with humility.’
Will Tapper’s belated mea culpa be enough? Only time will tell.
According to the Tapper/Thompson book, which is based on hundreds of interviews, ‘access’ to Biden diminished significantly during his White House term, as his staff allegedly walled him off, even from cabinet members.
One cabinet secretary told the authors that he didn’t brief the president directly in 2024 but only spoke to the president’s aides.
‘Yes, the president is ‘making the decisions’ but if the inner circle is shaping them in such a way, is it really a decision? Are they leading him to something?’ the unnamed cabinet member mused in the book.
The authors also report that Biden did not recognize actor George Clooney at a 2024 fundraising event, and White House aides were considering placing the president in a wheelchair if he were reelected.
Of course, these damning revelations are only coming out in the mainstream press after Biden dropped out of the presidential race in July 2024, vacated the White House after Donald Trump’s electoral victory – and as the Democratic party hopes to move on from Biden’s troubled leadership.
The book’s timing is ‘suspicious,’ Tim Graham, the executive editor of NewsBusters and the Director of Media Analysis of the Media Research Center, told the Daily Mail.
‘They’re pretending that this is a great, courageous story that they’re telling, but they’re leaving out the part that they didn’t tell it when it was inconvenient,’ he said.
Alex Thompson was among the first, and indeed, one of the only Washington reporters to dig deeply into suspicions of Biden’s decline – but Tapper certainly was not. As a result, Tapper has been labeled a ‘shameless hypocrite’ by critics online and accused of attempting to ‘rewrite history.’
Concha argued that a look back at Tapper’s track record suggests he knowingly ‘withheld’ the truth in order to make a quick buck.
During an October 2020 CNN interview, Trump campaign advisor Lara Trump noted how Biden stumbled over his words on the campaign trail and Tapper accused her of ‘mocking’ the president’s stutter.
‘How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that?’ Tapper asked her.
In 2023, Tapper applauded Biden as mentally ‘sharp,’ and the following year, he dismissed a Wall Street Journal report on the president’s mental acuity as being ‘mostly based on observations of Republicans.’
Tapper has enlisted the expertise of crisis PR maven Risa Heller (pictured), who has represented the likes of Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes and Harvey Weinstein
One cabinet secretary told Tapper that he didn’t brief the president directly in 2024 but only spoke to the president’s aides
At the time, he invited Biden ally, Delaware Senator Chris Coons to refute the report, which alleged that Biden was showing ‘signs of slipping.’
Then, just this week, Tapper hosted those same two Wall Street Journal reporters (who also happen to be featured in ‘Original Sin’) on CNN to vindicate their work, calling them ‘heroic’ and their story ‘vital,’ and accused the Democrats of launching a ‘smear campaign’ against the journalists.
‘I don’t think people are going to look at Jake Tapper the same way again, as an objective journalist who’s there to pursue the truth and seems more to pursue the almighty dollar,’ said Concha.
What’s more, Concha says ‘Original Sin’ doesn’t go far enough in its investigative work: ‘You could have asked the questions that we were all asking… Who was running the country if Joe Biden and his mental capacities were as far gone as the book alleges?’
Major moments in the Biden administration go unexamined in the book, including a September 2022 incident when Biden called out for Republican Congresswoman Jackie Walorski at a White House event.
‘Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie,’ he said scanning the audience. ‘She was going to be here.’
Walorski had been killed in a car crash in August and Biden and the First Lady had issued a statement extended condolences to her family at the time.
Another incident that goes unexplored is the deliberative process around the decision to abruptly withdraw US forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, resulting in a chaotic evacuation from Kabul’s main airport and a terrorist attack that killed 13 US servicemembers, wounded another 45 and killed more than 170 Afghan civilians.
The release of the book on May 20 may only reinvigorate these criticisms of Tapper and his work, which may grow to be a challenge outside the control of even the most experienced crisis PR firm.
Perhaps, to manage the fallout of ‘Original Sin,’ Tapper may need to appeal to the Almighty.
