Members of former President Biden’s White House staff scripted Cabinet meetings and used multiple cameras to cover flubs he had, according to a new book obtained by The Hill.
The excerpts from “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson, reveal further steps that those around Biden took to shield the signs of his cognitive decline as his presidency and reelection bid carried on.
The book, set to be released Tuesday, also reported on a variety of struggles that Biden had, including an alleged incident in which he didn’t recognize actor George Clooney at a fundraising event despite having known him for years, and planning from staffers for Biden’s campaign and if he won reelection, including the possibility of him needing a wheelchair.
Tapper and Thompson also reported Biden increasingly relied on teleprompters and note cards even for private discussions like Cabinet meetings.
“Before these meetings, White House staff called the various departments and agencies to figure out what they were going to ask the president so that answers could be prepared. The conversations were largely scripted, even after the press had left the room,” the authors reported.
“Some Cabinet secretaries felt that, in fact, Biden relied on the cards more heavily when reporters were absent,” the book states.
Tapper and Thompson spoke to four Cabinet secretaries anonymously to allow them to be candid without fear of retribution.
“The Cabinet meetings were terrible and at times uncomfortable and they were from the beginning,” one secretary told them. “I don’t recall a great Cabinet meeting in terms of his presence. They were so scripted.”
Another secretary said they hated “the scripts.”
But the authors said that some aides argued that Cabinet meetings were always stiff and time-consuming and that Biden was more inquisitive in smaller meetings. And they weren’t too worried about his frequent use of note cards or a poor speech from time to time.
The authors report that the campaign held a staged town hall last April in a high school gym to film a commercial. It was made to appear that Biden was taking questions off the cuff, but the event was closed to reporters and the campaign was given questions in advance.
When a group would ask Biden to record a five-minute address for keynoting an event, the White House usually responded that the video would be one to two minutes, Tapper and Thompson report. But Biden still struggled with that.
“To compensate for that, aides filmed Biden with two cameras instead of one. If Biden messed up, the edit was less obvious with a jump cut,” they reported. “Other politicians use jump-cuts, but Biden aides noted to themselves how much more often they had to use them for the president.”
The book’s pending release comes in a tough series of weeks for Biden, most recently his diagnosis with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bone. The news prompted an outpouring a bipartisan support from his allies and rivals.
It also came after the release of audio from Biden’s October 2023 interview with special counsel Robert Hur in which some parts appear to show Biden struggling.
