CNN ‘s Jake Tapper admitted that the cover-up of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline in the White House may have been ‘worse than Watergate.’ Tapper compared Biden’s White House deception to President Richard Nixon and one of the greatest scandals in political history during an interview with Piers Morgan about his campaign tell-all Original Sin. ‘This is an entirely separate scandal. Maybe even worse … maybe even worse,’ Tapper ultimately admitted. ‘It is without question – and maybe even worse than Watergate in some ways because Richard Nixon was in control of his faculties when he was not drinking.’

Tapper’s new book delves into the elaborate and painstaking efforts taken by Biden’s inner circle to hide the true extent of the his health problems. Morgan challenged Tapper by asking him to justify his written conclusion that the ‘hiding and cover-up of his deterioration is not Watergate.’ That’s when the CNN anchor actually admitted that he got it wrong. In fact, he told Morgan it ‘may be worse’ than the 1972 scandal, in which the Nixon administration attempted to cover up a burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Nixon was forced to resign and ‘Watergate’ is now synonymous with political corruption, becoming somewhat of a benchmark through which subsequent administrations are judged.

Tapper went on to try to clarify the quote Morgan referenced in the book, which concluded: ‘Joe Biden is not Richard Nixon (pictured), and the hiding and cover-up of his deterioration is not Watergate.’ Morgan had argued: ‘I am not entirely sure I agree, Jake, with that conclusion.’ But Tapper said the only reason they included the caveat in the book was because they had spoken with a Watergate investigator who discussed ‘how powerful the presidency is and how presidents get surrounded by people who have a vested interest in keeping that president propped up.’ Tapper in particular has faced enormous backlash for his reporting in the book, with critics arguing he was part of the so-called ‘cover-up’ he is now trying to expose. But he maintains he trusted Biden and his aides and took them at their word when they assured him that all was well. Tapper in particular has faced enormous backlash for his reporting in the book, with critics arguing he was part of the so-called ‘cover-up’ he is now trying to expose. The turning point for him was the disastrous debate between Biden and Trump in June 2024, which he and fellow CNN star Dana Bash moderated.

The duo had iPads which they used to communicate with their production team throughout the debate. Early on, Tapper sent a message to his crew backstage. He didn’t know which staff were working, so he ‘tried to keep it clean.’ ‘I wrote ‘holy smokes,’ he told Megyn Kelly. ‘I wanted to write ‘holy [expletive].’ Around the same time, Bash slid him a piece of paper, with her own message on it. It read: ‘He just lost the election.’ Kelly was among the leading voices critical of Tapper’s rol e in the cover-up, telling him: ‘There is a way of pressing a man like that on the actual infirmities to bring it home to him and to the audience and you didn’t do it.’ After further criticism of a now-infamous 2020 exchange between Tapper and Lara Trump, during which Tapper shamed her for mentioning Biden’s ‘cognitive decline’, Tapper accepted fault for his past reporting. ‘Knowing what I know now, obviously I feel tremendous humility about my coverage,’ Tapper told Kelly, while also admitting that ‘conservative media was correct’ in how it handled the story. ‘There should be a lot of soul-searching not just among me but among the legacy media to begin with – all of us – for how this was covered or not covered sufficiently,’ he said. ‘I wish I could do differently.’

Following the car-crash debate, Biden ultimately dropped out of the race and endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. But his antics following that decision continued to infuriate both Harris and fellow Democrats. During a 9/11 commemoration event, he was pictured wearing a MAGA hat at the behest of a member of the crowd, jovially signing the cap and laughing with his audience. Then, whispers from his camp revealed he genuinely believed he could have defeated Trump. ‘What is he doing?’ Harris asked her team, according to the book. ‘This is completely unhelpful. And so unnecessary.’ In October, Biden told supporters ‘we got to lock him up,’ when talking about former President Donald Trump, at a time when Trump and his supporters were accusing Biden and Harris of ‘lawfare’ to remove him from the presidential race.

Later that month, Biden also referred to President Trump’s supporters as ‘garbage,’ which the campaign famously branded as an insult to working class Americans. While the book is brimming with startling revelations, the authors have been on a PR blitz trying to legitimize it amid concerns that they failed to report the truth whilst it was happening. Tapper even enlisted the expertise of crisis PR maven Risa Heller, who has represented the likes of convicted Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes and Hollywood predator Harvey Weinstein. He said the PR guru has helped him with ‘advice’ as they make the book’s ‘rollout as smart as possible.’ On Sunday, Thompson was asked by Fox News host Shannon Bream about an anecdote referenced in the book about advisors justifying ‘undemocratic’ actions in an effort to prevent Donald Trump from returning to the White House. Reading aloud from the book, Bream quoted an unnamed aide as saying: ‘[Biden] just had to win, and then he could disappear for four years. ‘He’d only have to show proof of life every once in a while… His aides could pick up the slack.’

Thompson revealed that the source ‘went on to say that, when you’re voting for a president, you’re voting for the aides around him.’ ‘These aides were not even Senate-confirmed aides,’ he said. ‘These are White House aides, these were unelected people. ‘And one of the things that really I think comes out in our reporting here is that if you believe – and I think a lot of these people do sincerely believe that Donald Trump was and is an existential threat to democracy – you can rationalize anything. ‘Including sometimes doing undemocratic things, which I think is what this person is talking about.’ And that revelation came on the back of a startling claim that a trio of senior political veterans who had known Biden for decades worked closely with his wife, Dr Jill Biden, and occasionally his troubled son, Hunter, to run the show. Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed were the core three decision-makers, the book claims, adding that former senior advisor to the president Annie Tomasini and former White House chief of staff Ron Klain were also ‘at times’ part of the group. ‘Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board,’ one source told the authors. ‘In practice, Bruce Reed was the real domestic policy adviser, Mike Donilon was the actual political director, Steve Ricchetti controlled Legislative Affairs, and Klain controlled a bit of everything.’

According to the book, both Jill and Hunter Biden were prominent and permanent fixtures within Biden’s circle of trust. This is despite aides and insiders partially blaming Hunter for the president’s rapid deterioration. ‘To understand Joe Biden’s deterioration, top aides told us, one has to know Hunter’s struggles,’ the book stated. While promoting his book, Tapper was asked about Hunter’s role in the administration and influence over his father. Fueled by information garnered through interviews with more than 200 people for the book, Tapper answered: ‘I think Hunter was driving the decision-making for the family in a way that people – he was almost like a chief of staff of the family. It’s bizarre because I think he is provably demonstrably unethical, sleazy, and prone to horrible decisions,’ Tapper added. ‘After his brother died, he cheated on his wife with his brother’s widow and then got her addicted to crack.’ The recent revelation that Biden has been diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer also sparked rampant conspiracy theories about whether medical professionals were aware of his illness while he was president. Biden’s team have maintained he was not tested for prostate cancer while he was president, and that the diagnosis is recent.

That reassurance has not stopped MAGA loyalists from demanding his long-term physician Kevin O’Connor be subpoenaed to answer questions about Biden’s health. O’Connor repeatedly assured the American public during Biden’s term that he was healthy and could have served another four years. Simultaneously, several of Biden’s closest aides are facing pressure to reveal how much control they had over his autopen after Trump raised questions about who was really in charge during the Biden administration. According to the 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.

Even still, insiders maintained they were not aware of how dire the situation had become until it was too late, despite Biden’s repeated gaffes and tumbles on the public stage. One of the most shocking incidents took place in September 2022 incident 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 standout moment for Tapper was when Biden did not recognize actor George Clooney at a 2024 fundraising event, along with the revelation that White House aides were considering placing the president in a wheelchair if he were reelected.