Book deals for those who hid Biden’s decline

The parade of books about the behind-the-scenes palace intrigue of Joe Biden’s cognitive and physical decline is in full-swing. And most are being written by journalists from the very news outlets who helped cover it all up – or at least didn’t go out of their way to question Biden’s obvious decline before the June 27 debate made it impossible for them to do so.

Excerpts of a new book by the Hill correspondent Amie Barnes and NBC political reporter Jonathan Allen were released this week. The upcoming tell-all titled Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House has further details about Biden missing briefings after sitting through cosmetic make-up sessions to Michael-Jacksonize his appearance. This all happened prior to Biden’s disastrous debate performance – yet we’re just learning about these things now.

The flagship show on Allen’s sister network Morning Joe rarely reported on or raised concerns about Biden’s age, as Allen reveals in his book. Going as far back as 2023, Democratic Party officials smeared anyone who floated the idea that Joe Biden would drop out as a “conspiracy theorist,” while privately making arrangements for Vice President Kamala Harris, should Joe Biden become incapacitated or die prior to the election. At a post-debate fundraiser, Biden needed fluorescent tape on the floor to help guide him around the home of the New Jersey Governor. That seems like pretty important information the voting public should have been told at the time, not when journalists who looked the other way want to cash in on lucrative book deals.

A project announced last month – Original Sin by Axios’s Alex Thompson and CNN’s Jake Tapper – also drew well-deserved scorn. Thompson, to his credit, was reporting on concerns about Biden as early as December 2023; however, he had little to say about several incidents where the President clearly was not all there, including at the G7 Summit and visit to Normandy where eyewitnesses described Biden as “catatonic.” Also passed up was Biden freezing on stage at the infamous Barack Obama/George Clooney rally, where the media collectively called footage of Biden a “cheap fake” and out of context. Jake Tapper is the worse offender: several times throughout Biden’s presidency he wrote off incidents of Biden’s impaired speaking as just a stutter.

Another book being released by author and journalist Chris Whipple, titled Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History, has private details from former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, who reportedly said Biden could not make it through an entire mock debate and would retire to his poolside. While in private, Klain was shocked at Biden’s condition, he was simultaneously telling the public that Biden was fit for another four years.

This information is all well and good – but a simple question should be posed. Where are the apologies to those who used their eyes and ears to observe Joe Biden’s decline and were labeled “cheap-fake artists” and conspiracy theorists for talking about it contemporaneously? Where are the book deals for journalists at the Wall Street Journal who reported on Biden forgetting names and faces behind the scenes? Columnist Karol Markowicz wrote in April 2022 at the New York Post, “Biden’s decline is obvious to everyone but the press.” Where is her book deal and Morning Joe media tour?

Journalists who chose to look the other way in service of making sure Donald Trump did not return to the White House do not deserve to be financially rewarded for revealing all the sordid details of Biden’s decline, if they deceived the American public and participated in a massive scandal and cover-up at the time. They should not be writing books. They should be apologizing to the rest of us.