A recent preview of a book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson reveals that former President Biden had a crucial cabinet member join him later in his administration.
During an episode of CNN’s “The Lead,” Tapper discussed new insights from his book. He shared that conversations with three unnamed cabinet secretaries revealed that “in 2023 and 2024, Biden’s closest advisors protected the president from himself.”
According to Tapper, the Cabinet Secretary stopped providing direct updates to Biden himself. Instead, information was relayed to senior aides in the White House.
The book notes that during cabinet meetings, the atmosphere was often one of confusion regarding the president’s understanding of the topics discussed.
One Cabinet Secretary remarked, “I lost quite a bit of access in 2024, so I didn’t have much interaction with him,” reflecting on their experiences in the book.
Another cabinet member suggested that this approach was a “deliberate strategy” to limit the president’s interactions.
“For months, we had little access to him. The White House’s strategy clearly aimed to restrict his meetings to just a few key individuals,” the secretary explained to the author.
This same individual indicated that aside from a couple of exceptions, such as former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, cabinet members were largely kept at a distance since October 2023, particularly concerning national security matters.
The book titled “The Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Concealment, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” is set to be released on May 20th and is primarily based on over 200 interviews with Democratic insiders after the 2024 election.
A spokesperson for Biden criticized the book in a statement to CNN, saying that they await evidence showing that the president was unable to fulfill his responsibilities or that national security was compromised. The statement further emphasized that evidence actually demonstrates Biden was an effective leader.
