This is Jake Tapper and The New Yorker we're talking about, but if half of this report is true, then holy moly.
On Tuesday, The New Yorker published an excerpt from the CNN host's new book, and it's a doozy.
Here's the part where Joe Biden didn't remember mega-famous actor George Clooney, a man he'd met numerous times before.
I remember being told that I was a domestic extremist who peddles in harmful disinformation if I suggested that a dementia patient was running the country.
More:
By the time the 2024 Presidential race had begun, the actor had known Biden for decades and had known him well for fifteen years. He had last seen Biden on December 4, 2022, when Clooney was in D.C. with his wife, Amal, to be celebrated at the Kennedy Center Honors. Biden looked older, sure, but in the East Room of the White House, at the reception for the honorees, the President was playful and seemed cogent enough.
And yet, by 2024, Biden failed to recognize one of the most famous people on the planet, despite personally "knowing him well" for a decade and a half.
This was the President of the United States?
Me, who spent 4 years systematically reporting on the obviously visible decline of our commander-in-chief:
The problem wasn't limited to Clooney.
Clooney was certainly not the only one concerned. Other high-dollar attendees who posed for photographs with Obama and Biden described Biden as slow and almost catatonic. Though they saw pockets of clarity while watching him on television, and onstage later that night, there were obvious brain freezes and clear signs of a mental slide. It was, to some of them, terrifying.
The scary thing is that the Biden campaign only came crashing down when these high-end donors saw the truth for themselves.
All of them had been perfectly content up until that moment to accept what the TV people were telling them.
I also notice that none of them said anything after that fundraiser. Even though Clooney penned an op-ed calling for Biden to step down, they waited until it was politically expedient in the following weeks/months (in the case of this article, almost a year later).
Obama, meanwhile, was apparently confused about his old pal (if you believe Obama didn't know what was going on, I can't help you).
Obama didn't know what to make of how his former running mate was acting. At one point, in a small group of a few dozen top donors, Biden began speaking — barely audibly — and trailed off incoherently. Obama had to jump in and preside. At other moments, during photos, Obama would hop in and finish sentences for him.
Remember when Biden froze and Obama led him off the stage?
No one has been penalized or charged with dereliction of duty over this matter.
In fact, Joe's wife Jill stepped up to take official roles in meetings, despite not being elected to any office herself, and continually led her husband around by the hand.
Then there's Kamala Harris and the Cabinet - those who could invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Biden. They allowed him to stay in the most powerful political office on the planet while he continued to decline, all the while using him to sign hundreds of documents using autopen, like spoiled kids writing checks for themselves on behalf of their dying, unconscious dad.
Maybe the American people should have some answers for that.
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