Everybody welcome in. Mark Halpern here. Thank you for being part of Next Up. We're going to find out what's next up today. Talk to Colorado Senator Michael Bennett. Next up for him, he's running for governor. We'll talk to him about what he thinks about the popularity of

AOC and of Donald Trump and of Kamala Harris. We're also going to talk to Rich Larry of the

National Review about everything going on in the news with President Trump, the Democrats, and

everything else. But first up here and next up for us is my hope that my people in my profession in the media can do a better job.

The credibility of the media is vital to our country.

And today we're going to look at a case study, an example of an area that's, I think, indicative of where we are.

It's a new book, Original Sin, and it's a book by two journalists. One is a guy

named Alex Thompson, who was one of the most energetic and aggressive reporters in covering

Joe Biden's mental decline. And the other author is a guy named Jake Capper, who's an anchor at CNN.

And what I want to do today is to explain to you why this book represents a crisis and maybe,

maybe an opportunity for the American media to regain credibility with the public.

This goes back to the question of Joe Biden's mental decline. And I continue to laugh when I hear

people say, we didn't know. And it was, we only had a hint of it or we saw it in the

debate, but not before. That's something reporters sometimes say and a lot of Democratic officials

say. It's a, it's a farce. So I've covered Joe Biden and know Joe Biden for pretty much my whole

career. And in 2017, just after he left the white house, he had a book out and he was on a book

tour. And I saw him do a book event, very friendly interviewer, big crowd. And he was a train wreck.

He was glassy-eyed. He had trouble following the conversation. He talked to tauntingly. Again, this is

2017, long before he ran for president in 2020.

And I said after the event, thank goodness Joe Biden's out of office. Thank goodness he's no longer

going to be in public life. And how could his family and his advisors possibly let him go on a book tour

when he was in no position to be on a public stage,

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