It was around this time last year that a single debate upended the Democratic presidential

ticket and altered the course of American political history. That night revealed a version of Joe Biden that, according to journalists, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, those closest to the former president had gone to great lengths to shield from public view.

I spoke with Tapper and Thompson earlier today about the

reporting and revelations detailed in their new book, Original Sin. Jake Tapper, Alex Thompson,

welcome to the News Hour. Great to be here. So the central thesis of Original Sin is that Biden's

inner circle concealed his cognitive decline from the public, and that you say is a cover-up. That could be a loaded

phrase. But why is it the right one, Jake? Well, first of all, it was not just his inner circle.

It was also him and his family concealing this. But I think it's a fair use of the term.

We're not alleging a criminal cover-up, but we are saying that the definition

of cover-up when you're hiding something bad from people is unambiguously true, especially in

2023, 24 when they were cutting off access to President Biden from cabinet secretaries, even members of the White House staff, Democratic officials,

so as to show as little of this non-functioning Joe Biden, which was not 24-7, it was just on

occasion as possible. The Joe Biden we saw at the debate, June 27,24, that's the non-functioning Joe Biden. And the reason

so many people were shocked, even though the world had been watching him age and having moments,

is because they kept that non-functioning Joe Biden from the public as much as possible.

Is the suggestion, though, that he was no longer able to make key decisions,

that he was incapable of doing it? I think what we have is that senior members of the Democratic

Party, members of his own cabinet, senior White House officials did have those concerns.

And honestly, because they were being shielded from him, I think some of those concerned

grow. We had multiple cabinet members tell us that

in 2024, if there was that proverbial 2 a.m. phone call crisis, that they were worried,

that they didn't have full confidence that he could necessarily meet that moment.

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