Tapper & Thompson On The Biden Cover-up
The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
4.6 • 836 Ratings
🗓️ 30 May 2025
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jake Tapper is the lead DC anchor and chief Washington correspondent for CNN, whose books include The Outpost, The Hellfire Club, and The Devil May Dance. Alex Thompson is a national political correspondent for Axios and a political analyst for CNN. They just published Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.
For two clips of our convo — on the deep dysfunction of the Biden family, and the blame Jill deserves for concealing Joe’s decline — head to our YouTube page.
Other topics: Alex leaving the Mormon Church after his dad’s ex-communication and a loss of faith; the cult-like loyalty of Biden’s aides; hiding Beau’s cancer; Hunter’s profound addiction; dating Beau’s widow and getting her on crack too; his emotional blackmailing of Joe; his influence peddling; his infamous laptop; Ashley Biden’s rehab and relapse; the Kennedys; the Bidens’ rift with the Obamas; Joe’s bitterness over Barack backing Hillary in 2016; the first signs of cognitive decline; the Covid election and razor-thin victory; his moderate campaign followed by a radical left agenda in office; Ron Klain’s woke influence; Mike Donilon’s greed and propaganda; “Jim Crow 2.0”; Joe preoccupied with foreign policy; inflation and Larry Summers; Jill addicted to the glamor of the White House; their disowning of a granddaughter born out of wedlock; Joe’s hubris and selfishness to run again; his delusions over polling; his disastrous debate; sticking with Kamala and sticking it to the Dems; the pillorying of Robert Hur; the media’s complicity in hiding Joe’s decline; the dissent of George Clooney, Ari Emanuel, and Dean Phillips; and the Bidens paving the way for Trump 2.0.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Chris Matthews — who just revived “Hardball” on Substack, Robert Merry on President McKinley, Tara Zahra on the revolt against globalization after WWI, Walter Isaacson on Ben Franklin, Arthur C. Brooks on the science of happiness, Paul Elie on crypto-religion in ‘80s pop culture, and Johann Hari coming back to kibbitz for his fourth appearance on the pod. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Hi there. Welcome to the first dishcast coming at you. |
| 0:34.7 | Now the second dishcast coming at you. |
| 0:41.3 | God, it's amazing what weed will do to your short-term memory from Provincetown, a Massachusetts where I finally got here. It was unbelievably bad weather |
| 0:47.5 | last week. It was actually, I'm not joking, feels like temperature of 22 degrees in the middle of last week. That was in May. |
| 0:56.5 | But anyway, now it's lovely and I'm happy. And Truman, more importantly, is incredibly happy. |
| 1:03.6 | And we have some wonderful guests coming up. We have Walter Isaacson who's coming on to talk about Ben Franklin, just for the hell of it. |
| 1:11.7 | We needed some shering up. I wanted to think about some great Americans as we go through this period in our |
| 1:16.6 | country's history. Robert Mary is going to come on to talk about President McKinley, the last |
| 1:21.7 | great tariff president, the person whom Carl Rove lionizes and whom the current president has equated himself to, although |
| 1:30.3 | whether he knows anything about President McKinley is to be determined. Tarazara is coming on |
| 1:36.6 | to talk about the last revolt against globalization, which happened between the two world wars. |
| 1:44.0 | N.S. Lyons is coming on to talk about whatever he wants to. |
| 1:48.0 | Arthur Brooks on the Science of Happiness, Paul Eli, |
| 1:51.4 | on crypto-religion in 80s pop culture. |
| 1:54.4 | Yes, we're going to talk you to. |
| 1:56.2 | Shadenaed O'Connor, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, |
| 1:59.3 | and the way in which, and Martin Scorsese, the way in which |
| 2:03.9 | religion began to pop itself into the culture in the 80s and created some of the cultural |
| 2:09.9 | wars that we currently live with. |
| 2:12.0 | But today, something a little bit more newsy, a little bit more of the moment, as it were. |
| 2:18.6 | We're going to be talking about this new book, Original Sin. |
| 2:24.0 | President Biden's decline, its cover-up, and his disastrous choice to run again. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Andrew Sullivan, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Andrew Sullivan and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.