CNN anchor Jake Tapper appeared today on The Megyn Kelly Show in a candid and, at times, confrontational interview where he acknowledged key failures in his coverage of former President Joe Biden‘s health.
Joined by Axios reporter Alex Thompson to promote their new book Original Sin, Tapper directly addressed criticisms from the former Fox News host on her Sirius XM show. Tapper admitted that he and others in the press ignored visible signs of Biden’s decline.
Why It Matters
Published on Tuesday, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again alleges that Biden’s inner circle, including his family and top aides, orchestrated a comprehensive effort to obscure the president’s deteriorating condition from the public, donors and even members of his own cabinet.
The Democrats‘ loss in 2024 has been partly blamed on Biden’s decision to seek re-election, despite widespread concerns about his age and health. He ultimately dropped out in July last summer, leaving the party scrambling to rally behind former Vice President Kamala Harris as the new candidate.
On Sunday, Biden said he had aggressive prostate cancer that had spread to his bones. The news fueled concerns about a possible cover-up—claims his aides still deny.
What To Know
The exchange between the writers and Kelly quickly took a personal turn when the conservative commentator pressed Tapper with pointed questions about his past reporting on the former president’s cognitive health.
“As you know, this book involves a cover-up,” Megyn Kelly began. “Jake, the criticism has been that you’re complaining about a cover-up of Joe Biden’s mental acuity—something that right-wing pundits, the right wing in general, and independent media all saw and reported on. It wasn’t a mystery, even to left-wing reporters. They weren’t fools, but they chose blindness over honest reporting.”
“It’s a tough and fair question,” Tapper replied. “Alex and I, after Election Day, interviewed more than 200 people—insiders—and all of these interviews were conducted after the election. They justified what they had done, particularly how they misrepresented the president’s condition—not just to me, but to each other—by saying that Donald Trump was an existential threat, and only Joe Biden could defeat him. That, in their minds, justified everything.”
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“Once the existential threat had passed, they were remarkably open in talking to us about what they had seen,” he continued.
Kelly then turned to Tapper’s personal role in covering the Biden presidency. “Knowing what I know now, obviously, I feel tremendous humility about my coverage,” Tapper said. “That Lara Trump interview—she saw something that I did not see at the time, 100 percent. And I own that. I did ask Joe Biden to be transparent about his health records in an interview in 2020.”
“But then he wasn’t,” Kelly said.
“No, he wasn’t transparent at all,” Tapper responded.
Kelly kept up the pressure: “He promised you that he would be transparent about his health records, and then he wasn’t. When you sat down with him again, about a month after the Jackie Walorski incident, you didn’t ask him about it. You didn’t follow up. He was falling on the stairs, losing his train of thought regularly, slurring, incomprehensible at times. You sat across from him and didn’t ask him about any of that.”
Kelly was referencing Biden’s September 2022 appearance at a White House conference on hunger and nutrition, where he publicly asked, “Where’s Jackie?” while looking for Indiana congresswoman Jackie Walorski—who had died in a car crash weeks earlier and had been honored with a video tribute moments before. Biden had previously issued a statement of condolence and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in her memory.
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“That’s true,” Tapper acknowledged. “But I did ask him about his age, and the fact that the American people had concluded—even though he would say, ‘Whenever they bring up my age, just watch me!’—I said to him, ‘They are watching you.'”
“But you know as well as I do that there’s a way to press on that,” Kelly said. “You could have said, ‘Hey, there’s this poll about your age,’ or ‘You just forgot that Jackie Walorski was dead—you asked where she was moments after watching a video tribute to her. You lowered the White House flags after she died. This happened just 13 days before you sat with him.’ There’s a way to press a man like that—and you didn’t do it.”
“That’s correct. I didn’t,” Tapper said. “And I feel a sense of humility about my coverage. It’s not that I was asking about his favorite movie or color—we were talking about Putin, we were talking about other issues. But of course, I look back on my coverage with humility. I wish I had covered the issues of age and mental acuity more. Do I wish that in that 15-minute interview with Biden in October 2022, this was the only subject? Yes—knowing what I know now in May 2025.”
Kelly continued the exchange by restating a theme that echoed throughout the interview: “But these issues were not pressed. You covered the Biden presidency aggressively throughout the four years, but you barely covered his mental acuity. Time and time again, when issues came up, you seemed to be running cover for the president. You didn’t seem interested.”
What People Are Saying
Jake Tapper, CNN anchor and co-writer of Original Sin, in a statement announcing his new book: “Toni Morrison once said ‘If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.’ That’s what inspired this book: we wanted to know more about what we all just lived through. More than 200 interviews later, Alex and I have a much better idea. And soon you all will too.”
David Axelrod, the longtime Obama strategist, said in a recent NPR interview: “Anybody closely aligned with the Biden decision-making structure in 2024 will be asked to explain how we got here.”
What Happens Next
Tapper and Thompson’s book is currently at the top of Amazon‘s bestseller list.