THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Superbly reported . . . Reads like a Shakespearean drama on steroids." — Los Angeles Times

"Explosive." —The New York Times

"[The] most significant book to date about Biden’s cognitive decline." — The Atlantic

"Destined to stand alongside classics like Theodore White’s The Making of the President 1960 and even Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s All the President’s Men as one of the great books about American electoral politics.” — Richard Aldous, Persuasion

From two of America’s most respected journalists comes an unflinching and explosive reckoning with one of the most fateful decisions in American political history: Joe Biden’s run for reelection despite evidence of his serious decline—amid desperate efforts to hide the extent of that deterioration.

In Greek tragedy, the protagonist’s effort to avoid his fate is what seals his fate. In 2024, American politics became a Greek tragedy.

Joe Biden launched his successful 2020 bid for the White House with the stated goal of saving the nation from a second Trump presidential term. He, his family, and his senior aides were so convinced that only he could beat Trump again, they lied to themselves, allies, and the public about his condition and limitations. At his debate with Trump on June 27, 2024, the consequences of that deception were exposed to the world. It was shocking and upsetting.

Now the full, unsettling truth is being told for the first time. Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson take us behind closed doors and into private conversations between the heaviest of hitters, revealing how big the problem was and how many people knew about it. From White House staffers at the highest to lowest levels, to leaders of Congress and the Cabinet, from governors to donors and Hollywood players, the truth is finally being told. What you will learn makes President Biden’s decision to run for reelection seem shockingly narcissistic, self-delusional, and reckless—a desperate bet that went bust—and part of a larger act of extended public deception that has few precedents. The story the authors tell raises fundamental issues of accountability and responsibility that will continue for decades.

The irony is biting: In the name of defeating what they called an existential threat to democracy, Biden and his inner circle ensured it, tossing aside his implicit promise to serve for only one term, denying the existence of health issues the nation had been watching for years, dooming the Democrats to defeat. The decision to run again, the Original Sin of this president, led to a campaign of denial and gaslighting, leading directly to Donald Trump's return to power and all that has happened as a consequence. Rarely does hubris meet nemesis more explosively. Wherever you stand on the political spectrum, Original Sin is essential reading.

Authors' Note

Our only agenda is to present the disturbing reality of what happened in the White House and the Democratic presidential campaign in 2023– 2024, as told to us by approximately two hundred people, including lawmakers and White House and campaign insiders, some of whom may never acknowledge speaking to us but all of whom know the truth within these pages. Most of the information laid out in this book was shared with us after the election of 2024, when officials and aides felt considerably freer to talk. There are very few people named herein with whom we didn’t speak.

Our most important sources were Democrats inside and outside the White House who were grappling with how so many of them had been so focused on convincing voters that Donald Trump was a true existential threat to the nation that they put blinders on, participating in a charade that delivered the election directly into Trump’s hands.

Some spoke to us with regret that they hadn’t done more, or that they had waited so long to talk to the press about what was going on behind the scenes. Many were angry and felt deeply betrayed, not just by Biden but by his inner circle of advisers, his allies, and his family. They had seen bad moments behind the scenes but had been assured all was well. And then came the debate.

Readers who are convinced that Joe Biden was little more than a husk from the very beginning of his presidency, barely capable of stringing two sentences together, will not find support for that view here. Nor will this book satisfy those seeking comfort that he was, through to the end, unaddled and perfectly capable of being president twenty‑four seven; that his rumored deterioration was all right‑wing propaganda. This is also false. As Biden’s presidency ended, it was difficult to find many top Democrats outside his immediate circle of family and closest aides who thought he could ably serve a second four‑year term.

This book is not an exoneration of the candidacy or presidencies of Biden’s opponent, Donald Trump. Journalism about Biden does not excuse or normalize any actions and statements by anyone else, in‑ cluding the forty‑fifth and now forty‑seventh president. Indeed, for those who tried to justify the behavior described here because of the threat of a second Trump term, those fears should have shocked them into reality, not away from it.

The lessons from this book go beyond one man and one political party. They speak to more universal questions about cognitive disso‑ nance, groupthink, courage, cowardice, and patriotism.

George Orwell once wrote that “we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”

He was writing about World War II, but he could have been writing about any time, any era. “The Germans and the Japanese lost the war quite largely because their rulers were unable to see facts which were plain to any dispassionate eye,” Orwell went on. “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

Here is what was in front of our noses.

—Jake and Alex

“A damning, step-by-step account of how the people closest to a stubborn, aging president enabled his quixotic resolve to run for a second term.” —The New York Times

“Original Sin is not really a 'campaign book'—its account of the 2024 election largely ends after Biden drops out—but its simple assessment of the race is more compelling than anything else I’ve read about it . . . Original Sin is rarely better than when Tapper and Thompson are writing—with extensive reporting and clear-eyed prose—about the disaster that Biden caused . . . Over the next year, dozens of books will appear that attempt to explain this election. It’s hard to imagine any doing better than that.” —The Washington Post

“A reconstruction of what Democrats should have known and when they should have known it.” —Ezra Klein, The Ezra Klein Show

“Explosive . . . Tapper and Thompson have done the [Democratic] party a favor. Some sort of reckoning is due for the disastrous missteps that that paved the way for Trump’s return.” — Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times

"The big political book of the moment . . . The power of Original Sin is its relentless marshaling of such insider scenes — the admissions, regrets and recriminations within the White House and the campaign — as the president continued to falter." — Carlos Lozada, The New York Times

“[The] most significant book to date about Biden’s cognitive decline, which was written by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson and draws on hundreds of interviews . . . To their credit, they do little editorializing. The book is written not unlike an autopsy report, describing a gruesome political car crash in dispassionate, clinical detail.” —The Atlantic

“A devastating account of Biden’s decline and the extent of the White House cover-up . . . I’m convinced that deep institutional soul-searching is due in many quarters, and that this conversation is too important to delay.” —Megan McArdle, The Washington Post

“For historians, the book is destined to stand alongside classics like Theodore White’s The Making of the President 1960 and even Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s All the President’s Men as one of the great books about American electoral politics.” —Richard Aldous, Persuasion

"A monumental piece of reporting." —Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring newsletter

"A deeply-reported and damning portrait of an active cover-up by the advisers closest to Joe Biden." —Chris Cillizza, So What newsletter

"A necessary and deeply disturbing account of the Biden White House. For anyone interested in politics and Shakespearean tragedy, there's something on every page." —Rolling Stone

“Their portrait of a decrepit American president is devastating . . . Original Sin succeeds because it has a strong thesis and an arresting narrative, delivered in made-for-TV episodes. The prose is punchy and so are the quotes.” —Lionel Barber, The Financial Times

“An authoritative, detailed, and devastating account of one of the most consequential scandals in modern American history.” —The Dispatch

“Original Sin is a comprehensively sourced autopsy of the agonised end to Biden’s 50-year career. It’s accusatory, indignant, righteous – and convincing.” —The New Statesman

“Original Sin both asks and answers troubling questions about health and the world‘s most powerful political office. And it creates a highly detailed historical record along the way.” —The Globe and Mail

“Drawing on extensive interviews with Biden administration insiders, Tapper and Thompson paint an intricate, appalling panorama of hubris and delusion . . . The result is a colorful and telling indictment of the blinkered self-interest that rules American politics.” —Publishers Weekly

“An authoritative indictment of a denial-plagued presidential run . . . This tough yet fair account of an aging president’s inauspicious reelection campaign makes a strong case that voters deserve to know more about their commander-in-chief’s health.” —Kirkus

Jake Tapper wrote the bestselling nonfiction book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, which was turned into a critically acclaimed film in 2020, and two New York Times bestselling novels, The Hellfire Club and The Devil May Dance. He is an Emmy Award-winning TV journalist as lead DC anchor and chief Washington correspondent for CNN. A Dartmouth graduate and Philly native, he lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, daughter, son, three dogs, and cat. View titles by Jake Tapper

Alex Thompson is a National Political Correspondent for Axios and a CNN contributor. He won the White House Correspondents' Association award for overall excellence in White House coverage for his reporting on Joe Biden in 2024. Before that, he created POLITICO’s “West Wing Playbook” newsletter and worked at The New York Times and Vice News. A Harvard graduate, he lives in Washington, DC. He has no pets, but is a proud uncle. View titles by Alex Thompson

Original Sin

President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again

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