In the US, book on scheme to hide Biden’s decline causes controversy

On June 27, 2024, in the midst of the most polarized elections in US history, Americans came across a televised debate in which the then president and reelection candidate forgot words and lost the line of reasoning. Joe Biden’s bad performance left the Democrats panicked.

The performance in the debate of CNN It gave even more choir to the allegations that the then president, at the age of 81, was unable to govern the country for another four years.

Campaign donors froze resources-and even without the clarity of who could replace it, the pressure for Biden to leave the race was too big. He eventually gave in and, almost a month later, on July 21, announced that he was giving up trying to reelection.

But a book released this week in the United States states that the health conditions of the former president have been getting worse for a long time.

In “original sin” or “original sin: the decline of President Biden, his cover -up and his disastrous choice to compete again”, the anchor of CNN Jake Tapper and Axios journalist Alex Thompson describe as the closest circle of Biden, the White House and the Democratic Party chose to ignore or hide the signs of cognitive decline of the former president

In an interview with Erin Burnett, from CNN The authors said they did interviews with more than 200 people – and not all agreed to be identified in the book. “Many people just wanted to vent, take this weight off their chest after maintaining this horrible secret for so long,” said Tapper.

“And all the examples (in the book) are actually just a fraction of what we had. Because it started to be repetitive,” said Thompson, referring to the size of the 331 pages, which could be even greater.

The book brings revelations as an episode in which Joe Biden would not have recognized actor George Clooney, one of the party’s great donors, at a background event.

At another time, at a cabinet meeting, the then president would have forgotten the name of the national security counselor, Jake Sullivan.

The interpreter of CNN Denise Bobadilha worked translating Joe Biden’s speeches from beginning to end of the term. And it remembers the increasingly glaring differences in the democrat’s lines over time.

“During the 2020 campaign he spoke very well, but he spoke at zoom practically because we were in the pandemic. So he had no audience, we couldn’t evaluate,” he says.

She recalls that the difficulties were but evident from 2022, when Biden made many speeches for new events of events in events, and started to exchange numbers. “For us who translate is very difficult. He says: ’21 (AMMM) ‘, then you don’t know if he’s talking million or billion. And he was beginning to be confused, to correct himself. And that made it very difficult.”

Denise recalls that in 2024 the interpreters commented on how difficult it was to translate the democrat’s speeches, which began to amend words. “He said: ‘We need jobs in the areas of energy…’ Siderurgy? Railroad? What is he talking about? So it started to get very difficult.”

Despite the public’s perception that Biden’s cognitive skills were, yes, getting worse, the book talking about the supposed cover -up scheme caused controversy in the United States, and divided the Democrats.

While some believe that looking at the past is important, others think that launching the book now doesn’t help much, and the energy should be focused on focusing efforts to prevent Donald Trump’s agenda.

Usamah Andrabi, Justice Democrat’s director of communications, a political action committee that wants to boost new candidates in the Democratic Party, says party members have failed to lose not only the presidency, but also the majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States. And the issue goes beyond Joe Biden – also goes through the lack of new names in the party.

“We have gone through an entire cycle of ‘he’s fine, he’s not fine, he will leave, isn’t he, it will be Kamala, what will happen?’. (…) Obviously voters made it clear that they would like to have had a choice in the last election,” says Andrabi.

“That’s why we operate at primary democrats, at congressional levels because we believe voters deserve at least one voice in this democracy. And that’s our way. There is a lot to say about President Biden and what he should or should not have done, but now I think it’s time to learn from our mistakes and not repeat them.”

For Usamah, the country’s perception of Democrats worsened not only because of last year’s election, but because of a series of errors along the way. “I think the problem is that the Democratic Party is seen as an out -of -reach elite institution and is still focusing on rich donors, the Silicio Valley and Wall Street,” he says.

Justice Democrats communications director assesses that party members have continued to listen to the same political counselors for years and have not been looking for new voices. “Listening to the same internal circles of people who have advised politicians since before I was born to try to build a new way ahead, when we really need it is a new generation of thinkers within the Democratic Party that can really guide us to be a party for something, rather than just against Donald Trump,” he adds.

The controversy of the book and the division between the Democrats about which way to go say a lot about the political scenario of the United States. But in an excerpt of “original sin,” the authors say, “The lessons of this book go beyond a man and a political party. They talk about more universal issues about cognitive dissonance, collective thinking, courage, cowardice and patriotism.”

This content was originally published in in the US, a book about hiding Biden’s decline causes controversy on CNN Brazil.

Source: CNN Brasil