Do you remember the 2020 talking point that Joe Biden’s election would bring a return to norms? The adults would be back in charge. Institutions would be respected. Sanity restored. That was the mantra. But as the dust settles from Biden’s presidency—and the tell-alls begin—the reality looks far more like a political masquerade than a restoration.
CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, both deeply embedded in the same Beltway media ecosystem that once helped insulate the Biden operation, are now unloading the truth in their bombshell book Original Sin. And it’s as stunning as it is infuriating: Joe Biden wasn’t running the White House. His aides were. And they were prepared to do it for another four years.
Thompson told Fox News Sunday’s Shannon Bream what many suspected but few in the press were willing to admit during Biden’s time in office: his cognitive decline wasn’t just real—it was undeniable. He couldn’t remember the names of key staffers. He blanked on George Clooney. And he bombed a simulated town hall produced by none other than Steven Spielberg. That’s right—when Hollywood’s biggest name can’t stage-manage a coherent campaign moment for you, the wheels have officially come off.
I don’t want to hear about “norms” ever again. https://t.co/nA3fvPlhpS
— Emma-Jo Morris (@EmmaJoNYC) May 27, 2025
The Los Angeles fundraiser, where Barack Obama had to physically guide Biden off the stage, was the final straw for Clooney, who reportedly cut all ties. But now we know—it wasn’t just about optics. It was about the fundamental absence of a president capable of leading.
The most disturbing quote from Original Sin? That Biden “just had to win, and then he could disappear for four years. He’d only have to show proof of life every once in a while … His aides could pick up the slack.”
Think about that.
This wasn’t a staff helping a president. This was a staff replacing one. And it wasn’t temporary. It was the plan.
Thompson told Bream outright that many of the unelected aides around Biden believed that if it meant stopping Donald Trump, anything was justified—even “undemocratic things.” That’s not hyperbole. That’s an admission.
It turns out that those same people who claimed Trump was an existential threat to democracy were busy bypassing democracy themselves, deciding unilaterally to keep a mentally deteriorating president in power and to run the country from behind the scenes.
It’s not just dangerous—it’s deceitful. It turns the presidency into a puppet show and the voters into props.
If the situation were reversed—if Trump’s aides were caught saying he “just had to win and then could disappear”—the media would call it a constitutional crisis. But in this case? The architects of the cover-up are just now being praised for finally coming clean in a book that conveniently hits shelves after it’s too late.
What we’re seeing is the natural result of a political class that long ago traded integrity for expediency. A team of handlers who thought democracy was just a slogan, not a standard. Who believed that their judgment trumped the will of the people. And who used fear of Trump as a blank check to carry out what can only be described as a soft coup.
Not with tanks. But with gatekeepers. Not by seizing power—but by hiding the fact that power had already vacated the Oval Office.
And let’s not forget: the very media outlets now dissecting the Biden White House dysfunction were part of the suppression effort. Stories were buried. Slips ignored. The press turned into a moat around a decaying presidency.
