Original Sin - Large Print by Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

An explosive inside reckoning with one of the most fateful conspiracies inAmerican political history--the concerted effort by the President's team to hidehis mental decline.

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

From the beginning of the Biden administration, some journalists, including Alex Thompsonand Jake Tapper, focused attention on signs of Joe Biden's frailty. For their efforts they weresubject to extraordinary levels of personal vitriol from the White House, and even fromsome of their journalistic colleagues. Whatever the self-awareness of the perpetrators, itwas sheer gaslighting. In Original Sin, the check comes due.

Tapper and Thompson relate in vivid detail what Team Biden knew, when they knew it, andwhat they did or didn't do about it--including many news-making stories from some of themost powerful players in American politics. There is a general awareness of the effort toprotect his public image, but the details the authors have unearthed are genuinelyshocking. They raise fundamental issues of government accountability and responsibility, and of the role the news media plays. The irony is biting: in the name of defeating anexistential threat to democracy, Biden and his inner circle lost their way, and ensured thathis party's nomination process was short-circuited, the public was given cause to doubt hisgood faith, and his Vice President was put in a situation that more than anything elsedoomed her to defeat. The deception, sometimes self-deception, surrounding Joe Biden'sdecline was the original sin of the administration and led directly to Donald Trump's returnto power and all that has happened as a consequence.

Wherever you stand on the political spectrum, Original Sin is a reminder that the ends mustnever justify the means. The ends are ultimately unpredictable, and in reality, the meansare all we have.

About the Author

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.

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.