CNN's Jake Tapper called his new book a tragedy. Primitive Crime: President Biden's Decline, Coverage and His Disastrous Choice Run AgainTapper co-written with Alex Thompson of Axios, describing two Joe Bidens.

"The first one is something everyone knows during the vice president," Tapper said. "And the second one is a non-functional Joe Biden. ... And, Biden's invalid Biden will be increasingly looking up, like 2019, 2020.

The book describes a president who failed to recognize his long-standing political allies, lost his mind in important conversations, and forgot important dates, including the death of his son, Beau: “We see some of them in public on camera…but we don’t know how bad it is,” Tapper said.

Tapper said a source described a president supported by an aide: “One person tells us that the president is at best a five-person board of directors with Joe Biden as chairman of the board.”

The issue became part of a broader dialogue in a debate between Biden and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in June 2024. Biden spoke, trying to express why he should be transferred to the office. Tapper, who chairs the debate, remembers whether he will finish the game within all 90 minutes of the game. A month later, Biden withdrew from the presidential election.

Tapper looks back now and he regrets not covering up Biden's decline more actively. “I can point out where I asked him or I asked them…but knowing what I know now, I barely scratched the surface,” he said. “I need to address more discomforts about health issues because they are so important and undercover in Washington.”

Biden's office issued a statement on Sunday revealing that the former president was diagnosed with a "aggressive form" of prostate cancer, which has metastasized to the bone.

"It's very sad for us if we're lucky enough to be old. Few of us will retain acuity until we die at 99 years old," Tapper said. "This is the human condition, which makes it difficult to report. But for the same mark, we have the right to believe and expect the president to be sharp and stand out in things."

Highlights of the interview

About his book’s time and Biden’s recent cancer diagnosis

My heart stretched out to him. My prayers are with him. I hope for hormone therapy for cancer. This is part of the Joe Biden story. ...This book is written as a tragedy: This is a person who has experienced a lot of life. From his life to today, fate has thrown him so many horrible things - which has instilled him the spirit of love for many people, a man who wakes up after being knocked down. It also creates a theology around Biden, who can do anything. This leads to the situation we are in, and if you take a step back, the big picture: President, Republican, President Donald Trump who controls the House and the Senate.

The arguments about the White House hiding Biden’s decline

Some ways they helped hide his deterioration began with innocent. I mean, any staff member wants to make the president, the senator or the governor look as good as possible. And if he wants a note card, if he wants a remote compiler, if he wants to do activities in the day or in the early morning or late night, it's totally understandable. But then all of this turned into crutches and began to really penetrate his presidency in a serious way, even after the camera left, even the cabinet meeting got highly scripted scripts.

Then, I think the real part of the cover-up is not just the fact that he uses a remote compiler for 40 or 50 people fundraisers, which is strange and unprecedented for the president, who should be able to advertise for 10 minutes. They blocked him from people starting in 2023. So, members of Congress attended the White House Christmas party in December 2022, and until December 2023, many of them did not see him again, and they were shocked by what they saw and heard.

Positive response to key coverage on Biden team

This happened to me when I reported critically about Biden's evacuation from Afghanistan in August 2021. Today, this is just American politics. The White House, parties, influencers and robots, activists and activists who agree with them, and those people you don't even need to give them half the time to order, they will just follow anyone. This is just the standard of the course. We enumerate this not to prove anything, but just explaining the terrain of anything journalists are trying to report to President Biden. …It can be daunting that the White House calls your story a lie, or that someone in the White House threatens to record it and calls your story a lie. …This is also a warning from other journalists not to follow up with the story because they see how others are sprinkling on coal, and they may not want to experience it.

About Democrats' reaction to Biden's debate performance

Democrats were shocked. They were just absolutely shocked. I think there are actually two camps. There is Camp Biden, and it's: "Okay, how do we get out of it? How do we crawl back?" Because Joe Biden, as I said before, can't be beaten as compliments. That was his great attitude. This tragedy, this tragedy will not be defeated by a brain aneurysm. …

You don't need to be a genius political consultant to know that the obvious remedy to what he just did is to go out for 15 interviews, 20 town halls and 5 press conferences and show people that he is as sharp as they say. The problem is that he can't do it, which is why his polls finally came to a conclusion, and simply couldn't get rid of it. It's a disaster and until Election Day, it's going to get worse.

About Democracy’s reaction to George Clooney New York Times on-edcalling on Biden to withdraw from the presidential election

They were shocked. After the debate, everyone was talking about: "Who would say that?" As few people stood up publicly, many Democratic officials remained silent despite the fact that voters were clear and many members of the media. … (Experts) have had a huge impact because here is one (Clooney) who co-hosted the most successful democratic fundraising campaign in presidential history. Raised $3 million in one night. This is a beloved character who will only become an enemy. You can only create enemies from something like this. He came out, and he was braver here than most Senators, governors and House members.

About the public's trust in traditional media

The news media is in crisis. … Generally speaking, journalists, CNN, NPR, ABC, CBS, all of us, people don’t trust us. One of the reasons they don’t trust us is Joe Biden and his acuity and the fact that we have a very late story in the media. I should (say), our stories in traditional media are late because conservative media is not late. And I think we are surviving for free media. Not that it will be taken away, but it will certainly risk not thriving as much as it does. This is just a call to us as good and professional as possible.

Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner conducted and edited the interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it into the network.