Alex Thompson, co-author of the recently released exposé on former President Joe Biden, told Fox News Sunday that top aides ‘rationalized’ doing ‘undemocratic’ things to hide the president’s cognitive decline, because failing to do so would have been too beneficial to Donald Trump.
During an interview with ‘Fox News Sunday’s’ Shannon Bream, Thompson was asked whether any officials close to Biden, such as his cabinet secretaries, expressed remorse for their potential complicity in covering up Biden’s health.
‘There was definitely a lot of self-reflection about what — if anything — they should have done differently,’ Thompson said.
‘I think there was a feeling — like a lot of members of the Democratic Party that were seeing this, or saw moments of [Biden] seeming out of it — that going public wasn’t going to change his mind. It was only going to help Donald Trump. And I think that’s how a lot of them rationalized it.’
‘Now, whether or not history will judge them as being right for doing that, we will see. But this is also part of the reason why the White House was shielding [Biden] from as many people as possible, including cabinet secretaries.’
Bream went on to question Thompson about an aide he spoke to who said Biden ‘just had to win and then could disappear’ because Biden’s ‘aides could pick up the slack.’ Bream described the quote as essentially ‘admitting’ Biden shouldn’t be running again.
‘Who would have been running the White House in a second Biden term?’ Bream asked Thompson.
‘Well, this person went on to say, ‘When you’re voting for president, you’re voting for the aides around him.’ But these aides were not even Senate confirmed aides – these were White House aides, these were unelected people.’ Thompson replied. ‘One of the things that really comes out in our reporting here is that if you believe — and I do think a lot of these people do sincerely believe that Donald Trump was and is an existential threat to democracy — you can rationalize anything, including sometimes doing undemocratic things — which I think is what this person was talking about.’
Thompson and CNN’s Jake Tapper have been doing the rounds discussing and promoting their new book titled ‘Original Sin,’ which has garnered a lot of attention for detailing what critics have said shows Biden’s cognitive decline while he was in the White House was even worse than most people suspected.
The book has been compounded by other revelations showing Biden’s cognitive abilities were likely hidden from the public by those closest to him.