Original Sin

Damning and well-documented. * TELEGRAPH *
A scathing account of an elderly, egotistical president cocooned from reality seeking re-election in 2024 despite significant concerns about his declining health and cognitive abilities. * GUARDIAN *
Tapper and Thompson's portrait of a decrepit American president is devastating... Original Sin succeeds because it has a strong thesis and an arresting narrative, delivered in made-for-TV episodes. * FINANCIAL TIMES *
How American voters became victims of one of the great poltiical cover-ups of modern times . . . It was the gaslighting of a nation. * THE TIMES *
A fascinating insight... this book shines a blinding light on the extent to which Joe Biden was ageing rapidly, becoming tired and confused and patently unfit for a second term in office. * iNEWS *
Explosive . . . Tapper and Thompson have done the [Democratic] party a favor. Some sort of reckoning is due for the disastrous missteps that that paved the way for Trump’s return. * MICHELLE GOLDBERG, co-author of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS *
[The] most significant book to date about Biden’s cognitive decline, which was written by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson and draws on hundreds of interviews . . . To their credit, they do little editorializing. The book is written not unlike an autopsy report, describing a gruesome political car crash in dispassionate, clinical detail. * ATLANTIC *
Superbly reported . . . Reads like a Shakespearean drama on steroids. * LOS ANGELES TIMES *
Original Sin is not really a 'campaign book'—its account of the 2024 election largely ends after Biden drops out—but its simple assessment of the race is more compelling than anything else I’ve read about it . . . Original Sin is rarely better than when Tapper and Thompson are writing—with extensive reporting and clear-eyed prose—about the disaster that Biden caused . . . Over the next year, dozens of books will appear that attempt to explain this election. It’s hard to imagine any doing better than that. * WASHINGTON POST *
A damning, step-by-step account of how the people closest to a stubborn, ageing president enabled his quixotic resolve to run for a second term. * NEW YORK TIMES *