- [Narrator] This program was funded by the following: Laura & John Beckworth, BP Ameri Joe Latimer & Joni Hartgraves.

And also by.

And by.

A complete list of funders is available at APTonline.org and LiveFromLBJ.org.

- What happened we had not prepa We had not prepared for Presiden to emerge completely incoherent and giving I think empirically t presidential debate performance in American history.

(stately music) (music fades) - Welcome to the LBJ Presidentia I'm Mark Updegrove.

Our guest tonight, Jake Tapper, is a fixture of broadcast news.

Since 2013, he has been at CNN, where he hosts "The Lead with Ja and the Sunday morning show "State of the Union."

He's also a bestselling author of works of fiction and non-fict including this year's Blockbuster book "Original Sin" about the Joe Biden presidency.

I talked to him about his career the Biden and Trump presidencies and the state of journalism toda Jake Tapper, welcome.

- Thanks, great to be here.

- You have been plying this trade for almost 30 years, but you didn't start in journali - No.

After college, I went to Dartmou I graduated from Dartmouth in '9 I went to film school for a seme Hated it, moved back to Philadelphia where and had no idea what I was gonna I wanted to be a cartoonist, I wanted to be a novelist, but then obviously I needed to g And a family friend was running for Congress, and so this is 1992, I was 22, 23, somewhere in there And so she started running for C and I worked on her campaign.

- Then you got into the PR space - Yeah.

I didn't like politics.

It's an interesting experience, but I didn't like it and was not particularly good at it.

And then got into the PR space a this was just about, like, payin while I figured out what I wante Started doing freelance writing, and then that ultimately led to at "Washington City Paper," which was a free weekly, still is a free weekly in D.C., under the tutelage of a late, great journalist named David Carr, who went on to become a media wr for "The New York Times."

But he was, yeah, he was a great - Did you immediately take to jo or did it take some time?

- It took a little time, but it's weird because I had been involved in journalism as a kid.

And I really was interested in f cartooning and screenwriting and being a novelist, but ultimately, journalism, it's easier to sell non-fiction as a freelance writer than it is to sell fiction.

It's a much more rarefied world, the people who make a living selling fiction.

But non-fiction there is a world and so I started doing that.

Anyway, it makes sense now, but it took me a little while to realize it.

- But it should be noted that you did become a non-fiction and fiction author later on in your career.

- Yeah, yeah, right.

I did ultimately write a few nov in my whatever, 40s or 50s.

Yeah, much later.

But I guess I established myself in non-fiction first.

- So you've been in Washington for nearly three decades?

- Yeah, I moved there at the end - Oh, more than three decades.

- Yeah.

- I stand corrected.

How has the city changed since you've been there?

- Oh wow.

Well, first of all, I moved down there in the Bill Clinton era, so it was a very different time.

There was a generational change with Bill Clinton representing y He doesn't represent youth now, but he was representing youth.

Baby boomers were new and young, I guess he was in his 40s, Bill And, you know, the city as it is it's a much bigger city, and, you know, the worlds of lobbying and media are bigger than ever before.

- You were on Capitol Hill early in your career.

How has that world changed?

- It is much nastier now than it and it was much...

It's just different.

Generally speaking, I still think most people run fo because they want to make the world better.

I do think that.

But there are a lot of people who enter it for the wrong reaso I mean, there are a lot of peopl that enter everything for the wrong reasons, journalism, academia, whatever.

But I think there are a lot of p who now are in it for the likes, they're in it for the clicks, they're in it for attention, and much more interested in becoming famous or preaching to the choir of their either left-wing or right-wing followers and not so much improving the lives of the American people, working across the aisle, passing legislation.

I think it seems worse, that part of it seems worse toda And it's not just because of soc and it's not just because of partisan media.

I think some of it is because of gerrymandering.

There are fewer competitive congressional districts today than there were in 1992.

And so you have a lot of people who are more worried about being primaried, facing a challenge from the left or the right in the Democratic or Republican than they are in facing a competitive election in the general election, which creates a really screwy incentive culture where the incentives are to be as extreme as possible on the left or the right and not to work across the aisle It's actually a disincentive to work across the aisle.

If you're somebody, well, look, I'm in Texas right n I mean, this is a, as of now, generally speaking, at least statewide, a one-party a Republican state.

You know, there's very little in other than wanting to do the right thing and solve problems, to being known as somebody who wants to work with Democrats - Yeah.

- The same is true in California on the other side.

- You've covered five presidents This is the second time you've covered Trump.

It's his second administration.

- Yeah.

- This is a president who's called the press the enemy of the people.

He's been enormously litigious.

He's threatened media outlets.

- Yeah.

- How has that changed what you or has it changed what you do?

- I don't think it's changed wha but I certainly think there is a in terms of covering President T I mean, when you have major medi cutting checks to President Trum because he's suing for defamatio which used to be, by the way, like, I mean, it used to be kind of, like, considered just conventional wis that a president couldn't be def - Right, right.

- He's such a public figure, you I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it's just, I mean, I'm sure Bill Clinton or Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson would have been interested in, "Oh, we can sue them for saying things about us that aren't true?"

Or that are arguably not true.

I mean, I just think it's a toug It's a tough time when you have the president of the United States defaming you as illegitimate and suing your company.

Yeah, it's difficult.

- Do you pursue things more cautiously as a consequence of perhaps getting sued or attacked by the president?

Does it give you pause in a way that it might not have during the Biden or Obama or George W. Bush or Clinton administrations?

- No, because I think we were always cautious about what we've said about President Trump and try to make sure everything we say is accurate.

It's just an added level of disi for aggressive investigative jou It's less about the day-to-day coverage and commentary and more about investigative jou being done by everyone.

And I'm not talking about CNN specifically now, I'm talking about just like the general media climate.

You know, it's chilling.

- Does that blinding blizzard of which seems to be a strategy for the Trump administration make it harder to sort through the really consequential stuff as opposed to the sort of more chaotic stuff that might rear its head on any - So, I mean, I think one of the of the first Trump term is, you you don't have to chase the twee - [Mark] Right.

- You know, he says a lot of thi and that's not to say that they shouldn't be covered or they're not important, but actions speak louder than wo And what he is doing in terms of his ambitious agenda is far more consequential than a tweet he sends in the middle of the night.

Now, that's not to say that thos or Truth Social posts or whateve aren't important, they are, but he is very organized this ti Last time, famously, you know, most of his team didn't think he was gonna win, so there wasn't really an agenda like there was this time.

This time they were ready to go on day one.

They thought they were gonna win on day one.

So, you know, there's a whole set of priorities.

I mean, I'm sure that they know what they're gonna be doing in N what they're gonna be doing in February of next year, which is not to say that some of this isn't winging but I do think that they have an aggressive agenda and they are implementing it as - Most journalists stand on the sideline of history.

They witness history, they cover You've stood at the center of hi as the moderator of perhaps the most consequential presidential debate in history, when President Biden squared off against former President Trump i What was that experience like?

- Humbling, uncomfortable.

Dana Bash was my co-moderator.

I mean, obviously we had prepare I guess they announced the debat and it was June 27th was the actual debate, so had prepared for weeks.

You know, it's when you're the moderator of such a thing, there's so much attention on you Everybody's trying to look for e that you're on the other guy's s - Yeah.

- And there's a lot of working of the refs, people, "Oh, you know, this shows Jake Tapper can never Left and right, Democrats and Republicans do that.

So, you know, just preparing and being ready for it was its own challenge.

But then, of course, we had prepared for all sorts of contingencies in our run-throughs, in our rehe but what happened we had not pre We had not prepared for Presiden to emerge completely incoherent and giving I think empirically t presidential debate performance in American history.

- What was going through your mi as that performance played out?

- Oh my God, it's so bad.

I mean, it's just, you know, we had iPads in front so that we could communicate with the control room, 'cause obviously they can talk t but we can't talk to them.

And I had written "Holy smokes" on the iPad, just because I didn't, I kept it clean 'cause I didn't know who was back there, but I mean, I was thinking, "Holy expletive."

And then Dana, my co-moderator, wrote on a piece of paper, "He just lost the election," during that first, this is after that first horrible answer he gave within the first 10 minutes of t where he lost his train of thoug and said, "We finally beat Medic Just grasping, looking for words confirming that things behind th were much, much worse than we had been led, we, the American people, had been led to believe.

- What was it like at the end of that debate?

When it was all over, when Presidents Trump and Biden had rendered their performances, what was it like in that studio?

- Well, Trump just left without saying goodbye, which is interesting, 'cause he's actually sometimes rather gregarious.

- But that moment, he was not.

He just left.

First Lady Jill Biden came out, went to her husband on the stage, helped him down.

There was one stair.

And I guess I could understand i 'cause it was like the studio wa it was not like a normally occurring studio.

It's, you know, one of these thi only a TV designer could come up There was like a light there.

I guess if you're 81 years old, you might not be able to negotia that one step that easily.

Certainly, if one of my parents was up there, I would run up and help them not but it was kind of awkward.

And then I don't think that they really had any idea, at least not based on how they were behaving, how badly it had gone.

He, the president, apologized for having a cold, started talking to me and Dana about how much Trump lied.

Midway through, realized we weren't gonna say anything about that, and then said something about like how he was gonna go see what the commentators were sayin Jill Biden, I'm from Philly and she's from outside Philly, Willow Grove, and I was wearing, I'm a big Phi and I was wearing Phillies cuff I didn't know what to do.

I just felt very awkward.

I showed her my Phillies cuff li It was very uncomfortable.

I mean, you know, I felt bad.

I mean, like, he had just done really, really poorly, and I didn't disagree with what Dana had written.

He'd just lost the election.

- Subsequently, Jake, you wrote your blockbuster book with your co-writer Alex Thompson from Axios, "Original Sin," the subtitle of which reads, "President Biden's Decline, Its and His Disastrous Choice to Run and the subtitle really says it - Yeah.

- How did the media miss such a colossal story as it was playing out?

- Well, we didn't miss that he w and we didn't miss that he was growing feebler.

We all saw it.

It's not like we hid the clips.

I mean, people saw him aging in I think that the degree to which he was addled, that he was deteriorating, that his cognitive skills were significantly hampered was kept from as many people as they could keep it from.

I mean, our reporting suggests that his deterioration began in to a much lesser extent and then really picked up in 2023 and 2024.

And the truth of the matter is, is that Biden, his family, and his top aides hid from as many people as they as long as they could the degree to which he was having these moments like we saw during the debate, where he lost his train of thoug couldn't come up with words.

Not only couldn't articulate a vision for the country, but couldn't articulate a sentence at times.

And that's why the debate was so because they had done, they had not hidden his aging, but they had hidden how addled h successfully to a degree.

I mean, there were people out th saying he shouldn't run for reel David Ignatius of "The Washingto Maureen Dowd of "The New York Ti Bill Maher, others.

But for the most part, the Democratic Party just, you k stuck their heads in the sand.

- You point out in the book that there are other presidents who have misled the public about their health.

- Well, I don't need to tell you, you're a historian, but as far back as George Washin presidents have been not disclosing health issues to the American people.

So there was a surgery for some president on a boat.

- Harding.

- Yeah, Warren G. Harding, and obviously Woodrow Wilson had and Edith, his wife, hid that from the country.

FDR, obviously not just his poli but he was about to die when he ran for reelection in 1944.

JFK hid his Addison's disease, was taking a lot of drugs to help him with his back pain.

Ronald Reagan, we still don't kn when his Alzheimer's started.

- Right, right.

- I mean, it's an American tradi - (chuckles) But a lesson we don - We never learn it, no.

- What lesson do you want reader to derive from "Original Sin"?

- I don't think that we should b about these sort of things anymore as a country.

You know, living in Washington D it's a company town.

And look, people age.

If we're all lucky enough to get to our 70s and 80s, you know, you age.

Some people age better than othe But most industries, there is some sort of way to tell somebody, "Okay, it's time for you to think about retiring," whether it's TV news or academia or if you're a CEO, there's a board of directors.

If you're an actor, you have an or producers will say, "Maybe you're not for leading man roles anymore.

Maybe character actor, whatever.

I mean, athletics, that speaks f But politics is this one weird f where the only people you're really accountable to are And voters, most voters do not expect to have any sort of personal interaction with the people they're voting f They're living their lives, they don't pay that close attent And incumbents get elected at a of something like 95, 96%.

So D.C. is a town that has a bunch of people who should have retired who have - Right.

- Strom Thurmond was addled for maybe a decade.

It was an open secret in Washing Kay Granger was the chair of the House Appropriations Comm from this great state of Texas.

- Yeah.

- Stepped down as chair and then just like went into a retirement community where they deal with dementia.

- Right.

- And her family didn't tell any and they just collected her congressional check, or she did or her family did or while for six months, I mean, she didn't run for reele but for six months she was just in this, you know, care facility.

I mean, that's just the attitude in Washington.

It's pretty widespread that they have every right to hide that from the public.

So the idea that this would happ on the presidential level, while as you note it's not unpre the fact that it happened to thi there already was a culture arou that allowed this sort of thing - Why hasn't a new generation stepped up discernibly to make their own mark in Washin and to lead their own charge?

- Well, they've tried.

First of all, we should note that in the course of this book, and the focus is on 2020 through there is a moment where three octogenarians stepped down.

- Yeah.

- After the midterms of 2022, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn, all of them in their 80s, stepped down as the three top House Democrats, voluntarily.

Now, I'm sure behind the scenes there was pressure from people in their 50s and 40s to replace them, but they had that selflessness.

Why didn't President Biden do it, is the question.

He had implicitly promised in 20 that he would be a bridge to the next generation.

He had done that event in Michigan in March 2020 where he got the endorsement of Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker, talking about being a bridge.

We all had the impression that maybe he was only gonna do It was purposeful.

In December 2019 when he was running for president for the third time, his team knew that voters had concerns about his age.

He would've been the oldest pres and in fact was.

And they did a strategic leak to Ryan Lizza, who was then a reporter with "Po saying he's only gonna serve one - Right.

- Four unnamed Biden advisors.

And this, Ryan thinks it was a strategic leak.

They called him to tell him this and he reported it, as any repor and that's why we all had that i - What do you like best about wh - I am a news junkie.

Like I would be following this stuff anyway.

So the fact that I really just find it interesting is joyful for me.

The times that I've gotten to do moderate debates, is fun for me just 'cause I have such a good s (Mark chuckles) I mean, when I was a kid, I would watch debates, presidential debates.

I mean, I remember the 1984 poli the Democratic primaries, Gary Hart and Walter Mondale and And so I've always just been really interested in politics.

The other thing I really like about journalism is the ability to shine a light on something to affect change.

I did a story for "The Atlantic" and also paired it with some CNN coverage about, my dad's a pediatrician, about a former patient of my dad that he felt was in prison unjus and we were able to shine a spotlight on him.

And for a number of reasons, including that journalism, he's free, he's out of prison and married and a paralegal and about to have his second kid and all that.

So that was rewarding.

And then another piece, another piece of journalism that I'm really proud of is I wrote a book called "The Outpost" about an outpost, a true story of an outpost in Af and just shining a light on this that I wrote the book because I wanted to know, I'd heard about this outpost that had been overrun.

It was overrun the day after my son was born.

So I was in the hospital watching news and like, "Why would anybody put an outpos at the bottom of three steep hil Like, why would you do that?"

And no one ever answered my ques so I set out to find out the answer for myself and it became "The Outpost."

And it's not dissimilar entirely to "Original Sin," which is I wanted to know what h I would've gladly just read the if somebody else had written it, but they didn't and they weren't so Alex and I wrote it.

- Yeah, and you're in a position to delve into this story.

- Yeah, and Alex is a great part and he had been doing really good aggressive coverage as a White House reporter for Ax We just complimented each other in terms of how we were able to report the book and get it done in such a quick - Jake Tapper, thanks for being - Oh, my pleasure.

Thank you.

(stately music) (stately music continues) (music fades) - [Narrator] This program was funded by the following: Laura & John Beckworth, BP Ameri Joe Latimer & Joni Hartgraves.

And also by.

And by.

A complete list of funders is available at APTonline.org and LiveFromLBJ.org.

(cheerful flute music) (bright music)