A forthcoming tell-all book claims former President Joe Biden’s mental and physical deterioration had become so severe during his presidency that his advisers were discussing plans to have Biden wheelchair-bound if he won re-election in 2024.
The revelations come from “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” co-authored by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson.
The book, scheduled for release on May 20, is based on interviews with over 200 people, primarily Democratic insiders with knowledge of events during the disastrous final two years of Biden’s presidency.
“Biden’s physical deterioration — most apparent in his halting walk — had become so severe that there were internal discussions about putting the president in a wheelchair, but they couldn’t do so until after the election,” the authors wrote, according to an excerpt published by Axios.
Biden’s aides knew it would be politically damaging to have an 81-year-old president appear in a wheelchair during his re-election campaign, so had to continue their cover-up of the elderly Biden’s rapid decline.
“Given Biden’s age, [his physician Kevin O’Connor] also privately said that if he had another bad fall, a wheelchair might be necessary for what could be a difficult recovery,” Tapper and Thompson wrote.
The book claims Biden’s halting gait was primarily due to “significant spinal arthritis” rather than the lingering effects of a foot fracture in November 2020, which White House aides had publicly claimed throughout 2024.
According to the authors, this contradicted O’Connor’s public health assessment from 2021 that stated “both small fractures of his foot are completely healed” and that “this injury has healed as expected.”
After Biden tripped and fell on stage at the Air Force Academy in June 2023, aides reportedly implemented extensive precautions to prevent another incident before the 2024 election. These included creating shorter walking paths, requiring handrails for stage steps, having him wear sneakers more often, and providing detailed visual briefings about expected movements.
The book also describes tension between Biden’s physician and his handlers, with O’Connor reportedly arguing for more rest time in the president’s schedule.
“O’Connor sometimes quipped that Biden’s staff members were trying to kill him, while he was trying to keep him alive,” the authors wrote.
According to the book the Biden family and senior White House officials pushed forward with his re-election campaign despite clear signs of physical and mental decline.
His “disastrous debate performance against Trump” in June 2024 reportedly stunned Democratic leaders, who began pushing for Biden to drop out. Three weeks later, he formally withdrew from the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris lost in a landslide to Biden’s opponent, President Donald Trump.
A Biden spokesperson responded to the claims and said that “medical exam made clear that he had a stiffened gait caused, in part, by wear and tear to his spine — but that no special treatment was necessary and that it had not worsened.”
“He was transparent about this, and it was far from ‘severe,'” the statement continued. “Yes, there were physical changes as he got older, but evidence of aging is not evidence of mental incapacity.”
“And so far, we are still waiting for someone, anyone, to point out where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or make a presidential address where he was unable to do his job because of mental decline,” the spokesman claimed. “In fact, the evidence points to the opposite — he was a very effective president.”
But many Democrats blasted Biden’s decision to seek re-election despite his mental decline and historic unpopularity.
“It was an abomination. He stole an election from the Democratic Party; he stole it from the American people,” said a prominent Democratic strategist.
The book also reveals that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned Biden during a July visit to his Delaware home that if he lost to Trump, “50 years of amazing, beautiful work goes out the window. But it’s worse than that — you will go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.”