Question: Would the White House have called videos of Joe Biden in a wheelchair "cheap fakes" and still claimed that the president could "run rings" around his aides?

Answer: Probably. And if the cover-up of Biden's cognitive and physical decline had held up past the June 27 debate that Biden insisted on having, we might have found out. So reports Axios, which picks up the claim from one of the pioneering tomes in the Now It Can Be Told literary genre:

Joe Biden's physical deterioration was so severe in 2023 and 2024 that advisers privately discussed the possibility he'd need to use a wheelchair if he won re-election, CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson write in their new book, "Original Sin," out May 20.

Why it matters: The discussions reflected the extent of the president's declining health — particularly the significant degeneration of his spine — and his aides' alarm over it as Biden sought a second term at age 81.

The conversations also reveal the White House's determination to conceal the reality of Biden's condition, at the risk of his own health, while he faced a tough re-election bid against Donald Trump.

First off, let's just call bull**** on this premise. The White House determination to cover up "the reality of Biden's condition" far predated his "tough re-election bid." Tapper and Thompson call the decision to run for a second term the "original sin," but that's nonsense. The White House had covered up Biden's cognitive and physical decline long before Biden -- or whoever had their hand up his backside -- decided to run for re-election. How else does one explain having the Easter Bunny act as Biden's minder at the April 2022 Easter Egg Roll, and ordering the president off the rope line? Wasn't it painfully obvious by that point that a cover-up of some sort was in place? What other president would have complied with a press office aide in a costume blocking his access to the press and spectators in this humiliating fashion?

The conceit of the campaign decision as the "original sin" allows the Protection Racket Media to absolve themselves from the sin of not asking these questions at least by April 2022. It's the very heart of the Now It Can Be Told literary genre. 

With that said, the level of deceit from both the White House and the Biden campaign in the final year of his presidency is simply breathtaking. Biden had taken several falls, prompting his staff to switch to the short stairs on Air Force One and to change Biden's footwear. His walking problems -- another sign of both physical and mental decline -- had become so obviously perilous that Biden clearly needed a wheelchair to get around safely. And that was exactly what the family and staff planned to do ... after the first week of November 2024:

"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 write.

• Biden aides believed it was politically untenable to have Biden use a wheelchair during his re-election campaign.

Again, this elides the real issue. Had Biden's cognition remained normal and his speech unaffected, physical decline would not have been nearly as much of a problem. The problem with the wheelchair would have been that the White House would be forced to abandon one of their main fig leaves, which was Biden's supposed athleticism. They had Biden biking around Rehoboth until he fell in front of the cameras early in his presidency, and suddenly, all the media got after that was beach chairs and sun umbrellas. His press office, led by Karine Jean-Pierre and Jen Psaki prior to that, relied on claims of his physical robustness to counter allegations of cognitive decline. 

How many times did we hear during Biden's presidency that he "ran rings around aides half his age?" Or that Biden's physical energy outpaced those same younger aides? And the media kept swallowing that even while Biden's public appearances entirely belied those claims, with Biden getting lost and/or falling on stages, extemporaneous speech trailing off into dead ends, and his memory clearly failing him in public remarks?

All of these conditions were readily apparent as early as the spring of 2022. However, whenever anyone challenged the White House spin, the same media looking to cash in on the Now It Can Be Told literary genre attacked those raising the issue while repeating the lies of the cover-up conspirators as though they were unassailable facts. These media 'reporters' rushed to instruct us about the danger of Cheap Fakes, which turned out to be better known as evidence, because they didn't want to inform the public. They wanted to help Joe Biden win an election, or more precisely, wanted to make sure Republicans didn't win it. 

Now they want to cash in on their corruption with belated and carefully cooked Now It Can Be Told claims that let themselves off the hook for the fraud. Hard. Pass.

Update: Come on, man ...

🚨.@jaketapper: The White House was LYING not only to the press, not only to the public, but they were lying to their own cabinet, they were lying to White House staffers, they were lying to Democratic members of Congress about how bad things have gotten. @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/FfdLrqnOvk

— Nicole Silverio (@NicoleMSilverio) May 13, 2025

That's a bunch of runny horse puckey. Tapper himself would scold people on air for questioning Biden's cognitive status:

Here's Jake Tapper incensed over Joe Biden's "stutter" and outraged over claims of Biden's cognitive decline.

Now he's cashing in on a book about Biden's cognitive decline and media cover up. There is no bottom for these people.
pic.twitter.com/rdNdqh4YKQ

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) February 26, 2025

We had seen overwhelming evidence of Biden's cognitive and physical decline well before the 2024 election cycle, but the media just kept plugging the "cheap fakes" cover-up while refusing to ask real questions about what was obvious to everyone. Now they claim to have been handcuffed because the White House lied to them, as though the media couldn't have forced them to address this issue all along.

I have a new name for this: The Owen Maneuver. Remember Throw Momma From the Train, where Danny DeVito is trying to conspire with Billy Crystal to bump off his mother?

The Protection Racket Media is trying the Owen Maneuver from 'Throw Momma From the Train,' where Danny DeVito is the PRM and Billy Crystal is the White House. pic.twitter.com/90L6LWPnb7

— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) May 13, 2025

Update: Tom Elliot put this together in February, but it's still pertinent now.

SUPERCUT!

Before profiting off the media conspiracy to hide Biden's decline, @jaketapper helped run it pic.twitter.com/j5m7h4JVA3

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 27, 2025

Want to know what can be told now? The exposure of the Protection Racket Media as utterly corrupt, politically and ethically. But we can also now tell that the Protection Racket Media is panicking -- because independent platforms like ours still have the ability to expose it and keep pointing it out. That's why the Now It Can Be Told literary genre exists -- the establishment media knows they have to explain themselves to counter their credibility collapse. 

And the only reason that independent media platforms still exist -- after all of the financial attacks and censorship the Left has thrown at us -- is because of readers like you who stand up and do something about it. Your support is what makes accountability even possible, and why the corrupt industry has had to come up with its own cover story. 

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