Joe Biden’s close circle floated the idea of getting the aging politician a wheelchair if he was re-elected as president, according to a bombshell new book.
In Original Sin, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson write that the now 82-year-old’s aides were so concerned by his perceived decline that they started scrambling for ideas. His spine in particular was deteriorating, Axios reported, citing the book, which will be published on May 20.
“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,” Tapper and Thompson write in a damning section of the book, according to Axios.
ADVERTISEMENT
Aides reportedly conceded that it was politically untenable to have the U.S. president in a wheelchair.
However, his physician Kevin O’Connor privately warned that Biden was one fall away from needing one, Tapper and Thompson write.
“Given Biden’s age, [O’Connor] also privately said that if he had another bad fall, a wheelchair might be necessary for what could be a difficult recovery,” they write.
His team had reportedly become jumpy over Biden’s mobility, particularly after he toppled over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy in June 2023.
Axios’ Thompson, writing for the site in September of that year, reported on the Biden administration’s so-called “don’t-let-him-trip mission” that included getting Biden some top-of-the-range nonslip tennis shoes and encouraging him to enter Air Force One on a lower deck via a shorter flight of stairs.
The plan was ramped up ahead of his bid to defeat Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Shorter walking paths became the norm, as did a proliferation of handrails. He was also given intensely detailed visual briefings before events, to show him where to walk.
His physician even reportedly clashed with his political circle, demanding more rest for the aging politician. Axios reported that O’Connor would joke that while he tried to keep Biden alive, his aides tried to kill him.
The change in the president’s gait was mostly down to “significant spinal arthritis,” and partly due to “mild post-fracture foot arthritis,” O’Connor said.
The authors write that despite an obvious decline in his health, his family and aides decided to press ahead with a White House bid.
“Yes, there were physical changes as he got older, but evidence of aging is not evidence of mental incapacity,” a Biden spokesperson said in a statement to Axios.
“And so far,” the spokesperson added, “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. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite—he was a very effective president.”
The MAGA movement had long highlighted Biden’s perceived decline. They went on the attack in 2021 after his stumble on the Air Force One stairs, though some Republican senators insisted that the 78-year-old remained, mentally at least, “sharp as a tack.”
However, Trump had labeled him “Sleepy Joe” on the 2020 campaign trail, and despite the MAGA chief’s eventual loss, the nickname stuck and—in the eyes of many—became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Soon Fox News joined in, with political analyst Brit Hume overtly calling him “senile” on Tucker Carlson Tonight in April 2020. An array of high profile gaffes followed in the intervening years and culminated in Biden’s “catastrophic” debate against Trump in June 2024.
The MAGA movement has also criticized the mainstream media for not reporting on Biden’s decline, something Original Sin co-author Alex Thompson highlighted when accepting an award at last month’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
He went as far as to blame a “cover-up” for the lack of reportage.
“President Biden’s decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception,” Thompson said as he accepted the Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence for his coverage of the president’s cognitive slump.
“We—myself included—missed a lot of this story. And some people trust us less because of it,” he added. “We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows.”
Trump loyalists also criticized Thompson’s fellow co-author, Jake Tapper, saying he failed to cover the so-called cover-up on CNN—but then writing a book about it.
“What a hypocrite,” Elon Musk wrote earlier this year, sharing a post featuring a clip of Tapper strongly rebuking Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump after she mocked Biden’s stutter and doubled down in an interview, saying it was evidence of “a cognitive decline.”
Tapper, who was the co-moderator of Biden’s debate disaster against Trump, defended Biden in the 2020 election cycle but railed against “Democratic elites” for being “late to acknowledge” the age and ability concerns shared before, and during, his ill-fated 2024 campaign.
A segment of Original Sin, shared by Axios earlier this year, blasts the “self-interest” of Biden’s close circle for letting him run again.
“Biden, his family, and his team let their self-interest and fear of another Trump term justify trying to put an at times addled old man in the Oval Office for four more years,” Thompson and Tapper write.
