Former President Joe Biden’s administration came under intense scrutiny last week amid a double blow: a grave health diagnosis and a wave of explosive allegations about the inner workings of his presidency.
Biden was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, a condition medical experts widely view as terminal. The news sparked a wave of sympathy across the political spectrum, including from President Donald Trump, who offered supportive remarks.
The health disclosure came just as Original Sin: “President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” hit store shelves. The book levels serious accusations about Biden’s fitness for office and claims of a coordinated effort to conceal his decline from the public.
The book’s co-authors, Axios reporter Alex Thompson and CNN’s Jake Tapper, make startling claims about who truly held the reins in the Biden White House. According to Thompson, a tight-knit inner circle—referred to within the administration as “the Politburo”—was effectively calling the shots and managing day-to-day operations behind the scenes.
The label “Politburo,” a term historically used to describe the ruling elite in communist regimes, underscores the authors’ portrayal of a presidency run by an insular, unelected group rather than the president himself. “In terms of who was running the White House, it’s a small group of people that have been around,” Thompson told PBS, per the New York Post.
“Some people within the administration called them the Politburo. That’s the term we used in the book,” he said. This inner circle reportedly included longtime Washington figures such as former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, along with Biden family members, including former First Lady Jill Biden and former First Son Hunter Biden.
The authors noted that none of these individuals received electoral votes from American citizens, raising concerns about democratic representation and constitutional governance. Tapper clarified that Biden had some awareness of his administration’s operations, though his involvement seemed limited.
“And Joe Biden himself also is part of this. Joe Biden is not like — it’s not ‘Weekend at Bernie’s,’ right?” Tapper stated. The CNN anchor also pointed out that Biden was aware of the restrictive practices imposed by his handlers. “He’s aware of the fact that they are keeping the cabinet away from him, they are keeping some White House staffers away from him,” Tapper revealed.
Thompson now alleges that “undemocratic things” were done to hide former President Biden’s declining mental condition and secure his re-election bid.
In a Sunday interview with Fox News host Shannon Bream, Thompson revealed that Biden’s unelected inner circle believed it was their duty to “pick up the slack” for a president struggling to fulfill his role.
Their justification? A belief that President Trump posed an “existential threat” to democracy—one they claimed warranted extraordinary measures, which, of course, is absurd. In practice, the arrangement handed sweeping power to unelected, unconfirmed staffers who operated without voter approval or Senate oversight, bypassing the standard mechanisms meant to uphold democratic accountability in the executive branch.
The book features a particularly revealing passage in which an anonymous aide lays out a stunning strategy for a potential second Biden term. According to the aide, the plan was simple: “He just had to win, and then he could disappear for four years.” Under this approach, Biden would only need to offer occasional “proof of life,” while unelected staffers handled the day-to-day running of the government.
Speaking to Bream, the author explained the mindset behind such a plan. He said that for those who truly saw Trump as an existential threat to democracy, virtually any tactic—no matter how undemocratic—could be rationalized in the name of stopping him.