{"id":164586,"date":"2025-10-31T05:30:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T13:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164586"},"modified":"2025-10-31T05:30:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T13:30:15","slug":"mark-halperin-new-details-on-biden-decline-cover-up-final-mamdani-nyc-election-forecast-plus-ro-khanna-2028","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164586","title":{"rendered":"Mark Halperin: New Details on Biden Decline Cover Up, Final Mamdani NYC Election Forecast, Plus: Ro Khanna 2028?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/myT9ILFBXlo?si=MHPUGuTokOjmc2kW\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Mark Halperin: The question of the press\u2019s role and the Biden White House\u2019s role in the issues surrounding Joe Biden\u2019s cognitive decline. I really don\u2019t want this to be my beat, but the story is back. Because people still aren\u2019t talking about it in the right way\u2014and because it\u2019s important for history, for America, for the Democratic Party, and for the integrity of my business\u2014we need to review where we are and talk about it again.<br \/>\nWhat brought it back to the forefront was a new report from the House Oversight Committee investigating Biden, particularly focusing on his use of the autopen and whether it was legitimate. But underlying that is the broader question of Biden\u2019s cognitive decline.<br \/>\nPeople call it a \u201ccover-up.\u201d It wasn\u2019t a cover-up. It was an attempted cover-up. The Democrats and the media couldn\u2019t cover up Biden\u2019s decline any more than the Trump administration could cover up whether Marco Rubio has good hair. It was visible to everyone.<br \/>\nThe Biden White House tried to stop the media and other Democrats from talking about it. It was an attempted cover-up that didn\u2019t work. And for some reason, it took the debate with Donald Trump to make it undeniable.<br \/>\nLeading up to that debate, the White House used two methods to suppress discussion: threats and lies. If a reporter talked or wrote about Biden\u2019s decline, they were threatened. \u201cDon\u2019t you dare do that.\u201d Everyone knew it. Almost no reporter was willing to break the off-the-record agreements to admit the White House was threatening them.<br \/>\nThe second method was lying\u2014constantly insisting that Biden \u201cruns us ragged,\u201d that he\u2019s \u201cso much better and sharper than us,\u201d that he\u2019s \u201cat the peak of his game.\u201d Those lies were repeated to minimize coverage. Democrats outside the White House faced the same pressure through the same threats and lies.<br \/>\nA few exceptions stood out: Alex Thompson reported honestly in real time, and I did too. On the Democratic side, Congressman Dean Phillips tried to get someone to run against Biden, saying he wouldn\u2019t win re-election because the country saw not just his age but his decline. Phillips was basically run out of the party for saying it.<br \/>\nThe media stayed silent about the threats and accepted the lies. When Biden aides went on TV saying, \u201cBiden\u2019s awesome, he runs us ragged, he\u2019s totally sharp,\u201d the media either echoed it or dismissed questions as Republican hit jobs or \u201cdeep fakes.\u201d<br \/>\nI\u2019ve said before: this is the biggest media scandal in American history. Before the debate, the decline was obvious. The original sin wasn\u2019t Biden\u2019s decision to run again, as Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson wrote in their book. The original sin was the White House lying and intimidating, and the media accepting it.<br \/>\nAfter the debate, there was finally conversation. Now, with new testimony from the House committee, we\u2019re seeing people who worked around Biden describing what happened. Even now, with people testifying under oath, the lying continues. Biden aides are still trying to rewrite history, still lying publicly and under oath.<br \/>\nSome Democrats dodge accountability by saying, \u201cI didn\u2019t see his decline privately.\u201d That\u2019s irrelevant. Everyone saw it publicly. The question isn\u2019t what they saw in private\u2014it\u2019s why they didn\u2019t act on what was obvious to the world.<br \/>\nThe dominant media continues to pretend none of this happened, partly because they don\u2019t want to admit their own complicity or acknowledge how easily they were intimidated. It\u2019s embarrassing. We have all these outlets, yet barely any coverage of this.<br \/>\nNow, to some of the testimony. Two senior Biden aides\u2014people who obviously observed the president\u2019s decline\u2014are now on book tours being pressed to explain what they saw.<br \/>\nFirst, Kamala Harris. In her book, she says they should have pressed the Bidens harder on whether he was up for the job, but she won\u2019t admit she saw cognitive decline. She argues he was capable of being president but implies running for re-election was harder than the presidency itself.<br \/>\nIn an interview with Australian TV, the reporter presses her hard, refusing to accept her evasions. Harris keeps dodging, saying Biden had \u201cthe capacity to be president,\u201d though she admits she had concerns about his endurance for the 2024 race.<br \/>\nBut again, framing this around the debate is revisionist history. The decline was obvious long before that. Biden had good days\u2014he wasn\u2019t as far gone as Republicans said, but he wasn\u2019t as sharp as Democrats claimed. This isn\u2019t about what Kamala saw in private. It\u2019s about what the public saw on C-SPAN.<br \/>\nNext, Karine Jean-Pierre. In a New Yorker interview and her book tour, she keeps repeating that Biden was \u201csharp,\u201d that he understood history and policy, that she had to be prepared for tough questions from him. Maybe she had some good interactions, but she also saw what the world saw before the debate.<br \/>\nThen there\u2019s Ian Sams, one of Biden\u2019s main spokesmen. He went on TV countless times insisting the president was fine. But in sworn testimony, he admitted he met with Biden \u201ca handful of times\u201d\u2014maybe four or five\u2014over two years. That\u2019s it. Yet he told the nation, \u201cThis is the president we see every day.\u201d<br \/>\nThat\u2019s misleading. He barely knew what Biden was like. He testified he\u2019d only met him twice in person, once on Zoom, and once by phone. That\u2019s an enormous story\u2014one that\u2019s getting almost no coverage.<br \/>\nFinally, Jeff Zients, Biden\u2019s chief of staff after Ron Klain. Zients testified that he, along with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and VA Secretary Denis McDonough, all expressed concern after the debate that Biden shouldn\u2019t run again.<br \/>\nZients told lawmakers that within days of the debate, Biden knew he thought it was prudent to consider dropping out. Blinken and Sullivan\u2014two of Biden\u2019s closest aides\u2014were concerned too. That\u2019s a huge story.<br \/>\nIn his testimony, Zients said he personally believed Biden should exit the race and that others shared that view. He also said many senators believed Biden couldn\u2019t overcome the perception of his age after the debate.<br \/>\nSo to summarize: Ian Sams told America Biden was fine despite barely seeing him. Jeff Zients and top officials like Blinken and Sullivan believed he shouldn\u2019t run again. The media? Silent.<br \/>\nThe White House chief of staff, national security adviser, secretary of state, and others all doubted Biden\u2019s re-election ability, and by implication, his capacity to serve. Yet the media continues to look away.<br \/>\nThis is one of the biggest stories of my career, and much of the press is compounding the original sin by pretending it will all go away. It won\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Halperin: The question of the press\u2019s role and the Biden White House\u2019s role in the issues surrounding Joe Biden\u2019s cognitive decline. I really don\u2019t want this to be my beat, but the story is back. Because people still aren\u2019t &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164586\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21791,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-journalism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164587,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164586\/revisions\/164587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}