My thoughts on Jake Tapper and the efforts to "expose" Joe Biden.

[ificandream]

First, I much prefer MSNBC over CNN, but that has more to do with my familiarity with them rather than the station's personalities. In my view, CNN has tended to be more middle-of-the-road than MSNBC, and that's ok. I just prefer to go another route.

I will say, however, that I'm not entirely against books like Tapper's and Jonathan Allen's, though I think Allen is less trustworthy than Tapper given his previous books like the one he was so quick to get out after Hillary lost.

I don't think Tapper's motives are as bad as some here have made them out to be. Tapper's been a decent journalist in the past. That he may have latched on to a story that paints a less-than-glowing picture of Joe Biden doesn't make him evil unless it's proven he was dead wrong. I'm not sure he was completely right, but given the evidence we clearly saw at that awful debate, I don't think at least some of what he says in his book (which I admittedly have not read) won't be wrong. For those of us who aren't young (and I'm one of those folks), we know that things change as we get older. It's scary, believe me. And we all saw what happened the night of the debate. The question is how much of what we saw was just momentary.

And I think we saw in the last few months of his presidency that Joe 2024 wasn't the same as Joe 2012. But he hadn't lost everything. I loved that moment on The View recently when he made that mic drop statement about Trump.

On the other hand, there is something clearly wrong with Trump even though you'll never get one of his lackeys to agree. He has made it look like he's leading the herd, but in reality, he's been led by the nose ring and it's only going to get worse.

[Tommy Carcetti]

1. I think Tapper's in it for himself. Which isn't an uncommon thing per se.

I don't think he's a Trumpist or anything like that.

He's a journalist who wrote a book and now wants to sell it, come hell or high water.

The problem being, the notion behind his book is inherently flawed.

Joe Biden was old. Everyone knew that when we voted for him in 2020. It was a known quantity.

He talked and walked like an 80 year old person talks and walks.

That doesn't mean he was incompetent for his job. It just means he was old.

Big whoop.

[Silent Type]

2. Painful truth is there would have been no book had President Biden announced he wasn't running.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

[W_HAMILTON]

4. Bless your idealistic heart, but there absolutely would have been.

[Silent Type]

6. What do you think it would have been about?

[W_HAMILTON]

8. Uhh, the exact same thing it's about now.

You think people wouldn't question Biden's fitness for office? Hell, we heard it already, back before Biden dropped out but when people were still wanting him to, and there were those that were saying, "if Biden isn't capable of campaigning or serving a second term, how is he capable of being president right now?"

To think at how many in the media (or in charge of the media) we have watched either happily and eagerly or reluctantly roll over for this fascist administration, you think they would have gone easy on Biden regardless of what he did?

[Silent Type]

9. We might have had a chance to actually win, therefore no need for a book on Biden other than praise.

[Rebl2]

19. No

some right wing journalist(s) would have written nasty books about him regardless.

[Sewa]

3. Stop trying to normalize Jake the Snake

He’s pushing the right wing agenda 👎💀

[ificandream]

5. He's not.

For all the reasons I said in the OP. Conspiracies are a RW thing, anyway.

[misanthrope]

12. The only thing Tapper is pushing for is his own ego and fame

Last edited Sun May 25, 2025, 11:37 AM - Edit history (1)

I've seen other journalists get infected with the same thing at various levels. I had a newspaper publisher/journalist tell me once their longterm goal was to have "powerful people be afraid of me when I walk in the room." They want the same power politicians crave but without the vulnerability of being voted out of office.

[ificandream]

17. Which publisher told you that?

I’m curious…

[lame54]

7. I called him Jake Hacker long before...

Book came out

[ificandream]

10. So did Trump. Coincidence, maybe?

[karynnj]

11. From the descriptions of the book, where I have a problem is that it

seems to start with the assumption that sometimes, likely in the early days of his Presidency, Biden became less coherent and mentally challenged .. and everyone close to him knew this was the case.

I suspect that NEITHER of these two points are true. I suspect that the debate was an aberration maybe caused by jet lag, illness and possibly medicines for that illness coupled with facing a bully spewing lies and false allegations at a dizzying speed. Consider his ability to respond on his feet at the SOTU and in the long press conference done in the wake of the debate. His answers to questions were thoughtful, nuanced and showed the depth of his knowledge and insight on the foreign policy questions. Neither could be faked. Trump could not have intelligently and accurately answered these questions. ( Biden didn't claim video from the Congo was South Africa in front of SA 's president.)

So, those close to him likely saw both that knowledge and judgment informed his decision making and instances where he seemed old, tired and halting. Where a case might be made that, for his own sake, he should plan for a transition serving just one term, it was clear he was preforming well as President.

The book has seemed to assume the RW meme that he was not functioning well as President .. which those press conferences seem to prove was not the case.

[ificandream]

18. If anything, I think some of these discussions are more ageism than anything else

Last edited Sun May 25, 2025, 10:59 AM - Edit history (1)

That’s not to say that, as I’ve said earlier, that things haven’t changed with Biden. But we never had these kind of discussions with Queen Elizabeth. I think perhaps maybe some ignorance is in the mix here. The real question is whether Joe Biden was still able to lead the country. The answer to that is easy: yes he was. And as we can see from the first few months of his presidency, Trump is definitely not.

[SunSeeker]

14. Yes, there is something clearly wrong with Trump, yet Tapper is writing about Biden.

[SocialDemocrat61]

15. Lol

[Patton French]

16. Tapper is all about Tapper

NT

[LetMyPeopleVote]

20. Tapper's book sales are not doing well

Tapper's crappy book is bombing

Link to tweet

[cally]

21. But Tapper said worse than Watergate!

Which shows me that he has very little understanding of history and Watergate, Reagan dementia/alzheimer, and coverup of Trump cognition problems and Musk drug use during campaign. Also, I suspect Trump uses drugs and maybe Bush. Where is research into that and understanding Of history.

[Mysterian]

22. Tapper is a craven coward with no ethics

who went along with his boss' desire to remake CNN as a right-wing propaganda organ.

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," said Tapper the coward

[LetMyPeopleVote]

23. tapper's tv ratings are also bombing

Link to tweet