Editor’s note: yesterday, The Daily Wire published a rundown of all the revelations in a forthcoming book about Joe Biden’s physical and mental decline. But today we ask: are revelations really revelatory if everyone already knew?

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The forthcoming book “Original Sin” — which offers a behind-the-scenes look at the obvious physical and cognitive decline of former President Joe Biden — promises a host of “bombshells,” some of which have already been addressed in The Daily Wire’s reporting.

But are these bombshells really bombshells? The book’s authors — CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson — claim journalists like them were kept in the dark about Biden’s condition. The official media narrative is that the truth was only revealed at the June debate between Biden and President Donald Trump, when everyone saw with their own eyes what the White House had been trying to conceal.

For people who don’t follow politics, that explanation makes perfect sense: the occasional troubling soundbite from Biden leading up to the debate could be explained away as a “bad day” or an awkward moment “taken out of context.” But for reporters — particularly those covering politics and the White House — that excuse simply doesn’t hold water.

Republicans and right-leaning media outlets had been talking about the fact that Biden had lost a step or two for months, if not years, before he stepped into the studio for the CNN debate with President Donald Trump.

Still, as more and more of the “bombshells” drop, Democrats and legacy media outlets continue to stress the debate as the moment that everyone truly understood that Biden was likely finished.

Critics are not buying that, however — and they’re saying so.

“It’s a medical mystery how so many people realized that Biden was mentally and physically incapacitated the moment they signed a book deal,” radio host Dana Loesch commented.

It’s a medical mystery how so many people realized that Biden was mentally and physically incapacitated the moment they signed a book deal.

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) May 13, 2025

“If you need to read a book to know Biden was declining then I have a bridge to sell you,” Sean Spicer added.

if you need to read a book to know Biden was declining then I have a bridge to sell you

— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) May 13, 2025

Democrats are still asking, “How could we have possibly known about Biden’s cognitive impairment?!”

I’m glad you asked.

I told you on-air in early 2024 the Hur Report was a “WARNING” about how bad it was & you chose to smear Hur instead of listen to him! Roll the tape 👇 pic.twitter.com/EDA8bB9Ah3

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) May 14, 2025

“What strikes me about these Biden books is the selfishness,” Caroline Downey added. “These so-called journalists protected a mentally frail president without caring about how it could hurt America. They sat on the truth for 4 years because it was not advantageous to themselves to share. Until now! $$”

What strikes me about these Biden books is the selfishness.

These so-called journalists protected a mentally frail president without caring about how it could hurt America. They sat on the truth for 4 years because it was not advantageous to themselves to share. Until now! $$

— Caroline Downey (@carolinedowney_) May 14, 2025

“The book is itself part of the deception that Jake Tapper and the corporate press perpetrated about Biden’s health the entire time he was in office,” The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson posted. “First they lied about Biden’s decline. Now they’re lying about not knowing about it, pretending they were all tricked by the WH.”

The book is itself part of the deception that Jake Tapper and the corporate press perpetrated about Biden’s health the entire time he was in office.

First they lied about Biden’s decline. Now they’re lying about not knowing about it, pretending they were all tricked by the WH. https://t.co/4TbL6cPycV

— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) May 14, 2025

Meghan McCain took the argument a step further, saying that Tapper and Thompson would not have written a book about Biden’s decline if the propaganda campaign had been successful and he’d won reelection in November.

“If Trump had lost, no ‘journalist’ would write a book about Biden’s health. They would keep spreading propaganda. We should not forgive, forget or allow those culpable in one of the great coverups ever attempted on the American people to financially benefit. This is a f***ing joke and everyone knows it,” she said.

If Trump had lost, no “journalist” would write a book about Biden’s health. They would keep spreading propaganda.

We should not forgive, forget or allow those culpable in one of the great coverups ever attempted on the American people to financially benefit.

This is a fucking…

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) May 13, 2025

Biden’s recent reemergence — particularly an appearance on ABC’s “The View” — has done little to aid the Democrats and legacy media in furthering their narrative. When asked directly about the upcoming book and concerns about his fitness, Biden flailed briefly before former First Lady Jill Biden jumped in to rescue him.

Truly amazing stuff here: Joe Biden is asked about the books that have been written about his cognitive decline. He spends one minute struggling to answer the question while going on tangents about random things before handing it off to his wife who says he was perfectly fine lol pic.twitter.com/vUjG2dwe0X

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 8, 2025

Audio of former special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with former President Joe Biden is out, showing the extent to which Biden struggled to recall simple facts.

The news outlet Axios obtained the audio of Hur’s interviews with Biden, which took place in October 2023. The recordings were taken over two three-hour interview sessions recorded on October 8 and 9.

In one audio clip, Biden struggles to recall the year his son Beau died. Beau died of brain cancer on May 30, 2015, at the age of 46. The audio shows that Biden could remember the month and day, but struggled to recall the year until he was prompted by members of the special counsel’s team.

Biden also gets the year wrong that President Donald Trump was elected to his first term. Biden confuses the year that Trump is elected, 2016, with the year that he enters office and Biden leaves the vice presidency, 2017. Biden is repeatedly prompted to clarify when he leaves office and Trump enters the White House.

As the clip continues, Biden backtracks, appears to repeat himself, and appears to misstate the year of Beau’s death again after being told the correct year. Biden struggles to spin more than a handful of words together at a time before he pauses again, appearing to be trying to recollect his thoughts. At several moments, Biden drops off midway through a sentence with a muttered, “anyway.”

Biden’s pauses are accentuated by the ticking of a grandfather clock in the background. Over stretches of time, Biden would pause every few words while the ticking of the clock would drone on in the background.

In the Hur report, the special counsel said that he decided against charging Biden for mishandling classified documents in part because Biden’s old age and memory problems would make him sympathetic to a jury.

“Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023,” the report said. “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

In a second audio clip published by Axios, the former president admits to holding classified material “for posterity’s sake.”

“I don’t know if it was going to be the subject of reporting, but I wanted to hang onto it, I guess I wanted to hang onto it just for posterity’s sake,” Biden told investigators of his reason for keeping a classified document on Afghanistan. “I mean, this was my position on Afghanistan.”