Despite CNN’s liberal-leaning reputation, the network’s most prominent star, Jake Tapper, in 2025 co-authored a brutal assessment of Democratic former President Joe Biden’s inner circle, and the “cover-up” of his decline, in his book Original Sin, with Alex Thompson.
This week, Tapper again took aim at the Biden team, disputing a claim by former First Lady Jill Biden that she was deeply concerned for her husband’s health during the June 2024 presidential debate that essentially marked the end of Biden’s re-election campaign.
Mrs. Biden, who is promoting her new memoir, said recently she feared her husband was “having a stroke” during the debate, emphasizing the then-president’s debate incoherence as an anomaly. She said she worried at the time that people would think he was “always” like that.
Tapper, who co-moderated that debate, cast doubt on Mrs. Biden’s hindsight about the event, saying he spoke to her afterwards and she gave no indication at the time she feared for her husband’s health. He also panned her new book, A View from the East Wing, saying of her account that Biden was fit for the job and lack of cognitive impairment: “All of that is very difficult to believe, if not just downright false.”
Hunter Biden, whose legal, financial and substance abuse issues were a weight on the Biden presidency, responded with an attack on Tapper, alleging that the reporter’s bothsidesism was allowing corruption by Trump family members to escape commensurate scrutiny.
So let me get this straight.
Jake Tapper is focused on attacking my Mom.
Jared and Ivanka are building a private island paradise on Albanian protected land.
Don Jr married the daughter of Epstein’s banker, and a startup his fund backs just got a record $620M Pentagon loan.…
— Hunter Biden (@HunterBiden) June 3, 2026
The younger Biden, who has largely been using social media to talk about his sobriety, not politics, wrote:
“So let me get this straight. Jake Tapper is focused on attacking my Mom. Jared and Ivanka are building a private island paradise on Albanian protected land. Don Jr married the daughter of Epstein’s banker, and a startup his fund backs just got a record $620M Pentagon loan. Eric is taking an Israeli drone company public for $1.5B in the middle of a war with Iran that nobody wanted.”