Jake Tapper admits he didn't cover Biden's cognitive decline enough, claims to 'look back on it with humility'

CNN anchor Jake Tapper is now admitting he didn't provide enough coverage of former President Joe Biden's cognitive decline as his reporting during the previous administration draws scrutiny from critics. 

Tapper appeared on his network Wednesday morning while promoting his new book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," set to be released next week. He was asked what he made of his conservative critics who've been speaking out against him and the rest of the media over their lack of coverage exposing Biden's mental acuity while he was in office. 

"I think some of the criticism is fair, to be honest, of me," Tapper responded. "Certainly I'm not going to speak for anybody else, but knowing then what I know now, I look back at my coverage during the Biden years and I did cover some of these issues, but not enough. I look back on it with humility."

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Tapper went on to say that he and his co-author Alex Thompson learned through their reporting after the election that there were "two Bidens" around 2019-2020, one that was "perfectly workable" and the other one being "non-functioning," the latter, Tapper said, "reared his head increasingly" throughout his presidency. 

"And look, while it was very important – and I'm not dismissing the coverage of Biden tripping on stage or falling off his bike, that was obviously indicative of something serious that was going on – I think what we learned about the non-functioning Biden rearing his head increasingly, not being able to come up with the name of George Clooney, not being able to come up with the name of top aides in the White House," Tapper told his CNN colleague John Berman. 

"I think that really reveals something even more significant, something even more disturbing, about a president that was not what we, the American people, should expect and be able to demand, which is somebody who is there with it 24/7, there for the 2am emergency phone call in the middle of the night," Tapper added.

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Tapper's "humility" comes hours after Fox News Digital published its report that outlined the coverage he dedicated to Biden leading up to his disastrous debate performance that forced him out of the 2024 presidential race. 

His most aggressive coverage took place in February 2024 in the wake of Biden's press conference responding in outrage to the Hur report. Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to bring charges against Biden in the classified documents case because he determined a jury would not convict someone perceived as an "elderly man with a poor memory," based on his interview with investigators. 

In interviews with Biden during the 2020 campaign and during his presidency, Tapper broached the subject of his age. However, he pumped the brakes on covering Biden's cognitive decline in the heat of the 2024 election cycle, avoiding coverage of the viral moments showing Biden freezing or wandering off, which at the time the Biden White House dubbed "cheap fakes." 

Tapper similarly ignored Biden's "Where's Jackie?" gaffe from September 2022 when he called out for the late Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., at an event honoring her memory after she died in a tragic car accident weeks prior. 

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Tapper also repeatedly defended Biden from his critics. In September 2023, Tapper asserted that Biden was mentally "sharp" while discussing Nikki Haley demanding cognitive tests for older politicians, suggesting that questions swirling around the president were only about whether he was "physically" able to do the job. 

And in March 2024, following Biden's high-energy State of the Union address filled with shouting and attacking Republicans, Tapper took a swipe at the president's conservative critics who previously accused him of being "weak" and "senile."

"He certainly seemed like an 81-year-old, but he didn't seem incapable of doing the job," Tapper told his panel before dismissing "Weekend at Bernie's" comparisons from the right. 

A spokesperson for CNN strongly pushed back at the notion that Tapper offered insufficient coverage of the Biden scandal before the debate.

"Jake Tapper is a veteran journalist whose tenacious and thorough reporting has held those in power to account on both sides of the aisle for decades," the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "He fairly and accurately covered Senator, Vice President and President Biden through years of dogged Washington reporting, hitting every high and low of the former president’s political career."

The CNN spokesperson continued, "From the campaign in 2020 to 2024 when he dropped out, Jake raised concerns about President Biden’s mental stamina on his shows, questioned Biden officials directly about his health on air, and consistently encouraged open discussion and debate on the issue." 

Fox News' Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.