Axios’ Alex Thompson joined Fox News Sunday for an interview on his recently published Original Sin, co-written with CNN’s Jake Tapper. Of all the revelations during his interview, the most damning being that he felt “ostracized” by many in the legacy media.
Thompson is doing his level best to be generous with his colleagues, but lets some of that frustration slip. Watch closely:
“Everyday Americans who are watching the kinds of things like we have on the screen now, they’ll say we weren’t in Washington, we’re not at the White House, we’re not covering this every day, we could see this in real time. Why couldn’t most of the Washington press corps?” –… pic.twitter.com/6DnBhqW6jw
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) May 25, 2025
SHANNON BREAM: All right, we’ve got to start with the elephant in the room: the media coverage of this. You recently won an award from The White House Correspondents’ Association for, quote: “aggressive reporting on Biden”, and for providing, quote: “important insight into the inner workings of the Biden White House.” In accepting the award you acknowledged, “we missed some of this, there is more that could have been done”, but everyday Americans who are watching the kinds of things like we have on the screen now they’ll say “we weren’t in Washington, we’re not at The White House, we’re not covering this every day- we could see this decline in real time.” Why couldn't most of the Washington press corps?
ALEX THOMPSON: Well, I would say first- there's a big difference between what you're seeing on the screen there, and then what was going on behind the scenes by the inner circle of the Biden White House to try to shield that part of Joe Biden. But for people that, in the country, that are frustrated with the media coverage I don't blame them, because they were saying there's probably more here and it’s not- because the media definitely talked about his age and did show those clips but I do think we didn't probe more, probe enough into what was actually going on behind the scenes and that's what we really try to do in this book.
BREAM: Well, fair to say, though, that those who did publicly question what we were seeing and try to push for more answers they were often belittled or kind of condescended to about why they would even ask those questions.
THOMPSON: I mean, I covered this aggressively back since 2021 and especially through 2023 and 2024, and the book says that, you know, at times I was even frustrated that there didn't -- that- and I felt a little bit on the outs with some of my colleagues, not all. I think there were a lot of people that were really trying to cover this story and people in The White House were lying and not telling the truth and obscuring it. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's fair, that's why I made the comments at the speech. I think, you know, this is a good moment for just like reflecting on why exactly we missed some of the details that we finally got in this book.
The rest of the interview broke new ground, as Thompson rehashes some of the more shocking revelations (or confirmations) contained within the book. To wit: that Cabinet secretaries were largely cut off from access to President Joe Biden, that Biden was in no condition to handle the proverbial 2 AM phone call, and concerns over the president’s relationship with the White House physician.
But here, when confronted with the contrast between the media’s coverage of Biden’s decline and what many Americans (including conservative media) saw with their own two eyes, Thompson acknowledged those legitimate frustrations. Furthermore, Thompson admits being “ostracized” by colleagues not keen on reporting on Biden’s decline- going as far back as 2021.
This nugget reveals that the true “Original Sin”, beyond the conspiracy to hide Biden’s decline in 2023 and 2024, is the media’s unwillingness to cover Biden’s decline after he secured the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Until that “original sin” is addressed, frustrations will remain. This tome, although potentially packed with useful information that may help Congressional committees or a special counsel down the road, does nothing to salvage the media’s institutional credibility today.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview, as aired on Fox News Sunday on May 25th, 2025:
JAMES COMER: We're going to bring every single person that was involved in this coverup in front of Congress and ask them all the questions that the American people deserve to have answers for.
SHANNON BREAM: That is House Oversight chair James Comer demanding that former President Biden's doctor and other top advisors either turn over documents or testify on the details of what was really going on with his physical and mental condition while he was running the country. The investigation ramping up in the wake of a new book, Original Sin, which details what many view as calculated, years-long efforts to conceal the president's decline in the run up to the 2024 election. Joining me now: the book’s coauthor, Axios national political correspondent Alex Thompson. Good to have you with us today.
ALEX THOMPSON: Great to be here.
BREAM: All right, we’ve got to start with the elephant in the room: the media coverage of this. You recently won an award from The White House Correspondents’ Association for, quote: “aggressive reporting on Biden”, and for providing, quote: “important insight into the inner workings of the Biden White House.” In accepting the award you acknowledged, “we missed some of this, there is more that could have been done”, but everyday Americans who are watching the kinds of things like we have on the screen now they’ll say “we weren’t in Washington, we’re not at The White House, we’re not covering this every day- we could see this decline in real time.” Why couldn't most of the Washington press corps?
THOMPSON: Well, I would say first- there's a big difference between what you're seeing on the screen there, and then what was going on behind the scenes by the inner circle of the Biden White House to try to shield that part of Joe Biden. But for people that, in the country, that are frustrated with the media coverage I don't blame them, because they were saying there's probably more here and it’s not- because the media definitely talked about his age and did show those clips but I do think we didn't probe more, probe enough into what was actually going on behind the scenes and that's what we really try to do in this book.
BREAM: Well, fair to say, though, that those who did publicly question what we were seeing and try to push for more answers they were often belittled or kind of condescended to about why they would even ask those questions.
THOMPSON: I mean, I covered this aggressively back since 2021 and especially through 2023 and 2024, and the book says that, you know, at times I was even frustrated that there didn't -- that- and I felt a little bit on the outs with some of my colleagues, not all. I think there were a lot of people that were really trying to cover this story and people in The White House were lying and not telling the truth and obscuring it. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's fair, that's why I made the comments at the speech. I think, you know, this is a good moment for just like reflecting on why exactly we missed some of the details that we finally got in this book.
BREAM: So some of those who were pressing at the time in real time for more answers- I want to play a little bit of the responses they were getting from Biden's inner circle.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: I think you all have called this the cheapfakes video and that's exactly what they are, they are cheapfakes video. The right wing critics of the president have a credibility problem.
ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: The most difficult part about a meeting with President Biden is preparing for it because he is sharp, intensely probing, and detail-oriented and focused.
RON KLAIN: The president is absolutely sharp, fit, on top of his game. People can see that for themselves. You don't have to take my word for it, people can see that for themselves.
BREAM: People felt like they saw something different when they were looking for themselves. All of those quotations were in 2024. So based on having read your book, what you reported, were those people lying at the time- this idea that they couldn't keep up with President Biden, that he was exceptionally sharp?
THOMPSON: They weren't telling the truth and I think the book really conclusively shows what was going behind the scenes. Throughout 2023 and 2024 there were steps taken to increasingly shield Joe Biden not just from the public but from, you know, members of his own Cabinet, members of his own senior staff, and one White House official who left in 2024 told us that they left in part because they were not comfortable with how they were trying to shield the extent of the decline. The Joe Biden that people saw on that debate stage I think the book shows that it was not the first time that Joe Biden acted like that. You could listen to the tapes from the Robert Hur investigation, I think there is- you can sort of hear Debate Biden and there were increasingly frantic efforts to make sure that the public did not see Debate Biden. While the public did see that he was aging, I think the debate was a shock to millions of Americans because of the extent of it.
BREAM: Well, and you mentioned in the book, you talked to a number of Cabinet secretaries. I thought this was extremely illuminating and a little bit frightening because some of them told you they didn't think he could handle that 2 AM middle of the night phone call. He's the Commander-in-Chief of the nuclear codes. One of them talked about seeing him in person the last year and was shocked by- he seemed disoriented his mouth wag hanging open, he seemed out of it. Did those Cabinet officials express any remorse? Did he they not have an obligation to say to the American people “we don't think this guy can be the president, much less run for four more years?”
THOMPSON: There's definitely a lot of self-reflection about what, if anything, they should have done differently. I think there was a feeling, like, a lot of members of the Democratic Party that were seeing this or some moments of him seeming out of it, that going public was not going to change his mind. It was only going to help Donald Trump. And I think that's how a lot of them rationalized it. Now whether or not history will judge them, you know, as being right for doing that, you know, we will see. But this is also part of the reason why The White House was shielding him from as many people as possible, including Cabinet secretaries because sometimes, you know, you see him once, maybe it's just a bad day. You can just say like, “maybe I just had one bad meeting, you're not really sure.”
BREAM: Well, it did seem like there were so many people who you would have thought would have access to him who didn't, because of this inner circle that really much managed his schedule and his time and his access in a way that didn't give a lot of people, you know, one on one time with him. In the book you quote a long-time Biden aide basically admitting he shouldn't be running again. They said to you on page 85, “he just had to win and then he could disappear for four years, he’d only have to show proof of life every once in a while…his aides could pick up the slack.” Who would have been running The White House in a second Biden term?
THOMPSON: This person went on to say that when you're voting for a president you're voting for the aides around him. But these aides were not even Senate-confirmed aides. These were White House aides. These were unelected people and one of the things that really, I think, comes out in our reporting here is that if you believe, and I think a lot of these people do sincerely believe that Donald Trump was and is an existential threat to democracy, you can rationalize anything- including sometimes doing undemocratic things, which is what this person I think is talking about.
BREAM: I want to ask you about the president's doctor, because we have this unfortunate news now about his cancer diagnosis and you write about Dr. Kevin O'Connor several names the book, but on page 47 you say “people around Biden worried that O'Connor, who almost everyone called Doc, might be too close to his patient.” You write about his continued resistance to ever give him a cognitive test. But knowing what we know about the president's health, something that, you know, a lot of medical professionals including Zeke Emanuel, who is no conservative, says he may have had this cancer probably for years. Was Dr. O'Connor too close to him to significantly and accurately probe both his mental and physical health?
THOMPSON: I mean, Zeke Emanuell is not only no Republican, he also worked on Joe Biden's Covid team and he basically said that it's almost certain that Joe Biden had this cancer while he was president. So that either means that he had cancer and his doctor did not catch it, or it means that they did catch it and they didn't disclose it. And so it's raised more questions than not. In terms of -- I mean, a lot of people did feel that Kevin O'Connor, while they also believed he was a man of integrity, they also just felt that he had been sort of, you know, brought into this Biden orbit, sort of, they call it a version of a reality distortion field, and, you know, the other thing is that Kevin O'Connor was also very involved with Joe Biden's late son Beau's cancer treatments. And that sort of bonded them in a way that I think made people a little apprehensive. And even people that really love Kevin O'Connor, and by all accounts he was beloved throughout The White House, you know, even long-time Biden aides have told me that they are skeptical and feel like they don't have all the information when it comes to this cancer diagnosis.
BREAM: Okay. Well, maybe James Comer will be the one who probes that if this turns into a subpoena situation on The Hill. It's a fascinating read in a way that is almost like you can't turn away from a train wreck you're watching happen, having this information that we have now. Alex, thank you very much for coming on. Good to see you.
THOMPSON: Thanks so much for having me.
BREAM: Original Sin is available anywhere you like to get your books.
