A new book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson about President Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection as his health declined has set off a round of reflection and regret among senior Democrats who publicly backed his campaign until his disastrous debate performance last June.

Excerpts and reporting from the book, “Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," featured in the New Yorker and Axios this week detailed Democratic insiders — including then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, actor and fundraiser George Clooney and former Obama speechwriter and prominent political podcaster Jon Favreau, among others — growing in their worries about Biden’s ability to do the job and beat President Donald Trump last year.

“We got so screwed by Biden, as a party,” David Plouffe told the book’s authors. Plouffe helped run Obama’s campaign in 2008 and followed him to the White House. Last summer, he was recruited by Vice President Kamala Harris to help manage her sprint of a campaign after Biden dropped out July 21. Plouffe blamed Harris’ doomed, 107-day campaign on Biden’s decision to run for reelection and then waiting three weeks to drop out after the debate.

“It’s all Biden,” Plouffe said.

Biden has denied the reporting about his alleged mental decline, including on “The View” last week, and has expressed skepticism that his performance and decision-making during the 2024 campaign cost the Democrats the election. A press representative working with Biden in his post-presidency did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday, but his team has attacked the book in unsigned statements to the press. 

“There is nothing to sustain that,” Biden said last week when pressed on reports of his mental decline.

In recent days, senior Democrats — including at least one former Biden Cabinet official — have publicly grappled with Biden’s failure to run out the tape and prevent Trump from returning to office, as he pledged to do repeatedly over the previous few years. The discussions come as the party remains out of power in Washington and is scrambling to regroup for the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is considering a 2028 run, told reporters in Iowa after a town hall Tuesday that it “maybe” was a mistake for Biden, now 82, to run for a second term and that “right now, with the benefit of hindsight, I think most people would agree that is the case."

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, told Politico on Wednesday that “there’s no doubt” Biden’s cognitive abilities declined in office. 

“The debate is whether it was enough that it compromised his ability to act as chief executive,” Murphy said. 

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is trying to overcome Republicans’ slim majority and win the speakership after next year’s midterms, dodged questions on CNN on Wednesday about whether he detected a decline in Biden’s mental fortitude.

“In the conversations that I was able to have on behalf of the House Democratic caucus in those final days [after the debate], we simply expressed our perspective as to what would be best for the party at that given moment in time,” Jeffries said. “President Biden subsequently made the decision that he was going to pass the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris. Of course, that was a decision that we supported strongly."

In a CNN appearance of his own on Tuesday, Schumer — now the Senate minority leader — declined to answer questions about Biden’s health, repeatedly insisting, “We’re looking forward.” Schumer was reportedly one of the most prominent voices trying to push Biden out behind the scenes but has denied the reporting in “Original Sin” that he told people he, Jeffries, former President Barack Obama and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi had “a plan B,” even prior to the debate.

Republicans cry 'cover-up'

Republicans, who long highlighted and capitalized on Americans' concerns about Biden's age and health, spiked the football as details from the book began to make the rounds this week.

"You didn’t need a medical degree to know Joe Biden’s health was declining. Democrats aimed to bury the truth. The media handed them the shovel. A cover-up for the history books.," Rep. James Comer, the chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee, wrote on social media.

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt said on Newsmax on Tuesday that "anybody with half a brain ... saw a dramatic decline." And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called for the release of the audio tapes from Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur, something the Trump administration is reportedly working on. Transcripts of the conversation were released last year, but Biden asserted executive privilege to prevent the release of the audio.

In his final report, Hur wrote he was hesitant to recommend prosecuting Biden over his handling of classified information because he “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.”

"Americans deserve to know the full scope of Biden's decline. Release the tapes,” Cruz wrote.

Biden's fight for his legacy

Tapper and Thompson also reported, according to Axios, that Biden’s advisers discussed the possibility he would have to use a wheelchair in his second term if he won and that his doctor said he would have to use one if he suffered a fall. The book is based on interviews with more than 200 people, mostly within the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, and is set for release Tuesday. 

In his publicly released medicals last February, Biden’s longtime physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, reported a “moderate to severe” degeneration of spinal disks that he blamed on the octogenarian president’s years of “wear and tear,” as well as nerve damage in Biden’s feet. That explained Biden’s notably slower and halting gait in recent years, the Biden White House argued at the time, pointing to a 2020 incident that left him with hairline fractures in his foot. 

This week, Biden’s team revealed he spent last Friday in the hospital after a “small nodule” was found on his prostate, a common condition for a man of his age.

Obama veterans urged Biden, who reportedly staffed up as he sat down for two major interviews in recent weeks, not to take up oxygen as the Democratic Party looks to the future and the ongoing fight with the Trump administration. 

“There is an element here of reading the room, and there is so much bad s--- happening in the country," former White House and campaign Communications Director Dan Pfieffer said last week. "The threats are so dire, and the threats are so dire to the things that Joe Biden dearly and sincerely cares about."

In an NPR interview on Wednesday, former Obama political chief David Axelrod expressed a similar sentiment. 

“If he's concerned about President Trump and some of the things that President Trump is doing, then he should want the Democratic Party to be in a position to move on and do well in the midterm elections,” Axelrod said. “Him being out there does not serve that purpose. I think he's doing himself a disservice. And I think he continues to do the party and the country a disservice.”