Biden's staged town hall footage was unusable: new book
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Biden speaks at an event in New Jersey in October 2021. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
This story is adapted from the new book "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson.
Needing video of then-President Biden speaking sharply and fluidly in a freewheeling setting, his campaign staged a closed-to-the-press town hall with a friendly audience in April 2024.
- The resulting footage was unusable, CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson write in their new book, "Original Sin."
Why it matters: The episode highlights the lengths that Biden's campaign went to cover for his deficiencies as an 81-year-old re-election candidate — and how difficult he made it to carry out the basic blocking and tackling of a modern campaign.
Behind the scenes: The event at a high school gym in Biden's home state of Delaware was supposed to be the basis for a campaign commercial. The idea was to create scenes of Biden taking off-the-cuff questions from voters that could be used in ads.
- The campaign had a full list of the questions the voters would ask, and cameras rolled for 90 minutes with Biden on stage.
- Some blamed the gym's lighting for the event being a dud, while others firmly pointed the finger at Biden's performance.
The big picture: The staged town hall was just one of a series of frustrations the campaign faced in trying to salvage workable video of Biden, Tapper and Thompson report in the book.
- The campaign regularly needed recorded remarks from Biden that could be played at events or used in fundraising pitches, but the candidate often was unable to tape even mundane remarks without botching lines.
- When supportive groups requested a taped five-minute video address from Biden, the White House would respond by saying the video would be one or two minutes.
- As a workaround, Biden would be filmed with two cameras instead of one, so that any flubbed lines could be smoothed over with jump cuts.
Even with such accommodations, videos sometimes were unsalvageable. In some cases, the heavy edits were so obvious that campaign staffers regretted putting them out.
Reality check: Many campaigns use two cameras to film remarks to make the editing process easier. But the extent of how reliant Biden was on them troubled campaign officials.
- Past campaigns also have used stage town halls to film commercials, as well as authentic ones. Biden was doing virtually no authentic town halls.
What they're saying: "The man could not speak," said one person involved.
- Staff blamed Biden's inability to find words or stay on a train of thought — not his stutter — for the issue.
- "Every shoot was anxiety-inducing for Biden's team," Thompson and Tapper wrote.
Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden have pushed back on reports of his decline, acknowledging that he had been physically slowed by age but saying that never affected his performance as president.
- "The people who wrote those books were not in the White House with us, and they didn't see how hard Joe worked every single day," Jill Biden said earlier this month during the Bidens' appearance on "The View."
- A Biden spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The book is based on interviews with more than 200 people, mostly Democratic insiders, with knowledge of the events that unfolded during the final two years of Biden's presidency. Almost all of the interviews took place after the 2024 election.
