Democrats are still blaming former President Joe Biden for Trump’s re-election win; and a new book interviewed 200 people that agree with them. President Joe Biden’s decision to remain in the 2024 presidential race longer than some Democrats hoped, derailed Kamala Harris’s chances of defeating Donald Trump so drastically, that according to David Plouffe, a former top adviser to Barack Obama, Biden single handedly ‘f-d’ them.
Plouffe, who managed Obama’s 2008 campaign and later served as a senior White House adviser, was brought in to support Harris’s presidential run after Biden exited the race in the summer of 2024 due to mounting concerns about his age and mental fitness. In the upcoming book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson quote Plouffe expressing deep frustration over how events unfolded.
Harris’s brief campaign, lasting just 107 days, was described by Plouffe as “a f–king nightmare.” Reflecting on Biden’s delayed departure and the chaos it caused, Plouffe reportedly said, “He totally f–ked us.”
“And it’s all Biden,” he told the authors, pointing to the former president’s insistence on staying in the contest weeks after many began questioning his mental acuity.
Following Harris’s defeat, Plouffe took to X (formerly Twitter) to remark that the campaign began in a “deep hole,” although he later deleted his account.
The book, which was obtained by The Guardian, reveals internal anxiety within the Democratic Party about Biden’s readiness.
Tapper, CNN’s chief Washington correspondent, and Thompson, a national political correspondent for Axios, interviewed approximately 200 sources including members of Congress, White House insiders, and campaign operatives. Their findings unearth concerns that had been raised about Biden’s declining cognitive abilities and efforts by close allies to mask the extent of the issue.
One former senior White House aide, who resigned over concerns about Biden seeking re-election, acknowledged to the authors that “we attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn’t realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023.”
Although Biden officially stepped aside on July 21 and gave his endorsement to Harris, Tapper and Thompson argue that the damage had already been done. According to their reporting, his delay inadvertently paved the way for Trump’s return to the presidency.
