‘Could Not Speak’ — Biden Bombed Closed-Door, Scripted Town Hall, New Book Alleges

Former President Joe Biden bombed a closed-door, scripted town hall so badly the footage was unusable for campaign purposes, a new book alleges.

Axios’ Alex Thompson and CNN’s Jake Tapper released “Original Sin” Tuesday, and the book is based on more than 200 interviews with Democratic Party and White House insiders.

The sources detail just how bad Biden’s decline reportedly was while he was president. The book alleges Biden’s aides staged a town hall in Delaware with a friendly audience so they could video it for campaign ads, according to Axios.

But instead they were left with over 90 minutes of unusable footage, the outlet noted.

“The man could not speak,” one person involved said, according to Axios.

Some sources blamed “the gym’s lighting for the event being a dud,” but others were confident it was the former president’s performance, the book reportedly detailed.

The fumbled town hall was allegedly not the only time the campaign struggled to get workable footage of Biden.

The book alleged that when groups backing the former president would ask for five minute footage of the 82-year-old, the White House would only have one or two minute videos to share, according to Axios.

The campaign often used two cameras rather than one to mask edits or fumbled lines, the outlet added. (RELATED: Joe Biden Posts Videos Chock Full Of Edits While White House Decries ‘Cheap Fakes’)

“Even with such accommodations, videos sometimes were unsalvageable. In some cases, the heavy edits were so obvious that campaign staffers regretted putting them out,” Axios wrote of the book’s alleged findings.

Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate.

Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again.

Well, make my day, pal. pic.twitter.com/AkPmvs2q4u

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024

“Every shoot was anxiety-inducing for Biden’s team,” Tapper and Thompson reportedly wrote in “Original Sin.”

In the week leading up to the release of their book, Tapper and Thompson rolled out multiple excerpts. One excerpt alleged aides were considering putting Biden in a wheelchair post-election, and another alleged the former president didn’t recognize his longtime friend George Clooney.

Two days before the book was set to publish, the 82-year-old’s staff announced he had been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer.

Now, there is speculation around Biden’s cancer diagnosis as doctors and cancer experts previously told the Daily Caller that Biden likely had cancer while he was still in the White House. The type of cancer he has, in which the metastastization from prostate cancer spreads to the bones, generally takes five years or more to develop, according to experts.

“It’s not credible that we are hearing of his metastatic disease for the first time because he was having difficulty urinating and they found it. That just doesn’t track,” Dr. Steven Quay, a physician, scientist and member of the American Association for Cancer Research, told the Caller.

Amid the revelations about Biden’s decline during his time in the White House, President Donald Trump suggested his diagnosis was a part of a larger conspiracy. Trump also wrote in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that it wasn’t his predecessor that destroyed the country, rather it was his staff around him who “knew he was cognitively impaired.”

“It wasn’t his idea to Open the Border, and almost destroy our Country, and cost us Hundreds of Billions of Dollars to get criminals out of our Country, and go through the process we are going through now. It was the people that knew he was cognitively impaired, and that took over the Autopen. They stole the Presidency of the United States, and put us in Great Danger,” Trump wrote.