Jake Tapper Reveals the Moment He Knew Joe Biden Had No Chance of Reelection During 2024 Debate

Jake Tapper is coming clean about the moment he knew former President Joe Biden had no chance for reelection during the 2024 CNN debate.

The CNN host, who moderated the June 27, 2024, debate with colleague Dana Bash, revealed on his podcast, The Lead, that the incumbent president startlingly showed up just 30 minutes before the debate, unprepared and without a traditional walk-through.

Tapper called Biden’s hubris “crazy” and added, “EVERY candidate does a walkthrough,” according to a clip shared on X.

He also said he thought the 9 p.m. start would be politically deadly for the then 81-year-old president.

“Why would you put him out there for an hour-and-a-half debate at 9 o’clock when they could have agreed to a 7 p.m. debate?”

Tapper described Biden as “really old” and one of his responses as “that horrible answer where he completely loses his train of thought.”

“[I’m] making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the COVID,” Biden babbled. “Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with — look, if — we finally beat Medicare.”

At that infamous moment, Tapper admitted writing on his iPad to his producers, “Holy Smokes!” — leading Bash to write on a note, “He just lost the election.”

Biden dropped out of the race less than a month later.

As Globe reported, critics slammed Tapper for covering up Biden’s decline — and then brazenly coauthoring a lucrative 2025 New York Times bestseller alleging the president’s inner circle concealed his cognitive woes in the hopes of securing a second term.

Now, Tapper — who has insisted he’s “been covering the concerns about President Biden’s age and health for years” — admits he knew Biden was suffering prior to the 2024 debate and failed to report it.

“Tapper downplayed Biden’s obvious struggles,” one insider told Globe. “He gaslit America for years.”