President Biden's health, the elephant in America's china shop.

By: Ricardo Israel - 28/05/2025

Is it possible that this happened in a country that seemed to have one of the most prestigious information and journalism systems? A recently published book says yes, that too many communicators, including the authors, didn't believe their own eyes, to which I add that the U.S. is a place where, sooner or later, everything always ends up being known.

President Biden's health was crucial to his Democratic Party's decision to remove him as a candidate, but there was also a refusal to accept that something was wrong, that those who claimed it were lying. I remember those in Chile talking to me about "fake news." In the US, more than just a part of the conversation, it was about the country's internal divisions, the polarization that has done and continues to do so much damage. In any case, although late, the debate is here to stay. It has only just begun, but it hasn't ended, as congressional commissions and Department of Justice investigations are being announced, more about his collaborators than about the role of the press.

The greatest risk today is not information, but politicization. For too long, evidence has been denied, and today, the question that arises for some is whether it is advisable to review the past and move forward as if nothing had happened, while for others, it is whether lessons can be learned to ensure that what happened is not repeated.

Ultimately, the dilemma is: what should be done? Or what should be done? A review of the positions reveals three attitudes: those who feel deceived in their good faith; those who are upset by the cover-up by the more traditional press, including possible ethical violations; and third, those who want the legal issue of those who allegedly violated the law to be investigated.

Personally, I would add a fourth, which I include myself in, that of those who feel disillusioned, having once been convinced that American journalism was the best in the world, but recent years have shown them that this was no longer the case, and that events had given way to activism, on both sides, sometimes inseparable from social media, an evolution reflected in what is written in these pages ("What Happened to the (Big) US Press?, June 9, 2023). In the end, it was a favor, since realizing the disappearance of the standards of the past allowed me to form my own opinion instead of passively accepting the information I received, taking advantage of the ease of accessing it from a cell phone or computer.

This is not the first time, nor the first country, that something like this has happened in a democracy. In the United States itself, President Kennedy's medical history was concealed, and in France, there was no information about President Mitterrand's prostate cancer, whose death occurred in January 1996, less than eight months after leaving office.

The aforementioned book is called Original Sin, 344 pp., with two authors, one well-known like Jake Tapper, star CNN anchor, and another less famous, Alex Thompson of Axios. It tells us about Biden's isolation, surrounded by his most loyal collaborators and family, especially his wife, how he would have dinner at 4:30 p.m. and, except for rare occasions, would enter his private quarters around 5:15 p.m., so his activities were usually in the morning or at noon, and even a makeup artist would fix the way his skin and eyelids looked, which was added to the occasions where he couldn't remember the names of people he saw almost daily, like the Secretary of Homeland Security, as well as when he didn't recognize a major donor, the actor George Clooney, another person who will surely be investigated.

In any case, with some probability, for his adversaries today the issue has surpassed the ethical level, since it is evident that, if it were true, only a smaller percentage than what is now recognized by those who could have known it all along, perhaps the Tapper case, the truly important question of profound legal-constitutional resonances is: Was there any person who was in charge of the US from the moment in which the deterioration was evident?

With everything that's coming out, there's already enough testimony to turn the supposition into something more. If someone existed who felt empowered enough to make decisions on behalf of the president as if they had been elected, it raises not only legal issues, but also those related to the functioning of democracy itself, in addition to questions related to national security, since perhaps Putin and Xi Jinping could have made decisions linked to this situation, given that images of their speech difficulties or their bicycle crashes were also seen in Russia and China.

We must even consider that there will be future investigations, if they haven't already begun, into whether everything bearing his name was his own decision or at least authorized, including those signed electronically, which includes various decrees and even preemptive pardons for family members, friends, and members of the commission investigating Trump and the assault on Congress.

Of course, we know today that there is an advanced cancer, and we should all feel concern and even pity, but the difference between the public and private sectors is that precisely because it is the United States, the standards required are higher, so because it is a former president, one may feel pity, but at the same time, there is always an urgent need to know the truth.

Considering the cover-up that allegedly occurred, a new concern has arisen today in the form of the question: Is it possible that such advanced prostate cancer could have appeared so suddenly? This is linked to the responsibilities of the medical profession, through the examinations that the president is legally required to undergo, given that there are people and institutions in charge of them in Washington, starting with Walter Reed Military Hospital.

I don't know the answer, although the need for an answer as soon as possible is evident, since everything indicates that the subpoenas to tell the truth under oath at the announced investigative commission will also be received by medical professionals, some of whom have repeatedly denied that President Biden had any mental or physical problems. It also seems unfair to me to focus everything on the personalities of some prominent communicators, since both news organizations and social media technology companies had boards, executives, and owners, who have gone and continue to go unnoticed.

What's coming will surely not be limited to the legal or ethical, since there is a strictly political derivative of the way his health was handled, as the number of those who believe that the reason for this lay in the way his nomination for president was made as well as the unceremonious manner in which he was removed by his own party has increased. Thus, there is already speculation that health issues were behind the decision not to hold primaries for him or later for his successor. However, if the cancer was known at the time, had he won, is it possible that he would have resigned then so that Kamala could have assumed the presidency?

I have no way of knowing whether that was the case or not, but I consider it a bad thing that this exchange is taking place, as it undermines the legitimacy of the Republican establishment itself. What we all know is how everything changed because of his terrible performance in the debate, which caused such an impact, in my opinion precisely because of the media cover-up that took place. In fact, the impression I formed that day was that there was a sector among Democrats who were hoping for something like this to happen, so they could bring him down, given that the reaction of journalists and politicians, requesting something like this, seemed concerted, despite the fact that up until that moment they had denied anything related to his health. The rest is history, as he was downgraded without any consideration for his half-century in politics or the millions who voted for him in the primaries.

I didn't like the title of Tapper-Thompson's book, as it gives a different idea of what happened, since the ancestral sin has to do with the sin of disobedience, consuming a fruit from the tree of knowledge, good, and evil, and that this sin would have been inherited by all of humanity. The authors don't even elaborate sufficiently on what their forbidden fruit would have been. I admit I abandoned the book without finishing it. It was because, as Tapper has acknowledged in subsequent interviews, what was written couldn't have been news to a star CNN anchor, who always had access to the sources, and who didn't want to believe their own eyes. His story represents many communicators who shattered the pedestal held by internationally renowned media outlets, the legacy press. And it wasn't that the conservative press wasn't also involved in activism and polarization; it was just that they acknowledged they were Trump supporters, instead of proclaiming a nonexistent independence. That's why the self-justification is annoying, and I remember him discrediting those who claimed there was a health problem. Furthermore, it's a book that ignores today's topic, which should have been covered if research had been thorough: cancer.

Finally, the book doesn't sufficiently explore whether the lack of transparency was a problem unique to the White House or a deeper characteristic of politics and the administration. It doesn't sufficiently explore what happened to Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin, who in February 2024 was hospitalized in intensive care due to the consequences of prostate cancer surgery. The serious thing about it is that he did so without informing anyone, neither his subordinates nor his superior, Biden. The seriousness lay in his position, as there was no good answer to the question of what would have happened in the event of a war emergency, given that his responsibilities at the Pentagon included no less than everyone.

Ultimately, too many people didn't speak up when it mattered. I'm not sure why this is happening now; I don't know if it's to save reputations and/or jobs, if it's for credibility, or perhaps to legitimately make some money. I don't know, although there's evidence that the market and karma have played a role, and some of the media outlets that failed to do their duty have already been punished with lower audiences, and several of those seeking buyers or investors have been unable to find them.

What remains truly serious is the possibility of crimes. There were warnings that were ignored, such as when the prosecutor investigating Biden regarding documents he shouldn't have kept from his time as vice president said he wouldn't pursue them solely because the president wasn't mentally fit to be prosecuted—information that was then dismissed by much of the press.

Today, many questions remain unanswered, but regarding the Democratic Party and his family, the details and responsibilities will almost certainly emerge. What is truly worrying is that it happened to those who worked with him and to the doctors who had an obligation to inform and not conceal, where it is possible that responsibilities point to possible misconduct or even crimes. The issue here is that, if someone indeed made decisions for the president, without being legally authorized to do so, that act constituted a subversion of democracy, as it is more than newsworthy or scandalous, since, in a democratic republic, no one can do so without legal backing, which is why coups d'état, whatever the reasons or intentions, are always totally unacceptable. Likewise, ideally, it is necessary to deny or identify the existence of someone who had sufficient power to correct the president himself, recalling those communiqués that not only explained what Biden had said but also stated that he did not mean what he said.

And if it were true that democracy apparently didn't work well, then where was America's salvation? In my opinion, it lies in the same old thing: its republican institutionality, above all, its constitutional arrangement, the result of a long evolution, as well as its very brief text that is very difficult to modify, since it requires not only high quorums but also ratification by two-thirds, or 38 of the 50 states.

It's always healthy for societies to ask themselves: how can we move forward? In my opinion, the way forward isn't revenge, but rather starting from the truth, the truth about everything that happened. But how do we do that? I believe the way to get to the truth is to follow the path that has worked in the past: an Investigative Commission, made up of people of a caliber and background that would make them above all suspicion, or at least bipartisan if it were to be established with representatives in Congress. I said it then and I still think it now, that it can't be one-sided, with an opinion already drafted before even meeting, which was the reason why the January 6th vote failed, that if it had taken an entire period, incorporating all the forms of violence that occurred, including cities that were taken by it like Portland and Seattle into the "Russian plot", it would have been possible to prioritize and reach the necessary conclusions to ensure that what happened on January 6th doesn't happen again, which is why it is fundamental for the future of American democracy that it never be repeated that unelected people make decisions that only the president should make, since recent years have shown that the democratic health of the country is not free from shocks, and that if there are crimes in the vicinity of the White House, there can be crimes anywhere and everywhere. And if the Investigative Commission were to rule out that this had occurred, that would be even better, since it would demonstrate that, if there is cancer in the bodies, fortunately it has not spread to the institutions, so we could turn the page on the years of life in danger.

In my opinion, the main problem from the perspective of the health of American democracy is a single one: there isn't just one anti-democratic force at work, but two, present in both Republicans and Democrats. This is what I've called the "Latin Americanization" of American politics, including its division and polarization, a non-traditional import of the worst, rather than the best, that my home region has to offer in terms of the quality of democracy.

And it's not just a recent development. I always remember what happened to me when I arrived six years ago, no longer temporarily but as a permanent resident for family reasons. I arrived with the intention of joining the Democratic Party, and through old contacts, I began attending meetings. I was deeply disappointed to find that little remained of the party I knew from previous temporary stays and from my teaching experience. Parties change every few years. I didn't seek out the Republicans, but I discovered that the Democrats had decided to confront Trumpism with their own change. The disappearance of the party I assumed existed, a mix of liberal and social democrat, was not to my liking. It had evolved into something that made it unrecognizable to me, a blend of wokism with a strange kind of old-fashioned, sixties, Sanders-style socialism. It no longer represented ordinary people, but rather a university elite from big cities. I was frightened by what I heard and read on the party platforms, so I took off, having little to do with a better country and a lot to do with cancellations, with niche cults like identity replacing meritocracy, and climate catastrophism about the end of the world; even some Chavista proposals in between. Now, in the opposition, those sectors seem to predominate even more, not only because of the rhetoric against Israel but also because, by following my email, I receive invitations to demonstrate at places where Teslas are sold, so now they would be protesting against a car. Nothing to say, just glad I noticed it from the very beginning, as well as worrying about the lack today of the alternative that a quality democracy requires.

What happened with Biden's health was a multifaceted situation, but it had consequences, even for a country like the United States, where old certainties have crumbled. It seems time to return to a path that adds, not subtracts, moving toward a better democracy based on the truth, not its concealment, in terms of consensus, not utopias of purity and perfection. I conclude by referring to Saint Augustine, whom I emphasize was a sinner before becoming a saint, a son of his mother's tears, according to his "Confessions," who said that "The truth is like a lioness; let her go, and she will defend herself."

Master's and PhD in Political Science (University of Essex), Bachelor of Laws (University of Barcelona), Lawyer (University of Chile), former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

@israelzipper

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».