2026-06-02T10:00:07.806Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/02/politics/jill-biden-book-jake-tapper
在她的新回忆录中，前第一夫人吉尔·拜登为丈夫在2024年竞选期间的精神健康状况辩护。
但杰克·塔珀表示，她的叙述遗漏了民主党内部人士亲眼目睹的乔·拜登认知能力下降的关键细节。
塔珀称，她未能充分回应有关他能否竞选总统、能否赢得竞选以及能否履行总统职责的质疑。
AI生成的摘要已由CNN编辑审核。
“如果你了解乔·拜登，你就会知道，如果他真的到了无法胜任工作的地步，他会主动辞职的，”前第一夫人吉尔·拜登在她的新回忆录《东翼视角》中写道。“当然，如果他出现认知障碍，我会毫不犹豫地说出来。他的幕僚们也会毫不犹豫地说出来。但在2024年夏天，他远未到那个地步。”
这番话即便不完全是彻头彻尾的谎言，也让人很难相信。
首先，这个国家的历史上不乏这样的例子：那些自认为无私且有自知之明的政客拒绝放弃权力，前总统乔·拜登就是最突出的一例。
其次，拜登最亲密的顾问——被拜登的低级幕僚戏称为“政治局”——时至今日仍坚称，他本可以在2024年大选中击败唐纳德·特朗普，而且即便在当下，他也有能力担任总统。
但上述段落中最刺眼的一点是，吉尔·拜登既想让你相信她的正直，又在隐晦地——或许是下意识地——承认事情另有隐情。
为何特意强调“在2024年夏天，他远未到那个地步”？
那2024年秋季呢？2025年呢？如今呢？
在谈及丈夫能挺过人生诸多磨难的可敬之处时，吉尔·拜登引用了欧内斯特·海明威的话：“‘世界会击碎每一个人，之后许多人会在破碎之处变得更强。’……我相信这句话适用于乔，”她写道。“尽管经历了那么多，他依然更强大。”
耐人寻味的是，拜登夫人没有引用海明威这句关于死亡和人生终点的完整引言。出自《永别了，武器》的完整引言续道：“但那些不肯被击碎的人，会被它杀死。它公平地杀死最善良、最温柔、最勇敢的人。如果你不属于这些人，你可以肯定，它也会杀死你，只是不会太着急。”
当然，这段不完整的引言还不是这位第一夫人在书中遗漏的最主要内容。
2024年11月大选结束后，Axios记者亚历克斯·汤普森和我采访了200多名民主党内部人士、官员、竞选团队工作人员等所有支持拜登的人，想弄清楚2024年6月27日辩论舞台上我们看到的场景，有多少是此前在幕后就已经出现过的。答案是：相当多。我们的著作《原罪》详细描述了拜登的精神敏锐度问题，这些问题在2023年和2024年变得更加严重，但在此之前就已经初现端倪。这些内容，当然在她的书中只字未提。
她在书中将讨论丈夫健康状况的部分集中在他2020年决定竞选总统的内容上。“在我看来，乔确实在变老，但他没有表现出痴呆或衰老的迹象，”她写道。“乔还是我一直认识的那个男人。”
再说一次，这是在讨论他2020年竞选时的情况。不是2024年。
在这段表述之后，她一笔带过了2023年决定寻求连任的决定。在一段轶事之后，一名访客看到拜登——在2019年或2020年——“跳上他那辆1967年款的绿色科尔维特黄貂鱼，发动引擎，在高速公路上呼啸而过”（“那绝对不是他们在电视上塑造的那个人，”这位不愿具名的访客赞叹道），她突然跳到了2024年：
“即便在竞选前的几年里他放慢了脚步，但我打心底里相信，他依然足够优秀、足够睿智、有足够的能力治理国家，”她写道。“他从未动摇过自己的价值观，那些我从小就熟悉的价值观。我相信，如果他的健康状况恶化到无法履职的地步，他会谦逊地承认这一点。”
这些话之间的空隙，足够一辆1967年款科尔维特黄貂鱼疾驰而过。
问题从来都不是他是否优秀、是否睿智、是否持有相同的价值观。而是他能否竞选总统、能否赢得竞选以及能否履行总统职责。
她对此能给出的最高评价也只是“有足够的能力”。
“有足够的能力”？
还请注意，她将判断他是否无法胜任工作的权力完全交给了他本人。仿佛一个精神日渐衰退的人必然能够胜任这项任务。
因此，她为自己的决定辩护道：“为了国家的利益，我知道，至少我宁愿乔获得第二个任期，也不愿他不参选。”
再说一次，这根本不是问题的关键。
“考虑到乔的对手肯定会做的那些可怕的事情，这个选择似乎显而易见，”她写道。
但当时的选择并非特朗普对阵拜登。而是特朗普对阵哪位民主党人才是最佳选择。
“我认为乔远比他的对手优秀——顺便说一句，那位对手只比乔小三岁，”她写道。
这和年龄无关。
在她自己的著作《107天》中，前副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯这样描述拜登总统寻求连任的决定：“‘这是乔和吉尔的决定。’我们都像念经一样重复着这句话，仿佛都被催眠了……这太鲁莽了。风险实在太高了。这不该由个人的自负、个人的野心来决定。”
但在吉尔·拜登的叙述中，2023年“民主党最优秀的智囊团”都认为除了乔·拜登之外，没有人能击败特朗普，“于是他们恳求他参选”。
他们确实这么做了？是谁？哪些民主党最优秀的智囊团恳求他参选？
对吉尔·拜登这本书最善意的解读，尤其是那些涉及她丈夫衰老的部分，是她多年来难以接受发生在他身上的事情。另一种不那么宽容的解读是，她一直在纵容这一切，如今正试图为我们所有人亲眼所见的情况寻找借口，同时还时不时暗示，或许连她自己都不愿承认的隐情还有更多。
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/13/politics/video/jake-tapper-book-joe-biden-declining-health-george-clooney-digvid
“吉尔·拜登唯一该说的就是‘我很抱歉’：民主党高层对这位前第一夫人近日的言论做出回应
时长：4:02 • 来源：CNN
当然，她反复重申了许多民主党在2024年6月那场糟糕且令人不安的辩论之前提出的论调——而当时他们未能立即证明那场辩论只是一次反常表现——这些言论暴露出的情况远比此前承认的要严重得多。
她谈到自己在2024年2月向选民的游说：“他已经81岁了，但他一小时完成的工作量比大多数人一天完成的还要多。”嗯，没错，鉴于总统职位的权力和职责，这对所有总统来说都是事实。但这并没有提及他偏好的缩短日程安排——只要可能，就尽量安排在上午10点到下午4点——或是他无法全力开展竞选活动的情况。
（在她的书中，卡玛拉·哈里斯写道：“他的核心圈子，那些最了解他的人，本应意识到任何竞选活动都超出了他的能力范围，而竞选的艰辛会让他持续、日益、不可避免地感到疲惫不堪。”）
在辩论开始前，拜登夫人说：“乔看起来很疲惫——过度疲惫。他太拼命了，行程安排得太多了。”没错，我们都知道。这是美国总统工作的一部分。她反复说他身体不适。然后就是那场辩论。还有第一个糟糕透顶的回答。
“他是不是短路了？我心想。是中风了吗？感觉我们像是在看着一个我们熟悉的男人的AI全息影像，而这个影像正在卡顿。他是不是被下药了？天啊——看电视的人会不会以为他一直都是这样？……他是不是突发医疗急症了？”
随后她写道：
“乔在辩论过程中确实有所好转，但还不足以让我或任何观众安心，让他们觉得他没事。他显然状态不佳。那到底是怎么了？没有任何解释能说明我看到的情况。我这辈子从未在他脸上见过那样的表情。”
而对她来说，这个谜团至今未解：
“时至今日，我仍然不知道发生了什么。为什么他说话语无伦次？这对我来说无法解释……他是不是在飞机上为了治咳嗽吃了什么，或是在酒店为了睡觉吃了什么——可待因止咳糖浆还是安必恩？我一直在竞选活动中，没有和他在一起，所以我一无所知。我只希望我能找到答案。”
这本书开篇时，这位前第一夫人指责白宫医生没有在任期间就检测出拜登总统目前正严重困扰其身体的IV期癌症。
2025年，在特拉华州的海滩上，一名女子对这位前总统说：“我是一名医生。你的医生怎么没早点查出癌症？”
吉尔·拜登给出的回应是，考虑到美国男性的预期寿命为76岁，美国泌尿协会不建议70岁以上的男性进行常规前列腺特异性抗原筛查。但这一说法站不住脚，因为拜登在2018年就年满76岁了，比他当选总统早了两年，而这也恰恰是他本应被列为例外情况的原因。
这位第一夫人花了不少篇幅思考丈夫为何没有接受PSA检测，但似乎仍然不愿审视或坦诚对待我们所有人在2024年6月27日晚直播中亲眼目睹的另一个健康问题。
Jake Tapper: Jill Biden’s rosy if not blindfolded ‘View from the East Wing’
2026-06-02T10:00:07.806Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/02/politics/jill-biden-book-jake-tapper
In her new memoir, former First Lady Jill Biden defends her husband’s mental fitness during the 2024 campaign.
But Jake Tapper says her account omits key details about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline witnessed by Democratic insiders.
Tapper says she failed to adequately grapple with questions about his ability to run for president, to win the campaign, and to serve as president.
AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.
“If you knew Joe Biden well, you’d know that if he actually got to the point where he wasn’t capable of doing the job, he would step down,” former first lady Jill Biden writes in her new memoir “View from the East Wing.” “Certainly, if he exhibited cognitive impairment, I would not hesitate to say so. His staff would not hesitate to say so. But he was nowhere near that point in the summer of 2024.”
All of that is very difficult to believe, if not just downright false.
First of all, this nation’s history is full of examples of politicians who considered themselves selfless and self-aware who refused to give up power, former President Joe Biden just being the most glaring example.
Second, Biden’s closest advisers, nicknamed the Politburo by lower-level Biden aides, are to this day insisting he could have beaten Donald Trump in the 2024 election, and is capable at this very moment of serving as president.
But most glaring in the above paragraph is Jill Biden’s desire to have you believe in her integrity while also subtly — perhaps subconsciously — acknowledging that there’s more going on.
Why the specific assertion that he was “nowhere near that point in the summer of 2024”?
How about the fall of 2024? How about 2025? How about today?
Discussing the admirable ability of her husband to survive any number of horrors life has thrown his way, Jill Biden quotes Ernest Hemingway: “‘The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.’… I believed that was true of Joe,” she writes. “For all he’d been through, he was stronger.”
It is telling that Mrs. Biden doesn’t include the full Hemingway quote, which is about mortality and the end of life. The full quote, from “A Farewell to Arms,” continues: “But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
The full quote is of course the least of what the first lady leaves out in this book.
After the November 2024 election, Axios reporter Alex Thompson and I spoke with more than 200 Democratic insiders, officials, campaign staff, and more — all of whom supported Biden — to find out how much of what we saw on that debate stage on June 27, 2024, had been seen before that night behind the scenes. The answer was: quite a bit. Our book, “Original Sin,” detailed mental acuity issues that got much more pronounced in 2023 and 2024 but had reared their heads before then. None of them are in her book, of course.
She centers her discussions about her husband’s fitness in a section centered on his decision to run for president in 2020. “To me, Joe was definitely aging, but he was not exhibiting signs of dementia or senility,” she writes. “Joe was the same man I’d always known.”
Again, this comes when discussing him running in 2020. Not 2024.
After that passage, she yada yadas to the 2023 decision to run for reelection. After an anecdote in which a visitor sees Biden — in 2019 or 2020 — “hop(ping) into his green 1967 Corvette Stingray, rev the engine, and screams down the highway” (“That is sure not the guy they portray on television,” the unnamed visitor gushes) — she suddenly hops to 2024:
“Even if he had slowed down in the years before his election bid, I believed in my heart that he was still good enough and wise enough and capable enough to govern,” she writes. “He never wavered from his values, the same ones I grew up with. I believe that if his health had ever deteriorated to the point where he was no longer able to serve, he would have had the humility to admit that.”
There is enough space in between those lines for a 1967 Corvette Stingray to travel.
The issue was never about whether he was good, wise, or had the same values. It was about his ability to run for president, to win the campaign, and to serve as president.
The best she says about that is that he would be “capable enough.”
Capable enough?
Also please note that she leaves the decision about whether he couldn’t do the job entirely up to him. As if a person mentally deteriorating would necessarily be up to that task.
Thus, she stands by her decision: “For the good of the country, I knew that I, for one, would rather Joe have a second term than not.”
Again, that’s not the question.
“Given what terrible things Joe’s opponent guaranteed he would do, the choice seemed clear,” she writes.
But the choice wasn’t Trump vs. Biden. It was Trump vs. which Democrat would be best.
“I felt that Joe was a far, far better option than his opponent — who, by the way, was only three years younger than Joe,” she writes.
It wasn’t about the number.
In her own book, “107 Days,” former Vice President Kamala Harris describes President Biden’s decision to run for reelection this way: “‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized…it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition.”
But as Jill Biden tells it, in 2023, “the best Democratic minds hadn’t thought” anyone else other than Joe Biden could beat Trump and “they implored him to run.”
They did? Who? Which best Democratic minds implored him to run?
The most charitable interpretation of Jill Biden’s book, particularly the parts dealing with her husband’s aging, is that she’s having difficulty accepting what’s been happening to him for years. The less forgiving version is that she’s been enabling it and is now seeking to try to find an excuse for what we all saw, while also suggesting here and there that there’s much more than maybe even she’s willing to admit to herself.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/13/politics/video/jake-tapper-book-joe-biden-declining-health-george-clooney-digvid
‘The only thing I want to hear from Jill Biden is I’m sorry’: Top Dem reacts to the former First Lady’s recent comments
4:02 • Source: CNN
Of course she repeats a lot of the same arguments Democrats made before his terrible, troubling performance in the June 2024 debate — and the failure to immediately prove that the debate had been an anomaly — revealed something much worse was going on than had been acknowledged.
She talks about her pitch to voters in February 2024: “at eighty-one, he does more in an hour than most people do in a day.” Well, yes, that’s true of all presidents given the powers and responsibilities of the office. But it doesn’t acknowledge his preferred shortened schedule of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., whenever possible, or his inability to campaign vigorously.
(In her book, Kamala Harris writes that “his inner circle, the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far, and that in its rigors, he’d be perpetually, increasingly, unavoidably exhausted.”)
Heading into the debate, Mrs. Biden says, “Joe seemed tired — overly tired. He was pushing too hard, traveling too much.” Yes, we know. That’s part of the job of the president of the United States. She repeats that he didn’t feel well. Then comes the debate. And that first, awful answer.
“Is he short-circuiting? I thought. Is this a stroke? It felt like we were watching an AI hologram of the man we knew, and the hologram was glitching. Has he been drugged? Oh God — will people watching assume that this is how he is all the time?… Was he having a medical emergency?”
Then she writes:
“Joe did improve in the course of that debate, but not enough to reassure me or anyone watching that he was okay. He clearly wasn’t. So what was wrong? Nothing explained what I was seeing. I’d never seen that look on his face before in my life.”
And the mystery, for her, continues:
“To this day, I still don’t know what happened. Why wasn’t he making any sense? It was inexplicable to me… Had he taken something on the plane for his cough, something at the hotel to sleep — codeine cough syrup of Ambien? I’d been on the campaign trail and hadn’t been with him, so I had no idea. I only wish I had the answer.”
The book begins with the former first lady faulting the White House physicians for not testing the president in office for the Stage IV cancer that is currently, sadly, wreaking havoc on his body.
“I’m a doctor,” one woman says to the former president in 2025 on a Delaware beach. “How did your doctor not pick up this cancer diagnosis earlier?”
The answer Jill Biden provides — that the American Urological Association doesn’t recommend routine Prostate-Specific Antigen screening for men older than 70, given that life expectancy in the US is 76 — doesn’t really make sense given that Biden turned 76 in 2018, two years before he was elected president, which is, of course, also kind of why he might have been an exception.
The first lady takes the time to consider why her husband didn’t get a PSA test — but still doesn’t seem willing to scrutinize, or be honest about, another health issue that we all saw live on TV on the night of June 27, 2024.
发表回复