Jill Biden should have to answer for 'cover up' of former president's decline, White House says

close

Video

Leavitt defends Trump agenda, blasts Jill Biden over health ‘cover-up’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addresses legal challenges facing the Trump administration’s agenda and responds to a question about former first lady Jill Biden’s role in what critics call a health ‘cover-up.’

Former first lady Jill Biden should have to answer for her role in the "cover up" of her husband and former President Joe Biden’s mental decline, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. 

Multiple books published in 2025 have detailed the deterioration of Biden’s mental faculties while in the White House, including in the book "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again" released May 20. 

"The former first lady should certainly speak up about what she saw in regard to her husband and when she saw it and what she knew, because I think anybody looking again at the videos and photo evidence of Joe Biden with your own eyes and a little bit of common sense can see this was a clear cover up," Leavitt said. "And Joe, by, Jill Biden was certainly complicit in that cover up." 

'THE KAMALA EXCUSE': TENSIONS BETWEEN BIDEN AND HARRIS PLAGUED THEIR CAMPAIGNS, NEW BOOK REVEALS

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, May 29, 2025, in Washington.  (AP)

"There's documentation, video evidence of her clearly shielding her husband away from the cameras that were just on ‘The View’ last week," Leavitt told reporters Thursday. "She was saying, ‘Everything is fine.’ She's still lying to the American people. She still thinks the American public are so stupid that they're going to believe her lies. And frankly, it's insulting and she needs to answer for it." 

A spokesperson for Jill Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

"Original Sin," authored by journalists Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios, includes stories about how former President Joe Biden struggled to handle fairly routine aspects of a campaign. 

For example, the book says his team attempted to film a campaign video for ads on television in a high school gym, and have people ask questions akin to a town hall meeting. 

BIDEN STRUGGLED TO FILM 2024 CAMPAIGN VIDEOS AMID DECLINING HEALTH, NEW BOOK CLAIMS: 'THE MAN COULD NOT SPEAK'

Jake Tapper tells Joe Scarborough that Biden made an effort to convince the MSNBC host he was fit to run for re-election. (Screenshot/MSNBC)

"The campaign was trying to make it look like the president was out there taking off-the-cuff questions from voters in public," the book said. "But the event was closed to reporters, and the campaign had the full list of questions that people would ask."

Even so, former President Joe Biden encountered so much "trouble" answering questions that his team decided to cut the footage. Some blamed the poor lighting in the gym, but the book said that others said the real problem remained with the former president. 

NEW BOOK REVEALS BIDEN'S INNER CIRCLE WORRIED ABOUT HIS AGE YEARS BEFORE BOTCHED DEBATE PERFORMANCE

President Joe Biden, left, and first lady Jill Biden arrive on Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, in Washington.  (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)

Meanwhile, Joe Biden's team has pushed back on the material in "Original Sin," which chronicles the 2024 election cycle and how his team allegedly plotted a cover-up to hide just how severely his mental faculties had declined. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover-up or conspiracy," a Biden spokesperson previously said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the President wasn’t otherwise engaged in the important matters of the Presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill."