A damning new report reveals that one of President Biden’s top advisers, Mike Donilon, personally attempted to stop a damaging story about Biden’s cognitive health from being published—by shouting down a reporter during the final months of Biden’s presidency.

According to details from the upcoming book Original Sin by Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper, Donilon’s aggressive effort was part of a broader cover-up operation within the Biden White House, designed to suppress evidence of the president’s visible mental decline as his health deteriorated. The exposé, previewed by Semafor, outlines behind-the-scenes desperation to preserve a public image that no longer matched reality.

Donilon’s tactics reportedly worked on at least one outlet, which dropped its planned piece after receiving a heated phone call from the longtime Biden aide. The Wall Street Journal, however, proceeded with its widely circulated article questioning Biden’s cognitive fitness—just days before Biden’s infamous meltdown on CNN during a televised debate that many Democrats now blame for their 2024 downfall.

At the same time, Biden’s inner circle was also allegedly manipulating how the media received damaging reports, such as the findings of Special Prosecutor Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s memory lapses. The book details how the White House leaked details of Hur’s report to left-leaning journalists to pre-spin its implications.

And the image management didn’t stop there.

The authors write that Biden’s team enlisted legendary director Steven Spielberg to help “stage” favorable public appearances. Video footage was routinely edited to hide how slowly Biden moved, including the use of slow-motion footage to mask his real-time frailty. Staff even recorded—but never aired—a made-for-video town hall, fearing it would raise more questions than answers.

The revelations come on the heels of Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis, which the administration confirmed has already spread to his bones. Critics say the diagnosis likely wasn’t a sudden development, and that the deception around Biden’s physical condition paralleled the cover-up of his mental state.

Throughout 2024, rumors swirled about the president’s fitness for office—fueled by footage of Biden forgetting names, wandering off at international events, slurring words, and appearing disoriented. Still, his handlers insisted he was ready for a second term.

They were wrong.

The June 2024 debate sealed his fate. Americans watched in real time what insiders had worked so hard to hide: a man physically unwell and mentally unfit. Vice President Kamala Harris’s staff had lined up post-debate appearances on multiple networks to spin Biden’s performance, but after the disastrous showing, even Harris was reportedly furious during a CNN interview. According to the book, she erupted afterward, saying, “This motherf***er doesn’t treat me like the damn vice president of the United States.”

Now that the smoke has cleared, voters are left wondering just how far the administration was willing to go to cling to power. According to Townhall, the Biden team’s effort to run a declining and gravely ill president—despite mounting internal concerns—may be one of the most egregious cases of political deception in modern history.

And it nearly worked.

Thanks to a vigilant electorate, the mask came off. But the damage done to public trust—and to the credibility of an entire political machine—is unlikely to fade anytime soon.