‘How Are They Letting This Fucking Thing Go On?’

Vanity Fair runs an excerpt from Chris Whipple’s new book, Uncharted:

“The president’s wobbly state should have been a flashing warning light. At his first meeting with Biden, Ron Klain, his former White House chief of staff, who was in charge of debate prep, was startled. He’d never seen Biden so exhausted and out of it.

He seemed unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. The president appeared obsessed with foreign policy and uninterested in his second-term plans. During one prep session in Aspen Lodge, the presidential cabin, Biden suddenly got up, walked out to the pool, collapsed on a lounge chair, and fell sound asleep.”

“Yet his advisers were undaunted. With unintended irony, one of them explained their strategy to me: ‘An early debate would quiet fears that the president was infirm.’”