By With the pressure beginning to mount on her family, Ashley Biden, the former First Daughter, is going on the offensive. In a sharply worded Instagram post Monday, the daughter of former President Joe Biden slammed a new book alleging her father suffered from cognitive decline while in office, calling the accusations “damn disrespectful” and “fake news.” Her post came days after the release of Original Sin, a tell-all coauthored by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson that purports to document the Biden White House’s attempts to mask the president’s faltering mental acuity.
The book, which hit shelves in May, relies on anonymous accounts from former Biden staff and allies who describe behind-the-scenes efforts to shield the president from difficult questions and limit his public appearances. According to Tapper and Thompson, this strategy was orchestrated to obscure a pattern of decline—a charge that’s long circulated in right-leaning circles but now finds oxygen from sources inside Biden’s own party, writes The Daily Mail.
Ashley didn’t mention Tapper by name, but her post left little doubt about its target.
‘The ONLY coverup of this family is a BEACH coverup !!!’ she wrote, mocking the idea of a media conspiracy and defending her father’s record.
‘The truth is, Dad gave his ALL to America and continues til this day. He NEVER gave up on you. And he listened to all of you. And he acted. The man has led his life by ACTIONS not words.’
Joe Biden, now 82, left office on January 20, 2025, after losing the 2024 election to Donald Trump.
In May 2025, his office revealed that he had been diagnosed with aggressive, bone-metastatic prostate cancer.
The release of Original Sin has reignited partisan debates about Biden’s fitness—an issue that dogged his presidency from the start. Conservatives long accused Biden of being mentally unfit. Republicans are now calling for investigations into who was actually running the presidency from 2021 to 2025.
House and Senate Republicans have intensified their investigations into what they describe as a “shadow government” operating within the Biden administration. At the heart of the inquiry are allegations that unelected aides, rather than President Joe Biden himself, directed major policy decisions—claims that raise profound constitutional questions about executive authority. House Oversight Chairman James Comer has issued subpoenas to both First Lady Jill Biden and Hunter Biden, focusing in part on the use of an autopen to sign executive actions and presidential pardons, potentially without Biden’s direct involvement. Senate Republicans, led by Eric Schmitt and John Cornyn, have also launched their own probe, characterizing the matter as a constitutional crisis rooted in presidential incapacity.
The allegations, amplified by conservative media, suggest that presidential power may have been exercised unlawfully by unelected staff—a charge that, if substantiated, could have sweeping implications for the legitimacy of Biden-era decisions. Critics caution against leaping to conclusions without firm evidence, noting that aides routinely assist presidents across administrations. Still, the political stakes are enormous: Republicans argue that the nation cannot afford to be governed by proxy while vital national security decisions hang in the balance. President Biden, for his part, dismissed concerns about his leadership, insisting he has no regrets and remains confident in his reelection bid.
The current controversy has also dredged up old headlines about gross misconduct by Joe Biden against his daughter. The controversy surrounding Ashley Biden’s diary, which first surfaced in 2020, has reignited after the president’s daughter confirmed its authenticity in a court letter. Originally obtained by Project Veritas and later published by The National File, the diary contained deeply personal and disturbing entries, including Ashley’s reflections on her childhood, drug use, and sexually inappropriate experiences—one of which involved showering with her father, then-Senator Joe Biden. While the mainstream media mostly ignored the story at the time, British and conservative outlets like the Daily Mail reported on its contents. For years, fact-checkers such as Snopes maintained that the diary’s legitimacy was “unproven,” but that changed in April 2024 when Ashley Biden acknowledged in a legal filing that the journal was indeed hers.
Snopes subsequently updated its rating from “Unproven” to “True,” citing Ashley’s statement that she would “forever have to deal with the fact that my personal journal can be viewed online.” Despite this development, major media outlets have offered minimal coverage—especially when compared to the saturation-level reporting on Donald Trump’s “hush money” case. Critics point to a glaring double standard, noting that had similar allegations emerged involving a Trump family member, they would have dominated the news cycle. Meanwhile, Aimee Harris, the woman who found and sold the diary, has been sentenced to prison—further fueling accusations that those who cross the Biden family face legal retribution.
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