Politics
The Biden ads that never ran
After a blitzkrieg of a book rollout that saw Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s “Original Sin” dominate the news cycle this week with its clinical autopsy of Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection, some in Biden world are hitting back, offering fresh complaints about the reporting process and their own fact checks.
When Biden’s reelection campaign needed video of him taking off-the-cuff questions from voters, they turned to a staged town hall in Delaware in April 2024 that they planned to use for a campaign commercial — an episode that went so poorly, people in the campaign determined the town hall yielded unusable material, according to Tapper and Thompson.
The pair write that at the closed-press event, even amid supporters and campaign staff that had the full list of questions, “Biden had trouble. The campaign ultimately decided that the footage wasn’t usable.”
But Biden team’s is pushing back. Three versions of test ads obtained exclusively by Blue Light News tell a slightly more complicated story.
While all three are highly edited and feature jump cuts of Biden’s remarks, the footage also shows the candidate engaging with members of the audience. Blue Light News viewed dated documents related to the town hall’s planning and a painting in the gym to confirm the date and location.
One is called “Greatest Nation” focusing on democracy; another is titled “They’ve Tried” on the Affordable Care Act; a third, directed at veterans, is called “Defend Us All.”
None ever aired.
Why was that? Though Tapper and Thompson report that it was because the footage “wasn’t usable,” Biden advisers argue that the footage didn’t make it on air simply because of timing.
A Biden spokesperson tells Blue Light News that the campaign tested the ads with focus groups but did not deploy them before the president dropped out of the race following his disastrous June 2024 debate.
Asked about the Biden advisers’ claims, Tapper disputed the contention. In a quotation supplied to Blue Light News by Tapper, an unnamed Biden adviser said: “While the campaign was able to selectively utilize portions of the footage to craft ads that were eventually tested on focus groups, the consensus from senior and mid level campaign staff present for the event and those privy to the editing process was that the footage was not up to par and would require crafty editorial support. The campaign’s leadership would not have needed to wait nearly four months to (not) release the ads created with the footage if it reflected the picture of confidence they suggest.”
Blue Light News has been unable to independently verify the identity of the unnamed Biden adviser supplied by Tapper.
The dispute over the book’s reporting is the latest pushback from Biden aides and allies against what they are keen to depict as a slapdash fact-checking process by Tapper and Thompson.
Tapper and Thompson have made a point of publicly noting that they paid for their book to be fact-checked — a step that many nonfiction books skip — and that Fergus McIntosh, the head research editor at The New Yorker, led that process.
The New Yorker has a stringent and storied process for vetting materials before publication, and, indeed, McIntosh fact-checked both the book and the excerpt from the book that the magazine published last week. Blue Light News has learned that McIntosh told at least one person that he was more limited in the facts he could check in the book versus the excerpt, which is common. McIntosh declined to speak on the record.
McIntosh’s role in fact-checking was raised as an issue in a statement Biden’s spokesperson gave The New Yorker, but which the magazine didn’t publish in its entirety. “[T]he New Yorker employee who reached out to fact-check this excerpt also apparently reviewed the book and offered suggestions to the authors as they wrote it,” the statement read. “It’s remarkable that neither this fact checker, nor the authors, reached out to fact check the actual book with us, and only the New Yorker is holding them to the high editorial standards that readers of the book should get in the first place.”
In other words, the unnamed Biden spokesperson claims that the first time a Biden aide heard from the independently hired fact-checker was for the magazine excerpt, not for the book. The New Yorker did not respond to a request for comment.
Rufus Gifford, a Biden campaign official, shared video of Biden talking with George Clooney at a moment that the president allegedly did not recognize him — though the video doesn’t seem to definitively prove Gifford’s argument.
Like some of the book’s buzziest anecdotes — including that Biden didn’t recognize Clooney — the town hall anecdote is a matter of perception.
Thompson reports that some people say ads from the town hall weren’t used because the lighting was bad; the lighting looks serviceable in the ads. Others told Thompson that Biden’s performance at the event was poor; Biden, indeed, sounds raspy and old.
In a statement to Blue Light News, a spokesperson for Tapper and Thompson said: “Jake and Alex stand by their reporting in ‘Original Sin.’ The Biden team is repeating the same obfuscatory tactics used during their time in the White House, and news outlets continuing to rely on the very same unattributed and unverified voices raises serious credibility questions.”
The spokesperson didn’t want to be named. Tapper declined to identify his source who appraised the Biden town hall.
This story first appeared in Blue Light News Playbook.
Sunday presents another test for both Belgium and Maximus Textoris Pulcher, the rescue cat that Prime Minister Bart De Wever hoped would become the 2026 successor to Paul the Octopus, who predicted (with surprising accuracy) the winners of the 2010 World Cup.
De Wever’s cat has become something of a feline influencer — Maximus’s Instagram following now outpaces the PM’s — but probably shouldn’t quit social media for prediction markets. Maximus, who chooses a match’s outcome by pawing from one of three dishes, anticipated a Belgian win in the team’s first match against Egypt — it ended in a draw. Maximus has again tipped the Red Devils to prevail today, this time against Iran.
Gov. Josh Shapiro is quickly becoming the prospective 2028 presidential campaign field’s biggest World Cup fan.
On Monday, the Pennsylvania governor and potential presidential candidate is set to attend his second match of the tournament when he is in the stands at Lincoln Financial Field to see Iraq play France in Philadelphia, according to a spokesperson. He also attended Ivory Coast vs. Ecuador there a week ago with his wife Lori. Shapiro is also expected to hit the FIFA Fan Festival before the match.
Shapiro joins a growing list of 2028 hopefuls to take in the tournament. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, attended the U.S. opener against Paraguay. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the American squad’s match against Australia. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who hasn’t actively made moves toward a campaign but has carved out a leadership role in the party, attended the France vs. Senegal game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
A number of potential 2028 candidates in states hosting games have not yet made the pilgrimage to a game: Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) hasn’t partaken of an East Rutherford match. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, for example, have not attended matches at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta (Ossoff has said he has no interest in running for president), nor has Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) hasn’t taken in a match at either AT&T Stadium in Arlington or NRG Stadium in Houston.
Shapiro is known on local sports radio as “Josh in Abington,” and is a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles and 76ers. That fandom could help him build stronger relationships with voters. Philadelphia’s fan zone has drawn significant crowds.
Shapiro has also used host status to distribute 700 free tickets to Philadelphia community organizations. He said it was “really important” to him that it would happen when he landed matches.
“Governor Shapiro believes the FIFA World Cup is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that should benefit all Pennsylvanians,” his office said in a press release earlier this month, and “he is working to make the matches free and accessible to as many people as possible.”
The tickets are also an economic development tool: “As part of Visit PA’s sponsorship of Philadelphia Soccer 2026, the Commonwealth gains access to a mix of suite, VIP, and general admission tickets, which are being used to host business leaders, prospective partners, and other guests to further strengthen Pennsylvania’s economic development and promote the Commonwealth as the best place to visit, live, and do business,” a Shapiro spokesperson said.
More broadly, the politics of attending a FIFA World Cup game are tricky, says Eric Koch, a soccer fan and Democratic consultant based in New York City.
“In fairness the ticket prices are insane and the U.S. matches have all been on the West Coast so it’s hard for anyone to get out there — and AOC has been (rightfully!) basking in the Knicks win,” Koch said. “The U.S. loves a winner and this squad is not only super talented but is also on the cusp of really capturing the hearts of the whole country as we go to the knockout rounds so I expect we will see more candidates embracing them. It’s going to be a great unifying thing to rally behind.”
For Democrats in particular, embracing the World Cup could help them with two political projects, Koch said: embracing some kind of patriotism and relating more with voters, but it has to be an authentic effort.
“As with all things in politics, if it’s not authentic to you and what you’re about, it’s going to seem fake and forced and this applies extra to sports, which people have actual deep connections to,” Koch said. “The good thing is the USMNT can be everyone’s team and as the hype train builds I think we will see more pols embracing them.”
President Donald Trump’s fingerprints are all over this World Cup — even the stadium gift shops, trade editor Emily Cadei writes in.
Granted, few of the customers that are mobbing official FIFA merch stores are examining the provenance of their $100+ jerseys or $50 baseball caps. But those “Made in” tags tell a story of how trade flows have shifted since Trump was first elected to the White House.
The jerseys? Made in Thailand. The scarves? Made in Vietnam. The special edition soccer ball displaying the names of the North American host cities? Made in Indonesia. (None of those countries, notably, are in the World Cup themselves, with only Indonesia even coming close to qualifying.)
They are part of a surge in imports the United States has seen from Southeast Asia in recent years, as Trump ratcheted up tariffs on neighboring China and as Chinese labor became more expensive, relative to other countries in the region. Vietnam has been a particular beneficiary of the shift, with its goods exports to the U.S. jumping 42 percent in 2025, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The same is true, but on a smaller scale, for Thailand and Indonesia.
Imports from those countries have continued to climb in 2026, even after the Supreme Court in February struck down Trump’s steepest tariffs on China, making their exports, in theory, a little cheaper. But the ruling did not affect tariffs Trump levied on more than $300 billion worth of Chinese goods during his first term.
The Trump administration is now threatening China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries with additional tariffs as a part of trade investigations launched to replace the ones struck down by the Supreme Court. They aren’t expected to be as extreme, however, as the ones the president imposed last year.
Even with those duties in place, America still bought plenty from China in 2025 — more than $300 billion worth of goods, per USTR. Thus far in 2026, China ranks behind only Mexico and Canada (our North American World Cup co-hosts) in terms of largest U.S. trading partners.
And indeed, the FIFA shops are hawking plenty of “Made in China” swag, too: from bucket hats, to collectible pins, to keychains, to a $40 imitation gold chain with a FIFA logo pendant that my 8-year-old begged me to buy for him.
(That was a hard “no.”)
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