anchor Jake Tapper has suffered his worst ratings in nearly ten years, despite a major media blitz for his new book exposing President Joe Biden's decline. Tapper co-authored the political bombshell "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again" with Axios journalist Alex Thompson. The book, released in May, sparked fresh debate over Biden's fitness for office and alleged efforts to cover up his health concerns.

It's been widely promoted across the network, but the attention hasn't translated to viewers.To support the launch, Tapper made appearances on podcasts, talk shows, and cable news, while CNN gave the book heavy in-house promotion. Yet Tapper's show, "The Lead with Jake Tapper," has failed to benefit. From April 28 to May 25, the programme averaged just 525,000 total viewers, down 25% from the same period last year.

Meanwhile, rivals crushed CNN in the ratings. Fox News' The Five and Special Report with Bret Baier pulled in a massive 3.3 million viewers in the same timeframe, leaving Tapper in the dust.

MSNBC also outperformed Tapper, averaging over one million viewers. Tapper only secured 11% of the cable news audience share during that period.

MSNBC took 21%, while Fox News dominated with 68%. The numbers mark Tapper's lowest month since August 2015.

His program is also sliding in the key 25-54 demographic, which advertisers prize. Just 95,000 viewers in that age range tuned in between April 28 and May 25 - a 15% drop compared to last year.

And it's not just Tapper feeling the heat. CNN had its second-worst month ever for the 25-54 demo across both total day and primetime throughout May.

Despite the ratings dive, Tapper has generated headlines from the book by admitting he could have pushed harder on Biden's age in his reporting, and even going as far as calling the alleged cover-up of Biden's mental state possibly "a worse scandal than Watergate."

A CNN spokesperson responded to the ratings, saying: "The award-winning program The Lead with Jake Tapper reaches broad global audiences across CNN, CNN International and Max's streaming platform.

"No single metric can capture the true reach and impact of a program driving the national conversation." The network also pointed out that Nielsen ratings only reflect U.S. viewership.

Further feulling the scandal, US President weighed in calling Biden's use of an autopen, which replicates a person's signature automatically, using a real pen and ink, "the biggest scandal in American history" since the 2020 election, claiming it allowed unnamed individuals to sign off on controversial policies without the former President's direct consent.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump alleged that whoever used the mechanical signature device was "usurping the power of the Presidency."

He argued that certain policies - such as open borders and allowing men to compete in women's sports - were decisions Biden would not have made "of sound mind."