After learning of former US President Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis, former Obama adviser Van Jones launched a scathing attack on Sunday, accusing those around Biden of hiding his serious health decline from the American public.Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, Jones said he was shocked by Biden’s condition and described the alleged cover-up by his top aides as a “crime against this republic.” His remarks follow revelations in the upcoming book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, which details how close Biden allies may have kept his medical issues under wraps.“I was shocked,” Jones said. “I love Joe Biden. I got a chance to work with him when I was part of the Obama administration. I loved him more every day. I was shocked to see his condition when he came out, and so was the world.”Jones reflected on Biden’s troubling performance during his presidential debate against Donald Trump last year, saying it wasn’t an isolated incident.“That wasn’t the first time he was in that condition,” Jones said. “The book makes it very, very clear there are people who knew and said nothing. And that is a crime against this republic. I think the Democrats are going to pay for a long time for being a part of what is now being revealed to be a massive cover-up.”Jones had publicly warned before the debate that it could be “game over” for Biden.Jones believes the Democratic Party must engage in serious self-reflection.“Before we get out here and start trying to tell people why they should like us, we need to look in the mirror, reorganise ourselves, get bad people and bad ideas out of the way, and then we will be able to come forward in the midterm,” he said.“Right now, we need to apologise to the American people that we were part of something that wasn’t on the up and up.”Jones compared the current crisis to the Democratic defeat in 2004, suggesting that lessons from that era could guide the party forward.“It took 3.5 years before Barack Obama emerged with a message. What did we do in the meantime? We looked inside. Donors got reorganised,” he said.