CNN host Jake Tapper has defended himself against claims he is not covering Donald Trump’s health decline in the same way he documented Joe Biden’s cognitive stumbles.
Tapper appeared on the latest episode of Pod Save America, plugging his new book, Race Against Terror, which covers the story of an al Qaeda terrorist.
At the end of the interview, podcast host Tommy Vietor referenced Tapper’s book from earlier this year, Original Sin, which examined the cognitive decline of Former President Joe Biden and how it was, according to Tapper, hidden from the public.
The book, co-written with Axios’ National Political Correspondent, Alex Thompson, claimed that the Biden administration denied “the existence of health issues the nation had been watching for years” which resulted in the presidential debate of June 2024. Tapper moderated the event on CNN at the time.
That debate exposed Biden’s deteriorating mental capacity and led to him stepping down at the age of 81, making way for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
“Alex and I wrote a book about an unprecedented event happening, which was Joe Biden having such a horrible performance at a presidential debate where his only job was to convince people he was up to the task of being president for another four years,” Tapper claimed.
“The question wasn’t even about the performance of the debate, although it was unprecedentedly horrible. It was that he wasn’t able to go out any time in the following weeks and make any Democrats feel or sufficient numbers of Democrats feel better that he could do this job. And frankly, I understand that there are a lot of people out there who think I would take President Biden in a coma over Donald Trump. I understand.
“I don’t know anybody who thinks that he could be president right now and all the way through 2029 in his current state,” Tapper added of Biden.
Vietor said he had noticed that when Trump has been captured nodding off in the White House or makes a slip up that suggests a possible cognitive decline that angry social media users have tagged Tapper, claiming he is actively ignoring reporting on the 79-year-old’s health.
Instead, Tapper, with copies of his latest book intentionally propped up in the background as he and Vietor spoke, insisted he had learned from mistakes in covering Biden’s failing health when reporting on Trump’s issues.
“I mean, we cover it all the time on my show,” Tapper said of covering Trump’s health on his CNN show The Lead. “All the time. And I think that is to a large degree because we saw what happened with Biden and while we covered it, we didn’t cover it… maybe we didn’t ask as many questions as we should have at the time.”
Tapper continued, “I think it is a legitimate question for any president of any age, but particularly anybody who is like in the range of being an octogenarian, right?”
(Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The Washington Post/The Washington Post via Getty ImThe CNN host cited covering Trump’s December 9 Truth Social post where he lashed out at the New York Times for covering of his health issues and reduced workload.
“I will know when I am ‘slowing up,’ but it’s not now!,” Trump posted. “After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES’.”
“I literally cover it all the time,” Tapper said. “I covered that crazy Truth Social rant when he was mad at The New York Times for covering his aging and he called it sedition or treasonous.”
He continued, “I covered it on social media and I also covered it on my show, right? Like, I do, I cover it.”
Tapper, in common with CNN and other outlets including the New York Times, barely reported on Trump’s clear health issues for months. The Daily Beast has forensically reported on the 79-year-old’s swollen cankles, frequent napping and incoherent speech for months.
The Daily Beast has contacted CNN and Tapper’s publisher for comment.
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