NCS host Jake Tapper has defended himself in opposition to claims he’s not protecting Donald Trump’s well being decline in the identical approach he documented Joe Biden’s cognitive stumbles.
Tapper appeared on the newest episode of Pod Save America, plugging his new guide, Race Against Terror, which covers the story of an al Qaeda terrorist.
At the tip of the interview, podcast host Tommy Vietor referenced Tapper’s guide from earlier this yr, Original Sin, which examined Biden’s cognitive decline in workplace and the way it was, in line with Tapper, hidden from the general public.
The guide, 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 within the presidential debate of June 2024. Tapper moderated the occasion on NCS on the time.
That debate uncovered Biden’s deteriorating psychological capability and led to him stepping down from the election contest on the age of 81, making approach for his vice chairman, 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 mentioned.
“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 mentioned he had observed that when Trump has been captured nodding off within the White House, or makes a slip-up that implies a doable cognitive decline, that indignant social media customers have tagged Tapper, claiming he’s actively ignoring reporting on the 79-year-old’s well being.
Instead, Tapper, with copies of his newest guide deliberately propped up within the background as he and Vietor spoke, insisted he had realized from errors in protecting Biden’s failing well being when reporting on Trump’s points.
“I mean, we cover it all the time on my show,” Tapper mentioned of protecting Trump’s well being on his NCS present 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?”
The NCS host cited protecting Trump’s Dec. 9 Truth Social put up the place he lashed out on the New York Times for its protection of his well being points and lowered 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 mentioned. “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 frequent with NCS and different shops together with the New York Times, barely reported on Trump’s clear well being points 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 NCS and Tapper’s writer for remark.
