CNN anchor Jake Tapper teamed up with Axios’ Alex Thompson to write an exposé about Joe Biden’s “serious decline” and the impact it had on the 2024 election. But his participation in Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again has drawn plenty of criticism due to his past coverage of the former president and the Biden White House.
One of the archival moments that has gotten the most attention is Tapper’s viral fall 2020 scolding of Lara Trump after she said “cognitive decline” was to blame for Biden’s garbled and often incoherent speak.
On Tuesday’s show, the authors joined Megyn to discuss their book, and Tapper acknowledged that Trump “was right” to have the concerns she did.
The Viral Exchange
Trump, who was a campaign advisor for her father-in-law at the time, was a guest on Tapper’s show just weeks before the 2020 election. During their interview, Tapper criticized her for commenting on Biden struggling for words, accusing her of “mocking” his stutter.
“How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that,” he asked after showing a clip of her reacting to Biden’s garbled speak.
“First and foremost, I had no idea that Joe Biden ever suffered from a stutter,” Trump responded. “I think what we see on stage with Joe Biden, Jake, is very clearly a cognitive decline–“
“Ok,” Tapper interrupted. “It’s so amazing to me– a ‘cognitive decline.’ I think you were mocking his stutter. Yeah. I think you were mocking his stutter and I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody’s cognitive decline. I would think somebody in the Trump family would be more sensitive to people who do not have medical licenses diagnosing politicians from afar.”
“It’s very concerning to a lot of people that this could be the leader of the free world. That is all I’m saying,” Trump refuted, but Tapper shut down the conversation.
“Thank you, Lara. I’m sure it’s from a place of concern. We all believe that,” he sarcastically responded before cutting the interview short.
Tapper Responds
Megyn asked Tapper if he wanted to “apologize” to Trump, and he said he already has. “I’ve already apologized to her. I called her months ago,” he said. “After we did the research for this book and I realized how bad his acuity issues were… I called Laura Trump and I said, ‘You were you were right.'”
Megyn said Trump “was totally right” and many find it hard to believe Tapper couldn’t see that for himself until writing this book. “When I watch that clip – and I’m giving voice to what a lot of people watching the show are feeling – I feel angry because she was right. And not only did you not allow her to make her comments, but you seemed to try to humiliate her. You had a hostility toward the position,” Megyn noted. “And then you lectured her on how she was in no position to diagnose cognitive decline, which you guys do at length… [in your] book… [That] is all she tried to do with you, but you had such a visceral reaction to her. My feeling is that is because you didn’t want to hear it.”
Tapper suggested he was not alone in thinking Trump was making fun of Biden’s stutter. “The first time I saw the coverage of Laura Trump’s comments… was in January 2020. I read it in conservative media. I read it in The Daily Mail, and that is where I saw that her comments were being interpreted that way,” he said. “After those comments were publicized, they got a lot of coverage and [Capt. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger] wrote an op-ed in The New York Times criticizing her about this. So that’s the context… I was following up on a story that had been out there months before.”
“This is also in the context of October 2020. A very intense time,” he added. “People on the Biden side are saying crazy things about Trump. People on the Trump side are saying crazy things about Biden, including [Donald Trump Jr.] suggesting that Joe Biden is a pedophile. So that is the larger context.”
With that said, Tapper acknowledged “her comments have aged well” and his have not. “My comments have aged poorly. I own that,” he said. “Knowing what I know now, obviously I feel tremendous humility about my coverage… She saw something that I did not see at the time… and I own that.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Tapper and Thompson by tuning in to episode 1,075 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.