Jake Tapper Owes Laura Trump More than a Private Apology
/CNN anchor Jake Tapper has been making the rounds, promoting his co-authored book about former President Joe Biden’s hidden mental decline. You would think that a reporter who acknowledged and tried to cover the story prior to the election would have far more credibility on the issue, yet that didn’t stop Tapper from cashing in on a truth that millions of Americans could see in plain sight. Tapper speaks as though this is a humbling moment, and how people around Biden kept his condition hush-hush because Trump was an existential threat, but since Trump is in the White House, many felt ready to spill the tea.
In other words, now that there’s nothing to lose and no political risk, it’s okay to finally speak the truth.
Tapper’s media tour led him to Megyn Kelly’s podcast, where she pressed him on his coverage of Biden. Most notably, Tapper’s interview with Laura Trump came up. In 2020, Laura Trump came on CNN, and a clip was played of Trump stating that she felt bad watching Biden struggle to get his words out. Tapper asked, “How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that?”
Trump said she had no idea Biden had a stutter, and she believes he is suffering from cognitive decline. That set Tapper off. “I think you were mocking his stutter, and I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose someone’s cognitive decline.”
Laura Trump tried to repeat, as Tapper talked over her, that it is uncomfortable watching Biden struggle and concerning that he could become the president in such a condition.
Kelly asked Tapper if he wanted to apologize to Laura Trump now. He had already apologized and called her “months ago.” Mind you, his blow-up at Laura Trump happened in 2020. Only after he had done the research for the book did he call Laura and acknowledge she was correct about his acuity issues.
Now, here’s the problem with that. Tapper and CNN played that clip of Laura Trump talking about Biden’s struggles in order to shame and berate her. “How would the little kids feel?” and so on. The media and the Biden campaign were using the story of Biden’s stutter to cover for his senior moments, and Tapper was marching along with that narrative. His response to Laura Trump was completely unprofessional for a journalist and was more like political hackery from a Democrat operative. It was more than him being wrong or willfully blind toward Biden’s condition. He was on a mission to smear her as someone who would mock a disability, just as the media and the Hillary Clinton campaign smeared Trump in 2016. Even if she had been wrong about Biden’s cognitive decline, she was still addressing that issue. Tapper was determined to slander Trump.
He should have apologized earlier than a couple of months ago, not for his ignorance but for his behavior. After deciding to make his book on Biden, it became necessary to apologize to Laura Trump because that interview was sure to come up. It’s possible that Tapper sincerely felt bad about how he acted, but the apology was also strategic.
And why did he apologize privately? He tried to humiliate her publicly on live TV. He owes her and his viewers a far greater display of humility than a nonstop book promo. He owes us more than “She was right.” We are owed, “I was wrong, and I acted abhorrently. My behavior was deeply unprofessional, and in the future, I will do better.”
Tapper and his coworkers shouldn’t be interviewing Van Jones and other friendly Democrats to talk about this issue. They should invite journalists who had been reporting on Biden’s decline for years. Tapper found stories of Biden’s decline dating back to 2015. Biden’s nonsensical interviews have been TikTok trends for years. Investigative reporters somehow just missed all of this?
Anyone who has had to watch several family members get older can probably recognize cognitive decline. Laura Trump was not alone in saying it was uncomfortable watching Biden struggle at times. The term “elder abuse” has been floating around the conservative sphere for a long while. Biden obviously had good days and bad days, but when you’re the president, we can’t afford to flip a coin to see what sort of leader we’re going to get.
Tapper admitted that people within Biden’s circle kept quiet because they deemed Trump to be a threat. It’s not too far-fetched to believe the journalists suffered from the same sort of cognitive dissonance at best and full-blown cover-up at worst. The media and Vice President Harris certainly didn’t react well to Robert Hur’s report and his comments on Biden’s mind.
Hiding such a condition proves that Democrats aren’t afraid of threats to democracy. They’re afraid of democracy. They were afraid of what the American people would do with the truth. And the most insane thing about it is that they told themselves that only Biden could beat Trump, yet there were a handful of Democrats who could have fared better if they were given proper time. Why not speak up before Biden decided to run again, or during the primaries? The DNC wouldn’t even entertain a challenge. And if he was so impaired, he should have stepped down, and Harris should have become the president. She may have still lost to Trump, but she would have had a better shot if she were actually the incumbent, and depending on how she governed with what little time she had.
This scandal left Democrats in the worst possible position for success in 2024, but airing out their dirty laundry now grants them a chance to act penitent and get this out of the news cycle before the 2026 midterm elections.
I am unconvinced that Tapper is truly repentant for his role in the Biden cover-up. He hasn’t truly owned up to his role in it. I don’t expect him to. He’s a media man, and his responses are well-crafted, and it’s for show with no real risk.
