CNN anchor Jake Tapper admitted to not fully reporting on Joe Biden’s senility when interviewing the the former president years earlier amid speculation surrounding Biden’s mental fitness.
Tapper made the admission while being grilled by Megyn Kelly on her eponymous SiriusXM show Tuesday, while speaking about his just released exposé, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.
‘Knowing what I know now, obviously I feel tremendous humility about my coverage,’ Tapper told Kelly.
The podcast host and Former Fox News anchor asked why Tapper didn’t grill Biden during a 2022 interview, after the president in a speech called out for a colleague who had died a week earlier.
‘There is a way of pressing a man like that on the actual infirmities to bring it home to him and to the audience and you didn’t do it,’ Kelly said.
‘That’s correct. I didn’t,’ Tapper confessed. ‘And like I said, I feel humility about my coverage.
Kelly also brought up a now-infamous 2020 exchange between Tapper and Lara Trump, during which Tapper shamed her for mentioning Biden’s ‘cognitive decline.’
‘That Lara Trump interview, for example, she saw something that I did not see at the time 100 percent and I own that,’ Tapper explained of the tense interview with Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law.
Megyn Kelly clashed with CNN star Jake Tapper on Tuesday after he admitted being complicit in the cover-up over Joe Biden’s declining abilities
In it, Tapper had shamed her for bringing up Biden’s tendency to stutter during a conversation about the then-candidate’s ‘cognitive decline’.
‘I did ask Joe Biden to be transparent about his health records in an interview in 2020,’ Tapper told Kelly this time around.
‘But then he wasn’t,’ Kelly quipped.
‘No, he wasn’t transparent at all,’ Tapper quickly admitted – before pointing to other instances of reporting he framed as more above board.
‘He promised you that he would be transparent about his health records and then he wasn’t,’ Kelly first said, before bringing up how Tapper had a second sitdown with Biden in October 2022.
‘And when you sat with him again… you didn’t ask him about it.
‘You didn’t follow up on the fact that he was falling up the stairs that he was losing his train of thought regularly,’ Kelly recounted. ‘That he was slurring, that he was incomprehensible, that he was getting lost on the White House lawn,’
‘You sat right across from him and you asked none of that,’ Kelly reiterated. ‘[He] promised you he would be fully transparent about his health issues.’
‘That Laura Trump interview for example, she saw some she saw something that I did not see at the time 100 percent and I own that,’ Tapper said, referring to the tense interview with Trump’s daughter-in-law aired on State of the Union in 2020
Tapper moderated Biden’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump – a display that saw many high-profile Democrats turn on the then-president
‘That’s true,’ Tapper first said, before embarking on a brief pause.
He went on to tout how he had asked the then-president about his age and the fact that Americans were ‘concerned’ about it – a tidbit Kelly seemingly deemed as soft.
She responded by questioning Tapper’s desire to confront the former president about his infirmity more directly.
‘There is a way of pressing a man like that, on the actual infirmities, to bring it home to him and to the audience – and you didn’t do it,’ Kelly concluded, paving the way for another concession from her guest.
‘That’s correct,’ he said. I didn’t. And like I said, I feel humility about my coverage.’
Tapper – joined by his coauthor Alex Thompson – eventually argued: ‘I mean, it’s not like I was asking him his favorite movie or his favorite color.’
‘We were talking about Putin we were talking about other issues of national importance but yeah I mean of course I’ve said I I look back at my coverage with humility,’ he again insisted.
‘And uh – I wish I did cover the issues of age and acuity.’
Kelly criticized Tapper for gently broaching the subject of then-President Joe Biden’s age during an October 2022 interview, after he failed to turn over certain health records
CNN’s star Washington correspondent also sat down with Biden when he was a candidate. At the time, the eventual president promised to be transparent in matters surrounding his health
Kelly – one of many who had pointed Biden’s alleged cognitive decline years ago – seemingly did not buy the defense.
‘But these issues were not pressed,’ she repeated. ‘You covered the Biden presidency aggressively throughout the four years, but you barely covered his mental acuity.
‘Time and time again, when issues came up, you seemed to be running cover for the president. You didn’t seem interested.’
At another point, Kelly grilled her guest by bringing up what she billed as the biggest ‘criticism’ about his and Thompson’s book.
‘The criticism has been, that you’re complaining about a cover up about Joe Biden’s mental acuity that failed, that right-wing pundits saw, the right-wing in general saw, that independent media saw and reported on.’
Kelly claimed the story was also ‘no mystery even to left-wing and so-called 0:18 mainstream reporters’ at outlets like CNN, whom she said were also ‘not fooled, but chose willful blindness instead.’
Tapper, in turn, also spoke of how there were two Joe Bidens during his time in office – a ‘functioning Biden’ and a ‘non-functioning Biden.
The CNN host said the collapse of a plea deal offered to Biden’s son Hunter over gun charges in 2023 dramatically worsened the 82 year-old’s mental state.
Tapper – joined by his coauthor Alex Thompson – eventually argued: ‘I mean, it’s not like I was asking him his favorite movie or his favorite color’
Tapper’s new book Original Sin, written with fellow journalist Alex Thompson, details the industrial scale of the cover-up surrounding Biden’s health.
The ruse was finally blown during a disastrous presidential debate against Donald Trump in June 2024, which later saw Biden drop out of the race.
On Sunday, the former president announced he has an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
Developing story, check back for updates…