CNN anchor Jake Tapper responded Thursday after Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller insisted that the former president “has never mocked” Joe Biden’s stutter—by playing a video where Trump repeatedly does exactly that.
Biden’s stutter was the subject of a Washington Post article published earlier in the day, which describes how he has embraced the speech impediment as a way to show compassion for others who stutter. Trump, the article notes, has “mocked Biden in recent weeks by falsely claiming that the president is stuttering during his speeches” and has occasionally “parodied the purported stammer.”
While Miller tried to argue that Trump has “simply called out the fact Biden is a cognitively impaired, low-IQ individual,” Tapper showed otherwise, rolling tape of Trump from a Jan. 5 speech in Iowa.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Did you see him? He was stuttering through the whole thing,” Trump said of Biden, before launching into a crude imitation.
Tapper then dismissed Miller’s narrative: “Why even deny it when it’s so—I mean, it just doesn’t matter anymore? Just lie about anything?”
“Yeah, it’s stupid,” GOP strategist Alice Stewart weighed in. “News flash: whenever you say something in front of cameras, people can use that video against you if you try to deny saying something.”
Democratic strategist Paul Begala then likened Trump’s recent attacks to his 2015 imitation of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, which causes shortened, stiff joints and muscle weakness, as well as his mockery just months ago of John McCain’s permanent arm disability, which stemmed from the late senator’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
“This is what Trump does,” Begala said. “Many of his supporters—some are friends and family of mine—are lovely people, but they’re supporting a very unlovely man.”
