CNN’s Jake Tapper Explains Why He Covers Trump’s Health ‘All The Time’

CNN’s Jake Tapper is reflecting on what he could’ve done differently with his coverage of former President Joe Biden — and how it led him to switch up his coverage of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.

Appearing on Monday’s episode of the “Pod Save America” podcast, Tapper, who co-wrote the book “Original Sin” alongside Axios’ Alex Thompson, admitted that they “didn’t ask as many questions” about Biden’s reported cognitive decline as they could have.

In the book, which was released in May, Tapper and Thompson claimed to uncover details about Biden aides’ efforts to hide the politician’s ailing health from the public. In May, Biden was also diagnosed with prostate cancer. He is currently undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment.

The topic arose after host and former President Barack Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor asked Tapper, “How do you think the media is handling these growing instances of Trump falling asleep in meetings or maybe seeming like he’s losing a step? Like, when is it a critical mass that it becomes book-worthy?”

“It’s a great question,” Tapper responded before saying of Trump’s health and cognitive state, “We cover it all the time on my show, all the time.”

He then explained what he now sees as his missteps in his reporting on Biden.

“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 added, “I think it is a legitimate question for any president of any age, but particularly anybody who is in the range of being an octogenarian, right?”

CNN host Jake Tapper and President Donald Trump.

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The CNN host told Vietor he and Thompson “didn’t write a book about Joe Biden’s missteps,” but instead “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.”

Wrapping up his comments, Tapper pointed to his coverage of Trump’s most recent behavior.

“Literally yesterday, 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.”

“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,’” Trump wrote in a Dec. 9 Truth Social post.

Watch Tapper’s appearance on “Pod Save America” below.