‘Why would you even cover that?’ Pelosi snaps at CNN’s Jake Tapper over Trump’s comments about Harris

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi snapped at a CNN host when questioned about Donald Trump’s comments on Kamala Harris’s cognitive ability.

During The Lead on Tuesday night, Jake Tapper triggered the Democratic lawmaker by playing a clip of Trump accusing Kamala Harris of having more “cognitive problems” than President Joe Biden.

“Why would you even cover that?” Pelosi fired back. “This is a person who is not on the level. He is their nominee for president. He is incompetent.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump held a rally in Savannah, Georgia, where he mocked Harris by telling the audience that the world was “laughing at us” – but more specifically that the world was laughing at “Kamala”.

“You talk about cognitive problems – she’s got bigger cognitive problems than he has in my opinion,” he said about Harris and Biden.

Pelosi hit out at Trump over the comments – and at Tapper for amplifying them.

“Let’s not even talk about the silliness of it all, and the weirdness of it all and the assault on women that it is. We’re not going to talk issues. Incompetent,” she fumed.

“The only thing he did as president. The only thing he did as president when he had the majority was to pass a bill – tax cuts – that gave 83 percent of the benefits to the top one percent adding $2trn to the national debt.

“The worst job creation record of any president since Herbert Hoover.”

“Because of Covid?” Tapper interjected.

“Well it’s not because of Covid, we put $3trn into the economy…”

“And what did he do with Covid – denial and delay. Responsible for thousands and thousands of people dying so if you’re going to forgive his job record because of Covid make sure you attribute many of those deaths to him as well.”

She added: “Forget silly and crazy and all the rest – incompetent.”

Pelosi has previously speculated that Trump could have dementia.

“There are health care professionals who think that Trump has dementia,” she told CNN in June, while defending Biden over his disastrous debate performance. “If we’re just talking about mental acuity, let’s be fair about it.”

It comes as Trump is facing questions about his cognitive abilities as the oldest presidential candidate in American history, after Biden withdrew from the presidential race amid mounting questions about his own capacity to serve another term.

On Monday, Trump raised eyebrows for what spectators called his “word salad” as he meandered into nonsensical sentences while speaking to a crowd of MAGA supporters at a Pennsylvania rally.

“I almost said the state of Pennsylvania but I said, I meant the Commonwealth, I never said the state, I was able to catch it because I’m cognitively very strong,” he said.

Despite the ramblings, he insisted that he is “cognitively very strong.”