Lara Trump denies mocking Joe Biden’s stutter, suggests cognitive decline

by Joseph Choi - 10/18/20 10:16 AM ET

Lara Trump on Sunday denied mocking Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s speech, and instead suggested that the former vice president may be experiencing a cognitive decline.

During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the president’s daughter-in-law, who serves as a senior campaign adviser, was pressed by Jake Tapper about an event in January during which she appeared to ridicule the way in which Biden speaks.

“Every time he’s on stage and they turn to him, I’m like, ‘Joe, can you get it out? Let’s get the words out, Joe,’” she said on stage at the time.

She said on Sunday that she “had no idea” that Biden had ever struggled with a stutter and then suggested that his way of speaking was indicative of cognitive decline.

“I think what we see with Joe Biden, Jake, is very clearly a cognitive decline. That’s what I’m referring to. It makes me uncomfortable to watch somebody on stage search for questions and try and figure out an answer.”

Tapper quickly noted that many people had diagnosed her father-in-law from afar and said that she had no standing to do the same to Biden.

In the same interview, Trump made light of President Trump’s criticism Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), whom the FBI recently said was the target of a kidnapping plot. The crowd at a Trump rally in Michigan late Saturday chanted the phrase “Lock her up!,” which has been heard at his rallies since 2016, when he ran against Hillary Clinton. “Lock ’em all up,” the president responded on Saturday.

”I would like to show people my social media and the threats against me, the threats against my children,” said when asked about the rally on CNN

Tapper then stressed that Biden, unlike the president, was not making similar calls for attacks on political opponents. When Tapper once again pressed Lara Trump, she said, “He wasn’t doing anything to provoke people to threaten this woman at all,” referring to the president. “He was having fun at a Trump rally.”

–Updated at 11:53 a.m.