****To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***
While CNN host Jake Tapper would eventually press Democratic nominee Joe Biden on his support for NAFTA and “favored country status” for China, his interview with the former Vice President (taped Wednesday and aired Thursday) was largely a Trump-bashing session. It featured Tapper repeatedly teeing up his 2020 candidate to take swings at his favorite hate object. Tapper even let Biden lie about negotiations with North Korea and the timeline of their nuclear program.
The video led in with Biden going off on President Trump and Tapper slow pitching him excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new anti-Trump book, Rage. In more of a statement than a question, Tapper directed Biden to attack Trump’s leadership during the pandemic:
JAKE TAPPER: Well, the way President Trump explains it, and he said this to Woodward March 19 if you take a listen.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP (via audio): I want to always play it down, I still like playing it down—
BOB WOODWARDS: Yes, I --
TRUMP: -- because I don't want to create a panic.
TAPPER: He said something similar this afternoon. He said he didn't want to create a panic. That's why he downplayed it. He said leadership is about confidence.
JOE BIDEN: Yeah, and that's why we have no confidence in his leadership.
It was the same deal a short time later when Tapper teed up Biden with unsubstantiated claims that “Putin had something on Trump.”
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