(DCNF)—Hoover Institute senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson called out CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday for flip-flopping on former President Joe Biden’s mental decline, stating Tapper would have never turned on Biden if Democrats were still in the White House.
Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson released their new book “Original Sin” on Tuesday, detailing concerns over Biden’s cognitive health during his one-term presidency. While discussing the CNN host’s recent interview with SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly on “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” co-host Sami Winc asked Hanson for his thoughts on Tapper’s new pushback against Biden.
“But did he ever really say, ‘I’m sorry?’” Hanson asked. “I mean, he might have called Laura Trump up, but did he ever say to an audience, ‘What I told you was untrue? It was clear to me that he was mentally challenged, cognitively in decline. I attacked people who said that. I am sorry to all of you. That was unprofessional.’”
“I don’t expect him to do the proper thing and resign because he misled the country with catastrophic effects,” Hanson added. “If you think of the border and Afghanistan and the autopen part, all the terrible things that Biden did. I shouldn’t say Biden did, somebody did in his name. So he didn’t do that. He did say he felt humiliated.”
Prior to Biden entering the Democrats’ presidential primary in 2020, Republicans raised concerns over his mental fitness.
Call-outs of Biden stumbling and struggling to speak at times were later pushed by the GOP after he won the 2020 election, but Democrats and media pundits quickly brushed off the concerns.
In 2020, Tapper interviewed President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, and accused her of “mocking” Biden’s “stutter,” telling her she had “no standing to diagnose somebody’s cognitive decline.”
During his interview with Kelly on Tuesday, Tapper said he has since apologized to Lara Trump, stating he called her “months ago.”
“But here’s my point. Why has he said anything about that he was fooled or he was mistaken? The answer is pretty clear. It’s for two reasons. One, Joe Biden is out of power. More importantly, he hasn’t been president since June of 2024. He has no power to either punished or reward Jake Tapper,” Hanson continued.
“What I mean is if you flip that over in the converse, if Joe Biden was president right now, would he have said that?” Hanson asked. “No. If Joe Biden had stepped down and Kamala Harris was the candidate right now, would he have said that? No. So he was lying when he knew he was lying. So then the question is, why did he say it now? The answer is that he has a book out.”
During Biden’s time as president and throughout his 2024 campaign, Tapper, among other media personalities, had defended the former president. Notably, during Biden’s disastrous debate against Trump, Tapper, who was one of the moderators, appeared to quickly bail out Biden after he froze mid-sentence during one of his arguments.
Hanson went on to speculate that Tapper’s publisher suggested the CNN host say he was “mistaken” about his coverage of Biden to “handle the incoming flack.”
“So my question is the same as Russian collusion, laptop disinformation, 51 intelligence authorities, thousands of files that were classified at Mar-a-Lago. Do they ever apologize? No. Did they ever learn from their lies? No. They just go on to the next. So why would I believe that when he was lying then, he’s telling the truth now? I don’t believe that,” Hanson said.
“So he, Tapper, just kind of married himself to this other guy’s book project and now he’s going to make millions of dollars after deceiving the American people and he doesn’t seem to be upset about it,” Hanson added. “I’d like to just ask him some questions. Jake, would you just please tell us, since you wrote the book and I haven’t read it and I’m not going to buy it, who was the person who conducted the auto-pin pardons?”
In addition to the uptick of media spotlight on Biden’s mental decline, the former president’s office revealed Sunday that Biden had been diagnosed with a “more aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone.
Doctors and cancer experts have since told the Daily Caller that, due to the state of the cancer, Biden likely had it during his time as president.
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Why the National Debt Is the Looming Threat to Your Retirement Plans
The Hidden Crisis No One Is Talking About
Every day, headlines warn about inflation, market volatility, and global instability—but the greatest looming threat to your retirement might be something far more fundamental: America’s skyrocketing national debt.
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With debt growing faster than most Americans can possibly fathom, the government’s borrowing habits have reached historic—and dangerous—levels. To cover spending, Washington is making moves with their budget packages, tariffs, and taxes. Is it enough? No. It’s not even close to what would be necessary to stop out-of-control debt, let alone reverse it.
How Debt Erodes Your Nest Egg
There are only so many levers government and the Federal Reserve can pull to try to protect Americans, assuming that’s even a top priority for them. Unfortunately, pulling one level to relive one pressure invariably adds pressure from another direction. This is why prices keep going up even as inflation reportedly slows.
For retirees and pre-retirees, that’s a perfect storm. The dollars you’ve worked hard to save lose value, and your cost of living increases while your investments lag behind.
If you’re relying solely on paper-based assets—stocks, bonds, or mutual funds—you’re essentially tied to the same system that’s creating the problem. It’s a system that was designed to work well in the 20th century, not in today’s world with people living longer and the dollar rapidly losing value.
This is why the 3-minute report, “Debt Will Hit $40T in 2026: Prepare Your Retirement Now,” is so important.
The Precious Metals Hedge
Thousands of Americans are looking for a tangible, time-tested hedge: physical gold and silver.
Unlike paper assets, precious metals aren’t dependent on government policy or the stock market’s mood swings. They’re real, finite resources that have maintained value for thousands of years through wars, recessions, and inflationary periods.
In fact, during times of high inflation and fiscal instability, gold often performs its best—because it’s seen as a store of value when faith in the dollar weakens. This is why prices have skyrocketed this year and are expected by many economists to continue going up in the future.
Take Control with a Gold IRA
One of the most effective ways to protect your retirement from national debt fallout is through a self-directed Gold IRA. This IRS-approved account lets you hold physical gold and silver within your retirement portfolio, giving you:
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The Next Step: Secure Your Financial Future
Augusta Precious Metals has helped thousands of Americans with at least $50,000 to invest from their IRAs, 401(K)s, TSPs, and other retirement accounts safeguard their savings through precious metals.
If you’re concerned about what the rising national debt could mean for your future, now is the time to act.
Read this 3-minute report titled, “Debt Will Hit $40T in 2026: Prepare Your Retirement Now“ and learn the simple steps you can take to protect your retirement.