Donald Trump is struggling with voters who question “his fitness, his acuity and his stability,” Jake Tapper said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” — and in large part that is due to campaign events like Saturday’s in Pennsylvania, where he spent more than 12 minutes praising Arnold Palmer with a series of stories that culminated in multiple colorful descriptions of the golf legend’s penis. The subject came up in Tapper’s conversations with both Bernie Sanders and Mike Johnson.
The progressive Vermont senator commented, “Last night, Jake, you may have noticed Trump held a rally, and the big issue that he talked about — and please forgive me if I mention this on television – was apparently the size of Arnold Palmer’s penis. That was the major issue that he discussed, and also referred to the vice president of the United States as an s-h-i-t.”
We’re not sure that you’re even supposed to be spelling that out on basic cable TV, but Sanders looked to be doing his best to be delicate about some indelicate subject matter.
“So I think you have got a lot of Americans, whether you are conservative, whether you’re progressive or moderate, who say, really?” Sanders continued. “We have major issues facing this country. Is this the kind of human being that we want as president of the United States?”
Sanders wasn’t the only “State of the Union” guest who spoke about Trump’s unexpected talking point. Tapper also asked Mike Johnson about the former president’s apparent fixation — a question Johnson quickly attempted to boomerang back at him. “Jake, you seem to like that line a lot. Let me tell you that Donald Trump is doing rallies around the country to say something.”
Tapper interjected, “I don’t want to be talking about—” before the House speaker added, “You continue to.”
“I’ll address it. Let me answer it. OK,” Johnson relented. “Don’t say it again. We don’t have to say it. I get it. There’s lines in a rally. When President Trump is at a rally, sometimes he’ll speak for two straight hours.”
“You’re questioning his stamina, his mental acuity,” the Republican leader continued before he took the opportunity to spin the conversation in another direction. “Joe Biden couldn’t do that for five minutes. That’s how you started this segment. You said, what if Biden was in a rally like that? He couldn’t fill the room. Donald Trump does.”
Johnson then praised Trump as a “change agent” who ushered in “the greatest economy in the world.” Trump may say things that “are off the cuff” at his campaign events, he continued, but “I’ve been in those events. I’ve been in those arenas, and people have a great time at those arenas.”
“We all know that the facts, the American people see it and, you know, the media can pick it apart, but people are going to vote. They’re going to vote what’s best for their family,” Johnson concluded.
Beyond talking golf players’ bodies, Trump told the Pennsylvania attendees, “So you have to tell Kamala Harris that you’ve had enough. That you just can’t take it anymore. ‘We can’t stand you, you’re a s–t vice president!’ The worst!”
“You’re the worst vice president. Kamala, you’re fired! Get the hell out of here, you’re fired!” he added.
On “State of the Union,” Tapper also asked Johnson about Trump’s oft-repeated “enemy within” comments about Democrats like Harris and Nancy Pelosi. Johnson initially insisted Trump was speaking about “marauding gangs of dangerous, violent people who are destroying public property,” lines also used by Glenn Younkin in his own interview with Tapper last week.
“It is the enemy from within,” Trump said in a clip Tapper played. “And they’re very dangerous. They’re Marxists and communists and fascists and they’re sick. I use a guy like Adam Schiff because they made up the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.”
“I did not hear President Trump in that clip say he’s going to sic the military on Adam Schiff. That’s not what he’s saying,” Johnson said in Trump’s defense. “In 2015, 2016, that’s when this began. He’s been the most attacked, maligned political figure in U.S. history. They’ve tried to kill him twice in the last few months.”
You can watch the full exchange between Jake Tapper and Mike Johnson in the video above, as well as the footage of Bernie Sanders questioning Donald Trump’s Arnold Palmer story above.
