While speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday’s “State of the Union,” Lindsey Graham refused to condemn Donald Trump telling rallygoers Saturday that Kamala Harris is “mentally disabled.” The Republican senator initially dodged the question from Tapper before he appeared to imply Trump meant Harris was “crazy.” Graham said, “I just think the better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country. They’re crazy liberal.”
Trump was speaking to supporters in Wisconsin on Saturday when he said, “Kamala is mentally impaired. Joe Biden became mentally impaired, Kamala was born that way. If you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country.”
Tapper pointed out to Graham, “First of all, there are actual people out there with mental impairments, and that’s insulting to them,” before he added, “Second of all, Vice President Kamala Harris is not mentally impaired.”
Graham didn’t address Trump’s assertion and replied, “No, I just think she’s a crazy liberal.” He pivoted to his own spin on Trump’s message, telling Tapper, “I just think the better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country. They’re crazy liberal.” He went on to cite a number of dubious out-of-context statistics around immigration and crime occurring “on her watch.”
Tapper took the opportunity to clarify for Graham that the statistics he quoted were “over decades,” which means “some of those people you’re talking about are people that came into the country during Trump” and “some of them are in prison. A lot of them are in prison, not ICE prisons, but federal prisons, for their crimes.”
Trump has a history of publicly mocking disabled people. He came under fire in 2015 when he made fun of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital joint condition that causes impaired use of the arms. Trump further accused Kovaleski of using his disability to “grandstand” and added that the journalist should “get back to reporting for a paper that is rapidly going down the tubes.”
The New York Times continues to operate nearly 10 years later and Kovaleski is still on staff.
You can watch the exchange between Tapper and Graham in the video above.
