Journalist Mark Halperin clashed with Vice President Kamala Harris supporter David over whether it was fair to question her about President Joe Biden’s mental acuity.
Harris appeared on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” for her first formal interview on the network, where host Bret Baier pressed her about her insights into Biden’s cognitive capabilities. David, on Halperin’s 2WAY platform, argued Baier’s question was one of several examples of a “gotcha moment” in the interview, but Halperin disagreed.
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“The next gotcha moment was him talking about Biden’s cognitive state,” David said. “Look, we all know she had her own private opinions. The chances of her talking about her own private opinions of where he was at — that’s minimal. That’s another gotcha moment.”
David began to cite another example, but Halperin cut him off.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, on that one I just got to say, there’s this question of accountability and honesty and about the American people’s trust in her judgment,” Halperin said. “I don’t think it’s a gotcha moment, a gotcha question, to just ask her to explain what she knew, when she knew it and how she felt about it.”
“But in fairness to her, okay, she has — she had no direct knowledge of anything that was factual. She probably just had her own suspicion,” David responded.
Halperin noted that Harris had the opportunity to watch when Biden publicly appeared to call on the late Republican Indiana Rep. Jackie Walorski to stand up in September 2022, appearing to forget she had died in a car crash the month prior.
“I mean, she didn’t need any inside knowledge to have an opinion about whether he was suffering the cognitive decline that tens of millions of Americans with no inside knowledge saw themselves, and she had inside knowledge because she met with him regularly,” the journalist said.
David stammered before arguing, “we’ve kind of moved on beyond this issue,” suggesting it was unreasonable to attempt “to get her on live television to kind of rat him out.”
“You’ve moved — I agree with you that it’s unlikely she’d do it, but you’ve moved on from it. But for tens of millions of Americans, we have a guy in the Oval Office whose cognitive decline was sufficient that he was forced to not continue to run for president, and a vice president who, like everyone else in the administration, sat by in silence while they saw what was happening,” Halperin said. “So I don’t think it’s a gotcha question since she’s entitled not to answer it. But I don’t think that’s a gotcha question.”
When Baier asked Harris when she became aware of Biden’s apparently diminishing “mental faculties,” the vice president praised his “judgment” and “experience.” When the Fox News host pressed her again, she stated, “Joe Biden is not on the ballot” and pivoted to attack former President Donald Trump.
Biden’s cognitive ability came under widespread scrutiny following his poor June 27 debate performance against Trump.
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