‘The State of Our Union Is Frankly Stunned!’ CNN’s Jake Tapper Drops Hammer on Trump After Bombshell Rally Speech

CNN anchor Jake Tapper dropped the hammer on former President Donald Trump after a bombshell rally that’s drawing widespread condemnation from Trump critics over his inflammatory speech.

Trump delivered another Hitler-echoing rant at a rally in Durham, New Hampshire on Saturday, during which he also made amped-up versions of his usual claims and praised dictators like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un. If the rally was intended to get attention — no matter the type — it succeeded.

On Sunday morning’s edition of CNN’s State of the Union, Tapper opened his show by zeroing in on one section of the speech in which Trump cites Putin in defense of his own 91 felony counts:

JAKE TAPPER: Hello. I’m Jake Tapper in Washington, where the state of our union is frankly stunned! Watching the leading Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, quote one of our nation’s foremost adversaries, Vladimir Putin, as a sort of character witness while on the stump in New Hampshire last night.

DONALD TRUMP: Vladimir Putin of Russia says that Biden’s, and this is a quote, “politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.”

JAKE TAPPER: One might think such a point need not be made. But Vladimir Putin, a former KGB official with blood on his hands, who regularly sides with American adversaries, both rhetorically and with arms, and who right now has at least two Americans, Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, unjustly detained.

Vladimir Putin is not a credible source of information about American democracy, much less American jurisprudence. Vladimir Putin seeks to undermine the United States and its allies, whether in Europe or Asia, of the Middle East.

And yet this despite this, or maybe by now, because of it, I can no longer tell. Mr. Trump stands poised to do very well in the Republican Iowa caucuses on January 15th. In less than a month. He has only expanded his lead, where his campaign is taking a more disciplined than expected approach to the caucuses. He’s hoping a decisive victory there will help him consolidate support in the primary contests that follow.

Watch above via CNN’s State of the Union.