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There’s no shortage of important issues that will help define the 2024 presidential campaign, but over the last couple of months, an unexpected topic has come up more than once: Donald Trump’s interest in President Joe Biden’s childhood speaking impediment.
A Washington Post report this week quoted the Republican candidate’s team denying the underlying claim.
Trump’s aides contend that he ridicules Biden’s competence, not his stutter. “President Trump has never mocked Joe Biden’s speech impediment,” said adviser Jason Miller.
The obvious problem with this is that reality tells a different story. Indeed, as we recently discussed, just hours after the incumbent Democrat delivered remarks on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, his Republican predecessor told supporters, “Did you see him? He was stuttering through the whole thing. He’s saying I’m a threat to democracy. ‘He’s a threat to d-d-democracy.’”
The rhetoric wasn’t just cheap, it was also false: At no point in Biden’s Jan. 6 remarks did he struggle with the word “democracy.”
But Trump’s line generated some laughter from his supporters, which no doubt contributed to the former president returning to the attack earlier this month.
In other words, when Trump’s team denies that the Republican mocked Biden’s speech impediment, there’s video evidence to the contrary.
But stepping back, I’m not surprised that the GOP campaign lied. I’m not even surprised that the former president is a man of such weak character that he belittles those with disabilities.
What does seem notable, however, is the familiarity of the circumstances.
Trump has mocked a variety of people with disabilities over the years, but one of the most striking instances came eight years ago, when the Republican took aim at The New York Times’ Serge Kovaleski, an award-winning investigative reporter who was born with deformities in his hands and lower arms.
When the journalist fact-checked Trump in a way the then-candidate didn’t like, the Republican mocked Kovaleski at a public event. “You’ve got to see this guy,” Trump said, while curling and raising his arms to seemingly mirror the reporter.
Soon after, Trump denied doing what we’d already seen him do. “I have no idea who this reporter, Serge Kovalski [sic] is, what he looks like or his level of intelligence,” he said in a written statement at the time.
In other words, Trump wanted to mock Kovaleski’s disability, and he wanted to be seen mocking Kovaleski’s disability, but he also felt comfortable trying to gaslight the public about his own disgusting conduct.
Eight years later, it’s happening again. Trump obviously ridiculed Biden’s speaking impediment. And yet, one of his top aides nevertheless told the Post that the former “has never mocked” the president’s stutter.
If Trump is going to be monstrous about such things, shouldn’t he just own up to it?
This post updates our related earlier coverage.