Jake Tapper Torches Vance for Insinuating Talarico Is Gay: ‘Not Exactly the Sign’ of Confidence

CNN’s Jake Tapper blasted Vice President JD Vance for insinuating that Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is gay, calling the attack “not exactly the sign of a party convinced that they can win on their record.”

On Tuesday’s edition of The Lead, Tapper turned his attention to the state’s Republican Senate candidate, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose campaign has been plagued by a string of controversies, including a Monday Wall Street Journal report featuring video of him celebrating New Year’s Eve in Dubai with two men facing federal criminal charges, his wife’s divorce filing citing adultery, voter fraud allegations, his office’s plea deal with convicted child sex predator Adam Hoffman, and more.

“His scandals have given Democrats hope of taking a Texas Senate seat for the first time since 1988,” Tapper noted. “So, how worried are Republicans about Paxton losing? Well, we’ve apparently reached a brand-new campaign stage, where the vice president is insinuating that [Talarico] is gay.”

CNN then rolled footage of Vance at a Tuesday rally in Tyler, Texas.

Seemingly responding to a supporter in the crowd, the vice president declared, “I love you, too, Sir! In a totally platonic way — to be clear. I’m the vice president, not James Talarico.”

The broadcast then cut back to Tapper, who remarked, “It’s worse than that. A Talarico statement in the past in which Talarico was trying to express compassion for trans kids was twisted by the vice president into, well, this.”

Another clip of Vance in Texas was shown next, in which he told rallygoers, “He was asked what he loves in life, besides his own family and friends, and he responded, without skipping a beat, and I quote, ‘Trans children.’ Now, you gotta wonder what the internet search history of a man like that looks like. Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t want to find out. Neither do I.”

“Not exactly the sign of a party convinced that they can win on their record or on ideas,” Tapper concluded.

Republicans have repeatedly targeted Talarico with attacks on his perceived masculinity, with President Donald Trump and others dubbing him “Tala-freak-o” and “Tala-creep-o” and falsely claiming that he is a vegan who “eats meat, and he goes outside, and he throws up all over the place.”

And while Vance focuses his insinuations on the Texas Democratic Senate candidate, the president confirmed to his rally audience on Monday night that he “examined” the body of Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) while learning that he used to be a “great athlete,” adding, “I watched up and down. I looked at his ass, and I looked at the whole – and then I looked at his hands.”

Watch above on CNN.

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