‘Unless My Ears Deceive Me’: Jake Tapper Interrupts Daniel Dale Fact-Check Of Trump Courthouse Rant To Drill Down On Whopper

CNN anchor Jake Tapper interrupted Daniel Dale as he fact-checked former President Donald Trump’s post-court rant to drill down on one whopper that caught his attention.

Tuesday saw Trump attorney/fixer Michael Cohen continue his testimony in the Stormy Daniels hush money-election interference trial while Trump delivered his customary courthouse rants — joined by a parade of mini-me legislators.

On Tuesday’s edition of The Lead, Tapper brought Dale in to knock down several false claims from Trump’s end-of-day rant but called an audible halfway through by asking Dale about a Trump claim that astonished him:

TAPPER: All right. The defendant, Donald John Trump, going through a litany of issues he has with the trial, reading a number of supportive statements from MAGA media and from Republican politicians who accompanied him to court today, including the House Speaker Mike Johnson. He had a lot to say there.

And the man for the job is our fact-checkers for CNN’s Daniel Dale.

Daniel, a lot there, a lot going on there. Anything you want to correct?

DANIEL DALE: There certainly is, Jake. First, a Groundhog Day fact check. I think I’ve done like five times on your show, former President Trump claimed that this trial is all election interference by President Joe Biden. There remains zero evidence whatsoever that President Biden has had any involvement in this case, which as we know, was brought by a locally elected prosecutor, Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg.

Former President Trump claimed that we have record inflation. We do not have record inflation. We have a 3.5 percent inflation rate, that is relatively high by recent standards, but its nowhere close to the all-time record of more than 20 percent. We did have a four-year high back in June of 2022. But it has since come way down to about a third of that.

He again said that we have many migrants coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums. I repeatedly asked his campaign to substantiate that story with any evidence whatsoever.

They’ve been completely unable to do so.

He said he’s leading in every poll. As we know, we certainly leading and many polls, but not all of them. Ive looked at an ABC/Ipsos poll from this month.

TAPPER: Daniel, can I just interrupt for one second. I’m sorry. Just on the migrant thing.

He also said, unless my ears deceived me, that Joe Biden has let 15 to 20 million migrants into this country. There has certainly been illegal immigration in the last few years, I’ve never heard anyone come close to that number in terms of the estimates, 15 to 20 million. That’s actually the estimates of how many undocumented immigrants there are in the country right now in aggregate.

DALE: Even higher than the aggregate number. And it’s hard to fact- check, Jake, because they’ll say, well, the gotaways. You know, we don’t know the total number who evaded Border Patrol.

TAPPER: Right.

DALE: So, I can’t give you a precise number, but that number, according to experts, is way too high.

Back to the polls, he’s — you know, he said, I’m leading on every poll, he’s certainly not.

He said he’s not allowed to talk about big portions of my case and nothing like that has ever happened. That’s kind of vague, but this is not the first gag order in American history. These gag orders are relatively commonplace. He is not the first person to be barred from attacking the witnesses in his criminal trial.

TAPPER: All right. Daniel Dale with a sampler, a sampler, some fact checking. I appreciate it. Thank you for sticking up for those facts. We always appreciate it.

Watch above via CNN’s The Lead.