‘That’s What He Said!’ Jake Tapper Can’t Believe Republican Governor Insists Trump Didn’t Actually Say Thing He Said

An exasperated Jake Tapper grappled with Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin about the meaning of some fairly straightforward comments by former President Donald Trump .

In recent days, Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of using the U.S. military against American citizens.

“We have the greatest military in the world, but you have to know how to use them,” he said at a rally on Friday. “It’s the enemy from within. All the scum that we have to deal with that hate our country. That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia!”

On Sunday, he doubled down on Fox News.

“We have some sick people, radical left lunatics,” he said . “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military.” Trump cited Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) as an example of one such “lunatic.”

Tapper welcomed Youngkin to Monday’s installment of The Lead and read the latter of Trump’s remarks.

“Is that something that you support?” he asked.

Youngkin responded by pretending that Trump’s words meant something else.

“I guess what I want to just make very clear is that it’s my belief that what former President Trump is talking about are the people that are coming over the border, that in fact are committing crimes, that are bringing drugs, that are trafficking humans, and that are turning every state into a border state.”

Youngkin continued to recite talking points about immigration before Tapper tried again.

“But that’s not what I’m talking about because he was talking about ‘sick people, radical left lunatics who should be handled by the National Guard or the military,'” Tapper noted. “And then later on in that same speech, he said that one of the lunatics he addressed was Congressman Adam Schiff. That’s who he was talking about using the National Guard and military against. ‘Radical left lunatics, enemy from within, people like Adam Schiff.'”

The governor responded by denying what Tapper had just read back to him.

“Again, Jake, I don’t think that–”

“I’m just reading you his quote,” Tapper replied. ”

“But I do think that you are misinterpreting and misrepresenting his thoughts,” Youngkin claimed. “I do believe, again, it’s all around the fact that we have had an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants come over the border in an unconstrained, unrestrained fashion.”

The governor then insisted that what Trump meant by the “radical left,” he meant people who are in the country illegally.

“That is what I believe the president is referring to,” Youngkin said. “I don’t think that he’s referring to elected people in America.”

“I’m literally reading his quotes,” Tapper pointed out. “I’m literally reading his quotes to you, and I played them earlier so you could hear that they were not made up by me. He’s literally talking about, quote, ‘radical left lunatics,’ and then one of those ‘lunatics’ he mentioned was Congressman Adam Schiff.”

“I don’t believe that’s what he’s saying,” Youngkin insisted.

“I played the quote and I read it to you!” Tapper responded, seemingly unable to process the governor’s response. “You can wish that he weren’t saying that, but that’s what he said!”

“Jake, all the time, people are taking little snippets of content and turning it into a big narrative,” Youngkin answered before retreating back into a refrain about immigration.

“I just wanna note, I was just reading his quotes,” Tapper said. “And he was not talking about dangerous migrants in those quotes. Later, there were other quotes about those migrants, and he was saying that children shouldn’t even be sending their kids to school with the kids of migrants. But you don’t you don’t want to accept those quotes. Let’s move on.”

Watch above via CNN.