CNN political commentators Ana Navarro and Ben Ferguson got into a heated argument on Wednesday's "New Day" when Navarro claimed she did not say President Donald Trump had dementia.
Host Alisyn Camerota began the segment by reading Navarro's Tuesday night tweet that claimed Trump was "disgusting, unpresidential, [and] narcissistic" and the only "defensible" explanation was "early-on-set dementia."
Only possible defensible explanation for Trump's disgusting, unpresidential, narcissistic behavior, would be early-on-set dementia. Maybe.
— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) August 23, 2017
Camerota immediately asked Navarro if she felt she was being over-the-top by implying that the president was mentally unfit in her tweet.
"Ana, listen. Are you going overboard?" Camerota asked. "When you move into the mentally unfit, the dementia, that's just a whole new realm of which, frankly, you have no proof and no evidence. So why jump that shark?"
"Because it's not normal," Navarro responded. "And you see people who are normalizing it at this point are becoming complicit."
"I am not a psychiatrist, I am just a regular human being who knows a lot of people and who knows the difference between right and wrong," Navarro continued. "Which is more than this 71-year-old man-baby seems to be able to know."
Camerota asked Ferguson to weigh in on Trump's rally in Phoenix, Ariz., where he blasted CNN and other media outlets, and how he received the message. Instead he decided to address Navarro's comments.
"One, Ana you're better than this," Ferguson said. "To say that the [president] has a medical condition, or imply that he somehow has dementia. You've had some pretty intense moments on TV. You had some intense moments where you were yelling the p-word on TV. No one tweeted out and said that you have early-onset dementia."
Ferguson said describing someone as mentally unfit is "extremely unfair."
"If you don't like the president, it doesn't mean that you have to go to personal attacks or to somehow say that his mind is not sane," Ferguson said. "That's a very, very, very bitter thing to say."
"OK, now let me say this," Navarro cut in. "I did not say he had dementia."
"You implied it," Ferguson said.
"Nope, nope, nope. Go read my tweet," Navarro said. "It's not there, I'm not making it up."
While Ferguson and Navarro disputed the point, CNN displayed the tweet on the screen again where she said, "Only possible defensible explanation for Trump's disgusting, unpresidential, narcissistic behavior, would be early-on-set dementia. Maybe."
Navarro accused Ferguson of being a Trump apologist.
"Ana, I get you hate the president. You voted for Hillary Clinton. I'm fine with that," Ferguson said.
Navarro insisted that she was not implying that he did, but rather was saying that the only excuse for his behavior would be if he had a mental illness.