CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who has become one of the most prominent anti-Trump opponents in liberal media in recent years, was chosen to moderate CNN’s presidential debate between the former president and President Biden.
It was announced Wednesday that Tapper will co-moderate the June 27 debate in Atlanta with CNN colleague Dana Bash after both candidates agreed to terms.
But Mr. Tapper’s hostile coverage of Mr. Trump and the Republican Party is perhaps a harbinger of what Mr. Trump should expect heading into the key political showdown.
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CNN’s Jake Tapper, chosen to co-moderate the first presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump, has a long history as an anti-Trump commentator. (Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS, Getty Images)
Tapper spearheaded CNN’s Russiagate coverage, which dominated the early years of Trump’s presidency. On January 10, 2017, just 10 days before Trump’s inauguration, Tapper co-authored a blockbuster report on the existence of the now-infamous Steele dossier, and spent months justifying his claims.
Even after the release of the Mueller report, which found no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, Tapper continued to criticize Trump’s comments during his May 2019 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He suggested that President Trump sounds like a “Kremlin spokesman.”
Throughout the 2020 presidential election, Tapper became more vocal about his hostility toward the then-president. In March 2020, during the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump said he was “continuing to lie to the American people” about the then-current coronavirus testing. The following month, Tapper retweeted a post by anti-Trump critic George Conway, calling Trump “100% crazy.”
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In October 2020, Tapper shamed Trump after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 and hospitalized.
“Make no mistake about it, this was more than just a reckless act, it showed an unreasonable disregard for human life,” Tapper told CNN viewers. It’s become a symbol,” he told CNN viewers.
Weeks later, after Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, Tapper declared, “For tens of millions of my fellow Americans, their long national nightmare is over.”
“These are times of extreme division. Much of the division was caused and exacerbated by President Trump himself,” Tapper said in an impassioned monologue.
“This has been a time of some significant and entirely avoidable failures, but the most tragic of all is, of course, respecting the facts and science and doing everything we can to save lives during a pandemic.” “It was a time when truth and fact were in harmony. Truth and fact were treated with contempt,” he continued. “It was a brutal time, when public acts of inhumanity, such as child separation, became official and shameful American policy. But now President Trump’s term is coming to an end.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash have been selected to moderate the first presidential debate, scheduled for June 27th. (IM Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Tapper continued his hostility toward Trump and his supporters even after the 45th president left office. Despite authoring a book about George W. Bush titled Down and Dirty: The Conspiracy to Steal the Presidency, Tapper disputed the 2020 election results and called him a “election liar.” “Republican politicians who were deemed to be “banned” from appearing on TV programs for several months. Mr. Bush won the 2000 election and regularly invites Democrats who did not accept Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory and prominent election deniers, such as former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, to his show. was.
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He even questioned the patriotism of Rep. Brian Mast (R-Florida), a veteran who lost both legs when he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan in 2010. Mast voted against impeaching Trump in 2021.
“Congressman Brian Mast, a Republican from Florida, who by the way lost a leg fighting for democracy overseas, I don’t know about his commitment to democracy here in the United States…” Tapper he spoke at a panel discussion. .
Throughout his short term in 2022, Tapper continued to rail against Trump and the Republican Party in prime time, exploding his “indiscriminate lies” and “refusal to accept reality…this anti-democratic lunacy.” . He characterized the committee’s final hearing on January 6 as “the last chance to convince rational Americans of the dangers of anti-democratic movements.”
In December, a liberal CNN anchor declared that “Adolf Hitler’s inhumane rhetoric is alive and well again” and criticized President Trump’s comments about illegal immigration, calling them “staining the blood of our nation.”
Tapper repeatedly criticized former President Trump during a brief appearance on CNN’s prime time. (Screenshot/CNN)
CNN’s Jake Tapper says he won’t “hesitate” to cover Hunter Biden after dodging 2020 laptop scandal
Mr. Tapper, on the other hand, has taken a much kinder attitude towards Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party. In October 2020, he joined the media chorus to avert the shocking revelations from Hunter Biden’s laptop, saying, “The right is going crazy with all kinds of allegations.” [then-candidate] Biden and his family, I hate to repeat it here.” In 2022, Tapper did a softball interview with Biden, but it made so little news that it received virtually zero coverage on five Sunday shows that weekend. was.
He asked the president one question about Hunter Biden’s legal issues amid reports of impending criminal charges against him by the Justice Department, and said the president had “no personal or political commitment to that.” How would you react?” he asked. without following anything.
In a heated exchange with House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) last year, Tapper chalked up the Biden family’s foreign currency transactions exposed by House Republicans as “sneaky” but not criminal. It pointed out.
Jake Tapper’s debut feature, featuring an exclusive primetime conversation with President Biden, was widely criticized as a softball interview. (Screenshot/CNN)
Biden wasn’t the only Democrat to whom Tapper responded with kid gloves. In 2020, Tapper admitted in an interview that he did not fact-check the false claims made by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D.N.Y.). In 2021, Tapper strangely avoided bringing up the various scandals plaguing then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on his CNN show, though he did retweet messages about them online.
In one instance, Tapper privately tried to persuade Republican Sean Parnell not to run against then-incumbent Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb for a House seat during the 2020 campaign.
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Tapper’s co-host Dana Bash is also hostile to Trump and conservatives. In 2022, Bash defended Biden’s “semi-fascist” jabs at the Republican Party, claiming he was “specifically speaking about Trump supporters” who represent tens of millions of Americans. Earlier this year, she criticized President Trump’s comments in which he accused Democratic Jewish voters of being “anti-Semitic and extremely dangerous” while invoking Nazi Germany.
CNN did not immediately respond to FOX News Digital’s request for comment.
Also announced on Wednesday was a second debate to be hosted by ABC on September 10, to be moderated by anchors David Muir and Lindsey Davis.
