CNN’s Jake Tapper made a decision. Knowing now former President Joe Biden was going to be in the hurt locker in the aftermath of the 2024 election his desire for “payback” led him to choose to “Kick a man when he’s down.” That’s the impetus for the book ‘Original Sin’ he’s co-authored with Alex Thompson. Kick Biden when he’s down. Worse, it’s fair to say Tapper (and CNN) are using the news about Biden’s prostate cancer to KEEP kicking Biden, and stomping on him for good measure!
I had to cool down after watching a chunk of a segment on Morning Joe this morning. I didn’t get the TV on right away this a.m. but when I did I checked out local news and then national stuff and as I sometimes do I checked out Morning Joe. “Original Sin” co-authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson were on set and the discussion (I don’t know how long it had already been going on) went on for a good long while. If not limited in mobility due to being disabled I might have a smashed TV set right now. That self-righteous, superior smugness from these two YELLOW journalists had me yelling and cussing so loudly I’m glad it’s Wednesday, which means the management office of the complex that includes my apartment building is closed. Hopefully neighbors will decide by tomorrow it’s not worth filing a complaint!
I have to say upfront I’m on record as being convinced Joe Biden was badly served by staff during the last year of his Presidency before he dropped out of the race. Biden has been a gaffe machine his entire life, and the more they tried to hide him away to prevent “gotcha stories” the more Biden’s ability to joust effectively with the press and even some folks on Capitol Hill faded. Like Naval Aviators who must do aircraft carrier landings it’s a perishable skill. Use it or lose it. Given Biden’s age questions about his fitness were fair. Sniping about him to others including journalists from people who thought THEY shouldn’t have to wait for 2028, or some candidate THEY preferred (who’d elevate their own status once in power) was NOT. It still isn’t fair.
The reality from where I sit is that there are a LOT of guilty consciences among Democrats, and even Democratic pundits and some journalists too over the trashing of Biden. Journalists of course can’t resist a ‘Dems in Disarray” story and off the record trashing of Biden was like catnip for them. Unlike Trump, Biden and his team would be measured in responding. As for Democrats on the Hill, the donor class and punditry they didn’t realize what they had in VP Kamala Harris. Even once she became the candidate and proved she was more than up to the job they never fully embraced her. Sure she got significant support but I maintain that it was never FULL support. For the reasons I mentioned earlier. They wanted either themselves or some Democrat they favored to have been named by Biden as the ‘heir apparent.’
That meant even during the Harris/Walz campaign the sniping continued. And it has given us a second Trump term that has already done more damage than the first one did in four years! Does anyone reading this think for one second all these backstabbing a-holes are going to admit their role in enabling the devastation that’s taking place? HELL NO! They are doubling down, as are numerous journalists who NEVER gave Trump the kind of scrutiny and coverage they should have. And now are too afraid of him to start.
This gives someone like Tapper (and his cohort Thompson) a feast on which to trash a person who has given so much, and accomplished so much in his life. More than THEY ever could hope to do. It’s a fact that tons of Republicans are critical (sometimes highly critical) of Trump “off the record” but have sung his praises when ON the record. That provided Tapper with ‘journalistic cover’ to write a book smearing Joe Biden using anonymous sources. Hey, as far as he and his co-author are concerned the money they are getting for yellow journalism is just as green as well-earned money!
In one (to me) telling exchange Tapper and Joe Scarborough we got to what I think is the heart of the matter. I never noticed but during 2023 Tapper found himself losing access to Biden for phone calls or even off-camera sit down chats. However Scarborough (and his wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski) did. Tapper acknowledged that Scarborough’s recounting of detailed chats where Biden was fully in command of policies, details and such like one would expect from someone with so many decades in government. However he tried to make the point that while Biden had good days and bad days like anyone, especially aging people Biden’s “bad days” had increased and Scarborough was lucky to only have access on “good days.”
Where I think Tapper was exposed was after things blew up on Biden he had a long, long interview with Biden and it was a “good Joe” day. Even the time (lunchtime) came up and Tapper maintained his ‘well, he wasn’t worn out yet that day’ attitude, and also suggested staff had allowed it because Biden was having a good day. Scarborough blew Tapper out of the water on that one, pointing out that visit had been on the books for THREE WEEKS! In other words, and Scarborough pretty much said as much with a little playacting it wasn’t a case of staff saying ‘it’s a good day – let’s let him talk to Morning Joe Scarborough.” Tapper didn’t seem to like that. At all!
I keep wondering where all the animus from Tapper comes from and did a little digging. I was curious about Tapper’s interactions with Biden during that time frame when Biden is alleged to have turned into some doddering old fart. This article from Mediaite stuck out. For all his awards, Tapper seems to have a fragile ego. Look, CNN has long ceased to be the network it once was, so in that sense I can see why any administration would at least partially freeze them out. Tapper was a ‘bigly’ name and assumed he was too big to ignore. And he realized he’d been frozen out for some reason.
Things came to a head with the 2024 SOTU address. The one’s Presidents give rather than a TV show Tapper hosts on CNN. The article describes what it calls an all-out media blitz by Tapper and co-author Thompson for their new book. (The article doesn’t get into this but some are saying Tapper is trying to “ride” Biden’s cancer diagnosis for added publicity and increased book sales) It talks about what is a relatively low-key response from ‘Bidenworld’ but that response includes a sharp rebuke from Biden’s granddaughter Naomi who came up with a “flamethrower” of a review of Tapper and Thompsons hit-job. Calling them “irresponsible self promoting journalists” was only part of what she had to say:
Just read a copy of this silly book, and if anyone is curious for a review from someone who lived it first-hand: this book is political fairy smut for the permanent, professional chattering class. The ones who rarely enter the arena, but profit from the spectacle of those that do. Put simply, it amounts to a bunch of unoriginal, uninspired lies written by irresponsible self promoting journalists out to make a quick buck. It relies on unnamed, anonymous sources pushing a self-serving false narrative that absolves them of any responsibility for our current national nightmare.
Now, some if not many might look at that and shrug it off. Just a granddaughter defending her beloved grandpa. I don’t agree with that point of view but I can see why many would look at it that way. However after Naomi Biden’s quote the linked article gets to what I again say might be the real heart of the matter. It describes Tapper having a “Meltdown” when his colleague Erin Burnett was selected to attend a sit-down with the President the day of the SOTU. If you didn’t know, this is a fairly common thing. Presidents having an informal, off the record chat with a handful of top journalists of various top news outlets. It seems since the speech was going to focus so heavily on the economy the WH felt Burnett was better suited to be part of that gathering:
Those in the Biden world note Tapper had long been frustrated with the Bidens over a lack of access. Just before Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address (as is customary) a number of network anchors were invited to the White House for an off-the-record briefing from the President. As the speech was to be centered around the economy, CNN’s Erin Burnett was picked over Tapper.
According to two people familiar with the matter, Tapper had a “meltdown” and called numerous people in the White House to vent his anger at the decision. “He was raging ‘I’m Jake Tapper and this is my network,” according to a person on the receiving end of one of Tapper’s calls.
“This is my network!” Yeah, I’d say Tapper’s ego suddenly had a major case of BUTT-HURT. It also should be stated (in case you don’t read the linked article) that Tapper hasn’t tried to deny it. That’s what makes all this different from other anecdotes – that Tapper hasn’t tried to claim it was all just some misunderstanding. To me it seems like he actually did rage at multiple WH staffers as indicated above. Too many people heard it, probably including co-workers at CNN who could hear him shouting into the phone! What a spokesperson did tell Breaker Media (the outlet that reported this) is:
“Jake pushing the Biden White House for access isn’t noteworthy — in fact it happened all the time,” a spokesperson for Tapper told Breaker.
Well, you can’t blame a journalist for trying to get access to a President. Hell, for someone that covers politics in DC that’s their freaking job! What you can however blame them for is using their position, especially if it’s particularly a highly visible one to grind a personal axe over not having “favored” status/access. This morning I kept hearing Thompson, and Tapper too use the words “I think” when leveling charges at Biden. Well, “I think” something myself – that Tapper, like Trump has a VINDICTIVE streak in him. He knows that an old-school guy like Biden would mostly fade into the background once out of power as former Presidents mostly do. But HE would still have his major platform to take potshots and by god he was going to “get” Biden for not giving him the kind of respect, access or whatever Tapper felt was his god-given right!
With all the rumblings that were going on assembling a hit-job of a book was easy enough. So was finding a younger journalist wanting to make his own mark to do some of the heavy lifting given Tapper’s own duties at CNN which have to keep him awfully busy. It was a pretty good bet after Harris lost that Democrats would start jumping on a “blame Biden” train so the book project kicked into gear in a major way. Again, Tapper knows Biden is old-school and while he would push back some, it wouldn’t be all that much because to someone like Biden ‘that’s not how things are done.’
That I must note was BEFORE the bombshell of Biden’s cancer diagnosis hit the news. Now? As the linked article suggests CNN and Tapper are trying to take advantage of this new Biden news to increase book sales and their own ratings! I don’t know about you but I think that’s EXACTLY why Tapper was on Morning Joe just a few days later. It was inevitable the subject of Biden’s cancer would come up and provide a buffet of opportunities to suggest it was responsible for Biden’s “decline” AND (gasp!) was “covered up.”
This is Trumpian level sleaze and I don’t say that lightly. However I’m convinced Tapper’s ego was hurt and he decided he was going to get some payback, and put some extra money (book royalties) in his pocket at the same time. Jake Tapper might have had a good career and solid reputation but as far as I’m concerned he belongs on Trump’s staff. Tapper (Thompson too) isn’t fit to clean sh*t off Joe Biden’s shoes as Biden walks out of the field of “cow pies” Tapper has dropped him into. Same for CNN. There’s a reason I stopped watching them years ago. I’m sure as hell not about to start watching them again!
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What a marvelous article! What a MARVELOUS article! I’ve been screaming since that “book” came out! I think you are exactly right. His ego got hurt, so he had to do some nonsense to show how good he is … except he isn’t. He *definitely* belongs on the staff of the man WHO PAINTS HIS FACE ORANGE. Or he doesn’t belong on anyone’s staff at all, including CNN! I wish that man to be consigned to the 7 levels of hell. He deserves it.
Most assuredly, Biden does not. Biden was given short shrift after the debate, and I am super unhappy with all the public news (that did NOT need to be public) about getting Biden to give up in the race. It was disgusting. Then Kamala walked into the leftovers and did a damn good job at taking over. If she’d had *full* Democratic support, I think we could be saying Madam President. But instead, we have a dangerous narcissist child in the White House making a wreck of the country that was handed off to him in good shape.
I’m screaming more than once – Tapper, Biden, Kamala. I don’t care if I’m losing my voice.
Yes, a marvelous article, indeed. Thank you!
Tapper supported Trump during the Stormy Daniels trial in CNN. Erin Burnett covered the Florida documents indictment and interviewed Ty Cobbs ex WH lawyer for Trump a lot. Biden rarely spoke to the press and when he did it was like 5 minutes top.
What a lousy article. That’s a lot of spilled ink to have the wrong take on the subject. These terrible so called journalists are turning on biden now only to cover their own asses. They (like everyone else) knew five years ago that biden was severely diminished but didn’t report on it. They in fact lied and said that he was good to serve another four years. It’s painfully obvious that that is not true so they are feigning ignorance to try to retain some credibility.
TOO LATE!
Dude, give us all a break. Drumpf NEVER speaks to any REAL journalist without having a pre-approved list of questions for the journalist to ask (unless he feels the “journalist” is one of “his” people–like the Fox “News” or “News”Max shills). Why do you think he had the White House Press Corps changed to remove LEGITIMATE news outlets in favor of the right-wing propaganda machines?
If the media covered Drumpf the way it SHOULD be doing–instead of the cowering manner they’ve done since 2016–even YOU would recognize Drumpf’s unfitness for being in the White House. Remember when he had a chunk of his ear (those were Drumpf’s words, by the way) blown off? And yet NO MEDICAL REPORT ever showed that. Why would Drumpf refuse to allow LEGITIMATE NEWS COVERAGE of his medical condition be disclosed? (He did the same thing with his tax returns during his first run. He LIED that he couldn’t release them while he was being audited when he knew full well that HE had the authority to release those returns; the IRS couldn’t do so legally, but Drumpf–as the owner of those records–most certainly could. And the media just let him slide with NO questioning.) But, getting back to the ear, when did Drumpf go in for the kind of plastic surgery necessary to REPAIR that ear? That’s not something that could’ve been handled in the couple of hours when he was “invisible” to the media but it didn’t stop Drumpf from riding a wave of “sympathy” and support from ass-kissing and ass-licking sycophants and supporters.
And every single time the media has actually brought up Drumpf’s MANY MANY gaffes, you and your ilk fight back and scream “fake news.”
All this comment and hot air wasted on a complete non-issue.
Meanwhile Trump et al are destroying US democracy, the rule of law, and the world economy.
This serves nicely as one of his ‘Look over there!’ distractions from his mis-deeds.