Tag: Jake Tapper

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Jake Tapper Ends Scrappy Interview With Peter Navarro Over Trump’s COVID Lies

L-R CNN anchor Jake Tapper, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro
There’s a strategy in public relations. During a scandal or debacle, send out a representative to do an interview with a news outlet. When asked a question about the scandal, begin spewing the talking points you’ve been told to repeat. When asked to get back to the question at hand, repeat the talking points to continue killing time out of the 7 or so minutes of the segment. When the host tries to get back to the question at hand AGAIN, become irate and say, “You’re not letting me answer the question” when you KNOW you’re just running out the clock AND you’re just repeating the scripted talking points without addressing the actual issue. This is what happens in the clip below between CNN anchor Jake Tapper and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro. Now, you might wonder why a trade adviser is speaking to the news about the coronavirus pandemic. It has nothing to do with his background, he’s just the kind of pugnacious scrapper that Donald Trump likes to see defend him. That’s why he’s doing the interview. In this appearance, Navarro has an audience of one. His boss. When Tapper asked Navarro to explain why Trump privately acknowledged the coronavirus was deadlier than the flu but said otherwise publicly, Navarro repeatedly goes down a rabbit hole with his talking points. At one point, as Navarro throws out the false statement that Trump was “called a xenophobe and a racist by Joe Biden” (he wasn’t) and later apologized for it (he didn’t), Tapper corrects him. Navarro says, “We’ll do the fact-checker on that.” “I just did,” responds Tapper. In the end, Tapper ends the segment and reminded viewers of the facts: “I would just like to remind the American people that the United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, and the United States has more than 20 percent of the world’s coronavirus deaths. That is a fact. It does not matter how many times he insults CNN.”

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Jake Tapper Trolls Trump With Partial List Of His Lies

Just a few of the lies Donald Trump has told to the nation

Delicious.

Jake Tapper on CNN today:

“While we’re sticking to the facts and telling you what we know, President Trump has no constraints since he simply makes stuff up. He frequently lies and has a long and well documented conspiracy theories with no concrete evidence ever provided.

“For years he perpetuated the myth that Obama was not born in the United States, and that he saw thousands of Muslims on TV celebrating 9/11, and he suggested Ted Cruz’s father might have been involved in the assassination of JFK, again zero evidence for this.

“I could go on but this is just an hour show.”

Jake Tapper rocks my afternoons 🙂

(total props to JoeMyGod)

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Recapping The Wild Week In Trump World

I know it’s a lot to keep up with when it comes to the beleaguered Trump administration.

Even I have allowed some Trump-centric stories go by because my feed is just becoming the Trump News Network, and I really hate the idea of that.

I’ll keep sharing these stories but I’m getting back to focusing on LGBTQ issues that are more important to the mission of The Randy Report.

On this Friday evening, I think CNN’s Jake Tapper does a great job of recapping “This Week In Trump World” in a short time span.

Watch below. There’s a bottle of wine in my very near future.

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White House Adviser Stephen Miller Escorted From CNN Building After Refusing To Leave

Stephen Miller

White House adviser Stephen Miller’s disastrous interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper yesterday ended with Tapper bringing the segment to an early close thanks to Miller’s petulant behavior and refusal to answer any questions.

With Miller still babbling in the background, Tapper ran out of patience telling Miller, “I think I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time. Thank you, Stephen,” as he ended the segment.

Today we get reports that Miller would not leave the CNN studios and had to be escorted off the premises.

Business Insider reports:

White House adviser Stephen Miller was escorted off the set of CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday after a contentious interview with host Jake Tapper. Two sources close to the situation told Business Insider that after the taping was done Miller was asked to leave several times. He ignored those requests and ultimately security was called and he was escorted out, the sources said. CNN declined to comment.

CBS News White House producer, Arden Farhi apparently acquired a transcript of the post-segment conversation between Tapper and Miller.

The best two lines from the exchange – Tapper telling Miller “This is the reason they don’t put you out on TV;” and Miller saying he was “offended.”

What a snowflake.

Here’s the transcript.

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CNN’s Jake Tapper Ends Interview Segment As Trump Spox Stephen Miller Becomes Unhinged On-Air

Stephen Miller. the oh-so-condescending pet of Donald Trump, made an appearance this morning on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper thinking he would show the world how he could own Tapper.

But in the end, Miller only confirmed his status as Trump’s petulant postulant for impertinent fool.

From the beginning, Miller almost appears drunk or stoned swaying forward and back as he spoke in an odd, slow cadence using his biggest and bestest hyperbolic adjectives wherever he could fit them in.

While the appearance was meant to discuss Michael Wolff’s explosive new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, clearly Miller came in with the scripted talking points the White House has been pushing of late: conquered 17 Republicans in the primary, brought down the Bush “dynasty” and Clinton “dynasty,” brilliant, brilliant, blah blah blah.

Miller also got in some shots at CNN:

Miller: “You get 24 hours of negative anti-Trump hysterical coverage on this network.”

Tapper: “I think the viewers right now can ascertain who is being hysterical.”

Eventually, Miller became unhinged telling Tapper that HE was condescending. Tapper finally had had enough of Miller and closed the segment while Miller was still talking:

“I get it. There’s one viewer that you care about right now and you’re being obsequious and you’re being a factotum in order to please him, okay. And I think I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time. Thank you, Stephen.”

Annnnnnd, scene.

Bonus points to Tapper for the effortless inclusion of the word “obsequious.”

If you can’t stomach 12 minutes of Miller, here’s the very end as Tapper dismisses him:

I really encourage you to watch the full performance below, though. It’s pretty wild and wooly.

And just to confirm Miller’s boss was watching:

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Trump’s Twisted Equivalency Of Neo-Nazis & Those Who Protest Them

Jake Tapper of CNN sums up Trump’s twisted version of reality that attempts to equate neo-nazis and those who protest them.

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New White House Comm Director Denies Russian Interference In 2016 Election

The new White House Communications Director, Anthony Scaramucci, sat down for a lengthy chat on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper this morning.

Started out very polite, but Scaramucci quickly became combative, which is certainly going to please his boss.

At one point, Scaramucci offered the opinion of an anonymous person on Russia. When pushed by Tapper, the new comm director admitted that it was President Trump.

Via Raw Story:

CNN host Jake Tapper on Sunday called out newly-appointed White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci for continuing to deny Russia’s interference in the U.S. election. On Sunday’s State of the Union program, Tapper asked Scaramucci if President Donald Trump was prepared to sign a sanctions bill against Russia.

“There’s a lot of misinformation,” Scaramucci said, dismissing the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies. “Somebody said to me the other day — I don’t want to say who — if the Russian actually hacked the this situation and spilled out those emails, you would have never seen it. You would have never had any evidence of them. Meaning that they’re super confident in their deception skills and hacking.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Tapper interrupted. “I don’t know who this anonymous person is.” “How about it’s the president, Jake,” Scaramucci revealed. “He called me from Air Force One and basically said to me, ‘This is — maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it.’”

Props to Jake Tapper for trying to keep Scaramucci on topic.

A few other points gleaned from Mr. Scaramucci’s appearance:

• We now know he likes to remind folks he went to Harvard Law School.

• He hasn’t met a superlative, in regard to Trump, he doesn’t like.

• He really loves to say he “loves” the president. He loves to say it a lot.

• He enjoys dropping lines like, “The president called me from Air Force One.”

• Scaramucci says once he has his security clearance, he’ll “take a look” at the intelligence and decide for himself if he believes Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

It’s clear to see why Trump would like a guy like Scaramucci. He constantly praises his boss; he’s much more smooth than Sean Spicer; he’s a middle-class guy who created his own success – a narrative Trump would love to believe about himself; and he looks like what Trump probably thinks he sees when he looks in the mirror.

Here’s the full segment. I encourage you to watch.

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Andrew Sullivan: Rachel Maddow Needs To Not Sound “So F*cking Condescending”

On last night’s Real Time on HBO, host Bill Maher brought up Rachel Maddow’s much-hyped “reveal” of Donald Trump’s 2005 tax returns this week.

Maher reiterated his respect for Maddow saying she needs to be on the air but called the two pages of Trump taxes a “big nothing-burger,” and that the exposure probably helped Trump.

He said, “This is probably the best tax return he’s ever filed, which makes me think this came from Donald Trump!”

Former Congressman Barney Frank and journalist Andrew Sullivan chimed in with my favorite exchange of the evening:

Andrew Sullivan: “There was a giant cloud of smug above Rachel Maddow when she was doing that. Liberals have to be careful not to sound so fucking condescending and smug… and start actually engaging the other side and persuading people.”

Barney Frank: “Andrew, I think you might want to teach by example on that last part…”

The highlight of the show, though, was Maher’s interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

As I’ve noted several times on The Randy Report, Tapper continues to be my favorite journalist on TV these days as his patience with Donald Trump’s lies grows ever thin.

The subject of Trump comes up as Maher mentions, “You certainly sound different from the many years I’ve watched you.”

Pointing out that “politicians lie. It wasn’t invented on January 20th,” Tapper goes straight to the heart of the matter:

“I’ve never really seen this level of falsehood. Just quantitatively. It’s not just ‘If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor,’ it’s conspiracy theories based on nothing that have members of his own party distancing themselves from him,” said Tapper. “And it’s combined with an attempt to discredit the entire fourth estate, the entire media, we’re all fake news except for Fox And Friends.”

When Maher points out that Trump supporters may see Tapper’s reporting as proving the media is biased against the president, Tapper says, “I don’t buy into that paradigm. The truth of the matter is that there’s no bias when it comes to facts and there’s no bias when it comes to decency. It is empirically indecent to make fun of the disabled. You don’t have to be a Democrat or a Republican or Independent or socialist or libertarian. That is just indecent. My children know better than that.”

Watch below:

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Wild And Wilder: White House Alleges UK Spied On Trump For Obama, UK Slaps Back

Donald Trump’s allegation that President Obama ordered “surveillance” on Trump during the presidential campaign continues to get even more unbelievable.

On Thursday, during a White House press briefing, spokesman Sean Spicer cited comments by Fox News contributor Andrew Napolitano asserting a British spy agency was involved in the alleged surveillance of Donald Trump during the presidential campaign.

Napolitano had stated on-air that President Obama had asked Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, the intelligence collection agency known as the GCHQ, to surveil Mr. Trump.

Said Sean Spicer:

“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the N.S.A., he didn’t use the C.I.A., he didn’t use the F.B.I., and he didn’t use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What is that? It’s the initials for the British intelligence spying agency. So simply, by having two people saying to them, ‘The president needs transcripts of conversations involved in candidate Trump’s conversations involving President-elect Trump,’ he was able to get it and there’s no American fingerprints on this.”

The British government immediately denied the allegation on Thursday in a statement issued by the spy agency, labeling the assertions “nonsense” and “utterly ridiculous.”

Today, President Trump was asked about the kerfuffle at a press event with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by a German reporter. Trump answered, “We said nothing. All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn’t make an opinion on it. You shouldn’t be talking to me. You should be talking to Fox.”

Shortly after Trump’s comments, Fox News’ Shepard Smith issued this strongly worded statement from his network: “Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary. Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now president of the United States was surveilled at any time in any way, full stop.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper has clearly had just about all the BS he can handle from Trump. Tapper opened his show on CNN thusly:

“In a fevered effort to try to force this outlandish claim into something remotely resembling – passably, perhaps, maybe – the truth, the White House appears actually willing to repeat another wild accusation that potentially could alienate our nation’s most important ally.

“Does smearing British intelligence make your family more safe? No? So why is the White House doing it? What is the White House defending here? Because it damn sure isn’t national security or American credibility before the world.”

How does any of this “make America great again?”

Watch Tapper below: