Tipsheet

Jake Tapper Also Pulled the Plug Mid-Interview With a Trump Official at CNN

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  June 25, 2024 6:00 AM

There was high drama at CNN yesterday when CNN host Kasie Hunt cut off Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt when she rightfully criticized Jake Tapper for invoking Nazi comparisons to a Trump event in New Hampshire last December. Trump was torching the insane levels of illegal immigration that’s led to two-thirds of the country supporting the mass deportation of illegal aliens, which includes a majority of Hispanic voters. Tapper and Dana Bash will moderate the first debate. 

Hunt was not going to tolerate such disrespect and killed the interview. Given the network’s anti-Trump bias, everyone knew why this media hit got depth charged. Yet, it also led to a rehashing of something from Mr. Tapper with then-Trump official Stephen Miller in 2018. It turns out that Hunt and Tapper share cutting off Trump officials mid-interview when they can’t control the narrative. The only difference is that Tapper pulled the plug on Miller after 12 minutes (via Time): 

In an exceedingly tense interview Sunday morning, a top White House aide continued to deride a new book about the Trump administration while simultaneously downplaying Steve Bannon’s role in it and defending President Trump’s tweets about his intelligence. 

CNN’s Jake Tapper, who was conducting the interview with White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller, cut the conversation off after 12 and a half minutes, telling Miller he was spewing rhetoric solely to gain approval from the President. “There’s one viewer that you care about right now and you’re being obsequious in order to please him,” Tapper said. “I think I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time.” 

During the interview, Miller characterized the new book about the Trump administration, “Fire and Fury,” which was released Jan. 5, as “a work of very poorly written fiction.” 

“The author is a garbage author of a garbage book,” said Miller, explaining that the depiction of the President was contrary to his own experience. 

Oh, that book—yeah, it turns out it was riddled with inaccuracies, where even liberal reporters were skeptical of its contents. It’s why it died a quick death and never gained much steam. 

I do miss the days when the Trump White House used CNN as their personal punching bag.