'Hope the money's worth it!' CNN's Jake Tapper blasts rival for 'bending the knee'

CNN's Jake Tapper took the highly unusual move on Tuesday evening of calling out rival CBS News, following an allegation that the network was stifling the journalistic freedom of one of its core lineup programs to appease President Donald Trump.

"The executive producer of CBS News' "60 Minutes," Bill Owens, resigned today," said Tapper. "Now, normally that would probably not be news that we would bring you, except the circumstances rise to the level of, well, alarm. Owens said in a letter to his staff that, quote, 'Over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for '60 Minutes,' right for the audience,' unquote. And the context here is key, because President Trump has been suing CBS News and its parent company, Paramount Global, for $20 billion out of fury the network aired an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris even as he personally declined his own interview.

Tapper took particular aim at the person accused of orchestrating this muzzling of "60 Minutes": Shari Redstone, the wealthy heiress and Paramount executive overseeing these decisions — and he accused Redstone of knuckling under to a president whose only goal is to crush dissent against him in the media.

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"This is not about one man or even about one show," said Tapper. "It's about an attempt to be rid of criticism. The Pentagon has taken the offices of CNN and NBC and The New York Times and Politico, and reassigned them to outlets that provide more flattering coverage, like Breitbart. The White House is doing the same with wire services, its war against the Associated Press, and bringing in folks like this one from last Friday."

He played a clip of a right-wing reporter at a briefing.

"Photos have emerged of Senator van Hollen sipping what appears to be margaritas with Abrego Garcia down in El Salvador. Do you encourage other Democrats to fly down to El Salvador to meet with this illegal alien who's an accused wife-beater?" asked the reporter. To which Trump responded, "I like this guy. This is — this is the kind of reporter we like. There aren't enough of them."

"That person, of course, that was asking that question was asking about a lie," said Tapper. "Senator Chris Van Hollen says that those margaritas were never touched. They were set up on the table by somebody working for the President of El Salvador to make a joke of this senator's meeting. Those margarita glasses were propaganda. And that's what that person asked about. And of course, that's the kind of reporter that the president likes, because that question was not the question of a reporter."

"And that is the context of Shari Redstone's likely bending of the knee," Tapper concluded. "Hope the money's worth it, Shari!"

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