CNN's Jake Tapper is dead to me

It’s Political Book Season, and you can almost smell the stink, er, ink in the air!

You are going to start hearing a lot from the Inside-the-Beltway, so-called journalists about all the things that were happening, or maybe more importantly not happening, that ultimately led to Democrats’ across-the-board defeats in November.

A big theme in the books will be Joe Biden’s age, and who knew what on the inside of the White House about the man’s physical and mental capacity to actually run for office again.

If you’ve read me for any length of time you know what I generally think of these books: Very little.

As I have written:

“There are two different types of political books. The book that’s written to describe the mayhem and/or context behind a significant news event, or the scope of one’s beat is one type. The book that is written to break news is quite another.”

I’m not sure how much news is being broken in CNN Anchor Jake Tapper’s new book, co-authored with Alex Thompson of Axios, but I do know I was suffering whiplash trying to stay atop of the election, and whether Biden should have stayed in or out.

I am no political expert, because none exist, but do know plenty about the press, and spent most of my time raking them over the coals for their massive failure to cover the threats another Trump presidency would introduce.

I admittedly will not be reading Tapper’s book, or even giving its title here, because I was done with him three years ago when he made it clear he wasn’t a serious journalist, but was plenty keen to help Ivanka Trump sell her loathsome husband’s book:

Back then I went to Tapper and CNN for an explanation for this shoddy disregard for journalism, and was roundly ignored.

I wrote:

And if you are saying, “Hey, it’s just a silly retweet give the guy a break,” I am saying, I am sympathetic to that, but only if he owns up to his recklessness and publicly apologizes for it.

Tapper hasn’t said a single word, though, so the guy who is one of the twinkly faces behind the “most trusted name in news” is officially playing fast and loose with his reputation and that trust.

Ultimately, he should have been fired, because there was no damn explanation for any of this. Instead, he helped keep the sinking USS Trump afloat by legitimizing anything coming from that grotesque family.

The only thing I am sure about that damn 2024 election is this: The mainstream media did an absolutely atrocious job of warning us about what was coming if, God forbid, Trump won again. They failed catastrophically to cover the most important story in America since the Civil War: Republicans attack on the rule of law and our Democracy.

You could write a book about it.

Say, speaking of the attack on common decency, our rule of law and Democracy … while returning from his grifting expedition in the Mideast this week, the America-attacking Trump decided this warranted the nation’s attention:

Yes, it’s real.

It should surprise absolutely nobody, except maybe our press, that the first public statement the convicted woman-abuser made during his return to America was to attack yet another woman.

As he has proven time and time again, the only thing he hates more than this country are the women who live here.

But just to show he can always lower his sewer-like standards, he then quickly used his nuclear-powered cell phone to follow up with this public shot at America’s real Boss, Bruce Springsteen, who has been appropriately critical of the America-attacker’s never-ending assault on our country and its women:

Imagine if he held our enemies like Vladimir Putin with such disdain …

So … fresh off this absolutely INSANE behavior by a sitting president, I will tap my foot and wait for all the stories that are sure to be coming from Tapper and his collection of insiders about the mental capacity of a guy who is a textbook psychopath, and can’t be removed from office fast enough.

Oh, and here’s the definition of a psychopath just in case anybody somehow thinks I am being hyperbolic: a person with a psychopathic personality, characterized by a lack of empathy, remorse, and guilt, along with manipulative and deceitful behavior.

Anything you see there that doesn't track?

Can you imagine the attention those posts would have gotten if Biden had written them? The world’s press would have been camped out at the White House 24/7, waiting for him to be hauled away on a stretcher.

With Trump it’s just another day …

And while we are having this discussion of the psychopath’s trip to the Mideast, among many topics that have been barely touched upon by Tapper’s incompetent press have to do with the psychopath’s revolting children — unless, of course, they have books to sell.

In the lead-up to his cash-and-airplane grab, the psychopath’s eldest sons, Donny and Eric, were busy canvassing the region drumming up business and greasing the skids for Daddy Psychopath’s visit, while making deals and funneling money into the oily "Trump Organization."

This was happening wide out in the open, and got absolutely no significant mention that I could find. I mention this here because what they were doing was almost certainly illegal, and 100 percent unethical.

Now their daddy is hate-posting after leaving the region with millions of dollars worth of party favors, including a brand-new airplane.

Just for the hell of it, here’s what the U.S. Constitution says about that stuff:

Article 1, Section 9, states, “No person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” (This means that U.S. government officials cannot accept gifts or money from foreign officials or foreign countries.)

But hey, the Constitution is being treated as nothing but a nuisance by the psychopath, so why bother getting upset, right?

You know, I remember way back in the pre-fascist days of 2024, when this kind of thing would have received nonstop attention by Tapper’s earnest brethren in the White House press corp — attention that might have even resulted in a hard look by our nation’s Attorney General.

Because this is exactly what happened to Hunter Biden. Remember all that?

Apparently, six months later, the press has already forgotten.

There are books to sell after all …

(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)