Yes, Jake Tapper Is a Shit: Hard on the Bidens, but Pulls Punches with Trump
- john raymond
- May 28
- 3 min read
There comes a point when patterns become undeniable, and the figure at their center can no longer hide behind the veil of “objectivity” or “balance.” Jake Tapper, long seen as one of CNN’s most visible journalists, has finally shown us who he really is—not a hard-nosed truth-teller, but a selective moralist. Not a neutral broker of fact, but a man who knows how to swing a hammer at the weak while trembling before the powerful. That’s the simplest reading of his record across two presidencies: one Democratic and old, the other Republican and actively anti-democratic. Tapper chooses to thunder judgment in one direction while parsing and hedging in the other.
Let’s lay it bare. Tapper has spent the better part of the last two years unloading on Joe Biden—not just for his mental decline, but for his defense of his son, Hunter. In interviews, in book tours, on podcasts, Tapper has called the president’s statements “lies,” and accused those repeating them of being “credulous or complicit.” He’s gone so far as to say that the presidency became a kind of boardroom, with Hunter—“demonstrably unethical” and “sleazy”—acting like a shadow chief of staff. Tapper speaks not with sorrow, but with judgment. He has said it was a mistake not to be more aggressive earlier. And when he finally pounced, he pounced hard—applying language that is emotionally loaded and reputationally ruinous.
Now compare that with how he’s treats Donald Trump—especially Trump’s long, publicly documented subservience to Vladimir Putin. Tapper knows the record: Trump siding with Putin over American intelligence in Helsinki, parroting Kremlin narratives about Ukraine, hiring pro-Kremlin advisers, attacking NATO, undermining the dollar, and celebrating authoritarian strongmen. Tapper even acknowledges on air that Russian state media views Trump’s administration as “in total alignment” with Putin. And yet—not once has he used the kind of language he reserves for Biden.
Not once has Tapper said that Trump’s pattern of service to Russian interests constitutes betrayal. Not once has he called those who echo Trump’s lies “complicit.” Not once has he said what any honest observer would conclude: that Trump is a man who acts in the interests of a hostile foreign power and has done so repeatedly, knowingly, and for personal gain.
This is not an oversight. It is a choice.
Tapper knows full well the explosive implications of saying plainly what Trump is. So instead, he couches it in questions. He lets clips play. He invites guests to suggest conclusions without ever affirming them himself. In doing so, he protects himself from right-wing backlash, from accusations of bias, from being labeled “unprofessional.” But that is precisely what makes him a coward. He is not above the fray. He is inside it, and he is choosing where to land his punches.
This is the deeper betrayal. Tapper positions himself as a defender of truth. But the truth does not need to be asked coyly when it’s one party and screamed from the rooftops when it’s another. If Joe Biden lying about his son makes his defenders “complicit,” then what of those who still echo Trump’s lies about Ukraine? About NATO? About January 6th? About Putin himself? What of those who have normalized Trump’s decades-long relationship with Russian money and power?
Tapper wants to be seen as brave, but he performs his courage with safety on. He attacks the Bidens with ferocity because he knows they won’t fight back the same way. He knows they will not retaliate with media warfare or organize mobs to harass his family. He knows the Democratic Party still respects the press. With Trump, he treads lightly because he’s afraid of what full honesty would bring. He fears the fury of the MAGA machine, and worse, he fears losing access and career capital.
In that light, Jake Tapper is not a journalist doing a hard job under tough circumstances. He’s a media figure engaged in cowardly triage—choosing to moralize where it’s safe and equivocate where it’s dangerous. And that makes him, for all his polish and polishers, a political actor. Not a neutral voice. Not a truth-teller. A man who has decided who deserves judgment and who must be treated with kid gloves, even if the republic is on fire.
Yes, Jake Tapper is a shit. Not because he’s tough on Biden, but because he won’t be just as tough on Trump. And in this moment, that failure is more than weakness. It is complicity of its own.
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