Ex-CNN Host Hits Network For ‘Pushing’ Tapper ‘Book Sales’ Amid Biden Cancer News

Former CNN host W. Kamau Bell ripped his former employer for “pushing book sales” of Jake Tapper’s Original Sin while covering the news of former President Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis.

CNN and Tapper have been engaged in an all-out publicity blitz for Tapper’s Alex Thompson-co-authored book Original Sin, which has prompted attacks from critics of the authors, the book, and the network. Tapper and Thompson have also ventured into hostile territory during their book tour as well.

Bell — who hosted United Shades of America for CNN from 2016 to 2022 — was a guest on The Dean Obeidallah Show this week, during which SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah brought up the book as an example of why the “legacy media” are mistrusted, echoing the attack that despite new claims and revelations, the main thrust of the book is a “coverup” of something that critics say was happening in plain sight.

CNN’s relentless promotion of the tome in tandem with the cancer news — which was the subject of a searing Jon Stewart commentary — also came up:

DEAN OBEIDALLAH: No one wrote one story that there might be cognitive issues. That was, thank God, the Woodward and Bernstein of our day, Jake Tapper and the guy–.

W. KAMAU BELL: (LAUGHS).

DEAN OBEIDALLAH: You know, to break that story. This would be them like writing, this is like watergate happening right in front of everyone. And someone going, whoa, this cover-up, it’s like, we’re all seeing it. No, we all saw that.

So I think that was hurting them a great, like that was, and I don’t know if Jake Tapper and the guy at Axios understood that, because I could hear it from the callers of the show.

.It was undermining the last, drops of credibility that CNN had in the eyes of people who looked like, what are you doing? To make money? We know that he was old. We knew there was cognitive–

W. KAMAU BELL: Yeah, yeah, yeah

DEAN OBEIDALLAH: No one was hiding that! I mean, what are you talking about?

W. KAMAU BELL: No, if they were hiding it, they did a real bad job because we all saw it.

I mean, although I did tweet, or not didn’t tweet, but I threaded, because it was funny.

So when United Shades of America premiered on the first season, the day or before, I was like doing the whole press cycle in New York and I was on CNN all day long, and that day Prince died, which is not funny at all.

But what just happened was like all my interviews, which are supposed to be centered on my new TV show, flipped to like, enough about your TV show. What do you think about Prince? Like, it was basically like, it’s that was an awkward press cycle to promote my new TV show, where I met the KKK, because everybody’s wanting to talk about Prince understandably.

And I was like, Jake Tapper is going to go through that times a million right now. (LAUGHS) He’s outt trying to sell a book. And everyone’s gonna be like, “Uhhh!”.

Yeah, I hear you about your book. But you know, you’re the main character in your book was just diagnosed with aggressive cancer. You sure you want to push book sales?

DEAN OBEIDALLAH: Yeah I think the CNN got– CNN has become like theJake Tapper Book Club for the last like week. It’s just been insane.

W. KAMAU BELL: No, they’re very good, they are very good at, and listen, I’ve seen this with all the, if you are a CNN anchor and you write a book, they gonna push the hell out of your. I’ve see it happen time and time again.

And yeah, so it’s like they’re good at like, it’s like a, it’s like the mafia, they good at supporting the family.

Watch the clip above, via SiriusXM’s The Dean Obeidallah Show.