Jake Tapper Defends CNN’s Trump Town Hall and Challenges Critics: ‘What Are You Offended By?’

Many subjects were covered when CNN’s Jake Tapper was the guest on Kara Swisher’s podcast. But one of them directly addressed one of the more controversial moves by CNN under the leadership of ousted CEO Chris Licht: the town hall with former President Donald Trump. Unlike some of his colleagues, Tapper defended it, classifying it as a regular part of covering a presidential race.

First, Tapper acknowledged the obvious, that Trump is not and never has been a typical political figure:

Swisher: How do you cover [Trump] as a normal candidate?

Tapper: Well, he’s not a normal candidate. He’s not. He’s a former U.S. president, who arguably incited a violent insurrection. His lies about the election were certainly were the reason for what happened on Capitol Hill that day. He’s somebody whose words have caused violence and caused threats of violence.

Swisher then posed the question of how to fairly and responsibly cover someone like Trump:

Swisher: So, how do you cover him?

Tapper: As he is. We cover him as he is. He’s the leading Republican nominee, and he says things that are not true. But we have to cover him, we can’t ignore him. We can’t pretend he’s not there, we can’t pretend he’s not leading in the polls for his party’s nomination. We have to explain why, we have to talk about the issues that people find compelling.

Tapper also conceded that when it comes to Trump, there’s not a whole lot of actual policy to cover, mostly just his “grievances and the Deep State.” But in the end, he’s “the leading Republican nominee for president, and he has as good a chance as anyone of becoming the next president of the United States.” This was when the conversation naturally turned to CNN’s coverage of such an unconventional presidential candidate and the highly criticized Trump town hall:

Swisher: How to cover Trump blew up at CNN after the Trump town hall. Many think the interview shouldn’t have happened. I am not one of them, I think there should be as many interviews with Donald Trump as possible. I’d love you to sort of unpack that. How do you look at the fallout from that at this moment?

Tapper: I think that a lot of the fallout was… Well, look, it’s nuanced, so I don’t want to paint anything with a broad brush. First of all, there is the question: Donald Trump is the leading nominee for his party’s nomination. Should he be covered? Is a town hall where voters get to ask him questions, the moderator gets to ask follow-ups, is that in the public’s interest? I am of the opinion that it is. Now, some people might say no, but I am of the opinion that it is. You agree with me, I think, on that.

Swisher: Yes, I do.

Tapper: So then the question becomes how we do it, “we” meaning news media, not just CNN. And also, what are people offended by? Because I think a lot of the reaction that there was, people were like “Oh, it was a Trump rally.” Well, that wasn’t a Trump rally, that was a group of, as we do for all of our town halls, Republican and Republican-leaning independents from that state, in this case New Hampshire. Just as we’d do for [President] Joe Biden, it would be Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents for Iowa or South Carolina or wherever. … It wasn’t a Trump rally, that is a sampling of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in a battleground state. “Oh, but they were behaving like this, they were behaving like that.” The questions I would have, and I say this truly with all due respect, what are you offended by? The airing of it or the existence of it? … Is it the airing of it or the existence of those people?

Swisher quoted the part of Tim Alberta’s The Atlantic profile of Licht that addressed the “extra Trumpy” audience but Tapper defended the process by which the audience was chosen assuming they were chosen in the same way as all the other town halls CNN has aired, including the one Tapper hosted with GOP presidential candidate Ambassador Nikki Haley. Haley’s appearance also got a positive response from the “Republican and Republican-leaning” audience, but when it comes to Trump, he’s “incredibly popular with the Republican party.”

You can listen to this part of the conversation on Spotify:

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