‘You All Thought He Was White Too!’ Erick Erickson Defends Jake Tapper’s Mistake on Alleged Pipe Bomber

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Conservative podcaster Erick Erickson opened Friday’s show by defending CNN’s Jake Tapper for mistakenly classifying the alleged 2021 Washington, D.C. pipe bomber as a “white man.”

Tapper reported on Thursday’s episode of The Lead, “Brian Cole Jr., a 30-year-old white man from the D.C. suburbs, is charged with transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce and with malicious destruction by means of explosion.”

When CNN aired an image of Cole, Tapper’s assertion was debunked.

On social media, MAGA influencers roasted Tapper, with one even accusing the CNN anchor of going “out of his way to LIE” about Cole’s race.

Erickson, however, posted to social media, “Come on, people. You all thought he was white, too. It wasn’t just Jake Tapper. And yes, starting my show with this.”

“You all thought the same thing: white guy anarchist from suburban Virginia,” said a laughing Erickson. “You thought it, you know you did. Jake Tapper’s getting dragged for saying what you thought, and all I can say is, I said it before him!”

Erickson continued:

Cause it’s Brian Cole! What the — The only whiter name than Brian Cole is like Erick Erickson or John Smith. I mean I’m so white I can’t put socks on — they disappear. Brian Cole? Maybe he took some of those — what was the movie about the guy who ingested the tanning pills and… people thought he was Black because he was super tan. Maybe that’s what Brian Cole did!

“What’s remarkable here is that everybody made this calculation. Jake and I just happen to be the sort of people who announced it,” Erikson added.

“We have been trained by progressives that somehow this is an awful stereotype,” Erickson said. “Except, let’s be real here. Had Jake Tapper said he was Black and it turned out to be a white guy, we’d be questioning whether or not he’d have his job at the end of the day.”