Jake Tapper Torches ‘Mr. First Amendment’ Trump as Free Speech Hypocrite

CNN’s Jake Tapper ripped into President Donald Trump on Monday night, invoking Trump’s past pledge to protect free speech while saying, “Mr. First Amendment has turned out to be anything but.”

After playing a clip of Trump saying, “we want total freedom of the press” and “if we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country,” Tapper was indignant.

“Welllll, Mr. First Amendment has turned out to be anything but,” he said before listing several recent incidents where Trump has “targeted” free speech, especially when it comes to the press:

We have seen the president target free speech. Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert come to mind. But his disdain for freedom of the press is even more direct. Doesn’t go through oligarchs. Friday, the Trump Justice Department took the outrageous step of subpoenaing four New York Times journalists after their report on safety concerns over the president’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One plane.

And Trump wasn’t the only one Tapper went after, as the anchor went after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for his video vowing to crack down on leakers at the Pentagon, which has led to Hegseth getting shelled on social media.

“I know of one leak that put several of our pilots at risk, Mr. Hegseth,” Tapper said, pointing to the Signalgate saga, when The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently added to a group chat of Trump’s top defense officials.

Tapper went on:

But going after reporters, it’s just downright un-American. And it’s just the latest in a string of deeply concerning escalations. The White House barred Associated Press reporters from Air Force One and Oval Office meetings because the AP did not change their style to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Remember, the AP is read all over the world, and we’re the only ones that call it the Gulf of America.

The Pentagon tried to impose broad restrictions on reporters, barring them from the building if they didn’t agree to them. Both restrictions have been challenged in court.

President Trump personally has filed civil lawsuits against many media organizations for reporting he says is false, including against ABC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC. He cut funding for public radio stations, NPR and for public television. PBS for being, quote, radical left monsters that so badly hurt, our country, unquote.

This January, the FBI executed a search warrant of a Washington Post reporter’s home over a leak investigation. And in May, the president called reporters treasonous for doing our jobs.

After Tapper mentioned that the nomination of Todd Blanche to lead the Justice Department will soon go to a vote in the Senate, he called Trump’s former personal lawyer “clearly part of this assault on the press.”

Tapper then landed one final blow, saying: “Is the Senate about to sanction this crackdown? We’re watching. So is history.”

Watch above via CNN.

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