CNN anchor Jake Tapper is getting some criticism after his show ended up being caught up in the middle of the DNC email leak controversy. One of the emails released by Wikileaks is an exchange between The Lead‘s Jason Seher and a DNC staffer.
Seher wrote, “Thanks for facilitating Luis coming on today, and bearing with us through a meelee [sic] of GOP nonsense and cancellations and all that. Any particular points he’ll want to make? We’re gonna stay Dem focused…”
The email was forwarded to other Democratic staffers with the line “Need to know asap if we want to offer Jake Tapper questions to ask us.”
So that’s why Tapper’s been getting criticism like this:
CNN's corruption is amazing. It really is Clinton News Network #DNCLeaks pic.twitter.com/IVCMrmV89z
— Madelyn (@Madelyn113) July 22, 2016
#DNCLeaks @jaketapper asking the DNC what kind of hit pieces they want him to run that day
But thats normal right pic.twitter.com/CAAYuxrTPT
— Harvey M. Volodarski (@Beaucoup_Fric) July 23, 2016
@jaketapper The DNC people just tell you something, and you make it news. Sad! #DNCLeaks pic.twitter.com/KFSDx6UGWi
— James Elson (@Suscpucious) July 23, 2016
So Tapper responded on his Tumblr page in the name of transparency, explaining that asking people if there’s anything they want to talk about “is a fairly standard question – producers and reporters ask it all the time of Democrats, Republicans, everyone, to make sure we don’t miss out on news-making opportunities.”
As for “Dem focused,” Tapper offers this pretty frank explanation:
Wanting to stay “Dem-focused” is a reference to the fact that I wanted to focus on the Democratic presidential contest – the fight between the Sanders campaign and Clinton campaign about superdelegates.
As a general note, I don’t find it particularly interesting to have a Democratic party spokesperson attack the Republicans or to have to Republican party spokesperson attack the Democrats, especially during a time of intra-party turmoil.
It’s odd to me that any GOPer would take issue with that term since I was trying to avoid gratuitous insults from a partisan against members of the other party, in this case Republicans.
The interview in question that ended up talking place––with DNC spokesman Luis Miranda––was fairly standard, and Miranda even objected to CNN’s inclusion of superdelegates in its tracking of the Democratic race.
Tapper said he completely understands people’s skepticism, but offered this succinct summation of all anyone needs to know:
This email is also getting some pickup on social media because some staffer at the DNC whom I have never even heard of has an internal email in this Wikieak doc about “offering us questions” for us to ask Luis. That’s an idiotic characterization. I have never been given questions to ask any politician and I never will.
[image via screengrab]
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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac
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