Jake Tapper: Obama Got Away With Falsehoods Because Media Supported Him
Jake Tapper
By Aiden Pink August 15, 2017
Former president Barack Obama “got away with” making untrue statements because the media supported him more than it does President Trump, CNN anchor Jake Tapper said in an interview with Rolling Stone.
Tapper was asked about his decision to publicly speak out when he thought Trump was saying a falsehood. Tapper replied that he had been consistent on that front across administrations:
A lot of people on the left didn’t like it before, and now they like it. I don’t want to compare President Obama and President Trump on these issues because they’re different and the scale isn’t even remotely the same. But President Obama said things that weren’t true and got away with it more for a variety of reasons, and one is the media was much more supportive of him. The Obama White House thought I was self-righteous and a huge pain in the ass.
Tapper has made similar comments before, including in March at the SXSW festival.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
