CNN anchor Jake Tapper stopped by The Late Show Monday, to have a friendly chat with host Stephen Colbert. As usual, bashing President Trump for his response to the coronavirus took center stage amidst the friendly banter. At one point Colbert even wondered if journalists, like Tapper had a larger role in becoming policy advisors to the president, (for the public’s sake, of course.)
The CNN journalist began the interview bemoaning the “dystopian” situation we’re in with coronavirus where the Trump administration “can’t even keep the pandemic out of the White House,” referring to a few aides who tested positive for the virus recently. Tapper complained about how journalists like him see how the administration is failing in its response, but President Trump keeps putting a positive spin on the situation. This self-important tirade was only encouraged by Colbert. He asked if it should now be journalists’ role to tell the president what policies he needs to make for the country, because clearly Trump isn’t taking the virus “seriously”:
STEPHEN COLBERT: You've talked on air to a White House aide to ask the president to talk to him about invoking the Defense Production Act for the manufacturing of tests, among other things, and you’ve asked members of the G.O.P. to talk to the president, take the science seriously. Is that the role of journalists now to encourage people close to the president to take action or take certain aspects of the research about this seriously? Do you feel like that's your role?
Tapper backed away from Colbert’s framing of the question to begin with, before admitting, yes he does have a role in “being a conduit of information” from what health experts are telling him to the president’s ears (as if President Trump isn’t surrounded by health experts relaying this information already, every day?):
“Obviously, you know, I don't feel comfortable advocating for policies when it comes to taxes or energy or, you know, involvement in foreign wars. You know, that's not my job. But I do think that there is something to be said about the fact that, when you are a conduit of information, as I am, and you talk to health experts and they say, this is what we need to be doing…” Tapper began, before listing different methods like contact tracing that he wanted to see implemented at the federal level.
The CNN host seemed to justify his answer by warning about how Trump put Americans’ lives “in danger” so the media had to combat that:
[A]fter President Trump had mused publicly about the wisdom of injecting disinfectant into the human body -- I said that Republican leaders need to take action because things are getting dangerous. President Trump has said things that made things more dangerous for people. Just empirically, just as a fact...
Later in the interview, Colbert prodded Tapper to warn Americans about the dangers of the Department of Justice dropping the case against Michael Flynn. Instead of acknowledging how this case was fraught with controversy, Tapper bemoaned how this was a case of abuse of power; not by the FBI, but by Trump:
TAPPER: [P]resident Trump continues to disrupt the judicial system in a way that a lot of experts find not just norm shattering but just against the very principle of independent justice. I mean, the idea that President Trump has now intervened twice directly with the prosecution of Michael Flynn, who, of course, admitted that he lied, and before that, of course, with the sentencing of Roger Stone, I mean, we don't see that sort of thing happen, and those are norms….
COLBERT: Presidents don't give power back.
Read a partial transcript, below:
The Late Show
5/12/2020
STEPHEN COLBERT: You've talked on air to a White House aide to ask the president to talk to him about invoking the Defense Production Act for the manufacturing of tests, among other things, and you’ve asked members of the G.O.P. to talk to the president, take the science seriously. Is that the role of journalists now to encourage people close to the president to take action or take certain aspects of the research about this seriously? Do you feel like that's your role?
JAKE TAPPER: It's a good question, because, obviously, you know, I don't feel comfortable advocating for policies when it comes to taxes or energy or, you know, involvement in foreign wars. You know, that's not my job. But I do think that there is something to be said about the fact that, when you are a conduit of information, as I am, and you talk to health experts and they say, this is what we need to be doing, you know, surveillance testing, which is testing a few people so as to infer what the spread of the virus is within a population, you don't have to test, for instance, all 330 million Americans, but you can test a representative sample in different parts of the country and get an idea, as long as you're testing enough people, that's surveillance testing, and then there's contact tracing, somebody tests positive and you do some detective work to figure out who that person has been in touch with. This is what experts say is needed. This is what experts are doing at the white house to say, I'm hearing from governors and from health experts we need to be doing this, why are we not doing this? The Defense Production Act is just a question of the reason we don't have enough swabs, the reason we don't have enough reagents which hold the samples after somebody's been tested, the reason we don't have enough lab equipment is because we're in a free market economy and there are -- you know, companies aren't going to manufacture reagents out of the goodness of their heart, most of them aren't, anyway. So the United States needs to -- the government needs to force them, and governors don't have the power to invoke the Defense Production Act, the only the president does. They have invoked it a few times for a few things -- ventilators, and I think there was one swab manufacturer, I think in Maine, where the DPA was invoked. But generally speaking, we're not doing it. So I have said to the White House aide Kevin Hassett, the White House senior advisor, you know, I'm hearing from governors this, this is what they need, and I did say on air one time -- and this is after President Trump had mused publicly about the wisdom of injecting disinfectant into the human body -- I said that Republican leaders need to take action because things are getting dangerous. President Trump has said things that made things more dangerous for people. Just empirically, just as a fact. Downplaying this virus in all of February and half of March. It wasn't just him by the way, there were other people doing it too. There were others. Mayor de Blasio, Governor Cuomo. I mean there were plenty of people doing it. But doing that gave a false sense of security to a lot of people and who knows what meant, ultimately.
…..
COLBERT: Jake, while we're focusing on COVID- 19, why is it important, at the same time, to pay attention to things like what happened with Michael Flynn?
TAPPER: Well, because, I mean, President Trump continues to disrupt the judicial system in a way that a lot of experts find not just norm shattering but just against the very principle of independent justice. I mean, the idea that President Trump has now intervened twice directly with the prosecution of Michael Flynn, who, of course, admitted that he lied, and before that, of course, with the sentencing of Roger Stone, I mean, we don't see that sort of thing happen, and those are norms. One thing I've learned from covering Washington for so long is, when one party erodes a norm, when the next party comes into power, they don’t restore it, they take advantage to have the fact that that norm has been eroded and now they can take advantage of it.
COLBERT: Presidents don't give power back.
TAPPER: No! Nobody's going to become president and say, you know what, now's the time to return power to the legislative branch. That's not how it works. Because everybody, of course, every president thinks they're acting in the best interest of the country and for righteousness and good and everything like that...
