Journalist Jake Tapper exploded on President Donald Trump Wednesday in a monologue that labeled him “unpatriotic” and “un-American.”
The host of CNN’s “The Lead” wasted no time excoriating Mr. Trump during his first broadcast since the president’s comments on the “alt-left” Tuesday night. Over six minutes of air time was spent lambasting the president over his reaction to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend, which ended in the killing of 32-year-old victim Heather Heyer.
Mr. Tapper said only racists and white supremacists were cheering the president’s Tuesday press conference, in which he said anti-fascist protesters armed with baseball bats were equally culpable for the deadly affair — 20-year-old suspect James Alex Fields Jr. was arrested after he drove his car into a crowd.
“You know who did applaud the president’s remarks? Racists. White supremacists,” the host said, Mediaite reported. “[T]o act as if these defeated, intellectually destitute, pathetic ideologies and people have any moral standing as they rally to intimidate and vomit forth their treasonous filth, it is not only immoral, it’s unpatriotic. It’s un-American.”
The CNN host buttressed his point by playing clips from Vice News, which embedded a reporter with white nationalists.
“I’m still not really certain where these, quote, ’very fine people’ the media has been unfair to were,” Mr. Tapper said.
SEE ALSO: Jake Tapper on media bias: ‘Obama said things that weren’t true and got away with it’
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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