CNN’s Jake Tapper traveled over to ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday to look back at his career and proclaim that “the Bill Clinton era” was “somewhat more reality-based” than the current one.
Kimmel asked “how long have you been covering politics in Washington?” and after Tapper replied “like a quarter century,” Kimmel further wondered, “And it started-- it was a different job back then?”
Tapper affirmed that it was, or at least he pretended like it was, “It was a different job. I mean, it started during the Bill Clinton era. But yeah, it was -- it was somewhat more reality-based than it is -- than it is today, yeah.
Clinton was impeached for being a perjurer and fought over the definition of “is.” If anything, the Clinton era set the stage for what Tapper and Kimmel lament, but Kimmel followed up as if Tapper’s observation was completely normal, “That is difficult, the fact that it is, like, that we're in a time now where somebody can -- you can have evidence, you can see it on videotape, you can hear it with your own ears, and people go, ‘No, that didn't happen.’”
Tapper, who dated Monica Lewinsky at one point, focused on some recent internet silliness:
It's bizarre. Like, I know you've commented a bunch of timed on this Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce insanity, this conspiracy theory and it's so bizarre and one of the reasons I think it happens is because the people on the far-right who come up with this nonsense, their incentive structure is, come up with nonsense for clicks and then the people downstream from them, the politicians, don't understand it's a completely different incentive structure. They're supposed to be grounded in facts and reality and things that matter to the American people, not deranged conspiracy theories about Tay-Tay.
It is easy to pick on the internet, but Tapper claimed in 2019 that “I don't know anybody [from CNN] who got anything wrong” on the Trump-Russia Collusion narrative. Does Tapper watch his own network?
Here is a transcript for the January 31-taped show:
ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!
2/1/2024
12:26 AM ET
JIMMY KIMMEL: Jake, how long have you been covering politics in Washington?
JAKE TAPPER: Oh, like a quarter century, something like that.
KIMMEL: Quarter century.
TAPPER: Late '90s, yeah, yeah.
KIMMEL: And it started-- it was a different job back then?
TAPPER: It was a different job. I mean, it started during the Bill Clinton era. But yeah, it was -- it was somewhat more reality-based than it is -- than it is today, yeah.
KIMMEL: That is difficult, the fact that it is, like, that we're in a time now where somebody can -- you can have evidence, you can see it on videotape, you can hear it with your own ears, and people go, "No, that didn't happen."
TAPPER: It's bizarre. Like, I know you've commented a bunch of timed on this Taylor Swift---
KIMMEL: Right.
KIMMEL: --Travis Kelce insanity, this conspiracy theory and it's so bizarre and one of the reasons I think it happens is because the people on the far-right who come up with this nonsense, their incentive structure is, come up with nonsense for clicks and then the people downstream from them, the politicians, don't understand it's a completely different incentive structure. They're supposed to be grounded in facts and reality and things that matter to the American people, not deranged conspiracy theories about Tay-Tay.
