Jake Tapper Pens Fictional Book About Integrity, Sells It on Megyn Kelly’s Show

Jake Tapper signing copies of Original Sin, the book where he bravely reveals what everyone already knew — just three months after it was safe to say it.

I stopped messing with CNN years ago. Long before The Atlantic started openly mourning its decline and long before Jon Stewart’s recent demolition of Jake Tapper started making the rounds, I had already seen the writing on the wall — or, more precisely, the drivel on the chyron. Once CNN decided that it was journalistically responsible to put unverified MAGA lies on the same level as hard, sourced truth, they lost all credibility with me. You can’t claim to be a serious news organization while entertaining the delusions of a fascist cosplay cult and then expect viewers with functional frontal lobes to stick around.

And if you’ve read even a handful of my work, you already know how I feel about Scott Jennings, the white noise machine in khakis that CNN insists on casting as a serious commentator. I’ve written before about how Jennings’ only real qualification for cable airtime is his willingness to speak in bumper sticker slogans while pretending they’re policy insights. He’s the guy who shows up to a chess match with a Connect Four board and then accuses the queen of being woke. But I’ll say this: at least Jennings doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a remedial stooge. That’s his role — comic relief for the racially anxious suburban dad who thinks The Babylon Bee is hard-hitting journalism. Jennings is CNN’s version of that one drunk uncle who ruins Thanksgiving, except now he’s got hair gel and a segment. And because he’s so clearly the network’s designated dunce, he’s not even the most disgraceful person on their payroll.

That title belongs to Jake Tapper.

For years, Tapper has wrapped himself in the tattered cloak of journalistic integrity. He plays the role of the “reasonable centrist,” the guy who’ll scold both sides just enough to keep his brand polished for the Sunday morning circuit. And there was a time — maybe in a different administration, in a different century — where he might’ve actually believed in that mission. But at some point, ambition began to rot whatever moral framework he had left. Because what Jake Tapper is doing now, with his cringeworthy media tour and his desperate MAGA ass-kissing, isn’t journalism. It’s a clearance sale on credibility.

Which brings us to his latest embarrassment: The Devil May Dance — wait, no, sorry — The Hellfire Club — actually, it’s neither of those. I’m getting them confused because Tapper has apparently written multiple novels nobody asked for. The one I’m referring to here is All the Demons Are Here, or maybe Original Sin, or maybe Book Number Whatever That Lets Me Stay on CNN Without Doing Real Reporting. It doesn’t even matter. The content of the book is less important than the fact that Tapper is now openly shilling a narrative that undermines the Democratic former president— while the stakes of the midterm elections in 2026 couldn’t be higher. And he’s doing it not with journalistic rigor, but with the same energy as a washed-up pundit trying to make himself relevant again by impressing Megyn Kelly’s audience. That’s right — he went on Megyn Kelly’s show to peddle this thing, like a telemarketer who somehow time-traveled into a Fox News studio.

Let’s pause right there and really let that sink in. Jake Tapper, the self-appointed voice of reason, is now fielding softball questions (THAT HE COULD BARELY EVEN ANSWER) from Megyn “Santa is White” Kelly in hopes of convincing her audience — many of whom are still trying to decode The Da Vinci Code — to buy a book. And just to sweeten the pitch, Tapper made sure to tell Kelly’s viewers that he apologized to Lara Trump for suggesting that her family might be, I don’t know, a threat to democracy. He’s apparently very sorry for implying that the Trumps might have done something unseemly. Next thing you know, he’ll be offering Eric Trump a foot rub and asking Tiffany for book club recommendations.

What’s astonishing isn’t just the apology — it’s the desperation of it all. Tapper knows exactly what he’s doing. This isn’t about some newfound moral clarity or nuance. This is about market reach. Tapper is trying to sell books to MAGA voters by telling them he’s not one of those liberals. He’s signaling to the right-wing fever swamp that he’s a “safe” journalist, the kind you can invite to your compound in the woods when you need help spell-checking your manifesto. And in doing so, he reveals exactly who he is: not a truth-teller, not a neutral arbiter, but just another media grifter wearing the mask of moderation.

And here’s the kicker — while Tapper was out here apologizing to the Trump family, the rest of the mainstream media was busy trying to erase Joe Biden like he was the ghost of elections past. The sudden media-led stampede to frame Biden’s age as the existential crisis of 2024 was as predictable as it was insulting. You’d think the man had just emerged from a cryogenic freezer moments before the debate. Suddenly, everyone became a concerned citizen, clutching their pearls like they hadn’t been happily covering the same man for four years with meh levels of concern.

It’s Monday morning quarterbacking at its most pathetic. And Tapper isn’t just part of this ecosystem — he’s one of its loudest megaphones. His book, which paints the Biden administration’s decision to run again as some kind of Shakespearean tragedy, is a perfect example of access journalism gone rotten. Instead of challenging power when it mattered, Tapper waited until the tide turned, then dove in with a manuscript and a smug grin. He wants you to think he’s brave for “asking the tough questions,” but all he’s doing is stepping on the corpse after the body’s already cold.

And for what? To sell a few more copies to Megyn Kelly’s audience? To cozy up to Lara Trump? To chase whatever pathetic legacy he thinks he’s building? Tapper’s fall from grace isn’t just sad — it’s infuriating. Because unlike Jennings, he wasn’t always a clown. He once could’ve been a serious voice in American journalism. But now he’s just a warning sign. A reminder that no matter how principled someone says they are, give them enough airtime, a publishing deal, and a chance to be “liked” by both sides, and they’ll fold faster than a paper towel in a hurricane.

It’s the same syndrome that infects every Beltway journalist who thinks being disliked equally by both parties is some kind of moral high ground. But the truth is, pretending neutrality in the face of fascism is complicity. Tapper’s problem isn’t that he’s biased — it’s that he’s a coward. He’s afraid of being seen as partisan, even when the facts demand it. He’s terrified of being called “liberal,” even when the alternative is normalizing authoritarianism. So he performs this agonizing dance of false equivalency, this nonstop pantomime of “balance,” even as democracy circles the drain.

And don’t get me started on the pretentious naming of the book. Original Sin? Really? You’re writing about Biden’s decision to run again, not the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. The melodrama is so thick you could cut it with a butter knife and still have enough left over to frost Tapper’s ego. And the irony, of course, is that his original sin isn’t Biden running — it’s the fact that Tapper stopped asking real questions the moment they might have cost him a seat at the table.

You want to know why trust in media is collapsing? It’s not just because of obvious hacks like Jennings or unserious grifters like Kelly. It’s because people like Tapper pretend to be above the fray while quietly selling out their principles behind closed doors. They want the prestige of journalism without the responsibility. They want the credit of Woodward without the courage of Cronkite. And in Tapper’s case, they want book sales without giving readers anything they didn’t already see on Twitter six months ago.

There’s a special kind of tragedy in watching someone so committed to appearing fair that they end up being useless. And that’s where Tapper is now — not malicious, not malevolent, just maddeningly hollow. He’s what happens when the middle of the road becomes a ditch. And no matter how many times he rewrites the narrative, no matter how many times he peddles his book to people who think the January 6th Committee was a Netflix drama, the truth is sitting there in plain sight: Jake Tapper didn’t fall from grace. He jumped.

This baby’s got low ethics, high mileage, and comes with a complimentary apology to Lara Trump. What’s it gonna take to get you into a false equivalency today?

So if you’re wondering why I tuned out of CNN, it wasn’t just the rise of propaganda parrots like Jennings or the increasingly vapid panel discussions that resemble group therapy for lobbyists. It was Tapper. It was the realization that even the ones who should know better had decided it was more lucrative to play the part of a journalist than to actually be one.

And hey, maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe Jake Tapper really does believe that groveling to Megyn Kelly’s audience and apologizing to Lara Trump is the path to redemption. Maybe he thinks Original Sin will end up on some college syllabus one day, sandwiched between Democracy in America and The Art of the Deal. Or maybe, just maybe, Jake Tapper’s greatest journalistic achievement will be convincing America that he was ever a journalist in the first place.