Jake Tapper's Honest Take On Donald Trump and How Media Has Changed

What this episode is about

Jake Tapper discusses the current state of CNN amidst corporate media dynamics and President Trump's critical remarks about the network's leadership. He reflects on the impact of these developments on his newsroom and the broader media landscape while also touching on themes from his new book related to counterterrorism and historical debates from the Obama administration era.

Key takeaways

• Trump's media critique is like a sequel: same plot, just more dramatic flair.
• CNN is both the storyteller and the unexpected story—talk about plot twists.
• Media mergers: when streaming giants play chess, and news channels are pawns.
• Republicans silent on Saudi-Qatar media buys? Irony just ate its own shoe.
• Presidential interference in media deals: politics in 4D, now with foreign funding.

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Robert Gibbs, Anita Dunn, Corporate media, Counterterrorism
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Pentagon, Affinity Partners, MBS (Muhammad bin Salman), Pentagon press corps
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Pentagon, Pentagon press corps, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Daily Caller
4. 15:00 – 20:00: The Outpost, Arab Spring, Pentagon
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Al Galani, Time Square, Denver, George Washington Bridge
6. 25:00 – 30:00: Abbey Gate bombing, Counterterrorism, Kansas, Mike Feldman
7. 30:00 – 35:00: Beth Sanner, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), El Chapo, National Review
8. 35:00 – 40:00: Alex Thompson, Democrats, Opioids, Original Sin
9. 40:00 – 42:57: Democrats, New Mexico, Race Against Terror, Truth Social

Notable quotes from "Jake Tapper's Honest Take On Donald Trump and How Media Has Changed"

• Joining me today is CNN's lead DC anchor and chief Washington correspondent and the author of the new book, which I'm holding up right here for our YouTube viewers, Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al-Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the.

  about Washington, D.C. · at 0:00

• Gaggle asked White House communications director or was he press secretary Robert Gibbs why is it appropriate for any White House to say any credentialed media organization is…

  about Robert Gibbs · at 1:57

• For the media generally. I want to ask you about some of that. back in October, the Pentagon press corps essentially just staged a walk out of the building because Pete Hgsth…

  about Pentagon · at 8:09

• So I hadn't written a non-fiction book in a while. I wrote The Outpost about Afghanistan came out in 2012. I'm sure you remember. I keep alluding to this, but I was the White House correspondent for ABC News in Obama's.

  about The Outpost · at 15:15

• The cases that I had completely forgotten had to do with a guy named Galani. This is in the book. Galani was the first and I believe to this day only terrorist from Gitmo tried…

  about Al Galani · at 22:04

• Mentioned. There was Najib Lulazi and his buddies were going to blow up the subway. Okay. There was the time square.

  about Time Square · at 24:18

• Address the joint session of Congress that Jafar is coming to the United States. He's here. He's in Virginia.

  about Virginia · at 28:18

• Horrible. it was that he wasn't able to go out any time in the following weeks and make any Democrats feel or sufficient numbers of Democrats feel better that he could do this job. And frankly, I understand that there are a lot of.

  about Democrats · at 38:55

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Al Galani — Person · 3 mentions · first at 22:08
• Jack Tapper — Person · 3 mentions
• Robert Gibbs — Person · 2 mentions · first at 2:01
• Jafar — Person · 2 mentions
• Jamal Khashoggi — Person · 2 mentions
• John Favreau — Person · 2 mentions
• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) — Person · 2 mentions
• Najibullah Zazi — Person · 2 mentions
• Jake Tapper — Person · 1 mention · first at 0:11
  Viewers, Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al-Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War, Jake Tapper. Welcome back to the pod, buddy. Good to see you.
• Anita Dunn — Person · 1 mention · first at 2:36
  Labeling an entire media organization not legitimate. And what that was and I think it was just Anita Dunn and Robert Gibbs. I think Anita was the communications director at…
• MBS (Muhammad bin Salman) — Person · 1 mention · first at 5:57
  Etc Qatari money to buy CNN. Nobody has a word of objection on the right. But beyond that, we know what MBS, Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, thinks about…
• Sean Parnell — Person · 1 mention · first at 9:38
  Second of all, this move and like if you listen to what he says and his spokesperson Sean Parnell, they're saying, Oh, we need to do this to prevent classified information from being reported, which makes us weaker etc. etc.
• Mike Lindell — Person · 1 mention · first at 10:38
  Like only allow in the most sickopantic coverage. And yes, of course that means that you know whatever Mike Lindell media, My Pillow Media leaves and like we get in some like left-wing version of the same thing.
• Zack Cohen — Person · 1 mention · first at 11:49
  So, I will just say just to toot my own horn and CNN's own horn, last week a reporter named Zack Cohen and I, CNN reporter Zack Cohen and I, we broke the story of what was in…
• Attorney General Pam Bondi — Person · 1 mention · first at 14:11
  Really bother me. It's the exclusion that bothers me. Look, when you see Secretary Hegsth or Attorney General Bondi, they only do interviews, generally speaking. There are a…
• Pete Hegseth — Person · 1 mention · first at 14:11
  Really bother me. It's the exclusion that bothers me. Look, when you see Secretary Hegsth or Attorney General Bondi, they only do interviews, generally speaking. There are a…
• Mike Feldman — Person · 1 mention · first at 26:14
  Remember having lunch with my girlfriend at the time Sarah Fineberg who you know and Mike Feldman who you know and I remember like I was just a complete nihilist like a month…
• Nicholas Maduro — Person · 1 mention · first at 32:23
  This slowmoving regime change campaign to push out Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro that included, we're talking on again Wednesday, December 11th, on Tuesday, the day…
• Beth Sanner — Person · 1 mention · first at 32:54
  Countries. So, I don't know that the seizure of the oil tanker belongs in the same bucket because Beth Sanner, who used to, as a pretty straight shooter who used to work in the…
• El Chapo — Person · 1 mention · first at 34:46
  Like members of drug cartels are good people. But that said, like these people on the boats, this is not El Chapo.
• Alex Thompson — Person · 1 mention · first at 36:35
  Final question for you Jake. Your last book original sin which you wrote with Alex Thompson from Axios made a lot of waves. it was about you know President Biden his age and…
• AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) — Person · 1 mention
• Caroline Leavitt — Person · 1 mention
• Charles Cooke — Person · 1 mention
• Faisal Shahzad — Person · 1 mention
• Governor Gavin Newsom — Person · 1 mention
• Marjorie Taylor Greene — Person · 1 mention
• Sarah Feinberg — Person · 1 mention
• Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

• The Outpost — Book · 4 mentions · first at 15:19
• Race Against Terror — Book · 3 mentions · first at 0:07
  The author of the new book, which I'm holding up right here for our YouTube viewers, Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al-Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War, Jake Tapper. Welcome back to the pod, buddy. Good to see you.
• Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al-Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War — Book · 3 mentions
• Original Sin — Book · 1 mention · first at 36:33
  Final question for you Jake. Your last book original sin which you wrote with Alex Thompson from Axios made a lot of waves. it was about you know President Biden his age and decline and the ways that people around him.

Companies & orgs

• Saudi Public Investment Fund — Company · 2 mentions
• Warner Brothers Discovery — Company · 1 mention · first at 0:47
  Media elephant in the room. Paramount and Netflix are waging a battle to buy Warner Brothers Discovery.
• Discovery Global — Company · 1 mention · first at 4:59
  Not trying to buy the cable news channels. We would be spun off into our own thing called Discovery Global. but Paramount wants to buy everything.
• Affinity Partners — Company · 1 mention · first at 6:52
  Way, Jared Kushner, I think he's got like $5 billion under management at his firm, Affinity Partners. I think 99% of it is from foreign entities. All the same ones you just…
• Free Beacon — Company · 1 mention · first at 13:25
  Good journalism in unlikely places. I have seen good journalism in partisan places. the Free Beacon and the Daily Caller and there are a bunch of right-wing sites that I've…
• Daily Caller — Company · 1 mention · first at 13:27
  I have seen good journalism in partisan places. the Free Beacon and the Daily Caller and there are a bunch of right-wing sites that I've read actual breaking news stories in.…
• National Review — Company · 1 mention · first at 31:42
  The side of the terrorists like it's juvenile. Charles Cook who writes for the National Review wrote an entire column about this like it was very clever and very well done where but yes I'm on the side of the drug dealers.
• Director of National Intelligence (DNI) — Company · 1 mention · first at 33:00
  Used to, as a pretty straight shooter who used to work in the director of national intelligence office, I think she was deputy, she was on my show yesterday and she said that…
• Truth Social — Company · 1 mention · first at 41:02
  Time. Like literally yesterday, I covered that crazy truth social rant when he was mad at the New York Times for covering his aging and he called it sedition or treasonous and he attacked the appearance of the woman, the journalist.
• Al Jazeera — Company · 1 mention
• AP (Associated Press) — Company · 1 mention
• Axios — Company · 1 mention
• Marsh McLennan — Company · 1 mention
• Pod Save America — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

• MyPillow — Product · 2 mentions

Concepts & topics

• Inspector General (Pentagon) — Concept · 4 mentions
• Pentagon press corps — Concept · 3 mentions · first at 8:11
  For the media generally. I want to ask you about some of that. back in October, the Pentagon press corps essentially just staged a walk out of the building because Pete Hgsth…
• Drones (drone strikes) — Concept · 3 mentions
• Military tribunal / military commission — Concept · 3 mentions
• Counterterrorism — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 0:35
  Triggered me because it brought me back to all these like incredibly important and contentious counterterrorism debates from the early Obama days that I want to get into in…
• Democrats — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 39:01
• Article III courts — Concept · 2 mentions
• Enhanced interrogation / torture — Concept · 2 mentions
• Press pool (pooled press events) — Concept · 2 mentions
• Forever War — Concept · 1 mention · first at 0:11
  Viewers, Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al-Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War, Jake Tapper. Welcome back to the pod, buddy. Good to see you.
• Corporate media — Concept · 1 mention · first at 0:41
  From the early Obama days that I want to get into in just a minute. but first I have to ask you about the corporate media elephant in the room. Paramount and Netflix are waging a battle to buy Warner Brothers Discovery.
• Munich Security Forum — Concept · 1 mention · first at 11:36
  The world? will they not be allowed to cover international conferences, the Munich Security Forum or like whatever. So, I think over time it really will sort of erode and chip away at their ability to do the job. I think it's a big deal.
• Signalgate — Concept · 1 mention · first at 11:59
  General report about HEGs a day before it was released to the public for Signalgate.
• Arab Spring — Concept · 1 mention · first at 17:32
  Incredible story. He's an assistant US attorney in Brooklyn. He gets a phone call. It's 2011. It's during the Arab Spring and on one of these refugee boats full of Tunisians…
• Pre-trial proceedings — Concept · 1 mention · first at 21:10
  11th, 2025. KSM hasn't even gone to trial yet. These cases are still struck in they're in pre-trial proceedings still. There's no end of those pre-trial proceedings in sight.…
• Taliban — Concept · 1 mention · first at 25:04
  Terror it is an a catastrophic failure abject failure. Like the Taliban are running Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda is not defeated.
• Pearl Harbor — Concept · 1 mention · first at 27:30
  Poison their water supply. Like it was so traumatic. I imagine it must have been what like Pearl Harbor was just oh my god, like we're not safe or Israel after October 7th, right? Like try to put in their shoes. Yeah.
• Abbey Gate bombing — Concept · 1 mention · first at 28:13
  Members abroad. Jafar is this Pakistani who's part of ISIS Corusan who was part of the Abbey gate bombing in 2021.
• Opioids — Concept · 1 mention · first at 35:13
  Cocaine is important also because what's killing Americans is by and large opioids which we make ourselves and fentinyl which is basically the ingredients are coming from China…
• War on terror policy — Concept · 1 mention · first at 42:25
  Of this one individual case, but what it tells us about a couple decades of a war on terror policy that I guess the story is yet to be written. But great to see you, buddy. Thank you for doing the show.
• 1998 U.S. embassy bombings — Concept · 1 mention
• Assistant U.S. Attorney — Concept · 1 mention
• Enhanced presidential power precedent — Concept · 1 mention
• Hamas — Concept · 1 mention
• ISIS-K (ISIS Khorasan) — Concept · 1 mention
• Narco-terrorists — Concept · 1 mention
• Nazis — Concept · 1 mention
• U.S. special forces — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

• Pentagon — Place · 9 mentions · first at 8:11
• Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) — Place · 6 mentions
• Washington, D.C. — Place · 3 mentions · first at 0:02
• Time Square — Place · 2 mentions · first at 24:21
• Virginia — Place · 2 mentions · first at 28:22
• United Arab Emirates — Place · 2 mentions
• Saudi Arabia — Place · 1 mention · first at 6:00
  A word of objection on the right. But beyond that, we know what MBS, Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, thinks about independent journalism or critical…
• George Washington Bridge — Place · 1 mention · first at 24:29
  But then somebody screwed up on the George Washington Bridge and let him in and then he disappeared in Manhattan and like if he could have done what he was going to do and blow up these subways, him and his two accompllices.
• Denver — Place · 1 mention · first at 24:41
  At the end of the day, they just got spooked and went back to Denver.
• Kansas — Place · 1 mention · first at 27:20
  Was. And when I say everybody I mean everybody. I mean like people in the middle of like Kansas were convinced that al-Qaeda was going to come and poison their water supply.…
• New Mexico — Place · 1 mention · first at 40:27
  Hugely, but you know they were going to lose states that Democrats hadn't lost in a long time like Minnesota and New Mexico and Colorado and Virginia and New Hampshire. So…
• Iran — Place · 1 mention
• Ohio — Place · 1 mention
• Pakistan — Place · 1 mention
• Suriname — Place · 1 mention
• Tunisia — Place · 1 mention
• World Trade Center (Second Tower) — Place · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Joining me today is CNN's lead DC anchor and chief Washington correspondent and the author of the new book, which I'm holding up right here for our YouTube viewers, Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al-Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War, Jake Tapper. Welcome back to the pod, buddy. Good to see you.

0:14 It's great to be here. Great to see you again. Please send my regards to all the others, FAS, and Love It or Leave It and F and all the

0:23 I'll tell everybody hello and congrats on the book, by the way. I was texting you yesterday um that it's fascinating. It's an amazing story and it deeply triggered me because it brought me back to all these like incredibly important and contentious counterterrorism debates from the early Obama days that I want to get into in just a minute. Uh, but first I have to ask you about the corporate media elephant in the room. Uh, Paramount and Netflix are waging a battle to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. CNN's fate will be determined by that process in some form or fashion.

0:53 President Trump weighed in on all of this the other day. Here's a clip. I just think that the people that have run CNN into the ground, by the way, nobody watches. Very few people watch, I don't think they should be entrusted with running CNN any longer. So, I think any deal should it should be guaranteed and certain that CNN is part of it or sold separately. But I don't think the people that are running that company right now and running CNN, which is a very dishonest uh group of people, I don't think that should be allowed to continue. I think CNN should be sold along with everything else.

1:29 Typically kind and generous uh media criticism from our president. So Jake, I know you can't comment on merger talks, but I'm just curious what it's like for you and your team and everybody in the newsroom who are used to covering the story to now be a part of the story.

1:42 Well, let me just bring it back to uh a moment that I'm sure you remember in October 2009 when the Obama White House was declaring Fox News not a legitimate news organization and I in a gaggle asked White House communications director or was he press secretary press secretary Robert Gibbs why is it appropriate for any White House to say any credentialed media organization is not legitimate and I got and still get to this day a lot of crap from the left about that as if I'm defending Fox, which I'm not. I'm defending the principle of should a White House be not criticizing a story or criticizing a particular anchor or whatever, but just labeling an entire media organization not legitimate. And what that was and I think it was just uh Anita Dunn and Robert Gibbs. I think Anita was the communications director at the time is so small compared to what President Trump is currently doing in terms of not

2:47 only labeling one channel fake news or illegitimate or whatever, but like everyone except for the most flattering obsequious channels and coverage. and now weighing in on a potential merger um that his justice department and the FCC and others are supposed to objectively assess. Um, I don't think the FCC has a role if it's um what Netflix wants to do because the FCC doesn't cover Netflix and Netflix is buying studios and a streamer, not any TV. But be that as it may, it's just all unprecedented. And as with everything uh in this era where President Trump says and does things that would cause huge outcry from Republicans and conservative media if it were done by Obama or Biden or whatever President whoever Newsome AOC whatever um the these precedents are being set and it's like speak now you know as they say at weddings speak now or forever hold your peace. like this is the time for conservatives to say that's not

4:06 appropriate. It's not appropriate for a president to put his thumb on the scale. And and just in terms of our coverage, what is dishonest? What specifically is dishonest?

4:16 That Dale guy, like honestly, as we know, President Trump thinks that coverage that isn't flattering is fake. He's he has said before in the past that polls that show him trailing are fake. Um so I I you know I it's it's never fun to be the story. That's not what we like to do. We like to cover stories, not be part of the story. But I I mean I just think it's all and one other thing I'll just say, Tommy, is that the paramount deal for people who don't understand Netflix is just trying to buy the studios and the streamer. They're not trying to buy the cable news channels. We would be spun off into our own thing called Discovery Global. Um, but Paramount wants to buy everything.

5:05 That's why President Trump wants that because he wants new management at CNN. Um Paramount um that that is doing the deal that President Trump presumably is in favor of, their money is not just their money. It is also coming from the president's son-in-law,

5:24 Jared Kushner. Jared Kushner and perhaps most alarmingly the um Saudis public investment fund

5:33 and the Amiradis and the Qataris. Y yeah and I you know you could talk about foreign ownership and that's one subject but beyond that I mean it is interesting because conservatives have for years been decrying Al Jazzer as like terrorist news because they're out ofQatar and etc etc Qatari money to buy CNN. Nobody has a word of objection on the right. But beyond that, we know what MBS, Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, thinks about independent journalism or critical journalism because he has had a journalist killed according to the CIA. Killed. Yeah.

6:11 Jamaal Kosigible. So all of this is a longer answer than you wanted. All of this is part of this situation. And again to my friends on the right, speak now or forever hold your peace. Because like everything I've ever seen covering politics is a president gets a new toy of an expanded presidential power and the next president takes it and goes wild. Bush did drones, Obama went crazy with drones. Now Trump is using the same justification to go after drug traffickers. It's all just it keeps going and going and going and going and going.

6:46 And I look, I agree with you. By the way, Jared Kushner, I think he's got like $5 billion under management at his his firm, Affinity Partners. I think 99% of it is from foreign entities. All the same ones you just mentioned. So, he's just a pass through for them. He he uh he gets to invest their money in an investment these sovereign wealth funds would already be in and then takes a fee. So, why is he there? Clearly, there's someone thinks he's one way to grease this deal and get the political support they need from the administration. And I I should note that Paramount says that they would be non-governing partners. That presumes that the Saudis and the Amiradis and the Qataris are giving $24 billion out of the goodness of their hearts. They don't want to impact whether or not I can say in a broadcast that is seen internationally that NBS ordered the murder of Jamal Kosogi according to the

7:38 CIA. They they have no opinion on that. They they want to give $24 billion and they don't want to prevent me from saying that which is true. According to the CIA, NBS had Jamal Hosigi, an American resident killed and butchered. Like, okay, you can believe that if you want. Um,

7:57 you know, I I find it very unlikely that any sovereign wealth fund is going to spend $12 million, whatever it is, without some sort of string attached. Um, but you're right. Look, it's unprecedented times with this merger. Uh, unprecedented times even before this for the media generally. I want to ask you about some of that. I mean, back in October, the Pentagon press corps essentially just staged a walk out of the building um because Pete Hgsth and his team, the Secretary of Defense, demanded that they sign some document outlining this whole series of new rules, including one that basically prohibited the act of reporting. Could you just help listeners understand the impact of a policy like that on a journalist like yourself um kind of day-to-day? So, I did a a vertical video that that lays out in detail um what exactly the these this list was, this list of demands, but basically it was

8:44 uh opening the door to the Pentagon being able to label a journalist who reports anything they don't like a security risk. Uh, and it would criminalize not just the handing over by anybody in the Pentagon of classified information, but basically anything any information not approved, not not previously approved

9:09 by the Pentagon. Um, and I mean, one of the things that's uh there are two things that are very interesting about this. one, they have replaced all those actual journalists with with a bunch of sickopantic partisans who are just there to make Pete Haggath and Donald Trump look good, which is not what journalism is. And second of all, this move and like if you listen to what he says and his spokesperson Sean Parnell, they're saying, "Oh, we we need to do this to prevent classified information from being reported, which makes us weaker etc. etc.

9:48 Pete Hexath, the inspector general, the inspector general of the Pentagon said that his disclosure of pending attack information literally put pilots at risk. That's what the inspector general report that he said, you know, completely exonerated him, which it did not. That's what it did. So, like, if he can point to something that we in the media irresponsibly shared that put pilots at risk, I'd love to see it. But I can point to something that he did that put pilots at risk. So it's all just again I hope that the people on the right who are accepting this are excited for you know the next Democratic press secretary of the Pentagon to do the same thing and like only allow in the most sickopantic coverage. And yes, of course that means that you know whatever Mike Lindell media, My Pillow Media leaves and like we get in some like left-wing version of the same thing.

10:47 Sign me up, baby. I'll be there. I'm just kidding. Are they even good pillows is my question.

10:52 I don't know if they're good pillows. No, but what what is kind of I find funny about this in the near term, Jake, is that all these this like sickopantic group of influencers went to the Pentagon. They all took photos from the same cubicle and said it was like some Washington the Dan Lamont at the Washington Post. cubicle. But they were doing this they were doing this like pining right at the moment when the actual Pentagon press corps was breaking blockbuster stories about these boat strikes off the coast of Venezuela. So these these guys look like complete idiots. Now in the long term we don't really know exactly how bad these restrictions will be for Pentagon reporters. Does it mean they won't be allowed in the building? Will they not not be allowed to travel with the Secretary of Defense? Will they not be allowed in military installations around the world? will they not be allowed to

11:34 cover uh international conferences, you know, the Munich Security Forum or like whatever. So, I think over time it really will sort of erode and chip away at their ability to do the job. I think it's a big deal.

11:45 So, I I will just say just to toot my own horn and CNN's own horn, last week a reporter named Zack Cohen and I, CNN reporter Zack Cohen and I, we broke the story of what was in the Inspector General report about HEGs a day before it was released to the

11:59 public for Signalgate. Yeah. for signalgate and you know and that was just a clean kill. We just you know whatever and there's not one of those people in the Pentagon press corps or whatever they are the Pentagon

12:09 fluffers. Yeah. Uh there's not one of them uh even came close to you know and that whether you like Hegathth or not that is news. Uh let's say you love Pete Heg Seth you know uh and you wanted to put the nicest spin on it. You could, you know, like Hexath did like, but the point is they didn't even do that because they can't even do that because they're not breaking any stories,

12:33 right? They're not journalists. I mean, there also have been some kind of less draconian but impactful impactful changes to media access at the White House. The the short version is, you know, the media the White House changed the process for deciding who attends these smaller events. They're called pulled press events. And now more often than not, you have like the Oval Office includes a bunch of more psychicopantic kind of overly partisan questioners. Dudes like uh Marjorie Taylor Green's boyfriend. What do you think the impact of those changes has been over the last several months?

13:04 I have less of an issue of expanding the press pool to include new media, quote unquote. I mean, you know, people want to ask I this doesn't outrage me. Um, you know, I I for, you know, I have seen good journalism in unlikely places. Uh, I have seen good journalism in partisan places. I mean, the Free Beacon and the Daily Caller and I mean, there are a bunch of right-wing sites that I've read actual breaking news stories in. Um, so it that doesn't concern me. I know a lot of them were already part of the press pool and had been added during the Obama years. Uh but but beyond that, like that just that doesn't it's it's the exclusion of people that bothers me more than the inclusion.

13:48 Yeah. Like stripping out stripping out the wires, preventing the AP from entering the Oval Office for months and months, stuff like that.

13:55 Look, Caroline Levit, whatever people think about her, she does. And President Trump, whatever people think about him, they take questions from the legacy media. They do. Um and so if they want to expand the circle, I that doesn't really bother me. It's the exclusion that bothers me. Look, when you see Secretary Hegsth or Attorney General Bondi, they only do interviews, generally speaking. There are a couple exceptions here and there, but let's just stick stick with Hegath. Secretary Hath, I've only seen him taking questions from Fox, period. He doesn't like do press conferences, generally speaking, and when he does an interview, it's only with Fox. To me, that doesn't demonstrate strength.

14:37 To me, that doesn't demonstrate confidence. If I only agreed to do interviews with, you know, pro-Jake people on a book tour, um, then that would be that would, I think, be indicative of of me being scared.

14:54 Yeah. I mean, it's literally his former employer, too. It looks ridiculous. Um, all right, Jake. So, the book is called I got it right here, Race Against Terror. you trace uh the story of the prosecution of this one al-Qaeda terrorist and what it tells us about the broader war on terror. Um I want to dig into this, but can you just start like how'd you find this story? Why did you how'd you get onto this beat?

15:15 So um I hadn't written a non-fiction book in a while. I wrote The Outpost about Afghanistan came out in 2012. I'm sure you remember. Um I I keep alluding to this, but I was the White House correspondent for ABC News in Obama's first term and Tommy was the National Security Council spokesman. So like I just for people who don't know uh so like I would deal with Tommy and uh favs and everybody else and and so I wrote the outpost in 2012 as you remember and um I hadn't written it that book was so meaningful to me and it was such a powerful experience I there was just nothing that interested me as much and the and that book uh was I was inspired by the fact that my son Jack who's now 16 he had been born October 2nd 2009 and the outpost that I wrote about had the deadly attack um with 400 insurgents, you know, attacking 50 American soldiers the next day, October 3rd, 2009. And there was something profound in the in

16:14 the moment of holding my son and watching TV and hearing about eight eight American sons taken from this earth that set me on this path to try to find out what happened. Flat um fast forward to Jack's 13th birthday in uh 2022. We're out doing paintball.

16:30 Nice. uh in the you'll you know you'll a teenager. No, I had in previous years participated but then one time I I shot one of his kid one of his friends and he and the kid got really upset. So I stopped I stopped I stopped participating.

16:48 Yeah. Just don't you let let uh let let your little boy uh just play. Do not get involved. Um got it.

16:54 So I'm having this paintball party. It's October 2022 and because it's so far away, I had like refreshments and pizza for the grown-ups as well as the kids. So, the grown-ups could just come, drop their kid off, hang out for a couple hours, then leave instead of having to drive all the way back and forth, back and forth. And one of the dads comes up to me and he starts talking to me and he says, "Hey, I know so and so from the outpost." And I said, "Oh, great." And I said, like, you know, that but that book was really tough to write because the Pentagon keeps such shitty records and they're so reluctant to share anything.

17:24 and he said, "Tell me about it." And then he starts telling me this incredible story. He's an assistant US attorney in Brooklyn. He gets a phone call. It's 2011. It's during the Arab Spring and on one of these refugee boats uh full of Tunisians and Libyans is this guy who walks up to an Italian who is in charge of the boat and asks for water. The guy notices he has a bullet scar and says, "How'd you get that?" He said, "I got it fighting Americans in Afghanistan. time with al-Qaeda and they detain him and then they call the Americans and say, "Have you ever heard of this guy? He claims he's killed Americans in Afghanistan and they and they call the FBI and the FBI calls this dad that I'm talking to at this party, Dave Bitkau." and Dave Bitkau tells me this incredible story about they fly there, they hear his confession in Italy and then because it's the Obama era and GMO is not taking in any new people and the Italians

18:23 wouldn't have turned him over anyway. At that point, Europe was just so fed up with how the Americans were doing the war on terror, they wouldn't turn over anybody if they were going to GMO or doing a military or going to be subject to a military tribunal. So the only option was take him and and and prosecute him in the US in a criminal court, which is what Obama wanted to do. He wanted to try terrorists in criminal courts. And this was a big uh sticking point. And anyway, they had to prove this case. That's that's the thing. And so the the story that Bitkow told me was all about the soothing, all about like how do we prove this? How do we prove that this guy who claims he killed Americans in Afghanistan in like in the early days of the war on terror, 2002, 2003, how do we prove that he did this? And he just told me this unbelievable story about the clues and the evidence and then and then that's how this book

19:16 came about. I just thought it was just fascinating story. It ended up also being about the war on terror from Bush to Obama to Trump. Um, and what are the best tools? Do is it good to is it, you know, criminal courts the best place or whatever. And it also allowed me to revisit this era of, you know, that I had covered, but you when you're in the middle of it, you don't see it as clearly as, you know, 10 years later, which is why you got so mad when you were reading the book about like the the response from the public, not just Republicans, the public to you want you want to bring terrorists to the country to prosecute them. The response was as if they were like superhuman and were going to bust out of prison and kill everybody with lasers coming out of their fingers. And uh I I had completely forgotten all that.

20:07 We lost our minds. Yeah, this is such an important topic. I think first of all let's talk about this this question of whether the courts the article 3 courts the US judicial system can be used as a tool to prosecute prosecute terrorists because for a long time it was and then Republicans just demagogue the out of it and now it's kind of like off the table because just again just to wind back the tape you kind of alluded to this initially Obama comes in and makes this big decision to try Khaled Shik Muhammad and four other 911 hijackers in a court in New York and there's a huge political blowback. There's the kind of lot there's legitimate security risks.

20:43 There's legitimate fear, but there's a lot of just like kind of insanity like you were saying there, Jake. Like these guys are like you're literally going to bust out of a prison and kill people in Manhattan. And ultimately Obama was forced to shift the trial from the US court systems to a military commission at Gitmo in 2011 uh because the writing was just on the political wall. And so you and I are talking today December 11th, 2025. KSM hasn't even gone to trial yet. These cases are still struck in they're in pre-trial proceedings still. There's no end of those pre-trial proceedings in sight. And yet, Jake, there's no like discussion about this or political fallout over a decision that delayed justice for these individuals and for everyone impacted by 911. And it's just kind of like not discussed.

21:28 Yeah. No, I agree. One of the reasons that this happened and this book I mean again one of the things that was interesting about writing this book is just like you really get a sense of just the unrelenting nature of terrorism just like because it's like oh and then this guy happened and then then Zazi was going to blow up the subways and then you know and it's just like man to be in charge of protecting Americans whether Bush or Obama or Trump like what a weight on you to like have to like constant like all have to they only have to succeed once, right? So, um, one of the cases that I had completely forgotten had to do with a guy named Galani. This is in the book. Galani was the first and I believe to this day only terrorist from Gitmo tried in a criminal court. He was the only one taken from Gitmo tried to a criminal court in a criminal court. He was picked up after 9/11. He was tried for his role in the

22:28 1998 embassy bombings. And what happened during that trial was that the judge excluded the key witness because the prosecutors had only learned about his name from Galani being tortured by the CIA or enhanced interrogation, whatever people want to call it. Um, I just I'm just using torture colloquially. So, so that eliminated uh a witness and so that jury in Manhattan uh under then US attorney Pit Barara under Obama acquitted Galani of 284 out of 285 charges. They convicted him on one and so he did go to prison. But the idea that he almost walked scared the out of everybody in the Obama administration and the Justice Department and you know whatever and like in the national security apparatus.

23:26 They thought, "Oh my god, uh, this has real consequences." And that was one of the most instrumental actions or or happenings in terms of why the GIMO is still open and those guys still haven't gone to trial.

23:43 Yeah. And and just bigger picture, I mean, the book reminded me of those those early years of the Obama administration um and how terrifying it was. Like, look, there's a lot of commentary now about drone strikes. there's criticism of them, especially the volume of drone strikes. And a lot of that I frankly agree with. Um, but I also think that people do forget, like you said, how many very serious terrorist terrorist incidents or near misses there were during that time. For example, there was the 2009, there was the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farukq Abdul Matalib, who only because of user error basically uh failed to bring down a plane over Detroit. There were the attempted subway bombings that you mentioned. There was Najib Lulazi and his buddies were going to blow up the subway. Okay. There was the time square.

24:23 They just chickened out. Yeah. They just I think we were following them, right? That that the FBI was following them.

24:28 But then somebody screwed up on the George Washington Bridge and let him in and then he disappeared in Manhattan and like if he he he could have done what he was going to do and blow up these subways, him and his two accompllices. At the end of the day, they just got spooked and went back to Denver.

24:42 Yep. It was the near miss disaster. There was a Times Square guy, Fisel Shazad, uh which was similar like see something, say something, right? like that some like you know someone being very vendor was like hey this looks weird call the cops. Um and so I bring that up Jake because like again when I look back at the totality of the war on terror

25:00 it is an a catastrophic failure abject failure. Like the Taliban are running Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda is not defeated. Not even close. It's in more places that just change its name and metastasize. Right. But there also hasn't been another 911.

25:14 Yeah. I don't know you can say it's a total thing. I I this is the nuance I want to get is like there hasn't been another 911. Right. there aren't as many near misses and you have to at least partly credit counterterrorism efforts including drones and other military efforts for that. So I I like what what what do you where did you land on you know kind of the war on terror's efficacy after writing this?

25:35 Well, the good news is as a journalist I don't actually have to land anywhere. I could just like report what what's true. But I I will say this. First of all, I it's funny that you you talk about like wanting to remind people of how terrifying it was because I was thinking about this interview last night uh in bed and I was thinking about um I should confess how terrified I was after 9/11 because unless you because a lot of your listeners are either too young Well, yeah, a lot of your listeners are too young to remember 911 or or even have been alive during 911. And let me just say like I remember having a con a a I remember having lunch with my girlfriend at the time Sarah Fineberg who you know and Mike Feldman uh who you know and I remember like I was just a complete nihilist like a month or two after 9/11 I was just like what's the point? We're all going to die anyway. Like I the it was a traumatic event for the American

26:29 people. My dad worked at a company called Marsh Mlennon. Uh they were on like the 100th floor of the second tower. I think they lost 358 employees. Um thank god my father wasn't there. He wasn't one that I don't think he even worked in that building.

26:45 But it like you know I was still one of those kids walking around campus like trying to figure out what the was going on, not able to reach anybody, right? It was absolutely

26:53 Were you a canyon at that time? Yeah, I was a canyon. I was sitting in the middle of Ohio. Like boy, I've never been happier to be in the middle of nowhere in like rural Ohio, right? But but yeah,

27:02 I was here I was here in DC and we were being attacked. Yeah. I mean it was crazy. So like I I just the only reason I say this is because

27:10 people need to it's such an important part of this story how scared everybody was. And when I say everybody I mean everybody. I mean like people in the middle of like Kansas were convinced that al-Qaeda was going to come and poison their water supply. Like it was so traumatic. I mean, I imagine it must have been what like Pearl Harbor was like, just like, oh my god, like we're not safe

27:36 or Israel after October 7th, right? Like try to put in their shoes. Yeah. Exactly. So that's an important part of it. So So to to I don't want to belittle how scared people were by the idea of bringing terrorists to the United States. It's just that we're we have it's just different now. like Trump to his credit although I don't even know if he knows the debate about this um but like they are going they are trying to try the second foreign terrorist in a criminal court for killing US service members abroad. Jafar is this Pakistani who's part of ISIS Corusan who was part of the Abbey gate bombing in 2021.

28:15 Right. Yeah. And he and Trump announced during the address the joint session of Congress that Jafar is coming to the United States. He's here. He's in Virginia. He's a few miles away from me and he's going to be tried in a criminal court. Um I know I don't know whether Trump and Sebastian Gorka and all the others know that this was a very controversial thing to do if they had tried to do it in 2011.

28:39 Oh god. Lindsey Graham would have lit himself on fire in front of the White House. Yes.

28:42 Exactly. I mean like people, not just Lindsey Graham, Chuck Schumer, Michael Bloomberg, like people were scared. So that is, you know, that's an important part of the story, I think.

28:53 Yeah, I totally. So where did I land? I landed that um well, I don't actually have to have a position is the truth. Like is it better to do the military tribunals? Is it better to do uh criminal court? I mean, I guess, you know, if if the case can be tried in criminal court, those have those cases have proved effective. More than 300 terrorists have been uh convicted and put in prison. And hypo, you know, hypothetically, if spin ghoul, this particular terrorist that I write about, if he had been picked up in 2007 instead of 2011, and he had been sent to Gitmo, what do I think would have happened? I mean, it's it's, you know, it's entirely speculative, but I think it's entirely possible that he would have been freed because after a while in the effort to clear Gitmo, um, somebody would have said, "Well, we don't have any evidence. he just confessed to this that we don't we have nothing and since there wouldn't have

29:46 been the investigation that the US attorney's office uh in the Eastern District of New York did and all the soothing that I write about in the book maybe they would have let him free and then maybe he would have gone and killed as many Americans as possible which is his life's goal so I don't know but there's also the problem that uh war is not law enforcement and the and the me and the merging or the morphing or the blending or whatever. That's where I mean the it's not crazy that the Trump I mean I'm sorry that the Bush people came up with you know enemy combatants and everything they did like it's not it's not out of nowhere you know this this is all of a sudden like it's it's not they're waging war on us uh in a way that is not they don't abide by the laws of warfare. So, how are we supposed to address it? Is it a criminal? Do we come up with new case law? I mean, I understand why it all

30:50 happened. I just I just think at the end of the day, like it was effective to lock up Spin Ghoul and try him in a criminal court.

30:57 Yeah. Look, I I I have empathy for the fear. I have empathy for how hard the choices are. I just like I find the politics of it so frustrating because like there's just

31:06 decades and decades of like established case law and processes for trying and and putting in jail terrorists

31:12 and demagoguery is the thing also. It's like when you anything that we do in the media or any questions anybody has on Capitol Hill about whether you know this extrajudicial killing of drug dealers, drug traffickers or you know which Trump is calling narot terrorists is legal or right or effective

31:35 immediately the argument like you're on the side of the terrorists like it's juvenile. Charles Cook um uh who writes for the National Review wrote an entire column about this like it was very clever and very well done where but yes I'm on the side of the drug dealers. Yeah. You know it was just along those lines. I mean come on can we have can we be adults here for a second?

31:56 It's absurd and and so like you know to these bigger points I mean look I think a lot of Trump's appeal in both elections u was he ran against the Iraq war. He ran against nation building abroad. He ran against regime change wars abroad and like the mistakes from the war on terror. But now, as you said, the administration is murdering people in boats off the coast of Venezuela.

32:16 Well, I didn't say they were murdering. I said they're murdering people. There's this slowmoving regime change campaign to push out Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro that included, we're talking on again Wednesday, December 11th, on Tuesday, the day before, uh, US special forces like captured a a tanker off the coast of Venezuela. And like I just keep watching this news. I'm like, what is happening here? Like, who is driving this? What do the Republicans you talk to say about this sudden like thirst for I don't know this new Monroe doctrine in Latin America where I guess we're just the emperor of all these countries. So, I don't know that the seizure of the oil tanker belongs in the same bucket because Beth Sanner, who used to, as you know, um a pretty straight shooter who used to work in the uh director of national intelligence office, I think she was deputy, um she was on my show yesterday and she said

33:05 that she really just sees that seizure in the same light that she sees other seizures of other oil tankers in countries that are sanctioned by the United States, whether it's the Iranians or others. And apparently this operation they had a warrant uh that that the that you know there was actually

33:25 they papered it right and and they and they look they did some things right like I texted some friends who worked on Venezuela policy and I was like how is this not an act of war and they were like well you know actually it wasn't coming into the port it was leaving so they're not blockading the country. Uh no one knows where the vessel is flagged. So there's all these like technical

33:41 it didn't have the Venezuelan flag which is a law of law of sea. You have to have the you have to be flagged and practice

33:48 it's a ghost ship like I mean right I mean but I mean in practice the US just stole a Venezuelan tanker right like full at least full of Venezuelan oil

33:56 okay not to justify it but I think that this has been done in previous administrations including Democratic administrations not of Venezuela but of Iranian

34:05 uh tankers and I think that again I'm not justifying it but I do think that there is as you say they papered it there is there is a legal argument It wasn't just like out of nowhere. So, but that said, let's So, let me just differentiate that. Let's just remove that for one second. And again, I'm not I'm not defending it. I'm just saying like I think it's different. Um the idea of what the United States is doing when it comes to attacking, killing individuals on these boats. First of all, we should make it clear. Neither of us are in favor of drug traffickers and neither of us think that like members of drug cartels are good people. But that said, like these people on the boats, this is not El Chapo.

34:48 These are not like the brain trusts. These are not the this is not the commander, it's not the general, it's not the colonel, it's not the major. These are the privates. These are the people at the bottom of the totem pole that you put in a boat and you send them to like go to Surinom and drop off all this cocaine.

35:05 Fishermen doing another job. And the cocaine is important also because what's killing Americans is by and large opioids which we make ourselves and fentinyl which is basically the ingredients are coming from China and they're not going to Venezuela. So you know when you ask Republicans about this they're likely to say it's all funible, it's all drug lords. It's all the same thing. But this idea that

35:31 the the only reason why it's it's significant beyond the conceptual idea of like well they're all drug lords and all drugs are bad is because the argument the legal argument is for all the strikes forget the second strike you know the double tap or whatever for all the strikes the legal argument is they are killing Americans with drugs therefore they're are uh they're terrorists and therefore we can kill them

35:55 right they're terrorists obviously Yeah. And and and you know, you can have tremendous sympathy and think that we should be doing more about the war on drugs, etc., etc., and also say it's not really the same thing is 9/11, is it?

36:08 The whole the whole policy is insane. And and by the way, it's not the cocaine, right?

36:12 It's not the cocaine that is killing people in the thousands. It's the fentinol.

36:16 I just I think that someone is going to get prosecuted for this. It probably won't be Hegath or people at the top because Trump will pardon them. But he the HEGs in that team is putting uh US service members in the position of committing like daily war crimes and it's awful and it's just hard to watch. Um final question for you Jake. Your last book original sin which you wrote with Alex Thompson from Axios made a lot of waves. Um it was about you know President Biden his age and decline and the ways um that people around him prevented the disclosure of that decline. Um, I've noticed that the Biden people,

36:50 some some of your fellow podcasters uh were in the book. Favro was a was a was a character who weighed in seeing some of that

36:58 debilitated uh Oh, I was at that event. Yeah, I was at that event, too. It was rough. So, I have noticed um the Biden people didn't love your book. Um Biden's defenders didn't love your book. I've noticed that every time like Donald Trump stumbles or slips up or falls asleep, you often get attacked and kind of tagged in these tweets. Sometimes they tag me because they associate us as friends or us, you know, because the POS America said that the debate went badly for Biden, we're bad now. Um, how do you think the media is handling kind of these growing instances of Trump falling asleep in meetings or maybe seeming like he's losing a step? Like when is it a critical mass that it becomes bookworthy, right? For example,

37:37 so it's a great question. I mean, we cover it all the time on my show. all the time. And um I think that is that is to a large degree because we saw what happened with Biden and while we covered it, we didn't cover it. Maybe we didn't ask as many questions as we should have at the time. And I think it is a legitimate question for any president of any age, but particularly anybody who is like in the range of being an octogenarian, right? Um we cover it all the time. Now, I didn't write a book about uh Joe Biden's missteps. Alex and I wrote a book about an unprecedented event happening, which was Joe Biden having such a horrible performance at a presidential debate where his only job was to convince people he was up to the task of being president for another four years. His performance being so bad that people thought, "Oh my god, should he drop out of the race?" his not being able to do anything to disprove him,

38:39 which is like a really important part of this because, you know, we're all sympathetic to the idea that like anybody in public life can have a bad day, a bad performance, uh especially if you're tired. The question wasn't even about the performance of the debate, although it was unprecedentedly horrible. it was that he wasn't able to go out any time in the following weeks and make any Democrats feel or sufficient numbers of Democrats feel better that he could do this job. And frankly, I understand that there are a lot of people out there who think I would take President Biden in a coma over Donald Trump. I I understand I understand that.

39:21 First of all, it's not up to individual people who already love Biden. it it was up to a bunch of swing voters in like seven key states and they didn't feel that way. But beyond that, I don't know anybody who thinks that he could be president right now and all the way through 2029 in his current state. If you see him speak, if you see him walking, like I I feel bad for him.

39:47 Well, he's fighting cancer, too. Yeah, he's got some real beyond the cancer. And obviously we wish him well and I hope he lives to be a hundred, but like like he I don't know anybody who thought he was up to the to the to the I don't know anybody who thinks today that he is able to be president until 2029, which was the argument. So we were covering and then and then he basically he was chased out of the race by Democrats, not by me, but by Democrats who thought, "Oh my god." and they saw the polling that suggested that not only was Joe Biden going to lose hugely, but you know they were going to lose states that Democrats hadn't lost in a long time like Minnesota and New Mexico and Colorado and Virginia and New Hampshire. So that's what we covered. It wasn't like, oh, look at all these examples of Joe Biden being old. what we covered was like should he have run for reelection and why did they hide what

40:45 they hid um and and that's what it and it was just about the story of Biden being chased out of the race because of that. In terms of what we cover about Trump, I I mean I literally cover it all the time. Like literally yesterday, uh, I covered that crazy truth social rant when he was mad at the New York Times for covering his aging and he called it sedition or treasonous

41:10 and he attacked the appearance of the woman, the journalist. That was a few weeks before. Yeah. But I mean like lost track of crazy truth social script.

41:17 Yeah. No, it's tough to keep them straight. But but I mean we covered I covered it on social media and I also covered it on my show, right? Um, and like I do I cover it. I I agree tweets. I assume you see the tweets too and it's sort of like

41:30 I don't I don't is the truth because I have quality filters up because I've just for years it's just to be completely candid like um and a lot of it was started during the Trump years uh the first Trump years when if you were Jewish

41:51 uh you know the Nazis would come at you fun and so those filters were up and then after October 7th a lot of the Hamas sympathizers would come for so I don't see most of it is the truth but I'm aware that it's out there and I'll just say like I cover it all the time and if people so I don't really I don't take the criticism very seriously because I do cover it.

42:15 Yeah. No, I I see you covering it. Uh Jake, thank you for doing the show. The book is called Race Against Terror. Everyone should pick up a copy, give it a read. It's really an incredible story. of this one individual case, but what it tells us about a couple decades of a war on terror policy um that uh I guess the the story is yet to be written. But great to see you, buddy. Thank you for doing the show.

42:34 Thank you so much, Tommy. Say hi to everybody else. I will.

Questions about this episode

What is "Jake Tapper's Honest Take On Donald Trump and How Media Has Changed" about?

Jake Tapper discusses the current state of CNN amidst corporate media dynamics and President Trump's critical remarks about the network's leadership. He reflects on the impact of these developments on his newsroom and the broader media landscape while also touching on themes from his new book related to counterterrorism and historical debates from the Obama administration era.

What is mentioned in this Pod Save America episode?

93 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Pentagon, Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), The Outpost, Inspector General (Pentagon), Washington, D.C., Race Against Terror. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Jake Tapper's Honest Take On Donald Trump and How Media Has Changed"?

The episode runs 43 min; the transcript is about 8,024 words in 95 timestamped sections.

More from Pod Save America

• All analyzed episodes
• Books mentioned on Pod Save America
• People mentioned on Pod Save America
• Sponsors mentioned on Pod Save America
• Topics mentioned on Pod Save America