Jake Tapper is quickly becoming late night TV’s “news translator.” The CNN newsman appeared on TBS’s Conan yesterday evening, the third late night talk show he has appeared on in less than a month. Tapper stopped by NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers in January, and CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert just days ago.
Similar to Tapper and Colbert, Tapper and Conan O’Brien have a bit of history. Not only are the two men are employed by sister networks under the Turner umbrella, but Conan appeared on The Lead in March 2015 to speak about his trip to Cuba, while Tapper returned the favor in June 2015 and March 2016, appearing on Conan in-studio both times.
While Tapper was primarily on the program to promote the new CNN series The History of Comedy, the resignation of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn became a major topic of conversation. O’Brien wondered aloud: “What did President Trump know, and when did he know it?…does that particular angle have any legs, and will that be a story?”
“I think so, and yes, we are only four weeks in,” said Tapper. “It is pretty early to be saying ‘what did the president know and when did he know it, and why didn’t he disclose it to the American people when he knew?'”
Tapper said these types of issues aren’t totally unique to the Trump administration, but that “usually, we get into a ‘what did the president know and when did he know it?’ event two years into the second term, not four weeks into the first.”
Later in the interview, Tapper mentioned that the president “seems to thrive on chaos,” and while he conceded that the media indeed “likes news,” it isn’t used to this degree of chaos. “It can all be very confusing,” said Tapper. “I like news, this is exhausting though.”