CNN anchor Jake Tapper won’t take no answer for an answer. “I want to move on to other issues,” Tapper told Vice President-elect Mike Pence during an interview last week, “but I’m afraid I just didn’t get an answer.”
As The New York Times reports, Tapper has stood out since the election for pressing politicians to actually answer questions–even if it means, as it did with Donald Trump himself during an interview over the summer, returning to a question 23 separate times.
In this “year in which basic facts and basic decency are at risk, persistence is important at the end of the day,” Tapper told The Times. His goal, he said was to “draw basic lines about truth and decency and trying to get answers to questions.”
Insisting the powerful answer questions may mean those people will avoid agreeing to interviews–unless, of course, it becomes common practice–meaning there’s nowhere left to hide. “We’re not supposed to be providing people in power with safe spaces,” Tapper said.