It was a celebratory Monday evening in New York for Jake Tapper. He got to hang out with some of his oldest friends from the Akiba Hebrew Academy (his high school) and from Dartmouth, as well as newer ones from CNN.
They all gathered together for some food and drink at the WeWork building in Bryant Park this evening to celebrate Tapper’s new book, The Hellfire Club.
The host of The Lead and State of the Union kept his remarks brief, giving a shout out to folks he spotted in the room, including CNN Worldwide chief Jeff Zucker, evp of talent and content development Amy Entelis, CNN Tonight anchor Don Lemon, CNN Newsroom anchors Poppy Harlow and Brooke Baldwin, and CNN senior tech correspondent Laurie Segall. “It’s just such a great place to work,” Tapper said of CNN, “a wonderful place to be and they support you, and when I told them I was writing the novel, everyone was great about it and very supportive.”
Tapper joked that Zucker still hasn’t read The Hellfire Club, “but that hasn’t hurt my feelings at all … not even a little bit.”
He continued: “It has been on the New York Times best-seller list for four weeks, but that’s OK.”
Others in attendance included actor Ben Stiller, Reliable Sources host/senior media correspondent Brian Stelter, CNN Newsroom anchor Kate Bolduan, The Lead executive producer Federico Quadrani, HLN host S.E. Cupp (who reminded me this particular WeWork building once housed the Republican Club) and The View co-host Meghan McCain.