CNN host of “The Lead” Jake Tapper was officially nuked by his daughter in Men’s Health.
His 11-year-old daughter informed the TV cable news host that getting off his stinking smartphone and spending time with his kids might be an optimal thing for him to do. No one can fault him for being on social media — it is begrudgingly part of the journalism landscape. But as any online observer knows, Tapper spends an obscene amount of time tweeting.
JAKE: What do I need to work on as a dad?
Really. He even needed to ask?
DAUGHTER: Being off your phone [pauses to think] and not worrying about the world around us and just spending some quality time with us.
The whole premise of the piece is a bit weird: “Jake Tapper Interviews His Kids About How He’s Doing As A Dad.”
What? What kind of lunatic reporter would subject himself to that? As I’ve previously written in The Mirror, Jake Tapper is mushugganah. (RELATED: Jake Tapper Is Mushugganah) So let’s remember that as we wade through this.
Tapper’s nine-year-old son thinks Daddy yells too much.
At one point in the piece, he hilariously says, “Shhh! Be quiet, Mr. Yell!”
The son couldn’t care less about the news.
The daughter, meanwhile, eventually acknowledges that Tapper gives them lots of attention and helps them with their homework and other issues.
Both Tapper’s son and daughter get crap from friends for Tapper being on TV. But the daughter doesn’t wish he had a different job. The son wants Legos.
Tapper isn’t the only well-known journalist to get mediocre public kid reviews. In January, 2018, Slate interviewed Hugo Smith, the 14-year-old son of BuzzFeed‘s Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, on this very topic.
Hugo Smith says a lot of kind things about his dad, but he makes it clear that he’s “always” on Twitter. They even had to implement a ground rule for Smith to go to another room to do his work and then return when he could listen to his son like a remotely normal human being.
This should qualify as quasi-child abuse, but Hugo got his own Twitter account when he was 5. In the interview, he says he had to go back and delete his “baby tweets.”
SLATE: Can you reach your dad when he’s at work?
Is this a trick question?
Hugo: Sometimes he turns off his phone if he’s in a meeting. Or puts it in ‘Do Not Disturb’ or airplane mode when he needs to charge his phone because it’s constantly dying. I usually text him first. Then call him. If that doesn’t work I WhatsApp him. And if that doesn’t work I call him over Signal. He usually responds within 5 to 10 minutes.
Let’s hope the kids didn’t see this one — Tapper recently suggested that President Trump‘s longtime adviser and friend Roger Stone, who was recently indicted on seven counts, “might like” prison. In typical Stone fashion, he shot back that Tapper “looks light in the loafers.”
My only hope is that for Tapper’s family follow-up, he will interview his cute dogs, Winston and Clementine Tapper. Let’s see what the pooches have to say about Tapper’s pet parenting.
???? chillin pic.twitter.com/wGXp0jylet
— WinstonTapper (@WinstonTapper) February 9, 2019
Happy New Year from the Tappers!!! ???? ???? ???? pic.twitter.com/Tt0Ru2nsTJ
— WinstonTapper (@WinstonTapper) January 1, 2019
Be forewarned: Winston has his own Twitter account in which Clementine makes regular appearances, so scheduling their chats might be a problem.
