CNN anchor Jake Tapper took a veiled shot at Fox News during a Sunday morning discussion about media polarization with former national security advisor H.R. McMaster.
McMaster and Tapper were discussing President Donald Trump’s impeachment for inciting the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. After McMaster expressed his belief that the president was largely responsible and shouldn’t consider running again in 2024, he went on to lament the media’s role in the current political divide.
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“We’ve been talking about the president’s responsibility, but it didn’t start there, right?” McMaster told Tapper during the “State of the Union” conversation. “This loss of confidence, these large portions of our population which feel disenfranchised, that lack confidence in our common identity as Americans, who lack confidence in our democratic principles and institutions and processes. How did that happen?”
“We need to look at education and civics education, a sense of our history and who we are,” he continued. “We have to look at your profession, Jake, the media. Why is it that people who lean in one direction politically watch one cable news station, and some who lean in another direction watch yours or another one? Why do people go to the pseudo-media and believe these kind of conspiracy theories?”
Tapper immediately took issue with the characterization of CNN as having contributed to the state of affairs before presumably taking aim at Fox News without directly naming them. (RELATED: Ben Sasse Blasts QAnon In Op-Ed: ‘Nourished By Treachery, Poor Political Judgement, And Cowardice’)
“There are channels in which lies are told, and there are channels in which facts are told, and people who want the lies, they don’t come here,” Tapper said. “They go to a different channel.”
“I’m just stating a fact,” McMaster said. “There is no authoritative source of information these days … that everybody goes to.”