WATCH: Jake Tapper speaks "truth to crazy", says Maher, against Trump's efforts to "discredit the entire fourth estate"

“I’ve never really seen this level of falsehood,” said CNN's Jake Tapper of the Trump Administration

Published March 18, 2017 12:50PM (EDT)

CNN's Jake Tapper and Bill Maher talk "levels of falsehood" on Real Time 3.17.17
CNN's Jake Tapper and Bill Maher talk "levels of falsehood" on Real Time 3.17.17

When CNN host Jake Tapper joined Bill Maher on Real Time on Friday, he started out with porn. Fans of Maher over the years will note his fondness for mentioning the "sexual arts", and last night was no different. When Tapper and Maher began their conversation at the top of the show, Maher told Tapper, apropos of nothing, that "“Jake Tapper” sounds like the best porn name in the news business,".  Tapper kept his cool, “I’m glad you’re familiar with my earlier work.”

Maher complemented Tapper on keeping the news cycle smart in light of the challenges of keeping up with President Trump's often-erratic behavior. The two launched into a conversation about the president's tendency to simply make up facts and ideas, and Tapper noted how unusual Trump really is, and not in a good way. “I’ve never really seen this level of falsehood,” Tapper said. “Just quantitatively. It’s not just ‘If  you like your doctor you can keep your doctor,’ it’s conspiracy theories based on nothing that have members of his own party distancing themselves from him.” Maher asked how Tapper's work had changed since the inauguration, and pointed to his trend in “speaking truth to crazy.”

Tapper scolded the president for his lack of decorum across all spheres. “The truth of the matter is that there’s no bias when it comes to facts and there’s no bias when it comes to decency,” Tapper noted. “It is empirically indecent to make fun of the disabled. You don’t have to be a Democrat or a Republican or Independent or socialist or libertarian. That is just indecent. My children know better than that.”

And, Tapper wasn't born yesterday.  “Politicians lie,” he noted. “It wasn’t invented on January 20.” Trump, however, has fostered a whole new standard of untruth with his nutty Tweet behavior and fondness for conspiracy theories, while calling the media "fake news" to take away from his own missteps.  Tapper said Trump's new level of dishonesty has come with “an attempt to discredit the entire fourth estate, the entire media — we’re all fake news except for Fox And Friends.”

 


By Alli Joseph

Alli Joseph is a writer/producer and family historian; a Native New Yorker, she is a member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation.

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