Jon Stewart has a pretty good point there.
Of course, The Daily Show host can conjure up some political feelings. Sure, the Comedy Central program can seem to challenge the Republican point of view more than the Democratic one. But in my opinion, Jon Stewart does a good job of not holding any punches and going after his own side of the aisle when the situation calls for it.
That was especially evident as the topic of Jake Tapper’s new book took center stage in Stewart’s most recent episode.
In case you haven’t heard, CNN’s Jake Tapper and author Alex Thompson wrote a book titled Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover Up, And His Disastrous Choice To Run Again. The literature did a deep dive into Biden’s term as POTUS, and the physical and mental decline that occurred that was rarely covered – and more often challenged. Ironically, more left-leaning news sources like CNN, and even Jake Tapper himself were the ones that often struck down talk about Biden not being mentally competent.
But then Jake Tapper was writing this book about the former president’s decline the whole time? How does that make sense?
Considering the book had a May 20, 2025 release date, and that books (certainly those with a lot of research and insider knowledge) just don’t come together in a couple of months, Tapper was most definitely working on this project in 2024. But did any of the info that was found out and included in Original Sin find its way to CNN’s airwaves? Well no… because Tapper wanted people to buy the book.
That’s what comedian Jon Stewart pointed out and went after. In his latest rendition of The Daily Show (he typically only hosts on Mondays), he first played a montage of Jake Tapper plugging his book over and over (and over) again on air before absolutely ripping into Tapper for basically withholding information from the public so it could instead be included in his book:
“Don’t news people have to tell you what they know when they find it out? Isn’t that the difference between news and a secret? ‘You won’t believe what we found out.’ No, that’s why I’m watching you. ‘BREAKING NEWS… in a week (when the book comes out).'”
Nailed it.
Obviously, the book’s momentum and the talk around it has slowed down a bit because of the news of former President Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis. The timing of that announcement was not beneficial for Tapper’s book release, which basically sets out to showcase how brittle and incoherent Biden was during his term… even though his real-time reporting of the former President on CNN was saying much of the opposite.
Jon Stewart brilliantly pointed out that Joe Biden cancer news somehow didn’t stop CNN from trying to plug Original Sin. Instead, they just started doing it in a more somber way:
“Some observers might think, ‘Do these CNN people work on commission?’ Why are the hawking this f***ing thing?”
Say what you want about Jon Stewart, but his comedic and political commentary on this matter was a bullseye. And how fitting is it that the news in Jake Tapper’s book suddenly became old news when Joe Biden’s diagnosis became public.
If only Tapper had some other platform that he could have shared the “president in cognitive decline” news through as it was happening…
