The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (TV Series)

Jake Tapper/Erik Bergstrom/Liam Payne and J Balvin (2018)

Jake Tapper: Self

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Quotes 

• Self - Host : good to see you

  Jake Tapper : [referring to the audience's applause]  that's nice, you get that every night, huh?

  Self - Host : yeah, only when your here

  Jake Tapper : I gotta get that, I don't have an audience on my set: just a crew

  Self - Host : Bob Corker said "Trump was debasing the Office of the Presidency." Flake today said today "I'm outta here! This is heaven help us, where our country is going." McCain is taking "shots" at Trump, but all these guys are leaving, is this act of "defiance" or is it this act of "surrendering" in your opinion?

  Jake Tapper : well, first of all, to be fair, Flake and McCain, I don't think voted for Trump and they made their opposition to Trump "fairly clear" last year. I mean, not as vociferously as today. I think McCain said after the Access Hollywood video came out, said he wasn't gonna vote for him

  Self - Host : uh huh

  Jake Tapper : Flake did the same, I don't think it's an act of "surrender", I think the Steve Bannon and the Breitbart's of the world see that and say "Trump broke Flake", Trump is breaking these people and it is in a good way for them, it's good that their leaving but I think we're in a different "period" right now, I've been reading a lot about the fifties lately and there was a "period" Joe McCarthy started in the late forties, his "crusade" of indecency and smears, and lies. President Trump and Joe McCarthy are very different historical figures but there is "something" similar. They say "History doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes" and when you read about that era, Joe McCarthy was doing indecent things and lying for years and years with Republican Senators and Democrats, not saying anything and there were people like Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine and then others who stood on the Senate floor and condemned it, but "mostly" people were quiet and history looks back on that time and says "Boy, what a bunch of wusses", they were wrong

  Self - Host : uh huh

  Jake Tapper : and I think when Senator Jeff Flake today said "There's gonna be a reckoning", people are gonna look back on this year and say " What were you doing? It's not McCarthyism, it's something else, all this indecency and all these lies, what did you do during that time?" It's something about all the time as an interviewer and as a broadcaster, there aren't two sides when it comes to the truth: there's one side, the truth

  Self - Host : [after the audience applauds]  so, you had Flake on today, right?

  Jake Tapper : yep

  Self - Host : did he tell you why his leaving? Why his not staying to fight?

  Jake Tapper : I asked him that very question and he said " That he thought this 'fever' that the Republican party is in, isn't gonna be over next year." In other words, he didn't think he was going to win, unless he ran the kind of campaign he wouldn't be "proud" of: an ugly, dirty, nasty campaign. A campaign he wouldn't have to "cozy" up to President Trump and that would make him feel uncomfortable

  Self - Host : but that is a "message" of despair? That's saying "The truth can't win"

  Jake Tapper : yeah, that's right, "the truth can't win in a Republican primary in Arizona" is what his saying

  Self - Host : oh ok, that's still not that "hopeful." So, do you think his pulling out he can prepare to run for President to "challenge" Trump? Did you ask him?

  Jake Tapper : I did ask him about that, he gave my favorite answer "Oh, that's a long way off." No, it's not, not really

  Self - Host : Donald Trump is raising money

  Jake Tapper : I mean I can tell you I'm not gonna run for President in 2020, he wouldn't say "No"

  Self - Host : but the "door" is for you Jake, right?

  Jake Tapper : for me? No, the "door" is closed

  Self - Host : [jokingly]  no one said anything about you running for President until you brought it up now and it's "out" there. I mean you have to admit, it's out" there right now on a national program, that talks about politics a lot that just "came out", I didn't have to "pry" it out of you

  Self - Host : [changing the subject]  ok, so does your McCarthy metaphor have any hook" to it?

  Jake Tapper : well, ultimately, McCarthy imploded

  Self - Host : well, ultimately, somebody stood up to him and said " At long last Senator, have you no shame?" Trump has no shame: we already know the answer to that one, you can't shame him into some "bad position", he'll continue without thought, continue to lie, to... maintain his power and his position, how do you think he gets taken down?

  Jake Tapper : I haven't "flipped a head", I don't know how it ends and also one of the questions is when you have McCain and Corker and there are other people that have been critical: Susan Collins of Maine, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, does that mean there's gonna be this big "rush" of Republicans to come out and say what they really think and condemn the fact we are being treated as a nation to more lies and indecency on a daily basis from this White House than we are used to? And I always say "I never bet on courage in Washington DC" and I never bet on politicians being candid and saying what they really think...

  Self - Host : [interrupts him]  on camera

  Jake Tapper : on camera, right, but who knows?

  Self - Host : do you hear things backstage? Do you hear things off camera? Are there things you'd like to tell us, that Senators or Congressmen or members have said to you that are off the record? And you go "Oh, Lord, I wish they'd say that out loud?"

  Jake Tapper : but I will tell you this and it won't come as any surprise to your viewers or audience but there are people both Republicans on Capitol Hill and Republicans in the Administration who feel as though this situation is what it is, it'd not going to change anytime soon, so the best they can do is to try to steer it in the "right" direction and I think it's one of the reasons you have people in the Administration like James Mattis, the Secretary of Defense or H. R. McMaster the national Security Advisor, etc. Bob Corker basically said he had been "trying" to do "that" as the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee as someone who was pro-Trump during the campaign but his finally just giving up, he can't be the balance on the ship anymore: it's rocking too much and who knows where it's headed but there are people in the Administration who feel like I mean everybody sees what's going on but some people feel "Ok, this is what we need to do, his the President and we need to steer the ship in the right direction"

  Self - Host : Bill O'Reilly took a "poke" at you couple days ago and Tweeted " Sean Hannity kicking serious butt in the ratings. Tapper on CNN as low as you can go", within ten minutes...

  Jake Tapper : [interrupts him]  fact check by the way, our ratings are fine, he just wanted to take a shot at me because I have been mentioning him as a sexual predator on air when we were covering the Harvey Weinstein scandal, we were also pointing out that Weinstein is not the only one: O'Reilly and Ailes were horrific sexual predators over at FOX

  Self - Host : and within ten minutes, you Tweeted back "Low would be sexually harassing staffers and then getting fired for it-- humiliated in front of the world. Now THAT would be low"

  Self - Host : [after laughing while the audience applauds, jokingly]  I don't even know what to say after that, I just wanted to share that with everybody: you are a very mean person Jake Tapper

  Jake Tapper : I'm a journalist so I like to explain things and felt he was using the word "low", "incorrectly"

  Self - Host : yeah, that's true

  Jake Tapper : I mean ratings go up and ratings go down but that's "low"