CNN’s Jake Tapper came under fire over the weekend for what has widely been interpreted as a “homophobic” comment that he made about Roger Stone following the FBI arresting Stone as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, was arrested on Friday and “indicted on seven counts: five counts of making false statements, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstruction,” The Daily Wire reported. “None of the charges include conspiring with Russian agents or WikiLeaks; instead, they are charges related to the process of the investigation, as is the case with most of the charges thus far brought by Mueller.”
Following Stone’s arrest and release on Bond, Tapper led a panel discussion on the political operative.
“I mean, the truth is no one’s going to cry if Roger Stone goes to jail or when he goes to jail,” CNN political commentator Jen Psaki said.
“He might like it,” Tapper responded.
“He might,” Psaki responded. “Who knows?”
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Tapper’s remarks, which were instantly seen by most as being homophobic in nature, were widely condemned on social media.
“Let’s play the ‘Imagine the fury if a conservative said something this flagrantly homophobic,'” Trump Jr. tweeted. “Truly disgusting… but of course no consequences.”
The Hill’s Buck Sexton also weighed in, noting: “This was a disgusting and stupid comment. But few will say that publicly, because they don’t want their twitter DMs to get filled up with threats to call their boss or otherwise undermine their career.”
Sexton’s commentary on Tapper comes in response to Tapper’s well-documented pattern of behavior where he privately messages people on Twitter and complains about things they write or say about him. This pattern of behavior is common enough from Tapper that the HuffPost put Tapper at the top of its list of “The Thinnest Skins In Media In 2018.”
Republican strategist Arthur Schwartz also weighed in on Tapper’s comments, calling him “Disgraceful.”
Tapper’s comments were in part largely viewed as homophobic due to even more blatantly obvious examples of homophobia that appeared on social media earlier in the day from other media figures.
Following his release from custody on bond, Stone told reporters on Friday that he would not testify against the president because that would require him to lie.
Fox News contributor and National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy noted that Stone’s indictment was further proof “that there was no criminal ‘collusion’ conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
“What matters is this: The indictment is just the latest blatant demonstration that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, the Department of Justice, and the FBI have known for many months that there was no such conspiracy,” McCarthy wrote. “And yet, fully aware that the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and the FBI had assiduously crafted a public narrative that Trump may have been in cahoots with the Russian regime, they have allowed that cloud of suspicion to hover over the presidency — over the Trump administration’s efforts to govern — heedless of the damage to the country.”