Jake Tapper's Defense Of Peter Doocy Leaves Jimmy Kimmel Shocked
There's not much love lost between CNN and Fox News. For example, CNN's Jim Acosta has said Fox News delivers "lie after lie," and on Fox News, there was a segment that featured Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfeld discussing who was the "dumbest" CNN host. So, it was perhaps a bit of a surprise when Jake Tapper, a host on CNN, went on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and supported a Fox News reporter.
As Jimmy Kimmel's show opened, he brought up the moment when President Joe Biden sarcastically responded to a question about inflation having an impact on the midterm elections from Peter Doocy, Fox News White House correspondent, by calling Doocy "a stupid son of a b****" (via YouTube). Kimmel said with a smile, seemingly in approval, "There's old snarky malarkey, we've been wondering where he was!"
The hot mic moment came up again later in the show, but with a different spin to it when Kimmel sat down with Tapper and asked if his life was boring now that Donald Trump wasn't president. Tapper said, "No, the current president just called someone a dumb son of a b**** today."
What Kimmel found funny, Tapper found below a standard of decency
While Jimmy Kimmel seemed to find the situation funny, Jake Tapper didn't think so. Tapper went on to voice his disapproval of what Joe Biden did and in support of Peter Doocy's question, saying "I don't think any president should be calling any journalist a dumb son of a b****. And to be fair to Peter Doocy, the question was fairly anodyne." He also noted on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" the fact that Biden knew that people would hear him because he said it at a press conference while at the podium.
Kimmel pushed back, bringing up the fact that Fox News refers to Tapper as "a mouthpiece for the Democrats and yet here you are defending Peter Doocy". Tapper clarified his perhaps unexpected stance, saying "standards for decency don't have to do with whether or not you like the people that are being treated poorly. It just has to do with the standard."
The CNN host did acknowledge that if the situation was reversed, he wouldn't expect Fox News to back him up, saying, "And yes, I recognize that Peter's channel probably would never come to my defense like that, but it is what it is." The discussion of whether what Biden said to Doocy was beneath the office of the presidency also happened over on "The View" with the hosts taking opposing sides.