How Does Jake Tapper Have the Energy for This?

I really don’t know how Jake Tapper does it. How does any journalist, in this the two thousand nineteenth year of some lord, still try to nail Trump administration officials on their hypocrisy with regards to Democratic presidents? Who has the energy?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was on Jake Tapper’s Sunday show “State of the Union” on, you guessed it, Sunday to talk about how the Trump administration botched a potential peace detail with the Taliban. The optics of inviting Taliban leaders to Camp David ahead of the 9/11 seems weird, but having a role in ending the war we started when I was in elementary school would be nice!

ANYWAY, Pompeo was on “State of the Union,” and Tapper had some thoughts.

Because it’s TV, the thoughts are a bit long. Transcript via CNN:

“I guess the question I have is — you keep talking about President Trump saying he believed that having the Taliban at Camp David, along with Afghan President Ghani, that he would be able to — to get these peace negotiations going.

What about you? What did you think? Did you have any problem with the Taliban being invited to Camp David?

You’re an Army veteran. I — I can’t help but think that, if a Democratic president had talked about having the Taliban come to Camp David to negotiate a peace process that was not already a done deal that you, as a congressman, as a — as a — as a soldier, as a veteran, as a West Point graduate, that you would be rather upset.”

Pompeo volleys Tapper’s righteous anger right back to him. “Yes, Jake, you’re just wrong about that. I’ve been fully supportive of this effort, the direction that we have taken at the State Department, the effort President Trump has given us guidance to go deliver on something I think is important, it’s valuable,” Pompeo said. “I think the timing is just right.”

Who has the energy to get any Trump official to admit their complicity in the administration’s hypocrisy?! They don’t care if you notice they’re hypocrisy!

In fact, Pompeo used the opportunity to bring up the former president. “If I was worried about Barack Obama and President Obama, it was because he was prepared to leave without insuring that we could protect America. This administration will never do that,” Pompeo said, somehow with a straight face.

The administration—and journalists trying to catch the administration in some sort of “gotcha!” moment—have tired me out. I don’t understand what we, the public, gain by this line of questioning. Trump administration officials will just dance around or walk straight through the hypocrisy.

They don’t care.

Here’s Pompeo’s interview with CNN: