Ed wrote a great post this morning about MSNBC’s cratering ratings, and one tidbit in there caught my eye: Jake Tapper’s ratings at CNN have dropped like a rock in the past couple of months as well.
Not by a little, and apparently not related to the normal post-election drop in interest that all political shows and sites see. (Related: get more of your friends to come to Hot Air! The summer doldrums are coming, and I can always use more readers in the summer!).
No, there is an inescapable correlation between Tapper’s ratings fall and the publicity blitz for his book. The more people learn about the book, the less interested they are in hearing from Jake Tapper.
Jake Tapper’s CNN show lost 25% of their audience since releasing his book.
The Lead with Jake Tapper hit a nearly decade-low in ratings in May, averaging 525,000 viewers from April 28 to May 25. pic.twitter.com/G5nnxGRM1A
— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 29, 2025
CNN host Jake Tapper had his lowest-rated month in nearly a decade in May despite a whirlwind publicity tour giving him an onslaught of attention.
Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson’s new book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” was released in May to much fanfare. The book helped set the recent news cycle with new accusations of the Biden White House hiding the truth about the former president’s fitness for office.
To promote the project, Tapper has embarked on a wide-ranging book tour that landed him on a variety of podcasts, talk shows and cable news. The book has also been promoted relentlessly across CNN, but the spotlight on Tapper has seemingly failed to give him a boost in viewership.
“The Lead with Jake Tapper” averaged 525,000 total viewers from April 28 through May 25, shedding 25% of CNN’s audience in its timeslot from the same period last year in the process.
By comparison, Fox News offerings “The Five” and “Special Report with Bret Baier” averaged 3.3 million viewers from April 28 through May 25, trouncing Tapper.
MSNBC also beat Tapper among total viewers, as programming on the progressive network averaged a little over one million viewers in the timeslot. As a result, Tapper settled for only 11% of the cable news audience share, while MSNBC managed 21% and Fox News commanded 68% during the timeframe.
Of all the “now it can be told” books coming out, “Original Sin” has by far gotten the most time on TV and podcasts, and the coverage has been glowing. CNN hosts frequently promote the book, almost tediously, and the book itself is selling quite well because it contains a lot of genuinely interesting information. Since the Biden Brain Hoax is the biggest political scandal in years, people want the scoop, and even if Tapper and Thompson are not the perfect messengers, they have some juicy quotes and stories that political junkies eat up.
But…while Thompson did some good reporting during Biden’s term, Tapper’s behavior was execrable throughout Biden’s term, at least up to the point where defending Biden became untenable.
That fact hasn’t gone unnoticed, and Tapper is getting raked over the coals for being one of the chief hoaxers during the Biden term.
Megyn Kelly nails Jake Tapper to the wall here about his participation & complicity in the Biden cover-up.pic.twitter.com/H6AparFdXg
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) May 20, 2025
And rightly so. Tapper ran cover for the Biden administration, attacked anybody who questioned Biden’s acuity, and accused The Wall Street Journal of being propagandists for Rupert Murdoch. He spewed hatred at Lara Trump for attacking Joe Biden’s “stutter,” and expressed disgust at anybody who questioned Joe Biden’s towering intellect.
Here’s Jake Tapper incensed over Joe Biden’s “stutter” and outraged over claims of Biden’s cognitive decline.
Now he’s cashing in on a book about Biden’s cognitive decline and media cover up. There is no bottom for these people.
pic.twitter.com/rdNdqh4YKQ— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) February 26, 2025
“Journalists” are not supposed to do this sort of thing, right? Most of them do, of course, which is why trust in the Pravda Media has plummeted so much, but the spotlight on Tapper has been far more damaging than a similar spotlight on Joe Scarborough, who nobody really thinks of as a journalist. Tapper still had a bit of the shine for the low-information voter who thought they were getting a reliable take from Jake, and he is on a tour promoting a book that contradicts what he was saying when Slow Joe was president.
Tapper’s audience believed that he was a journalist in the mold of Bernard Shaw–you know, the old days, when CNN reported the news. His book tour has, if accidentally, shown people that he was part of the conspiracy, and even though he presents himself as a truth-teller, nobody believes him anymore.
I didn’t know human beings were capable of the level of audacity and fraud that drives Jake Tapper’s book tour: pretending he’s the angry victim of the WH which prevented him from knowing about Biden’s cognitive decline.
Here’s what he did the day the WSJ article came out: pic.twitter.com/ODSoSxnozb
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 14, 2025
You can see it in the ratings. Fox is doing great, CNN and Tapper are still tanking.
Aaron Rupar’s take on this is telling–he basically says “you should have kept up the lying,” and from a ratings perspective, he is likely right. Original Sin helps pop the bubble in which so many moderates and liberals lived, and Rupar’s take is that the role of the “journalist” is to keep the Truman Show going. Failing to do so is a betrayal, and doing so deserves punishment.
Jake Tapper’s ratings are at their lowest point in a decade. This is what happens when you betray your audience in hopes you can sell some books to Trump supporters (a bad strategy since they won’t read it and hated you to begin with) https://t.co/V4LxD8we8e
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 30, 2025
Most people would kill to get a publicity blitz like the one Tapper has been enjoying, but then again, most people’s publicity blitzes wouldn’t carry the implicit message that you are a big fat liar in your day job.
It’s no wonder Tapper had to hire a crisis communications firm, and his book tour has in many ways transformed into an apology tour.
Jake Tapper hires crisis PR firm. Jake Tapper suddenly discovers “Humility.” pic.twitter.com/DGGCqePY75
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) May 27, 2025
Viewers seem to be saying, “Apology not accepted.” They will buy the book for the tidbits and revelations, but also wonder how many of these “revelations” Tapper held back (or even denied the reality of) when it mattered.
