Trump Ag Sec­re­tary Laughs After Jake Tap­per Insists ‘I’m NOT On The Left’

Jake Tap­per has denied being “of the left.” 

On Sun­day’s edi­tion of CNN’s State of the Union, host Tap­per, in a loaded ques­tion, asked Sec­re­tary of Agri­cul­ture Brooke Rollins: “How long do you antic­i­pate this tar­iff chaos is going to be going on? 30 days, 60 days, 90 days?”

In response, Rollins wry­ly respond­ed:

“We’re now two days in, right? You’ve got two days of data. Every­one, espe­cial­ly on your side, on the left, is freak­ing out.”

Snapped back Tap­per: “I’m not on the left.”

That earned a sar­don­ic laugh [see screen­cap] and “thank you” from Rollins.

So, Tap­per is “not on the left.” Real­ly? Let’s go to his record.

But before doing so, we’ll quote the late, great come­di­an Hen­ny Young­man, who when asked how his wife was, replied, “com­pared to what?”  

So we’ll stip­u­late that Tap­per, while lean­ing to port, does not list as decid­ed­ly to the left com­pared to some oth­ers in the lib­er­al media. He’s not anoth­er Jim—Acosta or Sciut­to. Not to men­tion the likes of Nicolle Wal­lace or Joy Reid.

But back to Tap­per’s record. Before com­ing to CNN, Tap­per was:

• Press sec­re­tary to Dem Con­gress­woman Mar­jorie Mar­golies-Mezvin­sky.
• Spokesman for Hand­gun Con­trol, sub­se­quent­ly named the Brady Cen­ter to Pre­vent Gun Vio­lence.
• Senior writer at the Wash­ing­ton City Paper, a lefty alter­na­tive paper whose alums include left­ists like Ta-Nehisi Coates.
• Wash­ing­ton cor­re­spon­dent for the left­ist web­site Salon.

And yes, it’s pos­si­ble that Tap­per and his wife are anoth­er unlike­ly duo, much like James Carville and Mary Matal­in. But if Tap­per is pro-life, how like­ly is it that he would have mar­ried a for­mer Planned Par­ent­hood offi­cial?

As for his tenure at CNN, just in recent times our Nicholas Fon­dac­aro caught Tap­per com­plain­ing about Elon Musk shin­ing a spot­light on Mus­lim rape gangs in the UK, and deny­ing Stephen Miller’s asser­tion that the great major­i­ty of career fed­er­al employ­ees are left wing. Miller had offered the exam­ple of USAID, where 98% of the work­force donat­ed to Kamala Har­ris or anoth­er left-wing can­di­date.

CNN was also found liable for Tap­per, in a report on The Lead With Jake Tap­per, hav­ing defamed Zachary Young as a “black mar­ket” hus­tler who charged “exor­bi­tant fees” for help­ing peo­ple leave Afghanistan. The jury award­ed Young $5 mil­lion in dam­ages and also found CNN liable for puni­tive dam­ages, which the par­ties set­tled out of court.

In his depo­si­tion for that tri­al, Tap­per laugh­ably claimed, “I do not pay atten­tion to rat­ings.” Fox News sub­se­quent­ly uncov­ered mul­ti­ple tweets by Tap­per boast­ing of his shows’ rat­ings. Oops.

Most recent­ly, Tap­per announced that next month, he and CNN ana­lyst Alex Thomp­son will be releas­ing a book on the cov­er-up of Joe Biden’s decline. 

Okay. But it comes 10 months after Biden quit the race. While Biden was still in office and run­ning for re-elec­tion, Tap­per was part of the “cheap-fake” sham­ing brigade that allowed Biden to decline in office.  In 2020, Lara Trump, in an appear­ance on Tap­per’s State of the Union, said that Biden was in obvi­ous “cog­ni­tive decline.” Tap­per scold­ed her for sup­pos­ed­ly mock­ing Biden’s “stut­ter” and cut the seg­ment short.

Bot­tom line: while Tap­per is not among the worst offend­ers in the lib­er­al media, Brooke Rollins had it right in call­ing him a mem­ber of the left.

Here’s the tran­script.

CNN
State of the Union
4/6/25
9:02 am EDT

JAKE TAPPER: Let’s talk about these tar­iffs now with some­body who has had to deal very close­ly with the tar­iffs and the fall­out from the tar­iffs. The Sec­re­tary of Agri­cul­ture, Brooke Rollins joins us now. Sec­re­tary Rollins, wel­come to State of the Union. Thanks so much for join­ing us. 

Fed Chair Jerome Pow­ell says that these tar­iffs could dri­ve infla­tion back up and throt­tle growth. JP Mor­gan raised the like­li­hood of a reces­sion by the end of this year from 40% to 60%. And take a lis­ten to what Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Ted Cruz, a Trump ally from your home state of Texas, had to say. 

TED CRUZ: If we’re in a sce­nario 30 days from now, 60 days from now, 90 days from now, with mas­sive Amer­i­can tar­iffs and mas­sive tar­iffs on Amer­i­can goods in every oth­er coun­try on Earth, that is a ter­ri­ble out­come. It’s ter­ri­ble for Amer­i­ca. It will hurt jobs and hurt Amer­i­ca. 

TAPPER: So how long do you antic­i­pate this tar­iff chaos is going to be going on? 30 days, 60 days, 90 days? 

BROOKE ROLLINS: Well, first of all, Jake, thank you for hav­ing me. I think it’s real­ly impor­tant to real­ize that last Wednes­day was when the pres­i­dent announced this new Amer­i­can order, the new Amer­i­can eco­nom­ic plan. 

We’re now two days in, right? You’ve got two days of data. Every­one, espe­cial­ly on your side, on the left, is freak­ing out. 

TAPPER: I’m not on the left. 

ROLLINS: But at the end of the day, lis­ten, this whole con­cept — [laughs–see screen­cap] all right, Jake, thank you. 

This whole con­cept is about rebuild­ing an Amer­i­can econ­o­my around Amer­i­can goods, around Amer­i­can indus­try. We do already live under a tar­iff regime in this coun­try, but it’s the tar­iff regime of Chi­na, of Mex­i­co, of Brazil, of Aus­tralia, of coun­tries that: Mex­i­co won’t take our corn, Aus­tralia won’t take our beef, the coun­try of Hon­duras takes more pork than the entire Euro­pean Union does, Amer­i­can pork, I should say. 

So from our farm­ing and ranch­ing per­spec­tive, which is what I’m focused on, but hap­py to talk about any­thing, that it is has to, it is time for a change, and that’s what this pres­i­dent evoked last Wednes­day.