CNN’s Jake Tapper Pleads for Public to ‘Stop Being Awful’ to Tim Walz
What To Know
- CNN anchor Jake Tapper publicly condemned the harassment of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, urging people to “stop being awful” after a video surfaced of individuals shouting slurs outside Walz’s home.
- The harassment began after former President Donald Trump used a derogatory term to insult Walz on social media.
- Hope Walz, the governor’s daughter, criticized the wave of hate directed at her family, particularly her brother with a nonverbal learning disorder.
Jake Tapper has one Christmas wish: that people “stop being awful.”
In an X post on Saturday, the CNN anchor reacted to a video of people shouting the R-word outside the home of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
“Everyone really needs to take a breath and stop being awful, stop rewarding awfulness, and stop promoting awfulness with your algorithms,” Tapper wrote. “Happy & fulfilled & confident people don’t spend time doing any of this.”
Trolls have harangued Walz and his family with the R-word ever since President Donald Trump did so in a rambling Truth Social screed a month ago. In that post, Trump claimed that “refugees from Somalia are taking over the once great State of Minnesota” and “the seriously r******* Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence or both.”
When given a chance to walk back his hateful language a few days later, Trump doubled down, telling reporters that “there’s something wrong” with Walz.
A week after Trump’s online attack, Walz told reporters that people were driving by his house and using the R-word — and that he hadn’t seen one elected Republican official condemn Trump’s language — as seen in a TMZ clip.
“So look, I’m worried,” he added. “We know how these things go. They start with taunts; they turn to violence.”
In a now-offline TikTok video and in comments that Tapper shared in a follow-up X post, Hope Walz, the governor’s daughter, called the online and verbal hate from Trump and his supporters disgraceful, Mediaite reports.
“The president calling my dad what he did has unleashed a f***ing s***storm, regarding, like, offensive language towards me, and my family, and specifically my brother,” Hope said, referencing her brother, Gus, who is living with a nonverbal learning disorder.
“When it’s Gus, f*** to the no,” she added. “How is it OK that the president of the United States can call somebody — anybody, doesn’t matter who they are — that? And then all of his freakin’ cult members come and attack those people. … You people are f***ing disgraceful. Shame on you, all of you.”
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