Jake Tapper Reveals His Stunned Message To Control Room While Moderating Biden-Trump Debate

CNN’s Jake Tapper recalled on Thursday, on NBC’s “Late Night,” his stunned, real-time response to President Joe Biden’s disastrous performance against Donald Trump during the June presidential debate that Tapper moderated with colleague Dana Bash.

“Late Night” host Seth Meyers noted to Tapper how “to a lot of viewers it became clear early on that it wasn’t maybe going to be President Biden’s best night.”

“As a moderator, were you clocking that as well?” Meyers asked Tapper.

“It was something to behold,” Tapper replied.

“We had these little iPads in front so that we could communicate with the control room, and within the first few minutes, I wrote: ‘Holy smokes,’” he remembered.

“I didn’t know who was going to be back in the control room. I had to keep it clean,” Tapper explained, saying he believed the sentiment of his message was “kind of the national reaction.”

Biden’s performance picked up later in the debate, but his overall lackluster showing caused concern among Democrats and sparked increasingly louder calls for him to abandon his reelection campaign. Biden ultimately did that and immediately endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

Watch the interview here: