For Jake Tapper, being the rabbi of TV news comes easy March 4, 2021 3:56 pm Jake Tapper in his Washington CNN office, which is decorated with posters from losing U.S. presidential campaigns over the decades, in 2016. (Brooks Kraft/Getty Images) Advertisement (JTA) — Jake Tapper wants to make something clear, but the more he explains, the harder it is. That’s unusual for Tapper, an explainer par excellence. The CNN anchorman is explaining a tweet because who isn’t these days. But he’s also explaining Jewish, or Jewish American, or Jewish at the nexus of celebrity and politics and the culture. That’s the kind of explanation that will kill you every time however adept you are at explaining simpler things like, say, American crisis and democracy and accountability.