Paraphrasing a timeless truth: The cruelest betrayal doesn’t come from enemies. It comes wrapped in trust, offered by those we once believed stood beside us.
In the long, bitter ledger of American betrayal, few names land with the same sting as Benedict Arnold. He didn't betray the Revolution from the outside. He wore the uniform. He stood with Washington. Then, quietly, he decided his ego mattered more than his oath.
That’s what made it hurt.
Jake Tapper falls into the category of betrayal, which is not hypothetical. It’s earned.
For years, Tapper was the liberal standard-bearer of integrity in journalism. His war-zone reporting gave him an air of grit. His book, The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, cemented his reputation. He honored nineteen American soldiers who died defending Combat Outpost Keating in Afghanistan. Nineteen strong, he wrote. He spoke their names. He respected sacrifice.
He made us believe he understood duty.
Which is why his silence on President Joe Biden’s mental decline feels like treason. Tapper knew. Maybe not every detail, but he knew enough. The rest of us watched with our own eyes as Biden stumbled through sentences, wandered from podiums, and got lost trying to exit stages. But Tapper? He told America that nothing was wrong. That any concern was a right-wing hit job.
With the 2024 election long behind us and the damage done, Tapper has co-authored a book revealing exactly what he claimed wasn’t true.
Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again reads like the diary of a hostage finally free to speak. It includes jaw-dropping admissions. Biden forgetting George Clooney at a fundraiser. Senior staff deliberately shielding him from live interaction with the press. Insiders privately worrying about the president’s cognitive sharpness while publicly insisting he is as sharp as ever.
Tapper has gone from gatekeeper to gravedigger. Not because he told the truth, but because he buried it until it suited him to dig it up.
This wasn’t an isolated oversight. For years, Tapper actively shielded Biden with dismissals, misdirection, and derision aimed at anyone who dared speak out.
Let’s look at the record:
- June 2020: On CNN, Tapper said concerns over Biden’s mental state were “unfounded” and based on “edited clips and disinformation.”
- August 2021: He claimed that Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal showed “strategic resilience,” despite televised moments where Biden struggled with clarity.
- October 2022: Tapper ridiculed what he called “conspiracy-addled” accusations regarding Biden’s cognition, adding that Republicans were pushing “manufactured panic” ahead of the midterms.
- January 2024: He scolded political commentators on-air, saying that questioning Biden’s mental capacity was “beneath the dignity of political discourse.”
This wasn’t ignorance. It was protection.
And now that Tapper is safely beyond the point where his truth-telling might have influenced public perception or the outcome of an election, he’s singing like a canary with a publishing deal.
He wants credit for what he concealed.
That betrayal hits hardest not among conservatives but among Tapper’s audience. Liberals who once trusted him to defend the truth are now openly disgusted. As documented by PJ Gladnick at NewsBusters, the backlash is loud and unrelenting.
- Charlotte Clymer asked why Tapper chose this moment to become a dramatist when “we are fighting fascism.”
- John Pavlovitz declared that Tapper’s decline has outpaced Biden’s.
- Joanne Carducci accused him of “bothsides-ing” democracy.
- Wajahat Ali slammed the corporate media, saying they are more concerned with book sales than public service.
They’re not just disappointed. They feel deceived.
Many of these same voices rallied around Biden during the 2020 campaign and the 2022 midterms. They trusted CNN’s coverage. They defended Biden’s verbal stumbles and awkward moments because journalists like Jake Tapper told them, “There’s nothing to see here.”
They now realize they were gaslighted.
Imagine how different the political landscape might have looked had Tapper and others like him reported the truth in real time. Democratic primary voters might have demanded alternatives. Cabinet officials might have felt emboldened to act. Americans might have seen a fuller, unfiltered picture of the man making critical decisions on the world stage.
But Tapper said nothing.
He didn’t just fail to report. He actively dismissed the evidence, over and over, until it was too late. And then, when it was safe, when the book contract was signed and the speaking circuit booked, he “found his voice.”
This isn’t courage. It’s cowardice packaged as candor.
Benedict Arnold Reborn?
The comparison to Benedict Arnold is not poetic. It’s structural. Like Arnold, Tapper didn’t betray from across enemy lines. He did it from within. He stood among his own, saluted the flag of truth, and then quietly opened the gate to deceit.
Let’s not forget the context here. Tapper built a legacy on valor. "The Outpost" wasn’t just a book; it was a tribute to transparency, sacrifice, and honor. He once said that telling the stories of those nineteen soldiers was the most significant responsibility of his career.
Where’s that sense of responsibility now?
He’s not honoring fallen soldiers this time. He’s selling out a sitting president after allowing the American people to walk into an election under false pretenses. The same man once described journalistic courage as “telling the uncomfortable truth, even when it costs you.”
But in this case, he waited until telling the truth paid him.
Tapper didn’t expose a cover-up; he was the cover-up. His voice was one of the loudest in the room, and he insisted that Biden was fine. The videos were deceptive, and the critics were motivated by malice.
He slandered truth-tellers as conspiracy theorists, and now he wants to be welcomed as one of them.
Let’s be clear. This isn’t just a media problem. It’s a democracy problem. The press is supposed to be the fourth estate, not the fourth accomplice. And for all his credentials, Tapper has become the embodiment of everything that poisons public trust.
Benedict Arnold gave up West Point for a pension, and Jake Tapper gave up the truth for a book deal.
And both men will be remembered not for their talents, but for the moment they turned.
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