CNN’s Jake Tapper just executed one helluva business plan: He’s charging people money to read what Fox News had already told ‘em.
His (best-selling!) book was basically a series of Jesse Watters segments, plus footnotes. But apparently, if you’ve been watching CNN all day, this was a shocking revelation: “But… you kept telling me Biden was as sharp as a tack!”
Oh, stop living in the past. To quote legendary boxing promoter Bob Arum, “Yesterday I was lying. Today I’m telling the truth.”
This is major news, boys and girls!
As Tapper solemnly told all the potential book-buyers in the audience, the news he broke was “maybe even worse that Watergate.” (Gasp!)
And y’know what? Maybe he’s right.
Because lately, what passes as “news” is a lot like beauty: It’s in the eye of the beholder. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure; one man’s best-selling book is another man’s monologue.
Who’s to say what’s news anymore?
For instance, there’s been an awful lot of commotion from the first family of France. Maybe you’ve heard about it. Seems the Macrons were getting slap-happy:
Emmanuel Macron was slapped by his wife Brigitte as they got off the plane in Vietnam. pic.twitter.com/jLP5gHO1wp
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) May 26, 2025
Here’s another look at it from CBS News:
The dude getting slapped is the president of France, Emmanuel Macron. The one doing the slapping is his wife, Brigitte Trogneux.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody mentioned Will Smith’s wife, so I’m puzzled by what happened. Obviously, it’s bizarre behavior (and an emasculating look for Macron).
The frazzled Frenchman had this to say about the incident:
“There’s a video showing me joking and teasing my wife and somehow that becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe, with people even coming up with theories to explain it,” the president said.
Well, that certainly sounds believable: Everyone jokes with and teases their spouse by slapping her in the face.
But lest your skepticism rear its ugly head, have no fear: CNN is on the case! (And if it turns out they’re wrong, Jake Tapper will write another book.) Per CNN:
As the couple descend the steps, Macron offers Brigitte his arm, which she does not take, opting instead to hold the railing.
The Élysée initially denied the incident on the plane, before later moving to downplay its significance.
The couple were merely bickering, a source close to the president told CNN affiliate BFM TV. It was a “moment of togetherness,” according to an Élysée source.
“It was a moment when the president and his wife were unwinding one last time before the trip began, playfully teasing each other,” the source told CNN Monday.
“No more was needed to feed the mills of the conspiracy theorists,” the source added, saying pro-Russian trolls were quick to spin the moment into controversy. [emphasis added]
Why, of course! More Russian interference! Quick, get John Brennan to investigate this ASAP!
But here in America, at least you’re hearing about it. Not so in France, where CNN reported, “Macron’s marital shove disappears from French airwaves”:
A quick shove. A split-second clip that would have dominated US news for days aired in France for just 24 hours and then it was gone.
When a viral video appeared over the weekend showing French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte, pushing his face just as he was about to deplane during a visit to Vietnam, not a single French newspaper front page featured it the next morning. [emphasis added]
It’s silly, of course. We all know what we saw: Macron’s wife got mad and smacked him in the mouth. It had nothing to with “joking,” “teasing,” or a “moment of togetherness.” There was no Russian misinformation or doctored videos. She got angry and slugged him.
Period.
Then again, their relationship had always been, er, a tad askew:
Macron’s relationship with Brigitte was always unconventional. They met when he was just 15, and she was his drama teacher at a private school in Amiens. She was 24 years older, married, and a mother of three.
What began as mentorship grew into something deeper, and by the time Macron graduated, he had vowed to one day marry her. “Whatever you do, I will marry you,” he reportedly told her as a teenager.
Their story was used as campaign material in 2017, they made a point of making their relationship public, posing in glossy French magazines and describing their marriage as a celebration of an atypical but loving modern family. Any critics were labeled misogynists.
The fact that their relationship was highlighted in campaign material is mind-blowing: In America, when a 15-year-old child is being pursued by a 39-year-old teacher, it’s generally considered sick, predatory, and demented. Words like “groomer,” “victim,” and “abuse” are commonplace.
And imagine the uproar if the genders were reversed! Despite all the egalitarian platitudes and/or labeling of their critics as “misogynists,” I suspect the public would feel differently about a 39-year-old man putting the moves on a 15-year-old girl.
Even in France.
Today, Macron is 47. His wife is 72.
Most of the time, when a man gets into a physical altercation with a 72-year-old woman, your first thought is, “Oh no! Someone protect the old lady!” But on this occasion, you’re thinking, “Yikes, someone protect Macron!”
There’s a pretty good chance he’s been emotionally abused by his wife since he was a teenager. And if she was bold enough to physically smack him in the face on the presidential airplane, it’s practically a guarantee that she hits him in private.
Child grooming and physical abuse aren’t trivial matters. This is a story that’s surface-level silly, but its undertones are sinister.
The French media are wrong to bury it.
Here in America, we can talk about it, at least. That’s progress. And we can read all about it on CNN.
(And if any mistakes are made, Jake Tapper will be ready.)
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