Share and Follow
For how many years has the media been attempting to corner President Donald Trump—is it a decade now?
Their efforts have repeatedly fallen short.
Nevertheless, they persist. Isn’t there an old saying about repeating the same actions and expecting different outcomes? The media seems undeterred.
During a segment of “State of the Union” on Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper found himself outmaneuvered by Republican Representative Elise Stefanik from New York’s 21st district.
Tapper suggested that Trump’s April 7 remark about the Iranian regime, stating that “their whole civilization will die,” amounted to advocating for “genocide.”
Tapper claimed that Trump’s comment on April 7 about dealing with the Iranian regime, that their “whole civilization will die,” was the same thing as “genocide.”
🚨 HOLY SMOKES. Rep. Elise Stefanik surged onto Jake Tapper’s show and PUMMELED his lies about Trump to his face!
“TYPICAL CNN! If you want to compare the president to university presidents who failed to call for the condemnation of calls for GENOCIDE of Jews, that’s on YOU!” 🔥… pic.twitter.com/iD6wORjukf
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 19, 2026
TAPPER: Call for genocide on a college campus and a call for genocide made by the president of the United States, like, they’re both bad, right?
STEFANIK: President Trump didn’t call for genocide, Jake. You were putting those words in his mouth. He is engaging in diplomatic back and forth!
TAPPER: Your entire civilization will die?
STEFANIK: It’s the terrorist regime, Jake. He’s targeting the terrorist regime. You’re adding genocide. That’s NOT what he’s stated! He wasn’t calling for genocide. It was targeted towards the Iranian terrorist regime. It was targeted towards the Iranian terrorist regime.
TAPPER: Agree to disagree (smirking).
Typical CNN Tapper. Stefanik chided him. “If you want to prop up the Iranian terrorist regime, that’s on you,” she said.
Trump was using harsh language to reach a terrorist regime, talking in words that would move them, to get them to the negotiating table. That succeeded, as Stefanik noted. The regime believed him; they believed they were in deep trouble; they even deployed “human shields” out to bridges and power plants. Without that threat, he might not have gotten them to the table.
What Jake leaves out, too, is the context of his comments in that same tweet. Trump followed the “civilization” comment by talking about the regime’s “47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end,” and “God bless the Great People of Iran!” So obviously, he was talking about taking out the regime, the evil “civilization” they had imposed on the people, and helping the people in so doing, just as Stefanik said.
Trump had also spent much of the day before talking passionately about the people of Iran and all they had gone through, so that also put paid to Tapper’s assertion. He’s spoken repeatedly about the bravery of the Iranian people who resist the regime.