Tapper joined CNN in January 2013. He currently anchors a two-hour weekday program, The Lead with Jake Tapper, which debuted in March 2013. He has hosted CNN's Sunday morning show, State of the Union, since June 2015. In April 2021, he became the lead anchor for CNN for Washington, D.C., events.
Tapper has been a widely respected reporter in the nation's capital for more than 20 years. His reporting on the 2016 election has been recognized with a number of awards, including a 2017 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism and the Los Angeles Press Club's President's Award for Impact on Media.
In addition to his reporting, Tapper has authored five books, including his debut novel, The Hellfire Club, published in 2018; its sequel, The Devil May Dance, published in 2021; and The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, published in 2012.
Tapper has been active in bringing attention and support for veterans' issues. Since 2017 he has organized an annual celebrity auction to build specially designed mortgage-free houses for severely injured veterans of the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan through the top-rated charity Homes for Our Troops, a group for which he serves as an ambassador.
He joined CNN from ABC News, where he had been senior White House correspondent, a position he was named to immediately following the 2008 presidential election. He played a key role in ABC News' Emmy award winning coverage of the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama, and its Murrow-Award winning coverage of the death of Osama bin Laden. Prior to joining ABC News, Tapper served as Washington correspondent, then national correspondent, for Salon.com.
He began his journalism career at the Washington City Paper and his reporting has appeared in a number of publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and The Washington Post. His comic strip, "Capitol Hell," appeared in Roll Call from 1994 to 2003.
Tapper, a member of Dartmouth's Presidential Commission on Financial Aid, graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, daughter, and son.