CNN’s Jake Tapper grew visibly annoyed and angry as the broadband signal for the Republican congressman he was interviewing failed repeatedly.
Tapper brought Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE) on to talk about the recent flood of ethics scandals against Republican members of the House, including Reps. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), Cory Mills (R-FL), and Max Miller (R-OH), all for varying degrees of predatory or abusive behavior toward women.
“Do you hear me?” said Tapper in frustration. “Because I was having trouble talking to you a second ago, and I think I need to talk to your governor about broadband in Nebraska. Can you hear me, sir?”
“I can now hear you,” said Flood, who represents the exurban areas around Omaha. “Did something happen there?”
“No. If you can hear me now, that’s that. That’s fine. You can hear me now,” said Tapper.
The CNN anchor then went on to ask the meat of his question.
“Speaker Johnson says he wants the Ethics Committee to let the process play out,” said Tapper. “As you know, that can take a very, very long time.”
He noted that the investigation of Edwards for harassing female staffers “took months, even years” and the investigation of Mills for domestic abuse of his ex-girlfriend is still ongoing.
“Should there be more pressure put on your colleagues who are distracting from what you would rather talk about, like no tax on tips or whatever?”
As Flood answered, the network reception began to deteriorate again, to the point that at the end, Tapper was faced with a black screen.
“All right. Nebraska Republican Congressman Mike Flood, thank you so much,” said Tapper, grumbling, “All those tens of billions of dollars that taxpayers spend on broadband and what the hell is going on?”
– YouTube youtu.be