CNN’s Jake Tapper is refusing to answer basic questions about his salary and his show's finances as he navigates a $1 billion defamation lawsuit brought by a Navy veteran who says CNN destroyed his security contracting career when it aired false and defamatory claims about his efforts to get Afghans out of the country as the Taliban took control in 2021.
Tapper sat for a sworn deposition on Wednesday with lawyers for the veteran, Zachary Young, according to court documents obtained by the Media Research Center. While a transcript of the deposition itself is redacted, a description of the ordeal from Young's attorneys states that, over the course of "less than two hours," CNN "directed Tapper not to answer more than thirty questions." As a result, Young's attorneys could not gather "basic financial information" about Tapper's salary and "the finances of CNN and his show."
Tapper dodged similar questions when CNN filed a motion in August opposing a deposition. "I have no knowledge about CNN's net worth," Tapper said in the motion. "I don't have any knowledge regarding what the Tapper show may or may not generate that may go toward CNN's net worth." Florida judge William Scott Henry said he had a "hard time believing" Tapper.
"I have a feeling that is the basis of what time slot he gets and how much his contract is and everything else with CNN," Henry said at the time, according to the Media Research Center.
The financial information is necessary, Young's legal team argued in the Friday court filing, to determine "what financial penalty might deter CNN from future misconduct."
Young is seeking damages from CNN that could exceed $1 billion and has signaled that he will not accept a settlement, meaning the case is likely set to go to trial in January. He sued CNN in June 2022, alleging that a segment the network ran roughly six months earlier on The Lead with Jake Tapper falsely accused him of illegal activity and damaged his reputation.
That segment named Young's security company, Nemex Enterprises, and detailed its work evacuating people from Afghanistan during the Biden-Harris administration's chaotic 2021 withdrawal. It implied Young was operating within an illegal "black market" and exploiting "desperate Afghans." Before the segment aired, CNN national security correspondent Alex Marquardt expressed his desire to "nail this Zachary Young mf–er," while senior editor Fuzz Hogan called Young "a s—t," according to internal messages released as part of the case.
CNN has already removed the term "black market" from the online version of the segment and issued an on-air apology acknowledging Young had not broken any laws. For Young, that's not enough. Attorneys for the veteran say the segment irreparably damaged his reputation and caused tens of millions of dollars in business losses.
CNN has suffered a number of setbacks during the case, with Henry ordering the network to turn over documents pertaining to its internal guidelines and finances.
The suit comes as CNN faces a nearly 30 percent drop in ratings in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's victory—and as CEO Mark Thompson works to cut costs. Both Tapper and CNN host Wolf Blitzer were reportedly denied raises last month, while Chris Wallace left the network rather than accept a sizable pay cut, according to the New York Post. Impending layoffs are expected to impact "hundreds of employees across the organization," according to Puck News.
CNN, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, is not the only liberal network grappling with poor ratings, cost reductions, and a pricey lawsuit. At MSNBC, staffers are "in a panic" as parent company Comcast moves forward with a plan to offload the channel, a move that is expected to bring substantial pay cuts for top hosts like Rachel Maddow.
Earlier this year, Maddow and her colleagues faced a setback of their own in a defamation suit brought by Georgia doctor Mahendra Amin, a gynecologist who treated detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the Peach State. A judge ruled in July that Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, and Chris Hayes made "verifiably false" statements about the doctor, who they accused of performing "mass hysterectomies" on women inmates and called the "uterus collector." Amin sued NBCUniversal for $30 million.
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