| Genre: | News broadcast |
| Location: | CNN Studio Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Last Aired: | present |
The Lead with Jake Tapper is an American news broadcast hosted by news anchor Jake Tapper. The show has aired on CNN since March 18, 2013 in the network's afternoon timeslot.
The show currently airs weekdays live from 4:00pm to 6:00pm ET, and the 5:00pm to 5:30pm segment is also aired on CNN International.
The show contains a "lead" for different subjects. They are the National, Political, Money, Buried, Sports, World, Pop, Faith, Earth Matters, Tech, and Health leads.
In December 2012, CNN hired Jake Tapper, then-senior White House correspondent for ABC News, as the network's chief Washington, D.C. correspondent and the anchor of an afternoon program, in an arraignment partially orchestrated by businessman Jeff Zucker, who became the president of CNN Worldwide in 2013.[1] Tapper previously served as a host of Take Five, a political talk show that began airing in March 2001, ending its production shortly before the September 11 attacks.[2] According to spokeswoman Jennifer Scoggins, Tapper's program would air for sixty minutes in The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzers timeslot.[3] The move occurred as CNN's ratings in 2012 were behind Fox News and MSNBC;[4] In January 2013, LinkedIn job openings began appearing for Tapper.[5] CNN announced The Lead with Jake Tapper in February 2013 with Today producer Federico Quadrani as the show's executive producer, forcing The Situation Room to start an hour later.[6]
The Lead with Jake Tapper debuted on March 18, 2013.[7] In 2013, the show was given a week of primetime re-run at 10pm ET. That week, the Boston marathon terror attack caused this rebroadcast to be axed in favor of a live edition of Anderson Cooper 360°.
Following Piers Morgan's departure from CNN in March 2014, CNN President Jeff Zucker had various anchors fill the 9pm ET slot as a test run. Among them was The Lead airing at 9pm ET for the weeks of April 7 and April 14.
The Lead with Jake Tapper was also broadcast via tape-delay on CNN Philippines every Tuesday-Saturday for one hour at 11:00 am, local time from February 15 to July 23, 2016. From March 16 until September 5, 2015, the show aired at 4:00 pm. The Lead moved its morning telecast to 9:00 am but was truncated to 30 minutes until late January 2016 when it was moved to 8:30 for at least a month.
Before August 2016, The Lead with Jake Tapper was axed on CNN Philippines as part of program restructuring.
On September 10, 2018, the program started to be simulcast on CNN International.[8]
In October 2020, the show aired for two hours from 3pm to 5pm ET. Brooke Baldwin's CNN Newsroom hour was removed for the month. The show went back to its usual air time in November after Baldwin returned.
In January 2021, CNN announced that the show would expand to two hours starting in April, taking over the former first hour of The Situation Room.[9]
In February 2023, following a sexual misconduct investigation, Quadrani was ousted from CNN.[10]