CNN’s Jake Tapper Corners Scott Walker Over His Cozy Relationship With The Koch Brothers

During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Wisconsin Governor and flailing Republican Presidential hopeful Scott Walker found himself backed into a corner when host Jake Tapper asked him about his allegiance to the Koch brothers. The college dropout was attempting to use the interview to show that he is just as much of a Washington outsider as Ben Carson, Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina while also discussing his efforts to take on “liberal special interests” like Planned Parenthood and public unions. However, by bringing all that up, Walker opened himself up to questions regarding conservative special interests.

Walker was first asked by Tapper how he planned to win over GOP voters who have thrown their support behind candidates who have never held public office before and are thus seen as political outsiders. This would appear to be a problem for Walker, who has spent his entire adult life in the world of politics. The guv highlighted his record of taking on Democratic groups and special interests, referring to unions as “big government” and mentioning that he defunded Planned Parenthood on the state level when he was first elected.

That was the opening that Tapper needed to bring up Walker’s cozy relationship with the Kochs. The CNN anchor hit Walker with the following question:

“I respect that you’ve taken on liberal special interests, but you’ve been backed by Republican special interests like the Koch brothers, right? How does that square with what you are saying about taking on specials interests or do you think only liberal special interests are the ones worth taking on?”

Of course, Walker didn’t even come close to answering Tapper’s query, instead just talking about how he fought those big bad unions and stood up to 100,000 protesters and came out on top. Once again, Tapper pushed Walker to answer his question, asking him directly if he’s ever taken on any conservative special interest and if he considers the Koch brothers a special interest group. And just like earlier in the interview, the billionaires’ sock puppet punted, instead bringing up how he raised a lot of his campaign money from small donors.

According to Scott Walker, being a Washington outsider means complaining about Obamacare, villainizing Planned Parenthood and talking shit about unions, all while being a governor who is in the pockets of a couple of shadowy billionaires. You have to hand it to Tapper. He did not let Walker slide on any of this. He kept pressing him on his relationship with a huge conservative special interest group and how that jibes with his rhetoric. He made Walker essentially fall apart on live TV and look like a doofus. (Not hard to do for Walker, admittedly.)

Below is video of the segment, courtesy of Raw Story: