Jake Tapper is an American journalist, author and television anchor who serves as CNN's lead Washington anchor, hosting the weekday program The Lead with Jake Tapper and co-hosting the Sunday program State of the Union. He is a political reporter by background, and his connection to the UFO subject is journalistic: in 2026 he covered the government's release of UAP files on air and questioned advocates and officials about what they showed.

Born Jacob Paul Tapper in New York City on March 12, 1969, and raised in Philadelphia, he graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1991. After working as a campaign press secretary and in public relations, he became a reporter for the Washington City Paper in 1998 and was Salon's Washington correspondent from 1999 to 2002. ABC News hired him in 2003 and named him senior White House correspondent in November 2008.

Tapper joined CNN in January 2013 as chief Washington correspondent and soon began anchoring The Lead, later adding State of the Union, which he now co-hosts with Dana Bash. Alongside broadcasting he has written books: The Outpost (2012), an account of a U.S. Army outpost in Afghanistan that reached the New York Times nonfiction list; the political thrillers The Hellfire Club, The Devil May Dance and All the Demons Are Here; and Original Sin (2025), written with Alex Thompson, about President Biden's decline in office.

UFOs first surfaced on his program in 2026 through politics. On February 26, as Hillary Clinton gave a deposition to House Republicans investigating Jeffrey Epstein, Tapper asked CNN's MJ Lee what Clinton was being asked; Lee reported, citing sources, that lawmakers were questioning her about "UAPs and UFOs" as well as Pizzagate. On May 8, the day the Pentagon released a set of UAP files ordered by President Trump, Tapper opened an "Out of This World Lead" on the "never before seen images." Correspondent Tom Foreman reported that "almost all of this does get explained," while noting accounts as recent as 2025 of glowing orbs. Tapper then interviewed retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, asking what had convinced him and whether Russia, Iran or China could field such technology. Gallaudet called the release "a historic moment for government transparency" and said, "I wouldn't call them aliens." Afterward Tapper posted the video Gallaudet had singled out as the most significant of the day, an unresolved 2024 report from the Indo-Pacific.

In June 2026 journalist Leslie Kean said that former intelligence officer David Grusch was scheduled to appear with Tapper on CNN. Documentary maker James Fox said on July 2 that the interview had been postponed after something "came up at CNN." Tapper remains primarily a political journalist, but his May 2026 segment placed the government's first file release, and a retired admiral's reading of it, on one of CNN's flagship news hours.