Jake Tapper

Writer, cartoonist and most of all political pundit who has seen the White House up close and personal, Jake Tapper never strayed far from his fascination with all things political.

A Dartmouth College graduate who began his career as a congressional press secretary, Jake Tapper walked the halls of Congress, wrote several non-fiction books as well as articles for the New York Times and Washington Post and interviewed a wide array of political powerhouses as Chief Washington Correspondent for CNN.

Jacob Paul Tapper was born in 1969 in New York City but grew up in nearby Philadelphia. Jake attended his father's alma mater Dartmouth College and briefly studied at the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television.

But it was politics and Washington D.C. that was his true calling. In 1992, only a year after he graduated, he was working as the campaign press secretary for Democratic congressional candidate Majorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, quickly followed with work for the D.C. Public relations powerhouse Powell Tate and then Handgun Control Inc.

All of these put Tapper into the middle of the ideological firestorm that was politics in Washington during the turbulent 1990s. At the same time that he was working in various political offices around the nation's capital, he was also writing for a number of publications.

In 1998 he went to full-time journalism when the Washington City Paper hired him as a senior writer. During this same time period he was also the Washington correspondent for the online publication Salon.com.

In 2003 ABC hired him to be the substitute host and Senior White House Correspondent for ″This Week″(ABC 1996- ). As ABC's man in Washington, Jake was a frequent contributor to a variety of shows such as ″Good Morning America″ (ABC 1975- ), ″Nightline″ (ABC 1980- ) and ″ABC World News″(ABC 1953- ).

In 2008 ABC named him their White House Correspondent, where his coverage of the Obama administration won him numerous awards.

In 2013 he moved to rival news powerhouse CNN and began to host his own news show ″The Lead with Jake Tapper″ (CNN 2013- ). He also was named that year to be CNN's Chief Washington Correspondent, while he completed his work on his third non-fiction book, The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor.