WASHINGTON (TNND) — Jake Tapper, CNN’s lead Washington anchor, slammed President Donald Trump on Tuesday after he “re-posted social media garbage attacking the Kennedy family” following the death of John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter, Tatiana Schlossberg.
Schlossberg, a former climate and energy reporter for The New York Times, died after fighting an aggressive form of blood cancer, acute myeloid leukemia. In an article in The New Yorker, she shared that she was diagnosed on May 25, 2024, after giving birth to her second child, when a doctor noticed she had an abnormally high blood cell count.
While Trump’s post didn’t reference Schlossberg’s passing, they focused on the ongoing drama surrounding the renaming of the Kennedy Center.
The president shared several messages on Truth Social, including one that said, “The Trumps have always been supporters of the arts. The Kennedys are supporters of the Kennedys.”
“[The Kennedys] don’t raise money for [the Kennedy Center]. They never show up,” another shared post read. “And the only Kennedy who has been there recently is a member of Trump’s cabinet.”
Tapper shared screenshots of Trump’s posts, writing, “In the early afternoon, ET, the Kennedy family announced that JFK’s granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg had died from cancer. A few hours later, President Trump re-posted some social media garbage attacking the Kennedy family.”
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was formerly renamed “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” on Dec. 18 after a vote by the board of trustees, which Trump replaced in February 2025.
Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty took legal action on Dec. 23, seeking to prevent the addition of the president’s name to the institution.
Beatty argues that only Congress holds the power to make such a change and is requesting that a judge declare the board’s vote void.
Backlash from Tapper comes after Trump was already under fire for suggesting film director Rob Reiner was murdered due to “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.