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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN, the Axviles, with your host, David Axelrod.

To be honest with you, there were times when I was Senior Advisor to President Obama when I wanted a thrash Jake Tapper.

He was the White House correspondent for ABC, smart, challenging, and sometimes a real pain in the butt.

And I've watched his evolution now to become such a presence on CNN as an anchor of their show The Lead.

I sat down with Jake the other day at CNN in Washington, talk about his career, his books including a new one, the Hellfire Club,

a thriller that comes out in April, his cartooning, and the challenges of being a reporter and anchor in the era of Trump.

Jake Tapper, great to be with you.

Good to see you, sir.

I didn't realize, because I always thought of you as a good Jew from Philly, that...

Annoying and an annoying Jew from Philly.

Well, because I was a reporter and you were...

Exactly, well you know.

We'll get into that.

But that your family on your mother's side goes way back to the Revolutionary War and not even on the right side.

That's true.

It's true.

My mom's, we did this in the, when we did the Genealogy Project here at CNN, that, you know, so it was so weird because I grew up in Philly and I was seven during the bicentennial.

And Philadelphia is just steeped in colonial America and it really was when during my childhood and our teams were named the Eagles and the Liberty Bells and the 76ers and everything like that.

So when we did this Genealogy Project for CNN, I found out that I actually had roots in the American Revolution, which is very exciting.

But then of course it turned out that they were fighting on the wrong side.

They were on the British side and then they lost and then they fled to Canada.

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