NEW: Jake Tapper Faces Fury After Calling Black J6 Pipe Bomber Suspect ‘White Man’

CNN anchor Jake Tapper got burned on air Thursday after falsely identifying accused D.C. pipe bomber Brian Cole Jr. as “a white man” — even though Cole is black.

Tapper dropped the blunder just after 5 p.m. during the opening minutes of “The Lead,” right as his own network became the first outlet to publish a photo of Cole pulled from his mother’s Instagram account.

Cole’s father is black as well, and once enlisted civil rights attorney Ben Crump, known for taking on high-profile racial discrimination cases.

Viewers didn’t hold back after Tapper’s flub.

“You can’t make this stuff up,” conservative commentator Benny Johnson wrote on X.

“Jake is sharp as a tack. Nothing gets past him. Dude’s elite!” another user mocked.

“It’s impossible that he does not know what he is doing,” one viewer insisted, while conservative influencer Nick Sortor claimed CNN was peddling “anti-white rhetoric.”

🚨 WTF?! CNN’s Jake Tapper just went out of his way to LIE and call the J6 pipe bomb a “WHITE MAN”

CNN REFUSED to show a picture of the alleged bomber—who is clearly a BLACK MAN—so I overlayed a photo of him on their clip

CNN can’t help themselves but push anti-white rhetoric pic.twitter.com/Y4UJVjbT8A

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 5, 2025

Not everyone was furious, though. One user joked that Brian “may be a top 3 white name,” calling the mistake understandable. Another pointed the finger at the show’s production, saying Tapper likely “never looked at the graphics” and just read off a script.

Cole, 30, was arrested early Thursday morning at his home in Woodbridge, Virginia. He faces federal charges of using an explosive device and attempted malicious destruction by explosive materials.

Authorities say Cole is the long-sought suspect who allegedly planted pipe bombs near both the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021, just hours before Congress certified the 2020 election results.

Investigators believe Cole may have begun building the eight-inch galvanized-pipe explosives as early as 2019. The case remained stagnant for years, with former U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi and former FBI Director Kash Patel blasting the Biden administration for sitting on key evidence.

The Trump administration pushed the probe forward and renewed a $500,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, though the bounty won’t pay out now that federal agents tracked down the suspect themselves.

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