The Epic Downfall of the Bros Cuomo

STELTER: This is a big surprise for a lot of people. Jim, I didn’t expect to be on with you this evening talking about this breaking news. But we didn’t know until tonight, Jim, is that an outside law firm also came in and that the law firm went through the thousands of pages of text messages and sworn testimony that was released back on Monday.

So there was clearly something in those documents that was found to be a serious breach of standards and practices. Now, there is one part of the statement we don’t know anything about just to be completely transparent with the audience. It says there’s additional information that also came to light sometimes this week. We don’t know what that is. I’ve asked. There’s no answers coming on what that could be.

BUCK: Welcome back to the Clay and Buck show. Chris Cuomo fired from CNN over the weekend, which we wanted to discuss with you now because this was a surprise to me, ’cause he’s tight with Zucker and Zucker runs that place with a tiny iron fist. I believe Tucker calls him the Dwarf King of CNN, which is pretty funny. So he’s over there at CNN — or I should say, Chris Cuomo is no longer there at CNN because…

Well, we don’t know exactly why. There were allegations of sexual misconduct according to the New York Times here as well that came to light. Some kind of harassment is also now a part of this, which, now, that’s the part of… If it were just the helping his brother, I think it’s likely that they would have put him on The Toobin Protocol, which I always then have to explain means you are suspended and then brought back.

It does not mean anything else, everybody. I just don’t know what else to call it. The Toobin Maneuver? That sounds even worse. But they brought him back. And, Clay, they’re saying it’s sexual harassment allegations here. We don’t know much more about it. But can I just remind everybody the Bros Cuomo were the great covid pandemic heroes of CNN. After Fauci, they were the next ones on the list.

CLAY: Andrew Cuomo got a made-up Emmy award, which I think is gonna go in the litany of Hollywood stupidity. Andrew Cuomo getting a made-up Emmy award for his communication skills during covid is one of the moments I think when people look back and read the history of the covid era, they’re gonna be just laughing at the absurdity of it all.

But Andrew Cuomo and Chris Cuomo… Chris Cuomo is the highest rated person on CNN. So big picture here, leaving aside Chris Cuomo, CNN needed Donald Trump more than any television network needed Donald Trump. Remember there were fears that Fox News would fall off without Trump? No, no, no, no.

CNN is the one that has borne the brunt of the Trump administration being no more. And Chris Cuomo was the remaining highest rated of their anchors. And I just don’t know… As you look at the fall from Andrew Cuomo and now the fall from Chris Cuomo, I don’t know what Chris Cuomo ends up doing. I’m betting he’s gonna do a podcast or something.

BUCK: Well, he’s got a Sirius radio show. I believe he’s actually technically up against us on the radio. (laughing)

CLAY: Well, I’m sure we’re kicking his ass.

BUCK: That’s for sure.

CLAY: I didn’t even know that he had a radio show, until I saw the story that he had commented on his suspension on his radio show. I just… I don’t know what CNN does. First of all, they’ve gotta find a minority woman to replace him. Those are the rules. Maybe Kamala Harris, instead of getting the Supreme Court job, can take it.

BUCK: You know, they got rid of Soledad O’Brien. Maybe they bring her back. There’s some names out there.

CLAY: Maybe they’ll give Joy Reid $80 billion a year to come host the show.

BUCK: You mean they would bring in Joy Reid, give her a national platform and shower millions of dollars on her so that she can tell the country how racist and awful we are every day? That sounds like right up CNN’s alley.

CLAY: They’ll pay her more than MSNBC did to already do the exact same show that nobody watches. I don’t know what their solution is. They might bring your buddy Jake Tapper in. But to me the reason they let him go is because his talent… This is my big theory; it always applies well in sports: His problems exceeded his talents.

As long as your talent exceeds your problems at any point in life, if you’re the best roofer out there but you’ve got an issue — let’s say insubordination sometimes, but you do incredible job as a roofer — you’ll be employed. If you are a wide receiver out there but every now and then you get popped for smoking weed but you are impossible to cover on the deep ball, you’ll be employed. CNN finally decided, Buck, that Chris Cuomo’s problems.

And I think you’re right; was it the conjunction of covering for his brother and then also do it in a public way when the New York attorney general report came out from Letitia James, and then the sexual harassment on top of that, I think he would have been able survive one or the other… Look at Don Lemon. There are some pretty substantive sexual harassment allegations out against him, sexual assault allegations.

BUCK: He’s actually accused of sexual assault!

CLAY: — that have still allowed the him to be employed. I think you can have one or the other but you can’t have both —

BUCK: You know, there’s also a part of me… I got so many feelings about this one because of the story that it really tells the country about CNN, its coverage of the pandemic, and just the way that it… What used to be the kind of storied original cable news network has turned into a trash heap of leftist garbage.

CLAY: Trump broke them.

BUCK: Yeah, Trump completely psychological broke them. I actually witnessed it, and I left.

CLAY: You saw the beginning of it.

BUCK: I left CNN before I had a syndicated radio deal. I left. Clay, not to make this a big personal story. I basically had no income guaranteed. CNN’s like, “We’re gonna pay you to be a political analyst for us if you…” This will be into the third year, and I said, “No.” I was like, “These people out of their minds. I would rather have no money. I’d rather go work some job…”

I used to have a different job; I’d go work a job. Anyway, CNN completely lost its mind as a network. But the Cuomo brothers, you have to at some level feel like, “Of course they got sloppy. Of course they were arrogant! Look at what they were able to get away with leading up to this.” Andrew Cuomo as governor of New York not only decided — by a completely and unnecessary executive order to shove covid-positive seniors back into nursing homes to infect other seniors who were dying at unprecedented rates —

CLAY: The single worst decision by any elected official in all of the covid era.

BUCK: He did that and then he covered it up and then he lied about it!

CLAY: And he got paid $5 million for it and he was a hero!

BUCK: And he wasn’t even held accountable for that. It was because he said, “Hey, there, sweet thang,” and grabbed the lady in the tummy area — which, by the way, not okay. But it’s not sending people to die in nursing homes like an idiot when you’re the governor of New York during a crisis. I do think that’s worse. That’s not what he’s being fired for.

That’s not what Chris Cuomo is accused of helping him cover up. It’s amazing you think about it. The #MeToo component is so much bigger. It’s so much more problematic for the left than sending people’s grandparents into precarious situations to die.

CLAY: It is unbelievable when you look back on it in retrospect. And I think this will be the way that the story is told, that Cuomo — who got the honorary Emmy for all of his communication skills — made the worst decision certainly I think of an elected official in the twenty-first century as it pertains to elderly covid-infected people being sent back into nursing homes.

Which, by the way, we should mention, Buck, you remember the reason why that happened was because the forecast of all these hospitals being overloaded convinced Andrew Cuomo that they were gonna have to turn away so many people who needed help that they needed, he thought, to take advantage of all the beds. Remember we had the Navy boat that came up.

We turned the whole convention center into a hospital. Almost none of those were ever used at all — and in retrospect, he didn’t need to evicting these covid-positive patients and sending them back to nursing homes. But he bought into the worst possible calculations out there, which is how this all occurred.

BUCK: “We’re gonna need a million ventilators!” I remember the speeches he was giving about a million…? Clay, a million ventilators?

CLAY: And we built them.

BUCK: It’s insane the stuff that was going on back then, and they gave him a $5 million book deal? They turned these two… Cuomo was essentially, Chris Cuomo — you know, the Bros, Fredo — was essentially — which people only call him that because he’s such a baby about it.

CLAY: Right.

BUCK: You know what I mean? What adult gets mad about being called Fredo? My name is Buck. You can imagine what I get called by people. Oh, you know what it rhymes with?

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: Anyway. He was the state media arm during a pandemic of his brother’s regime at CNN, that wasn’t what embarrassed them. What embarrassed them was sexual harassment situation, right? What embarrassed them wasn’t the thing that actually affected millions of people. I mean, it’s ’cause CNN has no credibility and like I said —

CLAY: And it’s because #MeToo. Ultimately, they built it up to such an extent with Kavanaugh that they felt compelled to justify it, even when — regardless Democrat, Republican, independent — the standard should be, “When somebody accuses you of inappropriate behavior, you get the opportunity to defend yourself.” We’re still having to deal with the fact that many people in this country don’t believe that. They believe if you’re named as an accused, if you are named as a guilty party, that you are guilty.