Stephen Colvert ripped into Brian Stelter and the hacks at CNN for their handling of the New York Gov Andrew Cuomo’s coverage. In addition to CNN’s lack of ethics, the New York Attorney General found Chris ‘Fredo’ Cuomo, guilty of major ethics violations and just like that Chris is on another ‘planned’ vacation’.
IK wouldn’t hold my breath but the public stage may be rid of both Cuomos very soon.
During his show, host Colbert ripped into CNN host Stelter who desperatly attempted to cover for his buddy, Chris Cuomo. Colbert began by reviewing the AG’s report, “It alleged that he was helping his brother with his, you know his communications team. The New York Times is reporting that’s true,” Colbert stated. “Chris was helping his brother. Has that created any conflict over at CNN? Behind closed doors, are people mad at him or is he in trouble?”
“Some people are mad at him,” Stelter admitted. “By the way I can confirm the “New York Times” report. I’ll confirm it for your viewers. I also have a source that says Chris was on the phone with his brother this week.”
The two carried on with a quick, but pointed exchange:
COLBERT: Is your source Chris Cuomo?
STELTER: He is not. He is not. You’ve got to have boundaries, you’ve got to draw lines.
COLBERT: Why, he doesn’t! [audience reacts]
STELTER: I think he does, actually.
COLBERT: Really?
STELTER: I think Chris does, I don’t know about the governor.
COLBERT: What are the boundaries? What are the boundaries?
A confused Steltered struggled to respond saying, “The boundary that CNN management presented him in May when he admitted he screwed up, ‘What you did was inappropriate. You’re on the phone with your brother’s aides advising him what to do. And that was inappropriate.’ But they said, ‘of course you’re going to talk to your brother, you know there’s nothing more important–’
Colbert intervened, “They didn’t talk about his brother once the trouble started.”
“That was also a management ruling,” Stelter claimed.
Colbert snaped back asking, “Why didn’t they rule that way when his brother was on the show pretty much every night during COVID? Seems like an odd conflict of rules.”
Stelter continued, “It is an odd conflict, but I think if we open up the journalism ethics book, there’s no page for this. It’s the crazy set of circumstances you can imagine right? A governor and brother both in these high-profile jobs, this was definitely awkward for CNN though. I tried to go into this thinking, Ok, if I was going to cover this at CBS how would I cover it?and try to cover it the same way.