CNN’s Chris Cuomo is not the only media icon who needs to answer for his attempts to shield his scandalous brother from fallout following accusations of sexual misconduct.
CNN finally caved on Tuesday and announced that the “Cuomo Prime Time” host would be “indefinitely suspended” after a series of text messages exposed the anchor’s attempts to help cover up former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s sexual scandals earlier this year.
While CNN staffers such as Brian Stelter already hinted that Chris would return to the air as soon as January 2022, there are multiple other corporate media anchors, hosts, and writers who need to be held accountable for simply taking the governor’s weak defense at its face and amplifying it.
WATCH: CNN's @brianstelter believes that "it's possible" that Chris Cuomo will be back on air in January. pic.twitter.com/b3QuGNthtz
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) December 1, 2021
On the same day that Andrew Cuomo claimed he didn’t sexually harass someone, MSNBC’s Katy Tur ran a segment asking why “someone like Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is a savvy politician, [would] not have buttoned things up, not have gotten the message to be careful about what he says around his staffers, around others.” Tur also cited “somebody who is close to the family” as her source.
“And the person said, it’s not that he didn’t think the rules didn’t apply to him, it’s just that in the Cuomo DNA, they are extraordinarily friendly, I guess, by nature,” Tur claimed.
Tur’s public response not only gave undue credibility to the then-governor but used the words of Cuomo brother allies to inform her coverage.
Lis Smith, a Democrat political consultant who worked as Pete Buttigieg’s senior presidential campaign adviser, was one of the many people who immediately aligned herself with the governor and began working overtime to coo corrupt corporate media icons into doing what they do best: amplify narratives to cover Democrats’ butts.
“I’m texting [with] Katy tur,” Smith wrote. “Katy is saying my spin live. Like verbatim.”
As T. Becket Adams noted in his Substack on Thursday, the anchor was repeating the governor team’s official stance, but “Tur didn’t have to repeat any of what Smith apparently told her.”
“She certainly didn’t have to repeat it uncritically. Also, the fact Smith was privately pleased with Tur’s coverage suggests Tur did indeed serve Cuomo’s interests as opposed to the interests of MSNBC’s viewers,” Adams wrote.
Smith also reached out to Edward-Isaac Dovere at The Atlantic, whom she described as being “very hard on our side on this.”
“Total mind meld. … He says he could be convinced to write something on andrew Bc he thinks this whole thing is bullsh-t,” Smith wrote.
Three days after Cuomo’s infamous March 3 press conference, Dovere wrote an article titled “Of Course Andrew Cuomo Isn’t Going To Resign” just a few months before the governor called it quits.
Smith also reached out to Bill Maher, who didn’t appear to take the bait.
“Ok I texted Bill mahers producer,” she wrote. “To see if i could connect w him before show- want him to tee off on this.”
“We need some big names weighing in on our side,” Smith said.
Two days after Andrew Cuomo’s address at the beginning of March, Maher roasted the governor for being “f-ckin’ stupid.”
“We’re four years into the MeToo era, he’s this dumb that you don’t hit on the help, don’t touch people without their permission. … What could this guy be thinking?” Maher asked.
Other media outlets that Smith’s recently released text messages do not discuss also gladly ran with pro-Cuomo narrative until they couldn’t any longer. Countless corrupt corporate newsrooms gladly took aim at Republican leaders such as Gov. Ron DeSantis while fawning over the New York governor for offering press briefings that were like a “tender embrace” even though thousands of nursing home residents were dying as a result of his failed COVID-19 policies.
“God, now there’s a leader,” said MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough.
Smith, while doing the dirty work to help Andrew Cuomo cover up his sins, shouldn’t be the focus of people’s wrath. After all, she was technically doing her job. The media veterans who lent a listening ear to her and the Cuomo brothers’ spin, however — and then ran with it — were not doing their jobs. They didn’t offer scrutiny to the bait laid right before their eyes. Instead, people such as Tur, Dovere, and others repeated the narrative because they wanted to protect Cuomo and their Democrat alliances.
