Sparks flew on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time Monday evening as President Trump’s outside lawyer Rudy Giuliani went toe-to-toe with host Chris Cuomo regarding the President’s vindication and the media’s new obstruction obsession post-Mueller report. In the middle of it, the former New York Mayor demanded Cuomo and CNN apologize for dragging the President down. Cuomo seemed disgusted by the prospect.
As Cuomo was trying to argue that a person could obstruct an investigation into a non-crime, Giuliani called out what CNN had been doing to the President for two years. “You guys on this network have tortured this man for two years with collusion and nobody’s apologized for it! So, before we talk about obstruction apologize for the overreaction to collusion,” he exclaimed.
“Not a chance. Not a chance. Not a chance,” Cuomo shot back. Giuliani didn’t relent and continued pushing, saying: “Of course you're not because you're not being fair.”
What came next was a loud back and forth were Giuliani demanded CNN boss Jeff Zucker and other news outlets to apologize, while Cuomo defended his anti-Trump industry (click “expand”):
GIULIANI: I am outraged by the behavior of these networks. Collusion, collusion, collusion, collusion, collusion, collusion. No collusion, Chris. No collusion.
CUOMO: Here's my case.
GIULIANI: Apologize.
CUOMO: Never. Here’s my case.
GIULIANI: Never?
CUOMO: Never, I didn't do anything wrong. These questions are real. They needed to be regarded as such.
GIULIANI: Treasonous?
CUOMO: Did you hear me say that?
GIULIANI: No, but I heard people on this network say that.
CUOMO: Do I hold you to account for what people say that you don’t?
GIULIANI: There were people on this network that did. How about this network should apologize? How about Jeff Zucker apologize?
CUOMO: Do I ask you to apologize for everything the President says that’s isn't true?
GIULIANI: No.
CUOMO: Good, so we’re even.
GIULIANI: But you ask me to apologize for what I do, and I do.
“Tell me what I did and I’ll apologize,” Cuomo yelled.
Well, funny he should ask that, because NewsBusters has documented several instances were Cuomo let his personal disdain for the President color his coverage of the collusion story.
Back in May, 2017, Cuomo was in the midst of pushing the Democratic Party’s collusion narrative when he got into it with New York Congressman Peter King (R) about the lack of evidence. Cuomo argued that pointing out the clear lack of evidence was an attempt to “sabotage” the investigation.
“First, isn't it a little deceptive to say you don't know of any proof of anything? Why would you? The investigation isn't concluded. It seems to fuel a sense of sabotage, a sense of illegitimacy when you say, ‘well, we haven't seen any proof,’” he decried.
Almost a full year later, Cuomo once again got into it with Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan and claimed “we have tons of proof” regarding “potential collusion” and to say otherwise was “demonstrably false”.
“Listen, talking over me does not silence the points. They have to come out. We have to have this conversation, so people who think independently can make decisions. There is tons of proof of potential collusion,” he proclaimed.
When the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee ended its own Russian probe and declared there was no collusion, Cuomo decried it:
Let’s be abundantly clear, this report is partisan. It’s a political document that was immediately parroted by the President to proclaim his innocence. The only unbiased authority on whether there was any collusion or any type of crime in connection with the interference will come from Special Counsel Bob Mueller.
And on Giuliani’s charge of the networks calling Trump “treasonous”. While Cuomo didn’t use the world when he was broadcasting from Helsinki, Finland, he did definitively say Trump “betray[ed] his own country”. Then there were his plethora of thinly veiled accusations that the President was acting as an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
So, where’s Cuomo’s apology?
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’S Cuomo Prime Time
March 25, 2019
9:10:25 p.m. Eastern(…)
CHRIS CUOMO: If you attempt to obstruct that's something that we want to look at. I’m not saying he’s guilty.
RUDY GIULIANI: Oh my God! Now we have an attempt to obstruct a non-crime. This is like stretching to prosecute the man.
CUOMO: You are defining it that way and it’s very clever.
GIULIANI: It's not very clever, it’s justice. You guys on this network --
CUOMO: What Have I done?
GIULIANI: --have tortured this man for two years with collusion and nobody’s apologized for it! So, before we talk about obstruction apologize for the overreaction to collusion!
CUOMO: Not a chance. Not a chance. Not a chance. And I’ll tell you why.
GIULIANI: Of course you're not because you're not being fair.
CUOMO: Please. You know better than that.
GIULIANI: No, I don’t know better. I am outraged by the behavior of these networks. Collusion, collusion, collusion, collusion, collusion, collusion. No collusion, Chris. No collusion.
CUOMO: Here's my case.
GIULIANI: Apologize.
CUOMO: Never. Here’s my case.
GIULIANI: Never?
CUOMO: Never, I didn't do anything wrong. These questions are real. They needed to be regarded as such.
GIULIANI: Treasonous?
CUOMO: Did you hear me say that?
GIULIANI: No, but I heard people on this network say that.
CUOMO: Do I hold you to account for what people say that you don’t?
GIULIANI: There were people on this network that did. How about this network should apologize? How about Jeff Zucker apologize?
CUOMO: Do I ask you to apologize for everything the President says that’s isn't true?
GIULIANI: No.
CUOMO: Good, so we’re even.
GIULIANI: But you ask me to apologize for what I do, and I do.
CUOMO: Tell me what I did and I’ll apologize!
GIULIANI: I’m not saying you should do it.
CUOMO: Tell me what I did and I'll apologize.
GIULIANI: I'm not saying that you should do it.
CUOMO: I don't apologize for the network.
GUILIANI: Your network should apologize.
CUOMO: I'm proud of the network. I’m proud of the job it does but I only control what I say.
GIULIANI: MSNBC should apologize. And The New York Times should apologize. And The Washington Post should apologize. And Adam Schiff should apologize.
CUOMO: That's a question for him. I’m happy to ask it. Listen, this is what I’m saying --
GIULIANI: Before we start jamming him up in obstruction, couldn't we take a day off and say the man was falsely accused?
CUOMO: I’m not jamming him up.
GIULIANI: This is a cockamamie--
CUOMO: I don't believe he was falsely accused.
GIULIANI: He was.
CUOMO: Show people what is in the record and let them decide.
GIULIANI: What do you mean he wasn't falsely accused?
CUOMO: He did a pattern of things that triggered the curiosity and concern of a lifelong prosecutor Rod Rosenstein. Not some Clintonista, not some Democrat congressman.
(…)
