‘It required pushback’: Chris Cuomo defends attacking Trump when he worked for CNN

NewsNation host Chris Cuomo on Thursday justified his attacks on former President Donald Trump during his time at CNN, where he worked as an anchor until late 2021.

Cuomo harshly criticized Trump during his time on CNN’s airwaves, accusing the former president of “openly defending the hateful white supremacist types” and “trying to start a mass movement based on fear and loathing of a minority group.” Cuomo, on his podcast, responded to a conservative caller who praised him for improving since leaving CNN by saying it was necessary for him to vigorously oppose Trump at the time because of the former president’s “destructive” nature.

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“I appreciate the appreciation. I do think that … I suffer from people’s feelings about CNN while I was there, and you kind of look at it through the lens of rejection. I don’t believe that I’m any different, but I do have different inclinations — ’15, ’16, ’17, ’18 — there was a need for a muscular response to Trump,” Cuomo said. “I know conservatives took it personally, but you got to know Trump is not a conservative, right? And he lied so much; he was so destructive about institutions and the media and the level of decency in our dialogue that it required pushback and, frankly, an attack, in my opinion.”

“Now we’re so divided ’cause it didn’t work, right, he succeeded in dividing his party and taking ownership of it, that now we need to find ways to bridge this and get back to common sense. It’s not middle of the road; it’s not centrist. It’s none of that,” he continued. “It’s nothing weak or indefinite like that. It’s about pragmatism. It’s about being reasonable. It’s about conversation, not constant debate about gotchas and who’s wrong and who’s right. What’s right, not just who’s wrong, but what is right, and how do we make it happen? That’s where I want to get us to.”

The NewsNation host said he expressed his condolences to Trump the day after the former president experienced a second alleged assassination attempt. Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh with attempting to assassinate a major political candidate over a week after officials spotted Routh’s rifle barrel poking out of shrubbery while Trump was golfing in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15.

“I reached out to Trump. I wanted to just say, ‘Listen, I’m really sorry that this is going on and it’s being dealt with this way.’ Not because I’m in favor of his politics or what he says — I criticize him all the time. That’s my job, and he deserves it. But he doesn’t deserve this,” Cuomo said. “A guy pointing an AK-47 at him while he’s playing golf, and we take solace in the fact that the guy didn’t get any rounds off. That does not work for me.”

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