With Donald Trump out of office, Chris Cuomo needs a new villain to blame everything on. On Friday's Cuomo Prime Time, he settled on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, blaming him for a series of recent cyberattacks. He would later add that viewers should be grateful for our news media.
For Cuomo, Congress is to blame for the recent attacks.
All the same message. Nobody acts. Congress has failed to go after the perpetrators. Many of whom have been traced back to Russia. So either it's a troll farm related somehow to Russian intelligence or they are Russian actors that Russia is aware of even if they're not in control of them but they're allowing them to operate.
Specifically, for Cuomo, that is McConnell's fault: "Now when lawmakers did have a chance to pass real cyber security legislation back in 2012, guess who made it die? Mitch McConnell, led a filibuster in the Senate and also blocked a bipartisan denunciation of Russian interference in our election," he accused.
Cuomo put up the New York Times' headline on the subject at the time, but didn't actually read from the article. If he had, he would have found that McConnell accused Democrats of trying "to steamroll a bill" while not denying the need to boost cyber defenses. Also opposed to that particular bill was John McCain, whom the media has used as a cudgel against Republicans in recent years.
Cuomo also declared that McConnell, "ironically blocked an election security bill in 2019 and then rejected criticism he was aiding Russia." McConnell said at the time that Congress had already given money to states and passed other bills related to election security, making the bill in question unnecessary.
Still, because of people like McConnell, Cuomo maintained that Putin is laughing at us.
"The White House says President Biden plans to bring up these hacks with Putin in two weeks at a summit in Geneva, but Putin is already doing what he does best, laughing off the obvious," Cuomo touted.
He then played a clip of Putin saying that attempts to tie the hackings to Russia are "just hilarious." For Cuomo, that provided the opportunity to go on a digression about how wonderful the media is:
That is state run media. See how the guy had to nod along, nod along? Why? Because he wants to keep doing his job. Don't forget what you have is a blessing in this country with the media. If that had been in America, that leader would have been questioned about what he had just said. I know the media is not perfect and it is highly imperfect. It bothers me on a regular basis also even though I am a member of it. But remember the blessing.
When Cuomo criticized he "highly imperfect media" he probably wasn't referring to himself spreading debunked conspiracy theories on Twitter.
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Here is a transcript of the June 4 show:
CNN
Cuomo Prime Time
9:03 PM ET
CHRIS CUOMO: All the same message. Nobody acts. Congress has failed to go after the perpetrators. Many of whom have been traced back to Russia. So either it's a troll farm related somehow to Russian intelligence or they are Russian actors that Russia is aware of even if they're not in control of them but they're allowing them to operate. Okay? Now when lawmakers did have a chance to pass real cyber security legislation back in 2012, guess who made it die? Mitch McConnell, led a filibuster in the Senate and also blocked a bipartisan denunciation of Russian interference in our election. He ironically blocked an election security bill in 2019 and then rejected criticism he was aiding Russia. The White House says President Biden plans to bring up these hacks with Putin in two weeks at a summit in Geneva, but Putin is already doing what he does best, laughing off the obvious.
BEGIN CLIP
VLADIMIR PUTIN [VIA TRANSLATOR]: It's just ridiculous to blame Russia for this. I think the relevant U.S. services should find out who the scammers are, not Russia for sure. For us to extort money from some company? We are dealing with some chicken meat or beef. It's just hilarious.END CLIP
CUOMO: One little step sideways there. That was Channel 1, right? That is state run media. See how the guy had to nod along, nod along? Why? Because he wants to keep doing his job. Don't forget what you have is a blessing in this country with the media. If that had been in America, that leader would have been questioned about what he had just said. I know the media is not perfect and it is highly imperfect. It bothers me on a regular basis also even though I am a member of it. But remember the blessing. Okay? One step sideways. Now, back into the focus. He can joke about it. He can say it's hilarious. But we know that he thinks the joke is on us and we know why he can laugh because we know who bought his perfidy.
