On his Tuesday night show, Daily Show host Trevor Noah took a brief break from mocking Trump and Fox News, to ridicule CNN’s Chris Cuomo over his now-viral video encounter with a man who called him, “Fredo.” Noah mercilessly mocked Cuomo for his violent overreaction and even took him to task for calling the term after a fictional character, an ethnic slur.
The comic began by describing what happened. “CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, you might know him for his breaking news, but if you talk trash to him in the streets, the only thing that might end up breaking is your face!” Noah snarked, before playing video of the encounter.
He joked that CNN only has people separated in boxes to keep Cuomo from attacking people:
“Yo, Chris Cuomo doesn't mess around! Now I see why CNN makes people fight in separate boxes, that’s just workplace safety. Cuomo is like, ‘if I wasn't in this box I would smash your face!’” Noah quipped. He went on to mock Cuomo’s overreaction to being slighted, calling his response a “negative Italian stereotype,” and doing an impression of Cuomo:
"Cuomo was clearly pissed off because when he feels like when the guy called him Fredo, it's a negative Italian stereotype. Alright? What’s funny to me, though, is his reaction that he chose, also seemed like a negative Italian stereotype!” he noted.
The Daily Show host also addressed Cuomo’s allegation that the term ‘Fredo’ is equivalent to an ethnic slur against black people. Noah brought out his correspondent, and self-proclaimed ‘N-word-expert’ to decide:
NOAH: Cuomo himself claimed it's like calling an Italian person the n-word. Yeah. So to find out if that's true, we're joined by Roy Wood, Jr., everybody! So, Roy, is calling an Italian, Fredo the same as calling a black person the n-word?
ROY WOOD JR: *stares at Noah in silence*
Even liberals aren’t backing Cuomo on this one.
Of course, after this, Noah spent a lengthy segment mocking Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, and that led into another segment mocking Fox News hosts in general for going on “vacation” after saying controversial things on-air. He didn’t note that it could also be argued that Chris Cuomo fit into this scenario as well.
