It’s always interesting when liberals attack conservatives. However, it’s always fascinating when liberals take on other liberals.
That’s been the case for several days with Chuck Todd -- moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday program -- and Chris Cuomo, anchor of the Cuomo Prime Time weeknight series. Cuomo recently compared Todd unflatteringly to Jake Tapper, anchor of CNN’s weekday show The Lead.
In a profile by the Hollywood Reporter, Cuomo bashed NBC by arguing that CNN has more influence than they do.
Anderson Cooper is a hell of a lot bigger than any male anywhere on network television.
I would argue that Chuck Todd ain’t Jake Tapper. Jake Tapper has a much bigger footprint in politics than Chuck Todd does.
Of course, it came as no surprise that Todd fired back while a guest on WABC’s Bernie and Sid in the Morning radio program on Friday.
“I don’t know the guy,” Todd stated before noting he was baffled why Cuomo had slammed him. “I’ve met him once, I don’t know much about him.”
“I’m not kidding,” he added. “I’ve no idea where this guy’s coming from.”
The NBC anchor continued: “I just read it as somebody who wanted to defend the fact that nobody in broadcast television wanted to hire him, I guess, or he couldn’t get the job that he wanted.”
“I don’t know what it was, but he was awfully defensive so he took shots at other people,” Todd indicated. “I’m like: ‘Dude, if you’re going to promote somebody, promote somebody. You don’t have to disparage somebody at the same time.’”
During that interview, Todd added that he considers Tapper -- the chief Washington correspondent for CNN -- to be one of his closest friends, and said that Tapper was “probably angrier” with Cuomo’s comments than anyone else.
He continued:
When you’re being [judged] solely on [ratings], it sucks.
And OK, so he’s up against two juggernauts at 9 p.m. Nobody would be doing well in that time slot.
The “juggernauts” Todd was referring to are the Hannity program on the Fox News Channel and the eponymous Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC even though Tapper’s series airs at a different time, 4 p.m., and has the highest ratings of any show on CNN.
In an article on the subject, FNC Senior News Editor Chris Irvine noted: “On Wednesday evening, Hannity led the way in ratings once again, with 3.29 million viewers, while Maddow's show had 2.6 million and Cuomo trailed a distant third, with only 901,000.”
The Lead is described by the cable channel as covering “all the day's top stories from around the country and the world, headlines that span politics, money, sports and popular culture.”
Tapper also hosts the Sunday morning program State of the Union, which draws an audience of less than one million viewers each week.
