CNN’s Chris Cuomo certainly seems to have a selective memory when it comes to recalling how his own show has responded to Democrat and Republican “scandals.”
After Senator Cory Booker launched an angry lecture against Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for not remembering whether or not President Trump said “sh**hole” during a private White House meeting last week, the RNC took a note from the left, accusing Booker of “mansplaining” to Nielsen.
Cuomo defended Booker on New Day Thursday, grilling RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel over the charge, even ludicrously claiming that had the same incident happened with a Republican Senator and a female Democrat, the media wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.
The problem is, a similar situation did happen just a year ago, and CNN’s own reaction was much different then that it was this week.
Cuomo began his interview by asking McDaniel “why” she would accuse Booker of “mansplaining” when Booker was only trying to get Nielsen to answer his question.
“You accused Booker of 'man-splaining' to Secretary Nielsen, who is of course a woman. Why, why did you call it that?” he first asked.
McDaniel argued that had the situation been reversed politically, the media would’ve responded with the same accusation of sexism. “Chris, I just think it would have been covered differently if it were a Republican senator yelling or lecturing a woman coming before the Senate, not giving her a chance to explain herself, grandstanding,” she charged.
But Cuomo didn’t agree. “She was there for a long time. She was answering, she kept saying the same things,” he contested.
Cuomo then played a clip from an earlier segment where Booker responded to the RNC’s charge, and self-righteously huffed that he was “insulted” because he was only calling out Nielsen for “lying” about the “overt bigotry coming out of the White House.”
Acknowledging that he wouldn’t get into Booker’s “lying” charge, Cuomo again pressed McDaniel, asking her if she expects women to get different treatment than a man:
In this age of recognizing women as equal once and for all, on all levels, why would he have to treat Nielsen differently? She's so strong, she’s so competent,she’s so empowered. Why would he have to talk to her differently than he would have to talk to a man?
McDaniel agreed Nielsen shouldn’t have to be treated differently, but still argued that Booker’s reaction was “disrespectful” to her position and was “mansplaining.”
“How is it mansplaining just because she’s a woman is what I’m saying!” Cuomo asked.
Finally McDaniel compared the situation to how Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren has been protected by the media.
“There’s a hypocrisy of how Elizabeth Warren is treated,” McDaniel started to say but was talked over by Cuomo who kept denying there was any kind of sexist treatment towards Nielsen.
“They talk to men like that all the time, Ronna! They talk to men like that, all the time,” he gushed.
“There’s a hypocrisy between how Elizabeth Warren is treated versus how Secretary Nielsen is treated,” she finally got out.
“The president calls her Pocahontas,” Cuomo tried to turn the blame on Trump.
McDaniel gushed, “When Democrats interrupt Elizabeth Warren, the media goes crazy, and when it just happened to---” before Cuomo interrupted.
“When has that ever happened?” he actually asked, perplexed.
McDaniel informed him, “It happened a year ago,” but was talked over the CNN anchor. She’s right. Last February, the media as a whole, but specifically Cuomo’s own show, threw a hissy fit when a disruptive Elizabeth Warren was asked to be quiet by Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, during a hearing confirming Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The media hoopla over the incident lasted for months, with several outlets mirroring CNN in accusing the GOP of sexism.
Hilariously, Cuomo was sitting right next to his co-anchor, Alisyn Camerota, when she charged McConnell with “sexism” for “silencing” Warren at the time, yet somehow he didn’t remember any of this in his conversation with McDaniel, Thursday.
Still contesting McDaniel, Cuomo joked that it was “almost impossible to interrupt Elizabeth Warren,” anyway, before adding this whopper of a fabrication:
Who says that when Warren gets interrupted, people go crazy in the media? Even the Pocahontas thing gets laughs these days, and that's about as offensive as you see in political mainstream dialogue. The president gets away with that on the regular.
McDaniel repeated her argument that Booker was “disrespectful” to Nielsen and was grandstanding for a chance to run for president in 2020, and the interview quickly wrapped up after that.
