Warning: Explicit language below, based on quotes from protesters.
After five excruciating hours Saturday night into early Sunday of CNN Tonight hack Don Lemon, Sunday night featured three hours of Prime Time host Chris “Fredo” Cuomo.
Like some of his colleagues, Cuomo offered brief, dull excuses for those rioting to supposedly honor the late George Floyd while, in the same vein, serving up more emphatic defenses of those carrying out violence. For good measure, Cuomo continued to falsely claim CNN and the media aren’t a part of the story and the President was to blame for fomenting hate.
In the first hour, he went to break by promising to “give you the facts as we understand them” after excusing the riots by talking about a Tupac meme calling for such destruction in order to enact change.
Cuomo dismissed this behavior as a series of “judgments” and then blamed Trump for the lack of change in criminal justice: “This administration has done no favors to this cause by harnessing anger. There’s plenty of anger in America and when you play with it, you play with fire.”
In the third hour, Cuomo doubled down by blaming Trump for “saying incendiary things, certainly if you've been listening with any kind of open mindedness, certainly not helpful things.”
Throughout the night, he reiterated a lie he peddled Friday night that “the media is not the story,” aren’t “be[ing] victimized,” so there was that on top of the all this.
If the sniveling Daniel Dale were legit, he’d fact-check that nonsense, starting with the fact that it took well under 24 hours for CNN to begin bragging in promos about how one of their reporters was (wrongfully) arrested.
While not anything close to Lemon’s nearly 11-minute-long meltdown, Cuomo had a few brief fits. Here were two of them, including snippets of offering implicit endorsements for the rioting (click “expand,” emphasis mine):
Who is speaking to this country and telling them, telling these people that you're seeing on your screen that there is an answer to this? That there is something other than outrage and the language of pain to process in this situation? Our best answer can't be police marching down a street in a major city chasing back citizens of this country. We have to be able to do better. You shouldn't have to rely on a CNN correspondent to speak to the truth and pain of what is hitting an entire part of this coy. It's not [Sara Sidner’s] job. It's not my job. It's not the job of these police, to make this stop. Where are our leaders? If you want to say, well, these people need to go home, that's what stops it, personal responsibility, we would have never been having this conversation if you didn't have people take to the streets. If there were another way for this to have been done, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't keep coming back to this place.
(....)
You're watching this all over the country whether it's the nation's capital or New York or Atlanta or San Francisco or Long Beach and of course all emanating out of Minnesota, remember people will not like what they see. That is almost always the case when people take to the streets to fight against a system that they believe is doing things that are not American. It's hard to please that same system. I mean, think about it. We don't like that they're not listening to the law and not following the curfew. Well, their issue is that following the curfew, following the rules, does not work both ways in their communities. Or there are people who believe that that is true about minority communities. Yes, they're members of the majority, but they believe that America should treat everybody the same way. So, you're not going to have a protest of the system that the system likes....But the appetite, the hunger for people to understand that somebody gets it and sees it for what it is and says that it's wrong is that strong.
Sounds about right for an outspoken Antifa supporter.
After a Long Beach, California protester claimed that “nobody gives a fuck about” African-Americans “unless we get violent” and people only “care about the shit getting burned down,” Cuomo empathized by trotting out the absurd, liberal media-wide narrative the rioting seen was similar to the Boston Tea Party.
Past midnight, he misled viewers by twisting the words of former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who had vehemently denounced the destruction and looting but also said that the peaceful protesters of the Civil Rights Movement allowed him to have the kind of life that he was able to have.
Instead of leaving it there, Fredo shrugged off the violence because, “if it hadn't been protests that got ugly and violent in the '60s, he wouldn't be where he was.”
In what served as an early, unofficial “Closing Argument” commentary, the stupid flew off the rails and on a collision course with Mars. Cuomo began by falsely claiming that he’s “not one of those people who's like going out of my way to drag politics into a situation,” you knew it wouldn’t be good.
Along with hypocritically claiming the media report the facts, he also attacked Trump as the person in this country causing widespread hatred (click “expand,” emphasis mine):
This is about politics, okay? Politics is going to decide what the tone, the tenor, the laws, the policy, the culture of criminal justice and administration of justice is about in this country and you need leadership. And I have to say the President of the United States tonight as I'm looking at his Twitter feed, okay, and that is his main mechanism, the idea of his leading Twitter --- he's not leading Twitter. “LAW AND ORDER!” Five hours ago. “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.” If he's speaking to the fact that you’re having agitator groups that enter in here that are not up to good, that are malefactors, he's right, there are offshoots of people who identify with that group. They're part of it. There are a lot of others too. Interesting he only mentions that one. “FAKE NEWS!” It’s a country desperate for understanding. Desperate for leadership that there could be better things. He doesn't like that you're seeing this and hearing it. He thinks it's bad for him. What does that tell you? Then his last one; “The Lamestream Media is doing everything within their power to foment hatred and anarchy.” As we go to break, just think about this. You know what our job is. It’s to show you what's going on, give you context when it counts, and help you understand the story so you can make your own decisions. You elect people to lead, to do a job for you.
What is that job in the situation right now? What does this country need right now? Now, whatever you think that is, you tell me how attacking the free press, which gives us an ability to see it because they're not showing you the body cam footage, they're not showing you the body camera footage in Minnesota. They have laws. They have reasons. All you get is what we can show in these situations and you too with your cellphone video. Otherwise who knows what would have happened in Minnesota. Who knows what would have happened in so many other cases? Even the Ahmaud Arbery case, even though the guy who wound up taking the video is now part of the group being prosecuted. What do we need from leadership right now? At a minimum, do we really need any energy spent on finding another reason to keep us apart?
To see the relevant CNN transcript from May 31 and June 1, click “expand.”
CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time
May 31, 2020
10:28 p.m. EasternCHRIS CUOMO: And, again, the New York source, high-ranking official, the NYPD, New York Police Department has told me that one of every seven arrested in the last two days has not been from New York City. Now what that tells us is a lot of things are true at the same time. There are a lot of people who are black in this country, who believe they have a very good reason to be fed up, and that this is the response. There’s a meme going around social media right now of Tupac Shakur saying you really expect us to keep asking to treat us well when we've been asking for generation after generation? Eventually, you stop asking you. You start insisting. You start knocking down the doors. Now, does that make it right? Look, those kinds of judgments become a chain. Is it right why they're doing it? Is it right that they feel they have to do it? Is it right that that hasn't changed? So, people cherry pick what they want to be true in these situations. All I know what you know, we keep winding up back here, situation after situation, administration after administration. This administration has done no favors to this cause by harnessing anger. There’s plenty of anger in America and when you play with it, you play with fire, just as you see your screen right now. This is in Boston. They're putting out a fire that I showed you earlier on the street, does not appear to be a cruiser. I don't see a light rack on top, but they're lighting cars that are police cruisers, and they're lighting civilians' vehicles as well. Some of them are black. Some of them are white. Some of them are there and they're angry and they are legitimately trying to seek change. Others are not. A lot of things are true at the same time. We'll try to give you the facts as we understand them.
(….)
10:58 p.m. Eastern
CUOMO: If you want to cover this situation and show what other people are doing, the media is not the story. You should not be in the front. They should be off to the side. I understand the frustration. I understand the urgency for people to have the media show their reality. I think we're able to do that without becoming part of the reality that is a provocation to the police. The last thing you want, and I'm not saying you've never seen it before, and I'm not saying some of the criticism isn't justified, where the media makes a situation worse by drawing attention to it, being in a place that creates a pocket of provocation for police. Yes, I've seen it, too. We want to avoid that. We don’t want to encourage it.
(….)
11:03 p.m. Eastern
CUOMO: There is Atlanta. You saw what happened there in front of the CNN building. CNN's not the story here. CNN wasn't the target to be victimized. This is about covering the story, not being the story. The mayor down there has been very forceful in terms of the understanding of what gives leverage for change. If you light your own community on fire, you pay the price because you now don't have access to the things you burned down anymore. But that does assume that the community is the one doing the damage to its own community. That's not always the case. That is often a false assumption. I'm telling you. I've seen it with my own eyes many times. These groups are not one thing. It's not a monolith, okay? You have outside agitators.
(….)
11:34 p.m. Eastern
CUOMO: Who is speaking to this country and telling them, telling these people that you're seeing on your screen that there is an answer to this? That there is something other than outrage and the language of pain to process in this situation? Our best answer can't be police marching down a street in a major city chasing back citizens of this country. We have to be able to do better. You shouldn't have to rely on a CNN correspondent to speak to the truth and pain of what is hitting an entire part of this coy. It's not [Sara Sidner’s] job. It's not my job. It's not the job of these police, to make this stop. Where are our leaders? If you want to say, well, these people need to go home, that's what stops it, personal responsibility, we would have never been having this conversation if you didn't have people take to the streets. If there were another way for this to have been done, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't keep coming back to this place. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time keeping the names of all the black men we've covered who have been killed by police, many of which are those cases you've had families receive money, settlements from cities, ironically paid for with tax dollars, by those same communities that wind up being victimized, but very rarely do we see prosecutions of those officers, so there’s a civil settlement. There is a legal standard. I'm a lawyer. I know what I'm talking about. We need to do better in this country.
(….)
11:50 p.m. Eastern
KYUNG LAH: Why are you still marching?
AFRICAN-AMERICAN PROTESTER: Because I matter. My family matter. My friends and family matter. I got nephews. I got nieces. I got sisters. I got a mama. I got a daddy. I got friends. I got peers. I call all these people here. They fucking matter. Their lives matter. Nobody gives a fuck about us, okay? Unless we get violent You care about the shit getting burned down, but what about when the KKK burned --- when the KKK our shit down then.
LAH: There’s a lot of ---
AFRICAN-AMERICAN PROTESTER: Where were y'all then?
LAH: --- there’s a lot of passion.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN PROTESTER: Where were y’all then? Where were y’all complaining then? They fucked our whole nation up. They fucked up generations and generations of kids.
LAH: So, you can hear the passion in her voice.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN PROTESTER: We are in a fight for kids. We stand for the people who can't speak for themselves. We stand for the ones who have been knocked down. The ones who can't stand up no more because they don’t have a voice any more. We stand for peace. We stand for equality. We stand for unity. We stand for love. No justice! No justice!
PROTESTERS: No peace.
LAH: She's the one that's been leading the chant as they march through the streets and you can hear it in her voice, Chris. That is the passion that a lot of the people have brought on to these streets here in Long Beach and they say they want to keep getting that message out, Chris.
CUOMO: Understandable pain in her voice and outrage based on what she's seen and look, you have to understand -- and if you can't understand, you have to listen and try to absorb that why would you listen to the message to go home and observe a curfew as someone who respects the law when you don't believe the law is being respected when it comes to you? And you vote and you organize and you say that you want better and it doesn't get better. At what point do you turn to this? Now, people judge it. That's fine. You should also judge the Boston Tea Party. You should also judge what happened in the '60s that led to the Civil Rights Amendment. Most of the major moments in American history have started at the grassroots level and, at some point, have turned into direct conflict with American government. So, remember your history before you judge your present.
(….)
June 1, 2020
12:11 a.m. EasternCUOMO: So, there is expectation that when we see these scenes on the streets these are all African-American black males, you know, these are angry black males, you know, whatever term people want to use, and that's who's doing all this looting, and it's just an excuse, and they're just as bad as what they say they oppose. My experience in these situations is you've got a mix. You do have angry African-Americans and with good reason and they are often joined by white and other raced people from their communities who join in their cause who are doing the right thing, some who are doing the wrong thing. Then there is this added element that I'm happy is finally getting attention which is these agitator groups you have. They're either wearing the Guy Fawkes masks or their anarchist masks. Or they seem to come from somewhere else. NYPD, high-ranking sources tells me the arrests over the last couple of days, one out of every seven arrests has had a non-New York address attached to them. What has your experience and the reality that everybody looks at the crowd and thinks everybody is there for the same reason.
CHARLES RAMSEY: Well, first of all, not everybody is there for the same reason. Most of the times with the protests we've handled and I was in Washington D.C. where lord knows we have a lot of protests there, usually say diverse mix of people. It's usually not all one of anything when you're talking about protests like this. I mean, there are some who are yeah, you might get certain divisions like that. But anyway, it's not uncommon for it to be diverse like this and you do have that element that will mix in to the legitimate administrators. Even people that are yelling, screaming, holding up signs, I mean that’s all part of demonstrating. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But burning and looting, that's all different -- there's a group with a particular mindset that they come there to commit those kinds of crimes and I hear sometimes --- I hear people try to make excuses, they're just upset. I don't see what breaking in a Footlocker stealing gym shoes has to do with being in pain. I mean, that, to me, is just -- I don't --- I don’t make the connection with that, but I do understand people being very vocal, being very angry, being very upset, yelling, and screaming at the cops. I understand all that. I really do and got to take it out on something. But I do think it’s a line there where if it goes too far, then we really start to lose the focus that the legitimate folks are out there trying to make and it's easy to write them off as just a bunch of criminals or someone will say, oh they're thugs or this, that, the other. Nothing could be further from the truth. I respect protesters. If it weren't for the protests in the 1960s I never would have become the chief of Washington D.C. police or the commissioner of the Philadelphia Police. The sacrifices those folks made on my behalf, the future, is what made a difference for me. And this will make a difference for the next generation.
CUOMO: Alright, Commissioner, I've got to jump. I just want people to -- first of all, thank you very much. Commissioner Ramsey, one of the more decorated police chiefs in the country. D.C., Philadelphia, he was in Chicago before that just said if it hadn't been protests that got ugly and violent in the '60s, he wouldn't be where he was because that's how he got those rights and those opportunities. They were hard fought for by a generation of people, not that different than what we’re seeing today.
(….)
12:18 a.m. Eastern
CUOMO: Let's go to the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., obviously an acute concern there. This is a lot of pressure on the White House. The President had been saying incendiary things, certainly if you've been listening with any kind of open mindedness, certainly not helpful things and this is a country that is starved for leadership that can get people on the streets and who are upset at home that understand that there’s a reason to have hope in days ahead.
(….)
12:28 a.m. Eastern
CUOMO: You're watching this all over the country whether it's the nation's capital or New York or Atlanta or San Francisco or Long Beach and of course all emanating out of Minnesota, remember people will not like what they see. That is almost always the case when people take to the streets to fight against a system that they believe is doing things that are not American. It's hard to please that same system. I mean, think about it. We don't like that they're not listening to the law and not following the curfew. Well, their issue is that following the curfew, following the rules, does not work both ways in their communities. Or there are people who believe that that is true about minority communities. Yes, they're members of the majority, but they believe that America should treat everybody the same way. So, you're not going to have a protest of the system that the system likes. The problem we have here is where are our leaders? Yes, you're seeing them locally. I have to say. The mayor of Atlanta certainly has been getting a lot of attention and for the right reasons, but where's the national leadership? Where are people -- this is a national story. Where are the national leaders saying we hear you, we understand, the pain is recognized? Not just the symptoms of an illness that we refuse to treat. We're just going to call out the symptoms because we don't like them. Stop sweating from that fever of injustice. Where is that voice? Where are those voices? I've got to tell you it's not her job, but CNN's Sara sidner is in Minneapolis and I've had more people say to me tonight, the conversation I had with you about what this is about and why it hurts much and what has to be addressed was, you know, soul feeding to them. You're there to tell people what's going on and help them understand it. But the appetite, the hunger for people to understand that somebody gets it and sees it for what it is and says that it's wrong is that strong.
(….)
12:34 a.m. Eastern
CUOMO: But I want you to know something. I'm not one of those people who's like going out of my way to drag politics into a situation. This is about politics, okay? Politics is going to decide what the tone, the tenor, the laws, the policy, the culture of criminal justice and administration of justice is about in this country and you need leadership. And I have to say the President of the United States tonight as I'm looking at his Twitter feed, okay, and that is his main mechanism, the idea of his leading Twitter --- he's not leading Twitter. “LAW AND ORDER!” Five hours ago. “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.” If he's speaking to the fact that you’re having agitator groups that enter in here that are not up to good, that are malefactors, he's right, there are offshoots of people who identify with that group. They're part of it. There are a lot of others too. Interesting he only mentions that one. “FAKE NEWS!” It’s a country desperate for understanding. Desperate for leadership that there could be better things. He doesn't like that you're seeing this and hearing it. He thinks it's bad for him. What does that tell you? Then his last one; “The Lamestream Media is doing everything within their power to foment hatred and anarchy.” As we go to break, just think about this. You know what our job is. It’s to show you what's going on, give you context when it counts, and help you understand the story so you can make your own decisions. You elect people to lead, to do a job for you.
What is that job in the situation right now? What does this country need right now? Now, whatever you think that is, you tell me how attacking the free press, which gives us an ability to see it because they're not showing you the body cam footage, they're not showing you the body camera footage in Minnesota. They have laws. They have reasons. All you get is what we can show in these situations and you too with your cellphone video. Otherwise who knows what would have happened in Minnesota. Who knows what would have happened in so many other cases? Even the Ahmaud Arbery case, even though the guy who wound up taking the video is now part of the group being prosecuted. What do we need from leadership right now? At a minimum, do we really need any energy spent on finding another reason to keep us apart?
