Chris Cuomo slammed left-wing armchair critics who took offense to his interview with Tucker Carlson, saying they were ‘simply demonizing someone you disagree with.’
The former CNN host sat down with the ousted Fox News firebrand earlier this week, criticizing Carlson for asking Russian leader Vladimir Putin ‘softball questions’.
But amid outrage from wide-awake viewers that Cuomo would even host Carlson, he defended the move as ‘thatone and his crazy cackle is bigger than most big business,’ he said on his NewsNation show Wednesday.
‘He has an audience because millions feel the same way.’
Chris Cuomo defended his interview with Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, saying those who took offense were ‘simply demonizing someone you disagree with’ and an open exchange of ideas is ‘all we need to get to a better place’
Tucker Carlson told Chris Cuomo he ‘can’t even guess’ who killed Alexei Navalny during a confrontational interview earlier this week after Cuomo hit Carlson for asking Vladimir Putin softball questions
Cuomo argued that those opposed to even talking to Carlson were short-sighted and it would be redundant to simply ignore influential people you disagree with.
“This is the same mistake many in the media made with Trump,” he said. ‘And when I spoke to Trump early on, I got the same criticism.’
Although he noted that interviewing Carlson could lead to the ‘spread of bad ideas’, he believed that on the other hand they are worse, as they ‘would rather keep quiet about what they don’t agree with’.
“And I think that’s driving the divide,” Cuomo continued.
“While there is disagreement, deep disagreement, about who is to blame, what the solutions are, what really happened and who has the right to do the job, despite all that, there are shared concerns.
‘And that’s all we need to get to a better place.’
Despite being the son and brother of two New York governors, Cuomo felt he faced backlash for the interview because “the establishment hates it when we talk to each other.”
“The ugly truth is that far too many in the establishment prefer to keep us separate,” he said. ‘So they don’t have to do what’s hard: solve the problems.’
‘All of this has allowed the divide and conquer mentality to subvert your interests for their own preservation of power and audience share.’
Cuomo and Carlson clashed over Russia and on January 6 during their interview, which Cuomo defended as “we need to get to a better place.”
While some took offense to platforming Carlson, others praised the open exchange of ideas between those who disagree, with journalist Maria Shriver saying it’s “one way we as a nation can find our way back to civility.” ‘
“I like that these guys did this,” said the journalist and ex-wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, on X. ‘I know Chris Cuomo, I don’t know Tucker Carlson, but I learned something about both men that I didn’t know before. Good work to you both.’
The interview saw some hostile moments between the pair, particularly when they clashed over Carlson’s interview tactics with Putin.
While he admitted that Carlson shouldn’t have gotten “into a shouting match” with the Russian president, Cuomo still felt the former Fox News host could have gone harder and asked about Navalny.
“(You) made choices,” he said. “You didn’t ask about Navalny. You said, yes, all killers, all leaders kill. But don’t you feel that if you’re going to sit with someone like that, you have to hold them accountable for things that matter, the fact , that he might have murdered someone or many people, he said.
Carlson responded by saying he held Putin responsible but claimed ‘Ukrainians say (Putin) didn’t kill Navalny’.
Cuomo responded: ‘So who killed him? The guy looks good one minute, the next minute he’s dead.’
“In a larger sense, the Russian government, the Ukrainian government said he died of natural causes,” Carlson argued.
“Now, what’s really going on there, I can’t even guess.”
During his interview with Tucker Carlson, Putin provided a ‘historical background’ to the conflict with Ukraine before defending his military’s actions. Cuomo subsequently slammed Carlson for asking “softball questions”
While admitting that Carlson shouldn’t have ‘got into a shouting match’ with the Russian president, Cuomo still felt the former Fox News host could have gone harder and asked about Navalny
The pair also discussed Carlson’s coverage of the January 6 riot.
‘Your approach and other people’s approach, hey, it was just, you know, these guys were in the wrong place, the wrong way, but that’s all it was. I don’t agree with that. I think it was a ruckus,” Cuomo said.
“And I think they were way over the line, and I think they were motivated to go over the line, in part by the president of the United States.”
Carlson replied: ‘Parts of it were obviously a riot, but let me ask you a couple of questions, one is, why can’t we know how many federal agents were in the crowd and what they were doing there?’
‘I’m fine with knowing. I love transparency. That’s the key to understanding,’ Cuomo replied.
Cuomo then lobbied that he ‘cherry-picked’ the tapes he played from that day to make those accused of crimes related to the Capitol riot appear sympathetic.
“I aired what they sent me,” Carlson replied, to which Cuomo again claimed he “cherry-picked” it.