On Thursday, Dan Abrams, founder and owner of NewsNation and Mediaite, engaged in a friendly debate with one of his network’s hosts, former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.
The dispute was over the latter’s remarks that appeared to be favorable towards former President Donald Trump.
According to Mediaite, what had occurred was that the article “Chris Cuomo Says He’d Consider Voting For Trump: ‘I Am Always Open’,” which reported on Cuomo’s words accurately, had not contacted him for comment before its publication.
When ending his program, Cuomo showed a screenshot of the story and criticized it for aiming to generate clicks through clickbait headlines instead of providing factual journalism.
Following this statement he then welcomed Abrams onto the show who mentioned that although Mediaite leans left politically, NewsNation is neutral in its coverage.
“I’m so glad that you put that up, alright? Put it back up. Put up the headline again from Mediaite, which is a website that I happen to own,” said Abrams, to which Cuomo responded, “No, don’t give Mediaite the attention. Don’t put it up. Don’t put it up.”
“It does feel like you’re kind of backing off of what you said,” continued Abrams.
He added:
You were right at the top of the show when you said more context, right? Your point was that you were critical of Donald Trump in other parts of the interview, but you were asked a very specific question, which is, “So you’re open to a Trump vote?” And your response was, “I’m always open.” And then you went further than that. You even said, “And I’ll tell you this: people say, Oh, B.S., you’ve never voted for a Republican in your life. Wrong. Not only have I, but the first vote I ever cast was for a Republican.” Your point was that you’re open. Was it not? I mean, is that unfair?
Cuomo replied, “The point is that everybody should be open,” before claiming that Trump “made life very hard when he weaponized me and went after my family.”
The former CNN host then added:
Am I open? Yes, I’m open. I then followed it by saying—the part that you mysteriously missed—”If”Donald Trump is banking on me for re-election, he’s got trouble.” Why? Because he’s not my guy, and I’ve said it a million different times and ways, but it’s not my place to tell people to vote for him. Your outlet, and a lot of other ones, did what you often criticize, which is that they didn’t contact me. They didn’t want context.
“Wait, why do they need to contact you? What is there to contact you about?” Abrams said. “You said what you said in the interview. It speaks for itself. What do they have to contact you about?”
“I never said I would consider voting for Trump. I said, ‘I’m open,’” to which Abrams replied, “That is a distinction without a difference!”
“When you are going to cover what somebody said, you call if you’re a responsible reporter and say, ‘Hey, did you say this? And what did you mean when you said this?’” Cuomo insisted.
“What do you mean, ‘Did you do this?’ You’re not denying you said it,” Abrams playfully countered. “You don’t call when someone makes a comment on their show. You don’t have to say, ‘Did you say it?’ You know they said it.”
Cuomo, who is an attorney by education, continued to claim that the headline was “clickbait” and written “grossly out of context” before saying that “if it were a trial,” Mediaite would “get massacred on this.”
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