Chris Cuomo was fired by CNN Saturday after he was accused of his involvement with Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York, as well as his sexual misconduct.
CNN chief Jeff Zucker was allegedly shocked at the level of Cuomo’s involvement, which was apparently deeper than the anchor had told him. Cuomo claims that Zucker knew all the facts. It’s looking like he won’t go down without a fight and I, for one, think I may root for injuries here.
Cuomo is also facing serious issues. Cuomo is now facing fresh allegations of sexual misconduct by a former junior staffer at another network. This could be, as my colleague Nick Arama pointed out yesterday, the “additional information” CNN said it received which ultimately led to Cuomo’s dismissal.
But allegations like this aren’t new. Ex-boss of ABC said Cuomo touched her underbelly at a birthday party. It appears that Cuomo is the brother of his anchor.
In fairness, there’s a presumption that someone is innocent. But Cuomo has not helped himself at all by being so deeply entangled in his brother’s scandal. By using his position to help advise his brother on how to handle it, as well as using sources and connections to identify his brother’s accusers, he has shown himself to be someone who will try to cover up allegations like this or make them go away.
There is another problem, however, that directly feeds into the problems at CNN. Zucker went out to recruit Cuomo, gave him permission to interview his brother (unethically), and stood behind him even though he was originally reported as being advising his brother. There are at least two accusations against Cuomo we have seen, one from an earlier network. Others are more likely, some of which CNN has tried to address privately.
We also know Zucker is not a stranger to overlooking these types of issues. He spent a long time at NBC News, ignoring Matt Lauer’s predatory behavior. It has been a joke about which he continues to avoid answering questions.
A former NBC News employee with knowledge of Zucker’s relationship with Lauer feels the two shared a unique bond.
“They are very close friends. Jeff even did a Friars Club roast of Matt where he cracked jokes about Matt’s marital problems,” the former NBC News employee told Fox News. “At NBC, [Zucker] was the one person who could tell Matt to shut up.”
At the 2008 roast, Zucker made several lewd remarks about Lauer.
“It’s just good to see Matt up here and not under my desk,” Zucker said from the podium, according to a media executive who attended. “I don’t want to say Matt is a germophobe, but he’s the only guy I know who uses Purell both before and after he masturbates.”
When Lauer was abruptly fired by NBC for sexual misconduct nine years later, in 2017, Zucker said at Business Insider’s Ignition conference that the news was ‘incredibly disturbing” and “heartbreaking.”
If Cuomo is a serial sexual harasser, there is very little doubt that he did some of the same things at CNN, and there is definitely no chance it wasn’t “handled internally” in order to protect him. He was Zucker’s pet project and their top prime-time star. His business and ideological interests would have been safeguarded as best as they could.
Oftentimes, personalities like this are deemed “too big to fail” and will be protected. Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer are just a few examples of people who have stood up for their rights. With Cuomo’s fortunes now on the decline, it is possible we’ll see the same thing happening here. This is the age-old question regarding scandals: How and when did CNN and Jeff Zuck know this?
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