Dan Abrams and Erik Wemple Face Off Over Chris Cuomo: ‘You Like Double Standards, That’s Fine…I Don’t’
Mediaite founder Dan Abrams debated Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple over CNN’s Chris Cuomo’s suspension from CNN following newly revealed involvement in scandals of his brother, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo.
Wemple joined Dan Abrams Live on Tuesday night to discuss CNN’s indefinite suspension of Cuomo in light of the new details on how he helped his brother politically navigate his sexual harassment allegations. Their debate occurred after Abrams opened the show by doubling down on his previous position that “of course” Cuomo would try to help his brother in spite of the complications entailed for ethical journalism.
Wemple countered Abrams’ point by arguing that the rules of journalism were established “precisely” to handle conflicts of interest like the one between the Cuomo brothers.
“We don’t skip over or void or exempt people from ethics because it’s their brother,” Wemple said. “It’s the reverse. We have ethics rules because they’re your brother. That’s the whole reason they exist.”
The conversation continued with Wemple disputing Abrams when he claimed the position of the former is that Chris should’ve not spoken to his brother “at all” during his scandal. Wemple explained that the CNN anchor crossed the line when he started acting as a “political aide” to his brother and working to protect him from the scandals he faced, even as CNN was reporting on them.
Abrams agreed that Chris shouldn’t have gotten involved in the strategy calls with his brother’s staffers, but he characterized it as a “misdemeanor” in his view, and he asked if Cuomo’s conduct was truly “earth-shattering.” Wemple countered by explaining Cuomo’s involvement with his brother clearly went deeper than he publicly admitted, and he also called out Cuomo for his softball interviews with his brother before he wound up getting bogged down by scandal.
Abrams said the interviews between the Cuomo’s “didn’t bother me,” but Wemple said “I would hope that it might concern you somewhat that he was fine with covering his brother in the early months of the pandemic, but all of a sudden develop these compunctions about covering him when a scandal emerged. That’s a double standard…If you like double standards, that’s fine. You can like double standards. I don’t.”
Abrams stuck to his guns as he argued that Cuomo “wasn’t covering [Andrew] when he was doing these softball interviews. Everyone knew it was brother interviewing brother.” He acknowledged that those jokey interviews look bad for the Cuomo’s in retrospect, “but the notion that those were the problem and this sets the stage ‘how can he say at one point you can cover and then not.’ This goes back to the brother issue. It’s about the viewers understanding. The viewers knew its his brother when he was doing the softball interviews, and when he was in trouble, and from my perspective, that’s the most important issue.”
Watch above, via NewsNation.
