CNN host Chris Cuomo took issue with former Homeland Security Department official Miles Taylor not only for lying about an anonymous 2018 op-ed he wrote in the New York Times, but doing so on CNN, a cable news network that employs him as a contributor.
Taylor revealed on Wednesday that he was “Anonymous” behind a scathing op-ed two years ago about being a member of a Trump administration “resistance” against the president. “Anonymous” was also the author of the book, A Warning, in 2019. But, when asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper about whether he authored the editorial earlier this year, Taylor denied he was the author. He was hired by CNN the following month.
“You lied to us, Miles,” Cuomo said on his show, Prime Time, on Wednesday evening. “You were asked in August if you were ‘Anonymous’ here with Anderson Cooper, and you said no. Now, why should CNN keep you on the payroll after lying like that?”
Taylor defended the deception, saying he had vowed to deny that he was “Anonymous” if he was pressed on the topic.
“When I published A Warning, I said in the book that if asked, I would strenuously deny I was the author,” Taylor told Cuomo. “… We have seen over the course of four years that Donald Trump’s preference is to find personal attacks and distractions to pull people away from criticisms of his record. I wrote that work anonymously to deprive him of that opportunity and to force him to answer the questions on their merits.”
Taylor added that he was just keeping his own word when he lied to Cooper, who is now his colleague.
“When asked by Anderson … I said what I was going to do,” he said. “I temporarily denied it. But I always said I would ultimately come out under my own name. But that said, I owe Anderson Cooper a beer.”
After Taylor came forward to identity himself earlier in the day, President Trump called on CNN to fire him.
A CNN spokesman confirmed to the Washington Post that despite Taylor lying to Cooper, one of its longtime leading news hosts, on-air, the outlet will keep him as a network contributor.
