Politics is only as ugly as you make it, and CNN knows how to make it ugly as sin.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas appeared Wednesday on CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s primetime news program. The senator wanted to talk about his new book, One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History. Cuomo wanted to talk about President Trump, leer at Cruz’s Christian faith, talk about Trump, challenge Cruz’s credentials as a husband and father, and talk about Trump. Cuomo also spent much of the interview defending his objectively incompetent big brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The cable host even suggested after the segment ended Wednesday that Cruz is incapable of criticizing Trump because the White House may be blackmailing the Texas lawmaker.
This is CNN.
From the get-go, Cuomo made the interview hyper-personal and hyper-political. There is a difference between tough, no-nonsense journalism and just plain ugly. This CNN interview, if you can call it that, falls into the latter category.
Cuomo began by glossing over mentions of Cruz’s new book on the Supreme Court and went right into demanding that the senator condemn Trump for supposedly aligning himself with a group called the Proud Boys Tuesday evening during the first 2020 presidential debate.
Cruz said yes, he condemns bigots, and then attempted to pivot back to the topic of his book. Not good enough, said Cuomo, who turned the conversation back to Trump.
When the senator failed to denounce the president to Cuomo’s liking, the anchor took a shot at Cruz, saying, “The old Ted Cruz, who [Trump] called ‘Lyin’ Ted’ when he wasn’t insulting your wife and father. What happened to that Ted? I don’t know if he changed, or just you changed.”
An apparently fed up Cruz, who struggled at times to come up with effective, non-eyeroll-inducing responses to Cuomo’s broadsides, eventually lobbed attacks back in the anchor’s direction.
“There was a time when CNN cared about being journalistic and talking about facts,” said the senator. “Donald Trump broke you guys. Your entire show, your entire network is just how much you hate Trump.”
Later, when Cuomo tried to politicize the coronavirus death toll, claiming so-called “red states” got it worse because they don’t believe the science or whatever, Cruz rightly pointed to the inept performance of the host’s own brother, New York Gov. Cuomo, who oversaw the highest total death rate in the entire union.
“I know your brother didn’t want those people to lose their lives,” said Cruz, turning the host’s attacks on Trump and Republican governors back on him. “You shouldn’t play politics.”
“You don’t think he intentionally killed them?” Cuomo asked.
“Of course not,” said the senator
The host sneered, “That’s very Christian of you.” Cuomo then demanded that Cruz tell the president to “get on it.”
“How about telling your brother to get on it?” asked Cruz.
Once Cruz had already left, Cuomo took one last dig at him, saying, “think that guy’s going to talk about anything about this president? I don’t know what [Trump] has on [Cruz]. He’s going to stay quiet.”
CNN is loud, theatrically sleazy, comically belligerent, and completely beholden to America’s appetite for drama and conflict. Basically, this is a lot like World Wrestling Entertainment, except it is neither entertaining nor professional.
