CNN has found its red line. Hilariously enough, it isn’t about host Chris Cuomo using his position to benefit his family’s personal and political interests.
The left-wing network has dropped Rick Santorum as a paid contributor following comments he made last month at a private event in Las Vegas.
“We’ve parted ways,” Vice President of Communications Alison Rudnick confirmed this weekend.
In April, at an event hosted by Young America’s Foundation, the former Pennsylvania lawmaker remarked offhandedly, “We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes, we have Native Americans, but candidly, there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.”
Santorum added, “It was born of the people who came here, pursuing religious liberty, to practice their faith, to live as they ought to live, and have the freedom to do so. Religious liberty.”
The former presidential candidate’s remarks immediately sparked outrage from CNN anchors.
“[I]t seemed like you were trying to erase diversity in the interest of some white Christian right,” Cuomo said to Santorum in a follow-up interview.
“Just to be clear,” the former senator responded, “what I was not saying is that Native American culture … I misspoke … what I was talking about is the founding of the country. I gave a long talk about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and what I was saying is that we sort of created that anew, if you will.”
He added, “I was not trying to dismiss Native Americans. In fact, I mentioned them because they were here, and they did have an impact. In fact, in this country, you are right. They have a huge impact.”
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to understand what Santorum said, albeit inartfully. He meant the founders (in some cases against significant opposition from Native Americans during the Revolutionary War) wrote into existence a republican political culture based on English common law and the philosophical principles championed by Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke. What they created was both very English and European, but also very un-English and un-European. For example, religious freedom and the freedom of speech and the press were all foreign ideas to European countries at that time. The rejection of monarchy, although not unprecedented in modern Europe, was also a rarity.
So yes, the U.S. founders were doing something quite new, as was Santorum’s point. They weren’t just following the European status quo. And although it usually goes unsaid, they also weren’t taking their ideas on governance from Native Americans.
CNN’s Don Lemon, a man with little imagination, got on his high horse and condemned Santorum’s follow-up remarks.
“No contrition,” Lemon said. “He didn’t talk about the suffering that Native Americans have had to deal with. Did he actually think it was a good idea for him to come on television and try to whitewash the whitewash that he whitewashed? It was horrible and insulting, and I apologize to the viewers who were insulted by this.”
Lemon was reportedly not the only CNN staffer upset by Santorum’s remarks to Cuomo. In fact, the interview was allegedly the final straw that pushed network executives to terminate Santorum’s contract.
“Leadership wasn’t particularly satisfied with that appearance,” a senior executive told HuffPost. “None of the anchors wanted to book him. So he was essentially benched anyway.”
The person added, “I think after that appearance, it was pretty clear we couldn’t use him again.”
CNN did not terminate Santorum’s contract for anything he said on the airwaves or for anything he did in his capacity as a CNN contributor. Rather, he lost his gig because he said something at a private event.
Meanwhile, Chris Cuomo still has a job, even after breaking multiple journalism rules on CNN’s time and dime.
Cuomo admitted last week he had been quietly advising his older brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on how to navigate multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, which, by the way, the cable host has recused himself from covering. There are so many rules being broken here. Chris Cuomo quietly advising his older brother after promoting him on-air as the savior of the pandemic — and after receiving preferential COVID-19 treatments thanks to the governor’s secretive “friends and family” program — moves the issue well beyond ethically dubious and directly into “fireable offense” territory.
But CNN doesn’t intend to fire Cuomo. In fact, it has no plans to discipline him whatsoever, even though he used the network to benefit his family’s interests.
The point here isn’t to argue Santorum should still have his job at CNN. This isn’t even a defense of what the former senator said. CNN is a private network. It’s free to do what it feels is in its best interests.
Rather, the point here is to say Santorum’s firing shows CNN clearly has some standards. It’s just a game of figuring out what they are and why they don’t apply to Chris Cuomo.
