https://cdni.rt.com/files/2020.09/xxl/5f4fefb120302714785eafe2.png

US President Donald Trump has urged CNN to drop confrontational news host Chris Cuomo after a tape of Cuomo denying sexual harassment allegations in conversation with Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen was leaked.

Highlighting Cuomo’s poor ratings and “great disrespect” for women, the president called on CNN to fire the anchor in a tweet on Wednesday.

Will Fredo be fired by Fake News @CNN? He speaks with great disrespect about women, and it will only get worse. Fredo’s Ratings are bad, so this is the time. Always terrible to speak to sleazebags, especially when you are being recorded. CNN has no choice, Fredo must go! https://t.co/veVwg7G1YF

Trump also dragged the CNN host for speaking to “sleazebags” – i.e. Cohen, who turned state’s witness against Trump after he was caught up in the Trump-Russia collusion investigation and charged with tax evasion and bank fraud. He further stuck the knife in by referring to Cuomo by the hated nickname ‘Fredo’, a reference to the dim-witted Corleone brother in Mario Puzo’s ‘The Godfather’. Cuomo’s older brother is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and their father was New York Governor Mario Cuomo.

Neither the network nor Cuomo have publicly responded to the leaked conversation between Cuomo and Cohen that Fox News host Tucker Carlson played on air Tuesday night, in which Cuomo claims unscrupulous reporters have tried to dig up dirt on sexual harassment accusations leveled against him while he worked at ABC.

Tucker Carlson aired a tape recording between CNN’s Chris Cuomo and Michael Cohen on his show tonight. In it, Cuomo complains about media questioning him over sexual misconduct allegations. pic.twitter.com/Gj4Pj8GlJn

In the conversation, Cuomo slams “lying” reporters saying they’d heard he was the “Charlie Rose of ABC” – a reference to the disgraced anchorman fired by CBS in 2017 after more than two dozen women accused him of sexual misconduct – and asking his former co-workers whether it was true he “used to invite women to the hotel and open his bathrobe.

Do I look like the kind of f***in’ guy who has to do that?” Cuomo indignantly asks Cohen, who responds “Sure, why not?” – and both chuckle. Cuomo then tears into “women who do work [at ABC]” for accusing him of getting overly touchy-feely in elevators and hinting there was at least one allegation floating around of him having forced himself on someone.

The anchor also took a dim view of his own profession, reminding Cohen, “the media is not your friend.

Carlson reminded his audience that Cuomo would be the first to demand the firing of any other reporter accused of sexual harassment – as Carlson himself was last month by a former guest on his show whose story has not held up under scrutiny. The conservative pundit hinted there are “many such tapes” of Cuomo and Cohen and claimed CNN declined to respond to the allegations when his producers reached out before the show.

This is like Casey Anthony calling anyone a bad parent.

MAGA doesn’t realize when they try to take down someone like Chris Cuomo for potential sexual assault allegations that :1.) We already have worse recordings from Trump admitting he sexually assaults women for fun. 2.) We already know Trump paid off a pornstar through Cohen.

While many were quick to cry hypocrisy over a president who has himself been accused of sexual misconduct by numerous women and who once infamously referred to “grabbing women by the p***y” slamming Cuomo for disrespecting women, the remark appeared to be an intentional troll. Trump’s next tweet was a dig at MSNBC host Joy Reid for her “horrible use of the words ‘Muslim Terrorists’” – a phrase the president himself isn’t exactly unfamiliar with.

Like Fredo at Fake News @CNN, the very untalented Joy Reid should be fired for this horrible use of the words “Muslim Terrorists”. Such xenophobia and racism on MSDNC. Anyone else would be gone, and fast!!! https://t.co/a5HSIEXlQL

Like this story? Share it with a friend!