Chris Cuomo clarifies comments about his CNN show not being worth his time: 'I have never been in a better position professionally'
Contrary to headlines, Chris Cuomo finds his CNN gig worth his time.
The Cuomo Prime Time host, who’s at home in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19, is clearing up recent comments he made on his SiriusXM radio show about being the host of a popular cable news show. He says he loves his job — and recently inked a new contract.
On Tuesday’s Let's Get After It, Cuomo clarified statements he made a day earlier, which he categorized as “frustrations about my profession.” He said the truth is, “I have never been in a better position professionally than I am in right now.”
Cuomo, CNN’s most-viewed primetime anchor, said the network, has “been so good, they’ve been so supportive of me in ways I could have never imagined.” As a result, his loyalty to and affinity for CNN is “rock solid,” which is why, he said, “I just signed a long-term contract before all this... If anything, I’ve never had a group of people professionally care about me the way they have shown” and “I’ll never forget [it].”
He went on to say he’s “never been on a better team” or felt “more grateful,” adding, “I love where I am, I love the position that I’ve been given, and I love who I’m doing it with. Those are all matters of fact.”
Cuomo — brother of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo — said “it was clear” that he wasn’t talking about leaving CNN the day before. “I was talking about having legitimate questions, which I’ve had all along this administration. Let alone, with a fever with COVID for two weeks and being pissed off about being sick and rethinking a lot of things on an existential basis all the time. It is frustrating to do this job in an environment where people are not interested and open. It is hard to practice journalism when people are so intent on believing what they want to believe for political advantage. It makes you question: Is it worth the effort? Can I make a difference? Can I personally make a difference? Is the way I do this working? If it’s not working, can I do it differently, do I want to do it differently? Would that work?”
During the radio show Monday, Cuomo said having COVID-19 had him reassessing things.
“I don’t want to spend my time doing things that I don’t think are valuable enough to me, personally,” he said. “Like what? Well, I don’t like what I do, professionally, I’ve decided,” he said. “I don’t think it’s worth my time.”
He said that he was “perceived as successful in a system that I don’t value. I’m seen as being good at being on TV and advocating for different positions … but I don’t know if I value those things, certainly not as much as I value being able to live my life on my own terms.”
Cuomo’s comments stemmed from both the current state of politics as well as stardom. He spoke about an incident on Easter Sunday when a man on a bike, who he didn’t know, approached him outside his home and questioned him about his social distancing as he sat outside his Hamptons, N.Y., home with his family. Cuomo said he wished he could have just told the person to “go to hell.” (The biker has filed a police report over the run-in, according to the New York Post.)
Being able to have done that “matters to me more than making millions of dollars a year … because I’ve saved my money and I don’t need it anymore,” he said. “I want to be able to tell you to go to hell, to shut your mouth … I don’t get that doing what I do for a living... I have to tolerate people’s opinion about me because I’m a public figure. I don’t want to do that, I don’t think it’s worth it to me.” (Last summer, Cuomo also got in a verbal spat with a heckler calling him “Fredo.”)
Cuomo also said he was tired of “talking to Democrats about things that I don’t really believe they mean” and “talking to Republicans about them parroting things they feel they have to say.”
On Tuesday’s Cuomo Prime Time, which he has been shooting live from the anchor’s basement, where he’s been staying as not to infect his family, he said he suffered a health setback. He needed his fever to be down for 72 hours — without fever-reducing medication like Tylenol — and it was for 60 hours before it returned.
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