Tucker Carlson Sits Down With Ex-Rival Chris Cuomo in Cable Return

They’ve traded plenty of barbs over the air, and now they’re going one-on-one.

Chris Cuomo sat with his one-time rival Tucker Carlson for a conversation on his NewsNation show Cuomo, the first part of which will air on Monday, the network announced Thursday.

The sit-down, which was first reported by Variety, is Carlson’s first TV appearance since he was booted from his Fox News show last year. The two will discuss Carlson’s firing from Fox News and his recent interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin—which Cuomo has blasted as an attention-seeking move by a person often “not aligned with the facts.”

The ex-cable news stars have long had a contentious relationship. Carlson repeatedly mocked Cuomo on his Fox News program over his workout habits and Cuomo’s comments on COVID-19. He chastised him for smoking a cigar outside a Long Island restaurant in October 2020 after Cuomo had railed against a post-COVID-infected Donald Trump for taking his mask off to shoot a campaign video. Even his defense of Cuomo following the latter’s firing from CNN over helping his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, involved calling the anchor an “idiot.”

Cuomo never shied away from attacking Carlson either. At CNN, he once rattled off hateful comments Carlson and Fox News host Jeanine Pirro had made, noting “this B.S. is currency for them.” Following Carlson’s ouster from Fox News, Cuomo insisted Carlson “knew better” than the misinformation he would often spout on the right-wing network.

“He played to division by feeding into conspiracies and false-flag operations that abused a very legitimate interest that he was right to target,” Cuomo said on his NewsNation show last year. “He was right to look at questioning government and those that we give power to there in their institutions and their individual capacities. Yes, yes, yes. But he didn’t do it the right way, and I am not going to celebrate him being gone just because I don’t like how he did his job.”

Just last month, Cuomo criticized Carlson for interviewing Putin, saying it was simply a way to draw more attention.

“Tucker Carlson is getting exactly what he wants: attention,” Cuomo said on NewsNation. “He’s in Russia, interviewing Vladimir Putin. Now, frankly, I don’t care, his explanation of why he’s doing it—that he’s a journalist and he needs to inform people. He can call himself whatever he wants.”

Still, Cuomo has expressed a desire to sit down with controversial figures, whether it be Carlson or antisemitic conspiracy theorist Jackson Hinkle.

“Conversation is a must, and it’s got to reflect the range of ideas,” he told The Washington Post in January. “I don’t have Nazis on my show because they’re a known commodity and there’s no value in that. But there’s such a range of ideas and such a desperation for change that you’ve got to entertain it, right and left.”

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