Fox News’ Sean Hannity Defends Suspended CNN Anchor Chris Cuomo: ‘Not the Worst Offense’

Fox News’ Sean Hannity offered a surprising defense of CNN’s Chris Cuomo Tuesday night after the network suspended his fellow 9 p.m. ET rival.

“It’s clear that Chris totally mishandled the mess with his brother,” Hannity said, referring to the journalist’s newly-revealed communications with former New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s staffers earlier this year, when the politician was first hit with a wave of sexual harassment accusations. “We don’t know what the governor told him from the start, and honestly, he probably — my guess — wasn’t honest with his own brother.”

Hannity continued, “It’s easy to support people when things in life are going well. It’s always easy. Chris’ brother, Andrew, was in big trouble. Helping a brother and a friend in the worst moment of their life is probably not the worst offense and he probably lied to himself even though he handled it wrong in terms of his work.”

The Fox News host said that if Cuomo makes it back on the air, he’s sure he will apologize. On Monday, new documents from the New York Attorney General’s office revealed correspondence between the newsman and the governor’s team in which he asked to help them and went as far as to say he was using his journalistic connections to get at least one “lead” on an accuser, as well as determine if further accusations or stories were coming down the pipeline. Previously, Cuomo’s involvement in his brother’s strategizing was known and he faced no repercussions from CNN, but the extent of that involvement was unknown.

Those revelations led CNN on Tuesday to suspend Cuomo indefinitely from the network and his primetime show.

“The New York Attorney General’s office released transcripts and exhibits Monday that shed new light on Chris Cuomo’s involvement in his brother’s defense,” a CNN spokesperson said Tuesday night. “The documents, which we were not privy to before their public release, raise serious questions. When Chris admitted to us that he had offered advice to his brother’s staff, he broke our rules and we acknowledged that publicly. But we also appreciated the unique position he was in and understood his need to put family first and job second. However, these documents point to a greater level of involvement in his brother’s efforts than we previously knew. As a result, we have suspended Chris indefinitely, pending further evaluation.”

On Tuesday, Hannity mentioned that he has a history of defending people with whom he does not agree, naming Don Imus, Joy Reid and Bill Maher. He has also defended Cuomo in the past. In August of 2019, he tweeted it was “good for” Cuomo to have gotten into a public spat with another person in Shelter Island, New York. Cell phone footage of the incident, in which Cuomo infamously lambasted a man for calling him “Fredo” in a reference to “The Godfather,” quickly went viral.