April 11, 2019

(Above, from March 2019, Don Lemon asks Chris Cuomo why he hosts known liar Kellyanne Conway.)

So many mysteries solved by this quote from Hollywood Insider's profile of Chris Cuomo:

Cuomo's been asked to defend his frequent, never-ending Conway interviews so often he has several explanations teed up, from the philosophical to the logistical. "My defense is this: Kellyanne is a personal friend of mine," he says. "I care about her. … I care about her family, OK? I have personal affection for her. I understand why people are upset about what she says. Knowing that, you tell me: Who is a more rigorous questioner of Kellyanne than I am?" Besides, he adds, "We'd take anybody from the White House at any time. They won't come."

The two go back 25 years, to when Cuomo was first breaking into TV. Conway describes their relationship as "longtime friends, always platonic, always rooting for each other, raised very similarly" and recalls escorting a younger Cuomo to meet CNBC executives. As for the backlash to her Prime Time appearances (which she confirms are watched and commented on by the president), "That's not a Chris problem," she says. "That's a CNN issue. [CNN viewers] don't want to hear the other side. … I don't think he books me — and I don't go on there — because we've been friends for many years, and I don't go on because it's 'good TV,' as many people say it is. It's because [he is] willing to invite the White House opinion on his show."

So...they've been friends for 25 years, Chris says no one else from the White House will go on his show, and Kellyanne says CNN viewers don't want to hear from her and she's the "White House opinion."

This explains why Chris has her on, why she's allowed to lie, and most importantly, how Jeff Zucker and CNN view being a "news" network. It's just a friendly puppet show to them. They are not in the business of truth or even the First Amendment. They're in it to continually present a world where "both sides" meet in the middle, sometimes with drama, always with a wink and a nod in the green room that none of this really matters as long as the advertising dollars roll in.

Memo to Chris: your friend you care about is a paid liar for a creeping fascism taking over our government. She is defending putting babies in cages, calling other countries "shitholes," worsening the US standing around the globe, and violating the emoluments clause to sell our nation's foreign policy to the highest bidder.

While Morning Joe is hardly an example of disinterested journalism where Trump is concerned, as a former "friend" of Kellyanne, Mika Brzezinske went another, more honest route than Chris Cuomo. From 2017, when Mika BANNED KELLYANNE from Morning Joe.

“I know for a fact she tries to book herself on this show; I won’t do it. ...I don’t believe in fake news or information that is not true. That is — every time I’ve ever seen her on television something is askew, off or incorrect. I don’t even think she’s saying something she knows to be untrue. She’s just saying things just to get in front of the TV to prove her relevance because behind the scenes she’s not in these meetings and any reporter can ask anybody in that White House and they will say the same thing. She’s not in these meetings. So why does the president allow her to keep going out and spreading false information?"

I think we've learned the answer to THAT question by now, Mika.

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