New York Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa is calling on CNN to fire host Chris Cuomo for advising his embattled brother, resigning Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, amid sexual misconduct allegations.
"We're asking in advance of Chris Cuomo returning from vacation from the Hamptons to fire him," Sliwa said in front of CNN's Hudson Yards offices in New York, the New York Post reported.
"We're here [Thursday] to mount the steps here at CNN to give a letter to the shot caller, the man who decides what goes on in CNN, the Cuomo News Network, and that's Jeff Zucker."
Zucker is CNN president and, Sliwa added, delivering a letter by hand, the executive should "let him know he's not permitted back here ever again to do any kind of a program."
Chris Cuomo said last week his one-week vacation had been planned for his birthday, but it came conspicuously the same week Cuomo was forced to resign as governor amid sexual harassment and misconduct allegations as detailed in New York Attorney General Letitia James' report.
"Chris Cuomo is as culpable as Andrew Cuomo and must be fired," Sliwa said, according to the Post.
"I doubt seriously that he picked up the telephone or went into the boardroom at CNN and asked Jeff Zucker or the board for permission to actually give this kind of advice to his brother.
"So he is culpable, he and he alone."
Chris Cuomo had removed himself from covering his embattled brother's controversies on his "Cuomo Primetime" program, but critics note that avoiding negative coverage after often hailing his brother's COVID-19 pandemic response in the early days last year represents questionable journalistic ethics.
"The only reason we know Chris Cuomo did any of this stuff is he got caught, The Washington Post found out, outed him, and only then did he come on the air and say, 'Oh, I can't report on my brother because I'm biased,'" former Fox News host Megyn Kelly told Newsmax's "Eric Bolling: The Balance" on Wednesday.
"Now you can't report on him?!" Kelly continued. "And then we found out he was working behind the scenes even since then — now it's come out even since then and [after] his promise not to do it, has been doing it.
"So CNN, this is a real this is a moment for Jeff Zucker. Does he care at all about journalistic standards? Is there a 1% of that left in that news organization? Or isn't there?"
Sliwa called Chris Cuomo the "wartime consigliere" for his disgraced brother, using the mocking nickname "Fredo" from "The Godfather."
"Chris Cuomo decided to become his brother’s wartime consigliere," said Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, the Post reported. "Not a peacetime consigliere, just giving brotherly advice, but was actually given access to the confidential documents of some of the state employees, the accusers of his brother, claiming all kinds of actions of harassment and sexual harassment.
"He decided to take one step forward, Chris Cuomo did, and decided he would not be a Fredo and throw his brother under the bus," Sliwa added. "Rather, he would craft the language personally in terms of how his brother, Andrew Cuomo the governor, would respond to the accusations of upwards of 11 women."
Sliwa, facing Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams in November's general election, moved Thursday to act upon the powerful Cuomo family in the deep blue state and city of New York.
"I think it is incumbent upon Chris Cuomo himself for all the times he embraced his brother, he embellished the achievements of his brother, he had fun with his brother, to now use his journalistic pulpit to condemn his brother and talk about how others in families should never accept or be tolerant of that behavior," Sliwa had said previously after James' scathing report, according to the Post.
"I would hope that his brother Chris, who has not only enabled him and knows of his behavioral problems as any brothers would know of another brother, would not act like a Fredo and would stand up to his brother and use his bully pulpit on CNN and condemn his actions now that there is documentary evidence."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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