Television anchor Chris Cuomo wants to clarify remarks he made on Sirius XM radio Monday evening, during which he seemingly bashed his gig at CNN and suggested that he doesn’t really like his current job.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Cuomo the day after making the remarks, reports The New York Post. “It wasn’t about CNN. It wasn’t about me wanting to leave my job.”
Rather, Cuomo insists that when he made the comments, he was simply expressing his “frustrations about journalism and being worthy enough” for the industry.
“I am so proud of the team,” he said. “I’m sorry I got us distracted to give them an opening to play this bulls*** angle.”
As The New York Post reported on Monday, Cuomo said that his COVID-19 diagnosis prompted him to reconsider the important things in life, including the responsibilities his job entails, including taking partisan irrationality seriously.
“I don’t like what I do professionally,” said Cuomo, during the SiriusXM radio appearance on Monday evening. “I don’t want to spend my time doing things that I don’t think are valuable enough to me personally.”
“I don’t value indulging irrationality, hyper-partisanship,” said Cuomo, who indicated that he doesn’t want to be “trafficking in things I think are ridiculous.” Cuomo also bashed President Donald Trump, proclaiming him to be “full of s***.”
In a statement to The New York Post, a spokesperson for CNN suggested that Cuomo was not disparaging the media company but was focusing on the industry as a whole.
“Chris is not talking about CNN and changing his job as an anchor,” said the spokesperson, reports The Post. “He’s talking about changing how to do the job. He’s referring to the politics and media culture, not CNN.”
Chris Cuomo, the younger brother to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), has been an anchor at CNN since 2013, as well as a host on Sirius XM radio for the last couple of years. The anchor entered into the network’s primetime slot in 2018 to host “Cuomo Prime Time.”
During his CNN show on Monday evening, Cuomo said that the coronavirus was taking a toll on both his health and mental well-being, although Cuomo did say some of his symptoms have been improving, reports USA Today.
“This virus creates emotional illness and creates psychological illness,” said Cuomo. “I’m telling you: It is in my head. Not just figuratively in terms of messing with you because you’re sick for a long time.”
“I’m scared by the potential of this and it frustrates me because I can’t get out of this basement,” said Cuomo. “Everybody tells me it’s gradual, it takes time – anywhere from two to three-and-a-half weeks — but it is maddening to have this little stupid fever.”
Last January, CNN issued a press release that said Cuomo’s TV show received the highest ratings among all of the network’s news programs that month.