Chris Cuomo Opened His Show Last Night By Railing Against ‘Bullsh*t.’ A Few Minutes Later, He Welcomed Anthony Scaramucci.

The rant went viral in no time. For Chris Cuomo, President Donald Trump’s grand, melodramatic return to the White House following his four day hospitalization was the latest final straw. At 9 p.m. on Monday, the frustrated CNN host unleashed.

“There he is reshooting the scene for his own ad,” Cuomo said derisively. “‘I hold rallies and I tell you to ignore masks and I rip mine off as I vanquish the virus, for I am a leader. Fear not, Covid!’ What a bunch of bullshit!”

Ten minutes into his frantic screed, while explaining his rationale for not playing video of the president’s return message, Cuomo posed this hypothetical to his audience:

“How much bullshit do you need in your life?!”

The answer, in Chris Cuomo’s case, was at least 12 minutes more. Because shortly after his barnstorming tirade against bullshit, the CNN host opened up his show to a bullshit artist.

Cuomo, during very same broadcast in which he raged against BS, extended a cordial invite to Anthony Scaramucci — a man who, in just 11 days as White House communications director, embarrassed himself as an over-the-top hype man. His presence undermined every word Cuomo spoke at the top of the hour, making it difficult to take the CNN anchor’s jeremiad seriously.

The reason that Scaramucci was asked to appear on Cuomo Prime Time Monday was the same reason he is asked on any cable news show these days. The expectation is that he will bash his former boss in the most hyperbolic ways. On Monday, he made good.

“You’ve got … the American Mussolini standing on the balcony,” Scaramucci said, of the president’s White House return. “We’ve never had a president stand on that balcony and do what he just did.”

And there it was. Scaramucci had done his job. He compared the man he once supported, and once served, to Mussolini.

Go back to that infamous briefing when Scaramucci took the White House podium for the first time. Recall him raving over the president’s ability to make three-foot putts, lauding his competitive zeal, shilling for him in utterly embarrassing ways. Compare that with Scaramucci today — likening Trump to Mussolini.

The legendary boxing promoter Bob Arum once famously said, “Yesterday, I was lying. Today, I’m telling the truth.” These days, that quote comes to mind whenever Anthony Scaramucci speaks. The man has nuked his credibility. He has absolutely no business being on television. And yet he is invited back time and time again.

Chris Cuomo is far from the only guilty party here, and this critique is not meant to single him out. Rather, it is directed at every CNN and MSNBC host that has welcomed Scaramucci — and fellow Trump castoff Michael Cohen — with open arms in recent weeks. Ari Melber, Joy Reid, Anderson Cooper, Katy Tur and Alisyn Camerota are just a few of the cable news hosts that have recently featured Scaramucci, Cohen, or both.

When they invite Cohen or the Mooch, the message from these hosts is unmistakable: We will put literally anybody on the air as long as they slam Donald Trump in colorful fashion. Well-minded folks like to scoff at talk of Trump Derangement Syndrome from the Fox News crowd. It becomes a little more difficult to dismiss every time Cohen or Scaramucci appears on CNN or MSNBC.

When the shocking New York Times report on the president’s taxes dropped, network bookers rushed to get Michael Cohen on their shows. In the 36 hours after the report, Cohen logged a combined four appearances on CNN and MSNBC. Cohen, the apparent thinking went, had some insight to offer on the subject of the president’s taxes — given his Capitol Hill testimony on the subject.

Yet his rhetoric from weeks earlier, when he was flogging a book, did not square with his rhetoric after the Times bombshell. On Sept. 16, Cohen told Alisyn Camerota that Trump’s “biggest fear is if that tax return was released, there’s a whole slew of organizations, of accountants and forensic accountants that will rip through it and he will end up with a massive tax bill, fraud penalties, fines, and possibly even tax fraud.”

Speaking with the same interviewer on Sept. 29, he went much, much further. Cohen claimed Trump once showed him a $10 million IRS refund check — a seemingly relevant anecdote he’d neglected to mention the last time he was asked about the subject by Camerota. And now, instead of facing just penalties and fines, Cohen asserted that the president could be slapped with a life sentence.

“Lord knows what he’s going to end up getting hit with,” Cohen said. “If I ended up getting 36 months on a million dollars, Lord knows what he’s going to get. He may end up doing the next century.”

The remark — like almost all of those uttered on cable news by the likes of Cohen and Scaramucci in their post-Trump days — was met with no pushback. In the courtrooms of CNN and MSNBC, their testimony is accepted without rebuttal.

The lesson, one would think, should have been learned with huckster attorney Michael Avenatti. The former Stormy Daniels representative practically made the green rooms of CNN and MSNBC his home in the spring and summer of 2018. He was invited back for multiple hits a day on these networks, logging several hundred total over the course of the year. Avenatti claimed he even turned down more than 60 percent of his requests from CNN and MSNBC.

Avenatti was allowed, by the anchors of many CNN and MSNBC broadcasts, to make fantastical claims about the president without evidence. He was permitted to weigh in on seemingly every single Trump tweet. And he was given a platform to unquestionably help Brett Kavanaugh get confirmed to the Supreme Court by producing an impossible-to-believe alleged victim at the last minute — thus undermining more credible claims against the judge.

Two years later, Michael Avenatti is a convicted felon — found guilty of tax evasion, extortion, fraud, and embezzlement stemming from his attempt to con Nike out of millions. When last we heard about the disgraced barrister, he had been granted temporary release from prison due to Covid fears, but he still faces decades more hard time.

It’s not certain that Michael Cohen will go to prison down the road — although the possibility can’t be discounted given that he’s already been there, and so many Trump associates ultimately wind up behind bars. But whether or not he lands in jail, the anchors on CNN and MSNBC have the power and the duty to hand down a sentence that he and Anthony Scaramucci will find to be far more harsh — life without cable news. It’s a punishment that fits their crimes. Because after flushing their reputations down the toilet, all they have left is bullshit.

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Joe DePaolo is a Senior Editor for Mediaite.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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