Chris Cuomo, Rudy Giuliani Clash Over Trump Covid Response: We Saw You Lead During Crisis, You Wouldn’t Handle Pandemic Like This
CNN’s Chris Cuomo confronted Rudy Giuliani on President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus Friday night, praising Giuliani’s leadership after 9/11 to say he has a hard time believing the man once known as “America’s Mayor” would’ve botched the coronavirus response like Trump has.
They opened reflecting the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and how Giuliani was praised across the board at the time for his leadership. Giuliani talked about his thought process at the time and the “wonderful partnership” he had with then-Governor George Pataki.
At one point Cuomo segued to a question about leadership concerning President Donald Trump’s admission to Bob Woodward about downplaying the severity of the coronavirus pandemic early on.
Cuomo said, “I also believe that the significance of these Woodward tapes is important on a leadership level. You would not handle this situation the way it’s being handled right now, because we saw you handle a crisis — and I know 9/11 to anything else is apples to oranges — but what do you think of the idea of the criticism that you knew things were bad and you didn’t tell us even though telling us would help us protect ourselves? You wouldn’t do that?”
Giuliani took issue with his framing and said there were things he never told people at the time. “You do try to be somewhat euphemistic when you’re going through a crisis. And look, I really think it’s a big difference between these two things.”
He commended Trump for his China travel ban early on and pointed to how some Democratic governors were praising the president early on.
Cuomo kept pressing and said, “You didn’t tell everybody everything that went on because it was too painful, it was too much. This is a different situation, where the president knew certain realities about how dangerous this could be and not only did he not tell us that but he also told — especially his own supporters — not to do the things that would keep them safe, Rudy. That’s the part I will never accept that you would have done. Never.”
“I wasn’t part of those meetings and neither were you,” Giuliani responded, before recalling initial comments by Dr. Anthony Fauci early on in the crisis. “That’s the advice the president’s getting.”
“But the advice changed, Rudy!” Cuomo shot back.
“”At that time, just about everybody thought it wasn’t going to be anywhere near as bad as it was,” Giuliani said.
They went back and forth a bit over what Fauci, Trump, and top Democrats were saying early on, with Cuomo saying again of the president, “He wasn’t just not telling them things he knew. I’ll give you that. Maybe that’s good leadership, I don’t know, I don’t want to debate it. But he also knew that people should be wearing masks, should be socially distancing, because this was going to be worse than we had thought. And he didn’t tell them that, he told them to do the opposite. Why?”
“When you sit in a room and you have five or six advisers,” Giuliani responded. “I’m sure he got conflicting information and advice. I don’t remember the time line add well as you do. But I do remember a number of doctors saying that wearing a mask wouldn’t help at all.”
“That was way early,” Cuomo said, and they continued clashing.
You can watch a chunk of the interview above, via CNN.
