News anchor Chris Cuomo knocked Anderson Cooper over the way he handled a debate on CNN earlier this week with former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), which was centered on federal funding and President Trump’s plans to trim government spending.
“My old friends at CNN were using a panel to gang up on former Governor Chris Sununu about a lack of receipts at DOGE,” Cuomo said Wednesday night on his NewsNation show. “Fair point. There is a lack of receipts, but there were leaning into the lefty argument that all the efforts to find waste are somehow Fugazi.”
Cuomo, in remarks highlighted by Mediaite, called the CNN clip “a shallow defense of the status quo,” and said the former governor made Cooper “look like a fool.”
During the segment, Cooper pressed Sununu about the work of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency commission, which is working on behalf of President Trump to weed out “government waste.” He specifically pointed out the administration’s fight with the state of New York over funding for migrant housing in New York City.
At one point during the debate, Cooper admonished Sununu telling him, “Don’t be a d—,” before later apologizing.
“I believe Anderson Cooper is the best in this business and we he surrenders to this ugliness, you know things are out of hand,” Cuomo said. “He said it because that’s what the left is demanding, the muscularity, you’ve got to be mean to them.”
Sununu, as he appeared on “CUOMO” Wednesday, said there are no hard feelings between he and Cooper.
“So really quick when he said it, of course, I had like six I thought, really funny comebacks, but I thought this is going to get out of control, pretty because, you know me, I just want to extend the joke, and it’s CNN, and I’m trying to be all serious,” Sununu told NewsNation. “And if anything, I thought, I said, Oh, this is great. We’re having a political argument, like me and my buddy would over a beer.”
“You know, he’s just kind of giving it to me and I’m giving it back,” the former governor said. “So I think he just, he’s a great guy. I don’t take any offense to it whatsoever.”
Cuomo is a former CNN anchor who joined NewsNation in 2022.
NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.
