The Year of Fredo: Chris Cuomo’s 7 Embarrassing 2019 Moments

Dana Bash, Chris Cuomo
Screenshot/CNN
Hannah Knudsen

CNN’s Chris Cuomo experienced an eventful year in terms of political gaffes, public meltdowns, and awkward comparisons, all of which seemed to backfire on a number of occasions in 2019.

The anti-Trump host took his opposition to the president and the president’s supporters up a notch in 2019, resulting in what has amounted to a sterling collection of memorable moments that now stand in infamy.

Here are some of the CNN host’s top “Fredo” moments of the year.

1. Cuomo melted down after a man referred to him as “Fredo” — a nickname popularized by Breitbart News’s John Nolte.

A video surfaced in August, showing the CNN host melting down after a man referred to him as “Fredo.”

“No. Punk ass bitches on the right call me Fredo. My name is Chris Cuomo. I’m an anchor on CNN,” Cuomo said. “Fredo is from The Godfather. He was the weak brother.”

He suggested that “Fredo” was equivalent to the “N-word” to Italians and hurled insults at the man, even daring him to punch him.

“If you want to play, then we’ll fucking play,” Cuomo said, calling the man a “punk bitch.”

“You know my name is not fucking Fredo,” he said, adding, “I’ll fucking ruin your shit.”

“I’ll fucking throw you down these stairs like a fucking punk,” he threatened:

CNN was reportedly “embarrassed” by the video showing Cuomo’s meltdown but stood by him, nevertheless.

“Chris Cuomo defended himself when he was verbally attacked with the use of an ethnic slur in an orchestrated setup. We completely support him,” CNN spokesperson Matt Dornic wrote on Twitter after the emergence of the video.

Cuomo admitted that he “should be better than the guys baiting me” and “should be better than what I oppose” in a tweet following the viral video’s emergence:

The CNN host’s freakout prompted an excursion into his, as well as other left-wing personalities,’ past use of “Fredo.”

As Breitbart News reported, Cuomo referred to himself as “Fredo” in 2010, and a number of high profile figures —  including Cher, Chris Matthews, Joy Reid, George Takei, and Ana Navarro —  used the very term that Cuomo likened to an offensive ethnic slur.

2. Cuomo likened MAGA hats to “I Hate Black People” shirts.

In January, the Cuomo Primetime host likened President Trump’s iconic Make America Great Again hats to shirts reading “I Hate Black People.”

“It’s a hat with four words on it, but they can mean a lot to people. I’m talking about the president’s MAGA hat,” Cuomo said during a discussion with Don Lemon.

He continued:

Here’s my problem on this issue. Ordinarily, I’d go down the line, look, “be bigger than that.” But I don’t want to fold to the trap of underselling the significance of the trigger of the expression to people. I think the more appropriate analogy to say is if people were wearing shirts that said, “I hate black people,” would he be okay to say, “Don’t come into my place with that?” And I think most people would be like, “yeah.”

Lemon agreed, and Cuomo added, “That’s how people like him see the MAGA hat, so does that make it okay? I think that’s the right question”:

3. Cuomo seemingly defended Antifa.

During a CNN segment in April, Cuomo defended the violent group – and by extension, mob violence – suggesting that there are “certainly aspects of them that are true to a cause, that is a good cause…”

4. Cuomo mocked a rape survivor’s support of the Second Amendment.

The left-wing host responded to an NRATV tweet in May that featured Kim Corban, a rape survivor who now carries a weapon to protect her family.

As Breitbart News reported:

Corban was raped while unarmed on at the University of Northern Colorado in 2006. She was scared of owning guns before the horrid incident occurred, but during the assault she realized that without a gun “there was no way [she] could fight back.”

“Only in America,” Cuomo sarcastically tweeted in response:

5. Cuomo asserted that his preferred pronouns were she, her, and hers during CNN’s Equality Town Hall in October.

Cuomo made the remark after former presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) announced her pronouns to the crowd.

“My pronouns are ‘she,’ ‘her,’ and ‘hers,’” Harris said.

Cuomo responded, “‘She, her, and hers?’ Mine, too.”

He later apologized:

6. The CNN host told his 243k Instagram followers his secrets to staying fit.

Over the summer, Cuomo posted a video of himself sweating on a piece of exercise equipment and told viewers that the “grind is the only glory”:

7. Cuomo attempted to call his mother on live television in order to prove Trump wrong, but his efforts failed miserably.

Cuomo called his mother during a live segment on CNN in November after Trump questioned David Holmes,’ a political officer at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine who testified before the House Intelligence Committee, ability to overhear his phone conversation with Ambassador Gordon Sondland.

“Let’s just play with that for a second,” Cuomo said, calling his mother. “Mom, can you hear me? Alright.”

“So if I were holding the phone here, I’m with Dana Bash, you know how you’re always telling me to let her talk because she’s so smart and I shouldn’t say so much? Can you just say hello?” Cuomo said to silence.

Cuomo told Bash that his mom “probably” could not hear him and turned the phone on speaker. His mother confirmed that she could, in fact, hear him. It was viewers who could not hear her, which essentially disproved Cuomo’s theory.

The awkward moment continued:

“I’m talking to you. Say hello to Dana Bash,” Cuomo said, appearing to press another button on his phone. It is likely, in that moment, that he took his phone off speaker, given how the remainder of the conversation went.

“Hi, Mrs. Cuomo. How are you?” Bash asked.

Her question was followed by silence. It seems Cuomo’s mom was answering the question, but her voice — not on speaker — was completely unintelligible and ultimately resulted in what amounted to another awkward moment of silence for CNN viewers.

“Alright,” Cuomo said, hanging up.

“This is not on speakerphone. It’s regular phone. It’s two feet away from Dana; she can hear my mother. I’m not sure mom can hear us,” Cuomo said in response to another individual sitting at the table who said, “I can’t hear your mother, Chris.”

Cuomo continues to host CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time weeknights 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET.

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