The Chris Cuomo Project - Listener Comments: Journalism Objectivity, Voting Independent, Biden & The Media, Moss Art

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

Chris Cuomo responds to another selection of listener calls and YouTube comments about objectivity in journalism, illegal immigrants working on farms, how to become an independent voter, whether Biden has been “tested” by the media, and more. If you’d like to ask Chris a question, call [phone]. Leave your name, location, phone number, email address, and your brief question, and it may be addressed in an upcoming show. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have a comment? Have a question? Let's get after it. I'm Chris Cuomo, and welcome to this special edition of the Chris Cuomo Project, where it's all about you, whether it's here or on NewsNation. These shows, these projects, this content, it's all about trying to funnel what you care about and what you want to know more about. So, if you have a comment, what you like, what you don't like, and why, or a question for me, or maybe you can tell me something that I didn't know. That should be easy enough. That's what this is all about. So let's get after it. Hey, Chris, this is Amanda. I have a question for you. Given what's happened with Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon, which I know you address, what do you think about journalism integrity inside the newsroom versus outside?

Should it be separate, newsroom versus personalized? What you say outside of the newsroom versus inside of the newsroom? Okay, have a great day. Bye. It's a good question, probably a little too idealistic though. It'd be nice if people could say, hey, look, here's what I think, but I'm going to be covering this straight. They get conflated. People attack, play gotcha. They punish you for honesty or candor. That's why I think that this idea of objectivity is overwrought. I think it's very hard for a human being to be objective about anything. You have thoughts, feelings, history, experience. And I think that all benefits journalism.

So I think that the standard we're really talking about is fairness, fairness. Are there two sides, three sides? How much weight do they each deserve? You know, what people dismiss as both sides-ing, there are two problems. One is where one side is way worse than the other one on a particular issue, but you make it seem like both are the same. Okay, I don't think I do that. I get accused of it sometimes. But I think that the reason I'm being miscast in that way, and many others get this same treatment, is because so many of you are so into oppositional politics

where you don't want to hear anything about your side. It's completely zero sum for you. It's only got to be that Trump is a liar and he should be indicted and thrown in jail and this and that. It doesn't matter that the consequence winds up being way far afield from anything that's likely. But you don't want to hear anything about Biden or anybody else or vice versa. I don't want

to hear anything about Trump because I think everybody in government is corrupt. So it doesn't matter that he may actually represent exactly what I want to stop, even if he's selling me something different. See, that's not both sides. That's you or that's someone just wanting confirmation bias. You just want what you already believe to be magnified. And that certainly is not journalism. I'd like to ask you a question. I had an idea for immigrants where they could send them to help farmers throughout the U.S., the nation, and they'd have to be allowed to work, of course. But that would be much better than sending them to universities or school gyms. I think it would be more beneficial for the farmers and for everyone.

Bye-bye. Look, here's the truth. They come here because people need them, okay? Of course they want a better way of life. They're making tremendous sacrifice. They're leaving everyone and often everything that they have and know. And it's dangerous and people get hurt

and they're extorted and often forced to do things and violated along the way. It's very dangerous for many of them who choose to come in ways that are illegal, or even if they're going to be legal, but they have to get to the port of entry in very extreme ways. So why do they do that? Well, they want a better life. There's a desperation there, but there's also a need. It's supply and demand. People hire them. Many of the big employers even help with this, you know, almost near conscription of people from other countries.

They motivate people to come. They finance a lot of things. Sometimes there's even reports that they work with the cartels and other illegal emissaries and agents that make these things happen. So, of course, people are going to be hiring them. They should be paying taxes. They should be paying for the services that they use in these communities, the corporations that hire them. The big employers in agribusiness, farming, and others should have to treat them with the respect and dignity and rights and privileges that they do their other labor

and pay them the same way. But that doesn't happen. Why? It was all about the game. We just happened to demonize one aspect of it, which is the migrant. Why? Because you can see them.

And a lot of them can be otherized. The brown menace, as I characterized them as a pejorative for what I believe the former president was selling you guys during the first campaign, that there's these boogeymen coming here to kill and rape and take your women. Does that happen? Yeah. Does it happen a lot more with citizens than with migrants? Yeah. They didn't tell you that part. Why? It's not scary. It doesn't help motivate what this is all about, which is the game and selling you on fear and seeing him as an answer

when really the answer is systemic. Rule changes about asylum, rule changes about working and taxes, rule changes about what happens when you enter illegally, process issues and personnel so that you can process more and house more people the right way. You know, we know how to fix this. This isn't hard. They don't fix it because the problem

works better than the solution politically. It makes it easier to blame and play the game. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from PrizePix. I got to tell you, there's a reason PrizePix is America's number one fantasy sports app. Three million members. Why? Easy. Plenty of action if you're into DFS. And it's just you against the numbers. You pick more than or less than on two to six player stat projections. And if you're any good, the winnings will roll in. The big game is right around the corner.

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Prize Picks. Pick more, pick less. It's that easy. The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being sleep deprived. Okay, well, what is it? Well, it stresses all kinds of things.

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I'm not kidding you, all right? Now, so if you go to CozyEarth.com and you enter the code, enter the code CHRIS, and you can get up to 35% off your first order. CozyEarth.com, and the code is CHRIS. Hi, Chris. I never missed your show on CNN. I'm also beyond loving the Chris Cuomo project. I have to admit that before Trump ran the second time, I really had not voted. that before Trump ran the second time, I really had not voted. The main reason being that we never really had a huge reason to worry about our president having the best interest of our country.

Sadly, when Trump ran for presidency, it changed a lot of things in our country when he was president and not for the better. I knew that I had to vote. I have been telling my family exactly what you were talking about. And that is that we most definitely do need to not vote Democrat or Republican and supporting an independent is what would be the best thing for our country and its citizens, which the parties no longer prioritize as the people that live in this country. They fight with each other and spend their terms making sure the other looks worse than the other for votes so they can get reelected the next time. Here's my big question. How? How do we go independently? How do we get voters to see what is really happening and get us all on board to making the government be about the country and the citizens instead of party? I don't want to vote for any of the Democrat candidates, and I

beyond won't vote for any of the Republican candidates and I beyond won't vote for any of the Republican candidates. What if we vote independent? Our vote won't count. So how? How do we go independent? Please cover that and kind of give us some ideas on how we do that. Thanks for all that you do. Keep the fight going. You identify a lot of the problems with the system, but you also identify the solution, which is being a critical thinker and opening yourself to doing it differently. My feeling is the less that you adhere to just party first mentality in politics, the more the parties will have to come to you and offer things and people that are different than just we'll stop the other side because they're worse. We're making it way too easy for people to get elected. It's really about money and a message that attacks the other side and makes people feel afraid of things.

That's really what it's come down to. And why wouldn't they do that? Everybody takes the path of least resistance, especially when it comes to acquisition and retention of power. So if you're running against somebody else and you know that the easiest way to get it done is to make them look bad, that's what you'll do. Because that's what the game rewards and incentivizes. So that's what happens most, especially in a two-party system. Well, I don't want to vote for an independent. Look, we need some big changes, okay? And I don't know that they happen because the parties don't want them to happen.

So, you know, having closed primaries in states is a big problem because you wind up getting more extreme candidates because the people who vote in the primaries wind up being more zealous voters, more committed voters. And those voters tend to have more extreme ideas. So primaries have lower voter turnout and they're fringe voters more by population. So it winds up being a magnified minority, which is also what we see on social media. So many of the voices, there are extreme ones. So the answer is exactly what you're doing. You don't want to be about the party. You see the game.

You want to change the game. And you want to vote for people on the basis of their ideas. And the more people follow that, the less the game can overwhelm our culture. And now we're going to do comments from the YouTube channel. This is from your piece about Ron DeSantis and Elon Musk. Since when was Biden tested, Greenhornet writes. He gets puff questions from the Biden media and the he fumbles an exit. If you consider what you are saying as critical thinking, then your teachers failed you. Did your teachers fail you if the best you can do is be completely negative about every sense of your assessment

of the dynamic? You offer nothing to make it better. You offer no proof of the same. nothing to make it better. You offer no proof of the same. You think Biden's the first president to fall down? He happens to be an old man, okay? It shouldn't be surprising that he has problems with his gait, okay? It gets a lot of attention. He has a stutter, okay? It's a medical condition. It's a medical condition. He gets a lot of heat for having a stutter, okay? He's not tested enough. Look, it's a relative assessment. He also hides from the media, which works, by the way. Ask Ron DeSantis.

So, you know, does he get hammered the way Trump did? No, but he doesn't put as much out there the way Trump did. Okay? So Trump was getting more at bats, period. Does the media like Biden more than Trump? Man, that's an easy question to answer. It's almost got to be yes. And Trump made it almost impossible to like him. He was constantly being antagonistic and making people's lives harder by personalizing his pushback. So, you know, he asked for it. He got what he asked for. This is from your interview with Rainn Wilson. Why don't more politicians do what your pop did and take calls from the public? I'm having you grab this. We got this. We haven't hung it up

on the wall yet, but this is from your dad's show. And Rainn talked about like how he used to listen to your dad's show. I'd pull it back. I can't adjust the focus of the camera. But Rain said he used to listen to your dad's show. What did he do? Look at the ab strength. The ab strength. My father would have loved this. My father used to do flutter picks all the time.

Look, my father, may he rest in peace, my father was a huge fan of debate and confrontation. He loved the exchange of ideas. He loved argument. And he had a great facility with words and ideas, and he did a lot of homework, and he had a lot of deep conviction. words and ideas and he did a lot of homework and he had a lot of deep conviction. Many in public service don't check all those boxes. And even if they wanted to, they now know that they exist in a system where people are out to get you 24-7-365. And it is a gotcha game. And it's all about downside protection. And it's really created a disconnect where we don't want to talk to each other anymore. I was reading this story the other day about how the view has changed, where they're really not open to lots of different points of view.

That it's predominantly a lefty show and they they have their biases, and they shut people down on a regular basis. Now, I know a few of the players, not well and certainly not recently, other than Whoopi. Now, I don't see Whoopi that way. Whoopi has her own convictions, okay? My only problem with Whoopi is I think she apologizes to you guys too much. And I know she does that because she just comes from a place of gratitude and trying to do the right thing as much as she can. That's who she is as a person. But I tell you what, man, apologies don't mean what they used to. Now they're just admissions of guilt by somebody who's not looking to receive. You know, there's an interesting thing. An apology doesn't have to just be offered. It has to be received.

An apology doesn't have to just be offered. It has to be received. So if I'm coming from a bad place and the person who I'm asking for the apology from is coming from a good place, that's a bad mix. Because we're about to have a new set of wrongs that come down because I'm going to use the apology against them. And that's the opposite of what that dynamic is supposed to be about. There is no healing in that. And we don't want an exchange of ideas. We want to win. More importantly, we want the other side, and we need there to be one, to lose. And that is not a good recipe for conversation. It is not a good place to sell in a marketplace of ideas. And it's not a place to grow.

It's not a place to change. It's not a place for progress. And if you look at what's lacking all around us, you'll see we need more of all of those things. We have a Congress that can get through the bare minimum of their responsibilities. Why? Because opposition is their primary position to just oppose. And News Nation has a new poll out that what you guys want most is compromise. Now, one, I think you say that, but you don't mean it because you get sucked

into the game. But I wish it were true. I wish so much that you evaluated the people you vote for on the basis of what they got done. I really do. It would change so much. Look, no shame in my game. I've been using AG1 for over five years. Why? It works. It's easier.

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D works with K, and this type of B works with that. They have the scientists doing it. So I don't need all the bottles. I don't have to spend all the money and I don't have to figure out when to take what and why. More importantly, it's not just the regular list of vitamins. It's the extras. Okay. The adaptogens, the prebiotics, the probiotics that support your body's universal needs, gut optimization, immune support, stress management. That's what foundational nutrition is about. And these are the people at AG1 who've been doing the work to get it right. Okay. I tell friends, I tell family, I get no complaints, okay? If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1.

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provider, and they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website, you'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. Also from the Rainn Wilson interview, Kawana Blake writes, our children need to be taught a curriculum that would prepare them to take on these leadership skills so that everyone has an opportunity to serve and do it well if elected to positions in government. Why don't you teach them? Teach your own kids. Don't be so reliant on what school does. What kind of person your kid's going to be is more about you.

I mean, look, you're going to lose to environment a lot, nature and nurture. But the idea that, you know, we can barely deal with what we're doing in schools now. You want to expand the load on teachers? You know, I agree with you in terms of what our curriculum should reflect. I agree with you in terms of what our curriculum should reflect. I think that the exigency, the need, the pressure of being a good person and how to be a citizen and how to be civilized has become more important than really just about anything else that's covered in the curriculum. We don't treat each other right. that's covered in the curriculum. We don't treat each other right.

We're violent and mean and looking to take people down, looking for weaknesses and exploiting them way too often in our society and rewarding it. So I don't know what would be more important to teach kids than that, how to deal with conflict, how to deal with judgment and to not judge and what that looks like and to do scenarios with how to behave. Because if you think about it, all of our virtue-making institutions have broken down.

I mean, there's so many who don't have the time or inclination to be with their own kids, their own loved ones, communities, more people bowl, but there's less leagues. You know, we don't come together. We don't take care of one another. We're in competition all the time. And instead of running faster, we just want others to fall. And we precipitate that in too many ways. And it doesn't have to be this way. And there are many people who don't live this way. Sure, we're flawed. I mean, that's why I always laugh at Greg and you guys when there's any suggestion about me running for office. We

better be able to do better than me. Okay? I know the game. I'm an observer of it. I've been doing this a long time. I take my job seriously and I work hard at it. I'm not a leader. I don't want me leading.

I want better than me. I'll test who leads us. I can do that. But you can do better than me. And not just because of how profoundly flawed I am, but I don't want it. Our leaders should want to be in these positions for the right reasons. And we can do so much better. But don't cut yourself out of the equation. Other people need to do certain things. Think about what you can do, because that's actually in your control. This is from the episode where we announced

the channel has hit 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. Joanna Roberts Rogers writes, what's the timeframe for starting the new subs group? Anxious to see it get off the ground. Thank you, Chris. I don't know. Look, a lot of people keep saying, the only reason I would do it is because it was going to be seen as helpful and that it would be successful in a way because, you know, resonance, reach, you know, those things matter. And I want whatever I'm doing to have maximum impact. believe that there is a confusion between the walk and talk and the other offerings and that that's a different thing and that they like that separately and it should be separated out. But then if we do that, they are fairly popular and that would affect the number delivery for overall podcast and that would change the ad revenue. So then I got to make that up by making a subscription and then you got to pay. And then people said, you said it would be free. And then I feel like it might be in a greedy asshole who's exploiting people that I actually want to help if I can. I don't know. I don't know what to do.

What do you think? These are similar comments. This is from Chaney Berlin. Is that a sculpture made of moss? Looks cool. Pat Chipperfield writes, congrats, Chris. I got to ask, is that a living green space behind you? A moss, yes. Living, no. Can you elaborate on what this art is? That's not enough? Well, no.

I think people are curious by this. I've read articles about this type of installation. I'd never seen one before, before I came to take this job. And that is like a curated moss wall, right? Yeah. And somebody has to come by and care for it every so often no because it's dead you see yes i i was under the impression that these had to be like maintained in a certain way yeah you were wrong okay so now

somebody could have a vertical garden or a wall garden and then you would have to maintain it or i suppose you could put moss uh in exactly that way and then you would need to maintain it. Or I suppose you could put moss in exactly that way, and then you would need to spray it and make sure it has sunlight because it's a plant. I hope that was edifying the information that I'm supplying, whether or not I'm denying or whether I'm just trying. Yes, rapping. Thank you so much for sending the comments and the questions. Keep them coming.

It's all part of being a free agent. Independent thought. Critical thinking. I appreciate them, and I'll respond to as many as I can. I'll see you here or on News Nation, 8P, 11P, Eastern. Let's get after it.