The Press Box - Unpacking the Cuomo Scandal

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker dive deeper into the ongoing saga involving brothers Andrew and Chris Cuomo. They discuss Governor Andrew Cuomo’s stance on resigning as inquiries into accounts of sexual harassment continue (6:25). Then, they weigh in on Chris Cuomo’s decision to take a “previously scheduled vacation” during this time, as well as CNN’s decision to keep him on the air (21:10). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline.  Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Emmy Award-winning producer, actor and comedian Larry Wilmore is back on the air, hosting a podcast where he weighs in on the issues of the week and interviews guests in the world of politics, entertainment, culture, sports, and beyond. Check out Larry Wilmore, Black on the Air on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. David, the political writer Andrew Sullivan, has a new book out this week. It's called Out on a Limb Selected Writing's 1989 to 2021. Now, you know, Andrew Sullivan's book is a big deal because it came to my house from the publishing company, not in an envelope, but in a box. You've made it in this world if they send your book out in a box.

And by the way, it was a big box. It was like I'd ordered a toaster oven from Amazon. When you said box, I assumed it was like a box that was sort of like made for the book. No. No, this was just like you're, you know, I ordered a bunch of. bunch of stuff from Amazon box. This is like Amazon. Yeah, this is like an Amazon, like robot error.

Like they did, they, the robot did not, they put it in the wrong size box before they shipped it out. But that's got to be a level of publishing fame, right? That you got the box versus. Yeah. Well, I mean, if they're shipping everything out in giant boxes just to get your attention, I guess that's, that's definitely a move. Yeah, better.

I mean, the envelope is, is tried and true. But it's, yeah, I mean, that, that's just it's hand stuffed by a, by a, you know, intern or something. Maybe that's just not feasible in the coronavirus era. Who knows? We've talked about the various levels of publishing glamour. There's the one where the New York Times does a piece about the fact that you're writing the book. They don't even wait for the book to come out to do the profile. There's just a profile that says David Shoemaker is writing a book. There's the one where you get the press release from the publishing company that either says the book's about to come out or just announces also that you're writing the book. Another little interim step

there. Anyway, you and I could do a whole hour and then some on Andrew Sullivan's politics and career and positions on various issues. I understand that. But I just want to tell one story that tangentially involves Andrew Sullivan. Okay. So I am an intern at the New Republic Magazine in Washington, D.C. That was my first job in journalism. I was 22 years old. You know, well, I was 22, I was three months out of the University of Texas, and the moment I crossed that threshold into the office, I felt so intellectually outclassed, it was ridiculous. There was David Grant, there was Franklin Ford, there was Jason Zangerly, Jonathan Chate, the literary critic James Wood, a seemingly endless supply of Rhodes Scholars.

It was like Alabama playing New Mexico State. I mean, it was, it was not close. So I wanted to do well as a new Republican intern. I wanted to learn about how to be a stylish opinion writer, but mostly, David, I didn't want to embarrass myself. Okay. And anyway, if we're being honest, I came into the office, not like I'm going to write a hell of a piece today,

but I am not going to cover myself in shit today. That was my goal coming into the office. Well, part of my intern duties were doing research for Andrew Sullivan's weekly opinion column. Okay. So he would say I'm writing about Al Gore this week and I would say, okay, I'm going to send you a bunch of clips attached to an email because that's how we did things in those days and you can write your column. Well, one day, the New Republic's email server went out. Now, this is the year 2000. So there's no slack. There are few, if any, DMs of any kind. So I need to figure out a way to email Andrew Sullivan the research for his column. And I remembered

that I had an old email account from college. So I pull that up. I send Andrew Sullivan the research. What I didn't remember was that email involved my unfortunate high school and college nickname. Oh, no. Which was the

curdo. The curdo at Yahoo or whatever it was. So I send the research to Andrew. A few hours go by. And then he appears in the New Republic office with this huge smile on his face.

And he walks up to the intern desks, which were right in the middle of the office, where everyone could see them and everyone could hear everything that was said. And Andrew Sullivan in his British accent looks at me. I think he even pointed at me. And he says, the curdo? The curto? Your name is the curto? Everybody looks.

I, 22-year-old. old Brian Curtis. I'm now in the position of explaining to all these smart people why my high school nickname and college nickname was the Curto. It was my version of the show up at work naked, you know, lost your homework. Dree. The Curdo is not that embarrassing. I mean, your last name is Curtis, but I understand, I understand the moment you were in for sure. It's that particular feeling, right? It's like, I just don't want to be noticed mainly. I want to do a great job. I want to do my work and I don't want anybody to complain about me, but mostly I don't know what people to really pay attention to me at this tender age and tender point in my career. Oh, for sure. You're just

trying to hide it. Just like keep your head down. Yeah. The Curdo. And what was really weird about that was I was happy to leave that nickname back in Texas. But at that moment, at least one person at the New Republic started calling me, Curdo and then other people in my life learned that name. So now that name still follows me. Oh, no. If you see me on the street, please do not call me the Curto. That is no good. Coming up on today's show, the Curdo and David talk about Andrew Cuomo and Chris Cuomo. David, we've got more updates to get to on that story. We've also got your overwork Twitter jokes of the week, plus an Olympics theme, strain pun headline, all that and more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and

David Shoemaker here along with producer Erica Cervantes. David, lots of news in the Andrew Cuomo department on Monday morning as we record this. I want to just hit you with a few news items and get your response. Impeachment is proceeding a pace in the New York State Assembly. The New York Times reports that in recent days, Mr. Cuomo has remained focused on buying himself

time amid a chorus of calls for his resignation, believing that events are moving too quickly and that his best hope is to drag out the impeachment process. Of course, every Democrat on earth, including President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has now called on Andrew Cuomo to resign after a New York State Attorney General's report found that Cuomo had sexually harassed 11 women. It strikes me that this is kind of an interesting, I don't know if interesting is the right word, but it's what Andrew Cuomo is attempting to do is to see how long he can stay in office with the least amount of, you know,

of support. It's kind of a big deal that the president of the United States has called for your resignation. And there's a certain mindset that says the president thinks I should resign. And yet I am going to somehow, I think I can get through this if I drag out the impeachment process. Yeah. I mean, listen, it's not being an intern of the new Republican trying to keep your head down is hard enough, trying to be invisible while also being. the governor of the state of New York, and a public figure just in general on his level is nearly impossible, right? That said, he's still there. You know, I mean, it's not, I think, like, buying time to any specific end is not, is it really the game plan? It's just, it's just, it's not

running out the clock. It's just letting the clock run, right? I mean, there's no end point, save like the natural end of his term. And heck, you might run again. But you're just trying to wait out, just by time until everybody forgets that this is happening or something, right? Or everybody just sort of moves on. So you certainly, I mean, he very well could be under the impression that whatever the next big media thing that happens is will take everybody's attention and we'll all forget

about this. I don't think that's true at all. But that might be the plan. But I think more than anything else, I think, it's that if he messages that he's not going anywhere, then really what's the next chess move? I mean, he's not, I guess they could impeach him, right? I mean, but like, I don't know.

I think that this is really, I mean, I don't want to overdo it, but this is just a legacy of, I mean, this is the Trump doctrine, right? It's like if something happens that would otherwise be disqualifying, that would normally be disqualifying, and you just say, no, that's not really what I think and I'm staying, then there's not, you know, if you're not going to abide by the norms that would otherwise have ejected you from office, then it turns out there's not really like a backup plan.

You know, I mean, you just get to stay. And if you're okay with staying, and then you continue to just, you know, function in your role to some extent, then you just sort of win. So like what you're saying is that throughout political history, there was, if you want to call them norms or whatever we want to call them, there are moments where things like threat of impeachment, people in your own party calling on you to resign, an absolutely horrifying report like the New York State Attorney General released the other day, those would be

the kind of things that would push you to resign. But Donald Trump has in his just a very particular way established this sort of standard where it's like, I get, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to listen to any of that. And Andrew Cuomo, despite being an avowed enemy of Donald Trump, is sort of following a Trumpian path to staying an officer, at least trying to, as long as he can't. Well, I mean, I don't think Trump originated. And I'm sure many people, I mean, maybe present company included have, like, have, like, wondered out loud in the past when these things happen, you know, like, I saw a lot of people actually bring up Elliott Spitzer in the past week in terms of, you know, how he resigned over what some would say,

was a much less significant accusation or crime in his case. But, you know, I mean, if Elliot Spitzer had just been like, no, I'm staying, well, the crime might have made a big difference. But there's a lot of people in similar situations in the past left because it was impressed upon them that it was in their best interest to step down, right? Whether or not, whether it was like, I don't, I mean, I don't think anyone's adhering to norms in some sort of like conscientious moralistic way. But, you know, maybe Joe.

Biden saying you should step down was enough for you to say, if I'm ever want to fill in the blank again, I should probably take their advice. You know, I should, I should probably do this. Now, Cuomo may be in such a situation where he doesn't need to take anyone's advice and doesn't need any future favors for anybody or anything, or, you know, just sees that his path, he feels like he's powerful enough to keep going his own way. But it's, there's not, there's not much you can do, right? I mean, there's, there certainly are, like, you know, we just assume that people are going to abide by these norms. And when they don't, it kind of throws the whole, the whole situation for a loop. Right. And I guess the one difference would be impeachment, you know, in the New York State Assembly,

having a much higher chance of success than impeachment in the United States or removal from office in the United States. Yeah, but I mean, but part of this, too, I mean, is, I think we kind of talked about this, at least vaguely, when we talked about Mitch McConnell in the past, but there's this, of like the sort of institutional power of incumbency or just like a long-term political career is something that's hard for you and me and probably most of the people listening this to really wrap your head around. So it's like when you see, you know, Mitch McConnell is running neck and neck with the competition to come up to an election and then he wins by 25 points. And you're just like, I don't understand who likes this guy. Even why the Republican,

Republicans don't even like this guy. How's he winning? Well, there's just like almost, well, I was going to say unquantifiable, but it's very, very quantifiable power of the political machine and incumbency. And I think that Cuomo is taking comfort in some of that, too, and especially when it comes time for impeachment, well, we'll see what happens. But I would guess that he's sort of confident that he has enough sway in various directions over the people that would be casting votes, that he might have a little bit more of a, you know, escape hatch than you were, than, you know, the average person may think. Yeah, or he's just, as the time says,

just trying to buy himself time to just like, yeah, maybe it is. I mean, maybe it's just, I mean, I don't want to resign today, but I know I might have to resign in three weeks, you know, two weeks or whatever it is. Well, listen, the time to resign, if you were, if, you know, if you're self-aware,

if you have, you know, some level of confident, I mean, some level of, you know, foresight as to what this report's going to say. The time to resign was before the report came out, right? If you were going to resign. At this point, If Letitia James had her press conference and Andrew Cuomo had said, all right, you got me. I resign.

Then that's like the best, the worst possible moment for him to resign, right? He doesn't seem like he's, he is guilty and he is not fighting. You know, he's not, he's not disputing the accusation. So he's almost put him in a position where he has to hang on now. Yeah, well, I, it's just, it's funny because like you and I have talked a lot about him on this podcast and trying to understand the way his mind works and the particular political calculations of Andrew Cuomo to say nothing, nothing of the moral heinousness that was contained in that report. I don't know that I have a great grasp of it.

So I don't even like, you know, we've talked about this with other politicians and I don't, I think maybe I had a better grasp with them. But man, I honestly don't know. I honestly don't know what he's thinking. I think I could say that. A couple more. items read, David. One of the women who was in the AG's report, Brittany Camiso, who was named in that

report as Executive Assistant One, has done an interview with CBS. She tells CBS of Cuomo, what he did to me was a crime. He broke the law. Another item, Melissa de Rosa, top aide to Cuomo, resigned on Sunday night. She gave one of those statements, it was the greatest honor of my life to serve in the administration. Maybe in that particular cliche, which is, you know, in just about every retirement resignation from political life you've ever seen, maybe just put that on ice, given the circumstances. Was this the greatest honor of your life to be part of this? It also, the New York Times says in the wake of the AG's report, Ms. DeRosa determined that Mr. Cuomo no longer had a path to stay in office and that she would no longer be willing to stand up in public as his defender. One of the people said, dot, dot, dot. So you see, journalistically, tea leaves are being read right now. Political reporters don't have the answer to the question you and I talked about at the beginning, which is what is Andrew Cuomo, what is he thinking right now? What is he, what is his political calculation?

So they are looking at all these things and saying, okay, this is one of his biggest defenders, a woman whose name was in that AG's report. Now she is going to leave. She's leaving. Does that say something about his future plans? This was a really interesting. one from Ben Jacobs. Our pal, the political reporter, Ben Jacobs.

So Kathy Hockle is the New York State Lieutenant Governor. She would take over as governor of New York if Cuomo were to leave office for any reason. She changed the header on her Facebook page. And it's a picture of her

and Jacob says, looks like it's from the Women's March where she's meeting protesters. So A from the Women's March. And one of the protesters is holding a sign that says impeach Donald Trump, but the photo was cropped, so it just says impeach, impeach, impeach, impeach. Jacobs notes that this is the first, apparently the first change to her Facebook page since January.

So, I guess that's one way to send a message. Yeah. Photo with you meeting with protesters and the word impeach prominence. prominently displayed, but not in huge, yeah, well, that's saying something. I mean, it's, again, it's been, on the one hand, is bold for people to do that, especially with the power that Poma's been wielding

and the implicit power that he's been, you know, throwing around through his entire career, as this report shows, I mean, just the most disgusting way possible. But like you said, I mean, everybody, like, everybody is united in calling for him to, you know, step down. So it's, I mean, it's a really,

anybody that's not, I think, is going to have a, you know, a spotlight on them. Yeah. So even if you don't, but you put up, so you're saying that like your, your move is then to put up a Facebook photo like that and that sort of. I don't know what the, I mean, I don't know what the calculus is. I think that I think it's probably heartfelt, you know, it's probably deeply, it's probably deeply felt, but, but I don't, you know, it's not as, Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of people share that point of view now, thankfully.

I want to talk to you about Chris Cuomo, David, and his future and present on CNN, but let us take a pause for the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. David, breaking news from CNN as we recorded this morning, London's Tower Bridge is stuck open. after a technical failure. Police say creating long lines of traffic. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write, London Bridge is not falling down.

Thanks to Tyler Shepard for that one. In Olympics news, David, Jessica Springsteen, the daughter of the boss, Bruce Springsteen, won a silver medal in the team jumping event. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write, Glory Day, singular glory day. We would also have accepted she was born to jump.

Thanks to Josh Coyne and Aaron Whitelaw. Is there anything worse than bad puns meets Springsteen fans in the media? No, definitely not. Somehow I don't think that's going to be a particularly comic, productive comic opportunity. Finally, David, a political tweet that was built for the ratio. Comes from Indiana Senator Mike Braun, who writes,

quote, the founders never intended the federal government to grow to this size. As you can imagine, lots of funny responses, but I enjoyed the one that pointed to this classic onion headline. If the founding fathers were alive today, they'd be too fascinated by a garbage disposal to do anything. Thanks to our pal, Derek Burke, if you lie and wait for tweets of lesser-known Republican senators, congrats. You made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. By the way, has the onion had kind of a weird comment. comeback in like, this reminds me of the classic onion headline X?

I don't know. It does seem like there's been a lot of it lately. It feels like you, you still, once in a while you see current onion, but the onion is kind of in the drill zone where it's like. It's just brought out. It's just butter. It's more of like, oh, that reminds me of this whole joke. Yeah. I mean, it's a very like old form. Like I had like my, I learned this joke 10 years. go, I bet no one's heard it. And then you tell it to your friends and you get to take the credit for it, sort of. Yeah, or the Simpsons meme zone. Can we have an oral history of like things that, things that were funny 10 to 15 years ago and you use that to be funny now?

Is that an idea? Maybe not. I still bring up holy shit man walks on fucking moon about once a month. And generally, and generally to the great laughter of everyone around me who is not alive when our dumb century came out. Let us talk about Chris Cuomo, David, CNN, primetime host, and the brother of Andrew Cuomo. We had one of the great media phrases here uttered this week, which is that Chris Cuomo was taking a previously scheduled vacation. Oh, man. I feel like, first of all, we've had a great history of political hosts taking previously scheduled vacations.

Bill O'Reilly definitely did before you get the boot. And I feel like, did Laura Ingraham take one? I feel like there were a couple of different Fox News folks when they were like almost on the way out the door, you know, in moments of great controversy that seemed like that it did that. Even when they are actually previously scheduled vacations, somehow the phrase is still incredibly funny. He had a, this was all planned. I'm not, I'm just just, just taking my vacation. Chris Cuomo notes that he always takes his birthday week off. So I guess that's partially in his definition.

here. I was just thinking, we talked a little bit about this on Friday, but CNN truly got the worst out of Chris Cuomo in this story. First of all, he was advising his brother on this scandal without telling the higher-ups at CNN. So he takes CNN's journalistic, whatever you want to call it, bona fides, and puts him into jeopardy because he's doing something he knows he's not supposed to do. He clearly is not supposed to do, but he's doing it. Then, so that was really, really terrible. Then, as Michael Grinbaum notes in the New York Times, Chris Cuomo has not once mentioned his brother or the scandal on his 9 PM program since the release of the report. Didn't he play? I think someone pointed out that he actually played a piece, when Biden said

that Cuomo should step down, I think, I think Chris Cuomo played a piece of that same press conference, but on a different subject at night or something. Like he, like, was referencing. He referenced like a different piece of it. So now CNN is stuck with an hour of their primetime lineup where they can't cover the biggest story in America. So we got the network into hot water because we were advising the brother on what to do. And now CNN for an hour of its prime time schedule cannot, which is also, by the way,

journalistically sucky for them. cannot discuss the big story. Mm-hmm. I mean, that is really a combination of awfulness, is it not? Yeah, I mean, it just puts him in a terrible situation, right? I mean, and I think that the, I think this is really where the rubber hits the road, right? I mean, who knows what's going to happen? Because he's obviously been protected there to some great degree up to this point.

But like I've said before, I think you can kind of, if you avoid, the journalistic ethics conversation and go to just like a common sense ethics conversation. I mean, like point of view, you can see where the, the justification comes from, even if it's stretched, right? Even if it's stretched really thin. But this is where it gets really tricky, because there's no, because you can throw ethics in either, of either sort out the window. And you can say, when the question is, is it a problem that we can't cover the number one news story of the day, the reason why a lot of people are turning the dial to check out the news, right? I mean, it would be like, like, you know, it's okay.

Like, you know, people were happy to hire ex-Whitehouse officials of either party, right? You're happy to hire someone who's working in the Trump White House on CNN. But if that somehow magically precludes them from covering Donald Trump during his presidency from 8 to 9 o'clock every night, then there's no way they would have hired that person. It doesn't work, right? Nope. So, so, yeah, so it's, this might be his inability to cover the story. might be what actually spells out the end for.

Well, and I don't know if the previously scheduled vacation winds up mitigating that because he's just not on the air this week. But he should not have been put on the air if he couldn't cover the number one story. I mean, CNN's whole reason for existence is we cover breaking news. Isn't that the breaking news now? What is their tagline? And if you have one of your prime and we cover it, whether it's bad for the Republicans, bad for the Democrats, whatever it is.

We cover all the news here. We're not like those other networks. But if you can't put one of your primetime hosts on the air, if he cannot talk about this issue, he shouldn't have been put on the air. And I guess this gets to that thing of like, wait, are you suspending him if he's not on the air? Is it a suspension? And I think that they probably didn't do it because that just opens his whole other can of

worms, but he shouldn't have been on the air. Oh. I mean, that just seems like the simplest thing in the world to me. Like, what are you doing? Yeah. Yes. All the excuses that, you know, you and I've made for, I mean, it's all gets kind of shown in to start focus now, right?

I mean, you can't, on some level, you do the right thing, journalistically and morally or whatever else so that you don't find yourself in this sort of shitty situation. and they're just, I mean, like, what a fucking mess, man. I mean, listen, all that said, if he were just covering this, just like totally just throw the doors open to the family drama and just even had his literally like, like, you know, one-sided point of view about the whole thing,

if it became crashed television that everybody had to watch because it was so nuts, he might be safer. But just avoiding it is not, is not going to get him anywhere. No, that would have been terrible, but this is also terrible. which is just not covering the story at all. Michael Grinbaum, the Times pull an exchange from the podcast, The Handoff,

that Chris Cuomo does with fellow CNN host, Don Lemon. Are you aware of a podcast called The Handoff? No. We should do a ranking of podcasts that are done by television personalities that we are not aware exist. Podcasts by famous people that you did know existed? You know every time you're watching

the NBA post game show and they're advertising their own podcast? You know, it's like, Kenny and Charles talking to people. You're like, this is like this, this is not a podcast podcast, right? It can't possibly be. But it is. And I'm sure trillions of people listen to them. Well, I get that all the time in sports because somebody will say, did you listen to so-and-so's podcast the other day?

And it's like some pretty famous sports media person. I'm like, they have a podcast, which I know people are saying about us. So I understand, but it's, it's hard to keep track. Anyway, this is a, this is an exchange from the handoff, the previously unknown the handoff podcast. between Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon. Chris Cuomo says, I'll be right here at home.

He's talking about his vacation, because I don't know why I'd go anywhere else than the east end of Long Island during the summer. It's the most beautiful place in the world, said Mr. Cuomo, who is a fixture of the Hampton summer scene, along with Mr. Lemon. I'll be fishing. I'll be hanging out with you.

I'll be making memories with the kids. Quoting Grinbaum here further. Mr. Lemon said he was, quote, cooking up plans for the week with Mr. Cuombo's wife, Christina. I'm sure you'll make the plan and I'll pay for it. Mr. Cuomo joked. So Chris Cuomo is signing off a rocky week of his career as a television pundit by informing the world that he is going to be on the east end of Long Island for his vacation.

Oh my gosh. And there you have it. Oh my God. I feel like I need a previously scheduled vacation after just listening to this story for the past several months. I think so, too. Why didn't you and I get the August vacation? I think we could have. We're probably going to get in trouble for even mentioning it and not taking one. Anyway, I know. I'll see. All right. It's time for David Shoemaker.

Guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah. Friday's headline about an ex-Somalié charged with arson was in the wine of fire. Today's headline, David, comes from our good friend, Chad Orzel. It's from the New York

Daily News. The news was saluting the end of the summer Olympics. Pretty bizarre summer Olympics. In fact, that's how the paper put it in a subhead. Bizarre games over. You're going to want to pun off a popular Netflix show.

What was the New York Times' strained pun headline? But the weird that the bizarre summer games have ended, that's what we're going with here? Yes, sir. Netflix, we're in just the new black mine hunter,

Richardson, Tiger King, popular Netflix show. In the sci-fi nostalgia realm. Black Mirror? No. Stranger. So, stranger things, of course. Stranger Rings. Stranger Rings. That's pretty good. Here's the headline. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantes. We are back Friday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David.

See you later, the Kirto.