Briahna Joy Gray, the former national press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, predicted that CNN anchor Chris Cuomo would return to the network despite his indefinite suspension announced Tuesday.
“I think that if the Jeffrey Toobin situation is any indication, he’ll be back,” Gray said during a Wednesday appearance on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” speaking of Cuomo’s return.
Toobin rejoined CNN earlier this year after the CNN legal analyst was involved in a Zoom call where he exposed himself to colleagues working at The New Yorker; he was subsequently placed on leave by CNN in October 2020.
Cuomo was suspended by CNN after the release of documents shedding new light on his efforts to help his brother Andrew Cuomo, the former governor or New York, deal with sexual harassment allegations.
Gray said that Cuomo could have acted as a journalist and conducted interviews delving into some of his brother’s scandals.
“I would like to see more of a focus on the kind of journalistic malpractice around the nursing home scandal, to be honest, in addition to this “MeToo” context because at that point, Chris Cuomo had a role in actually covering and… potentially could have been exposing his brother’s misconduct by having more hard-hitting interviews that actually got to the bottom of what was going on in these nursing homes in New York instead of doing this tomfoolery,” Gray said.
CNN on Tuesday said that they suspended Cuomo indefinitely from the network in light of new revelations included as part of an investigation the New York state Attorney General conducted into former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).
Documents by New York state Attorney General Letitia James’ office show that the CNN anchor sought to be a part of his brother’s crisis public relations, including texting top aides to the former governor
“It hurts to even say it. It’s embarrassing. But I understand it. And I understand why some people feel the way they do about what I did. I’ve apologized in the past, and I mean it,” Cuomo said Wednesday during his weekday SiriusXM radio show. “It’s the last thing I ever wanted to do, was compromise any of my colleagues and do anything but help. I know they have a process that they think is important. I respect that process, so I’m not going to talk about this any more than that.”
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