Saying it had new information about Chris Cuomo's role in helping his brother keep his job as governor of New York, CNN announced Saturday that it had fired its star host. The network said in a statement that the information concerning the anchor's involvement in Andrew Cuomo's defense against sexual harassment allegations surfaced after it retained an outside law firm to conduct a review. CNN, which did not detail the new information, said its investigation will continue, the New York Times reports.
The host posted a response on Twitter, per the Washington Post. "This is not how I want my time at CNN to end, but I have already told you why and how I helped my brother," he wrote. Cuomo already had been placed on indefinite suspension by the network. He receives the highest ratings of any CNN anchor, and Axios points out that the fact that he was fired anyway says something about the pressure CNN was under from inside and outside the network to do something more. The pressure increased after the New York Attorney General's Office released documents Monday showing the anchor was more involved than he'd admitted in his brother's defense. Andrew Cuomo resigned his office in August.
Cuomo had faced no discipline from CNN until last month, per the Times, despite violating journalistic ethics in advising and assisting his brother. Another CNN anchor, Jake Tapper, had been critical publicly, saying, "I cannot imagine a world in which anybody in journalism thinks that that was appropriate." Tapper was one of the contenders Cuomo defeated in 2018 to take over the 9pm Eastern time slot, a prime assignment on the network. Despite being CNN's ratings king, Cuomo's numbers had been falling, and his hour trailed the competition at Fox News and MSNBC. CNN did not immediately name a replacement. (More Chris Cuomo stories.)
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