The Megyn Kelly Show - Cuomo is Done - And What Comes Next, with Janice Dean and Stu Burguiere

00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.980 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Andrew Cuomo's out.

00:00:17.340 It happened. It actually happened. He resigned. I mean, he was forced to resign, but he's gone.

00:00:23.380 He's leaving. He gave himself 14 days notice, two weeks notice, but he's officially out. And I don't

00:00:30.500 know. Janice Dean said it would happen and it happened. And she's here again. I'm like, we got

00:00:35.600 to have her back. We have to have this moment. She's here with her reaction. And we're going to

00:00:40.120 talk about reports that I heard over on the New York Times podcast today, The Daily, that he's

00:00:44.160 probably going to come back. What? No one else, no other politician, when they have a suffered defeat

00:00:49.720 like this or an embarrassment gets talk of, he'll come back within two minutes, right?

00:00:54.080 Other than somebody like a Democrat named Andrew Cuomo. And we're also going to be joined by,

00:00:59.020 I love this guy, Stu Bergeer. He's host of Stu Does America over on The Blaze. And he's also co-host

00:01:05.880 of The Glenn Beck Show and executive producer of that show too. He's a great, great guy, good

00:01:09.620 perspective, and has been really following the Cuomo story from the beginning. So you're going

00:01:14.020 to love his perspective. All things Andrew Cuomo and media and their dereliction.

00:01:19.720 And I'm not just talking about Chris Cuomo, though, we will get to him too.

00:01:23.600 So all that plus my opening monologue in one minute.

00:01:33.500 He's done. After three terms in office, an Emmy, a $5 million book deal with a reported

00:01:39.860 $18 million in the bank. And only one year after he was lauded as the future of the Democratic Party,

00:01:45.700 Andrew Cuomo's out as the New York governor and one of the most powerful politicians in

00:01:50.720 America. Good. He resigned yesterday in a stunning turn of fortune after he realized he was out of

00:01:57.300 options. The president had turned on him. The centrist New York Democrats who had been backing

00:02:02.500 him turned on him. The Speaker of the Assembly made clear that the impeachment trial of Mr.

00:02:07.620 Cuomo for the alleged serial sexual harassment and abuse of women would go forward in weeks,

00:02:12.220 not months. And the calculating politician did the math. There was no way forward. Instead of

00:02:18.320 letting the guillotine drop, he swung the axe himself and ended his political career, at least

00:02:23.960 for now. How on earth did we get here? I'll tell you how. In the spring of 2020, Andrew Cuomo's star rose

00:02:33.580 rapidly as he dazzled the media with his measured COVID press conferences, sounding every bit the

00:02:39.940 avuncular voice of reason. The man in control of the uncontrollable. The perfect contrast to shoot

00:02:46.540 from the hit Trump, whose public health messaging was all over the board and often erratic. Cuomo's

00:02:53.120 sexual T-shirts were bought and worn by grown men, enamored with Cuomo's Jed Bartlett-esque tell-it-like-it-is

00:03:00.020 style. He'll save us from this pandemic, people thought. There was even talk of replacing Biden

00:03:05.820 on the Democratic ticket with him. And then a gal from Canada, married to a New York City hero,

00:03:13.880 9-11 firefighter, and living a simple life on Long Island, New York, raising their two young

00:03:18.800 sons together. She was fighting a medical battle of her own, by the way, MS, and doing the weather for

00:03:24.080 Fox News got mad. Janice Dean. You see, both of her in-laws, her husband Sean's parents,

00:03:31.400 Dee and Mickey, who I also had the pleasure of meeting over the years, died in New York nursing

00:03:36.640 homes, not long after Sean and Janice reluctantly made the decision to admit them. They died shortly

00:03:43.540 after an order issued by Governor Big Man on campus that sent COVID-positive patients into New York

00:03:49.420 nursing homes where the sickest, most vulnerable populations lived. Medical groups had begged

00:03:56.060 Governor Cuomo not to do it, warning him the death toll would be devastating. But Cuomo, as always,

00:04:01.900 knew better. The death toll mounted by the thousands. Dee and Mickey were two of them. Two,

00:04:09.280 it would turn out, of some 15,000 seniors who died in New York nursing homes. And the weather gal

00:04:15.360 from Fox News decided to speak out about it, since the fawning liberal media has zero desire to attack

00:04:22.840 their boyfriend-in-chief. She spoke out about this on Fox News, on this show, and anywhere that would

00:04:29.760 have her. Notably not on the list, The View, among others, which had hosted J.D. before but for some

00:04:36.400 reason found this story totally uninteresting. She tweeted multiple times a day. She watched every press

00:04:43.280 conference of his. She informed us all of his inconsistencies. She called out his lies on the

00:04:49.220 number of dead, on his callousness about the death toll. People die. It happens. His deflection of

00:04:55.940 to God, to the nurses, to anyone not named Cuomo. She had allies in men like Ron Kim, Democrat from New

00:05:03.660 York, whose relative, his uncle, also died in a New York nursing home. He later admitted that his own

00:05:09.780 speaking out led to vicious bullying from Cuomo personally. But those allies were few and far

00:05:15.440 between. People like Soledad O'Brien, Matthew Dowd, then of ABC News, attacked Janice. She was

00:05:22.520 diminished by so many as just the weather gal. Even the governor's top eight attacked her as, quote,

00:05:28.120 not an expert in anything but the weather. She wouldn't stop. She was like a dog with a bone.

00:05:33.280 Even Sean, a very private man and good friend of mine, eventually asked her, honey, when are you

00:05:41.320 going to stop this? Never was the answer, because it's not how she's built. She couldn't, because no

00:05:47.820 one else would talk about it. Sure, Fox News, right, and some in conservative media. But ABC, NBC, CBS,

00:05:54.940 please. CNN? Well, CNN went a different way entirely, lionizing Andrew Cuomo on his brother's

00:06:01.820 show in the middle of all of this, joking night after night about who mom loved best, humanizing

00:06:08.020 Andrew, trying to make us all love him. No hard questions, just a celebration of his alleged

00:06:14.880 brilliance and leadership. The Cuomo brothers, raised in enormous privilege, afforded it yet

00:06:21.980 again on a national stage in a gross dereliction of journalistic duty that CNN will never live

00:06:28.360 down. After long last, the attorney general of New York finally got involved, took a look

00:06:35.520 at the nursing home numbers, and confirmed everything Janice had been saying, that Cuomo

00:06:39.080 had lied, that he had been undercounting the deaths to protect himself politically. His top

00:06:44.880 aide even admitted it privately to top Democrats. Still, the press and New York Democrats had little

00:06:52.660 interest in the story. And then came a woman named Lindsay Boylan in December 2020 with the tweet that

00:07:00.060 would mark the final chapter of Cuomo. Lindsay Boylan, who worked in the governor's office for a

00:07:07.040 period of time as a young, fresh-faced aide, revealed that she had been sexually harassed by him,

00:07:12.620 that he had kissed her on lips against her will, asked her to play strip poker with him, been told by

00:07:18.140 her boss that Cuomo, quote, had a crush on her. And not long after that, in 2018, Boylan then left

00:07:24.960 Cuomo's office. Boylan was attacked, smeared, diminished, called a liar by Cuomo and his henchmen

00:07:31.640 and women. But she never wavered. And we now know that behind the scenes, the governor was getting help

00:07:37.460 smearing Lindsay Boylan from people like the executive director of Time's Up! Time's Up! Not to mention the

00:07:44.320 human rights campaign. These are woke organizations meant to hold the powerful to account, working to

00:07:50.020 ruin Lindsay Boylan by, in the case, for example, of HRC, leaking her personnel file, which the HRC

00:07:56.740 president, a former aide of Cuomo's, had. And in the case of Roberta Kaplan of Time's Up! helping the

00:08:02.500 governor in his response to Boylan's allegations. Their first instincts side with power, attack the

00:08:10.440 women. Destroy Lindsay Boylan. And they did try. But then came others. One by one, young women coming

00:08:19.500 forward with similar stories of bullying, inappropriate groping, kissing, fondling, sex talk, and so on.

00:08:27.140 And then the AG, Letitia James, was back again. Yes, Tish James, who definitely wants Andrew Cuomo's job,

00:08:34.660 his defenders are not wrong about that, began another investigation. Farmed out to two independent

00:08:39.760 investigators, one of whom had gone after Cuomo before. And still more women and witnesses came

00:08:47.160 forward. Ones who had never spoken publicly before. An executive assistant who says he groped her

00:08:53.300 behind and then her breast under her blouse. A state trooper whose stomach he allegedly rubbed,

00:09:01.100 among other things. A woman on a rope line whose chest he pressed into repeatedly with his finger.

00:09:07.060 Cuomo, for his part, dismissed it all as overreactions or untruths or misinterpretations.

00:09:14.860 Listened to him yesterday trying to normalize his decision to touch that female state trooper's

00:09:21.100 stomach. I got to know her over time and she's a great professional. And I would sometimes banter

00:09:27.900 with her when we were in the car. We spent a lot of time driving around the state. This female

00:09:36.060 trooper was getting married. And I made some jokes about the negative consequences of married life.

00:09:45.360 I meant it to be humorous. She was offended and she was right. The trooper also said that in an elevator,

00:09:56.400 I touched her back. And when I was walking past her in a doorway, I touched her stomach.

00:10:03.400 Now, I don't recall doing it, but if she said I did it, I believe her. At public events,

00:10:14.260 troopers will often hold doors open or guard the doorways. When I walk past them, I often will give

00:10:24.480 them a grip of the arm, a pat on the face, a touch on the stomach, a slap on the back. It's my way of

00:10:31.700 saying, I see you.

00:10:33.600 Sure. Women, how many times has your boss rubbed your belly? Men, how many times have you done that

00:10:40.960 to female colleagues? Please. This is what he does. Try to normalize it. And by the way,

00:10:45.860 then blame the women. That's what he did to Janice Dean, to boil into all of the women

00:10:49.920 helped not just by the media, but by Time's Up, by critical woke activists, and also by his brother,

00:10:57.000 Chris Cuomo, who, after doing his level best to make the nation love Andrew Cuomo, advised his

00:11:03.580 brother behind the scenes on how to dismiss these women entirely. Without disclosing any of his

00:11:10.380 maneuvering, Chris Cuomo became a political activist, meeting with the governor's staff,

00:11:16.340 lawyers, coming up with a game plan on how to get rid of these pesky charges. We only know this

00:11:22.020 because he got caught. The Washington Post broke the story, and Chris Cuomo went on the air,

00:11:28.300 admitted it, and tried to convince his audience he cares very deeply. That's a quote about sexual

00:11:34.600 harassment. Now we know he cares so deeply, he actually drafted his brother's public defense.

00:11:43.160 He was part of the same team that smeared these women as pushing cancel culture.

00:11:46.820 However, Governor Cuomo's team attacked Lindsay Boylan with special vigor. She was number one.

00:11:53.060 She had to go. A woman whose mother, by the way, who was once on food stamps, whose dad was from

00:11:57.820 Queens. He was the son of Irish immigrants. He was a Marine. He served in Desert Storm. That's who

00:12:03.200 Lindsay Boylan comes from. Not anyone with connections, not anyone with family power.

00:12:08.900 Everything Lindsay Boylan earned, she'd earned on her own. And now this woman found herself up against

00:12:14.400 the most powerful man in New York, one of the most powerful in America, and his media star brother.

00:12:21.280 And these two men, born into a family of enormous privilege, connection, and influence,

00:12:27.160 two men who obviously would have none of the success they now enjoy without the Cuomo name,

00:12:32.220 that of their father, who was a three-term governor of New York, came for Lindsay and the others

00:12:37.260 without one care for the truth. Chris Cuomo needs to be held accountable. This is totally

00:12:43.820 unacceptable behavior. Andrew Cuomo is now rightfully gone. And Lindsay Boylan, Janice Dean,

00:12:51.500 and the other women who came forward are owed a debt of gratitude by all of us. Janice is with me now.

00:13:01.300 J.D., I don't know. I don't want to say we never thought it would happen, but I looked back at our

00:13:06.120 interviews. And in March of 2021, you said, when the women started coming forward, I think this is

00:13:12.860 going to be the end of him. And you were right. As usual, you were right. Well, I had the angels on

00:13:19.980 my side. I know that I bring that up often, but it's a phrase that I got from you many years ago,

00:13:26.380 when you and I were going up against a bully, the most powerful name in news. And you said,

00:13:34.240 we're on the side of the angels, J.D. And so I use that phrase because it means something,

00:13:43.120 not only in this situation, but in another situation where there was a very powerful person

00:13:48.960 that we didn't think was going to leave and we would possibly lose our jobs for going up against.

00:13:54.740 And I use it now because it's true. My in-laws, I'm their voice. And those are the people whose

00:14:04.320 side that I am on now. You never stopped fighting

00:14:08.800 through all the attacks. And it's not like they didn't bother you. It's not pleasant to be attacked

00:14:16.340 by Soledad O'Brien, not to mention Ben Stiller, Matthew Dowd, who kept coming for you over and over and

00:14:23.740 over. And these are just a few. And the governor's office themselves came for you. These same people

00:14:28.740 who are now being disgraced, tried to dismiss you as nothing, as a nothing because of your job.

00:14:36.040 It's not that it didn't bother you. It's just you were a woman on a mission.

00:14:41.900 I knew I had truth on my side. I knew that the evidence was there.

00:14:47.220 So I felt confident to continue to go against these bullies because that's what they were.

00:14:53.380 Anna Navarro as well, by the way. I forgot her.

00:14:57.000 Yeah. I wanted to forget her.

00:14:59.380 Yeah. She's, she's not a nice person at all. And so because I knew I had truth on my side,

00:15:06.360 I forged ahead and I'm not going to lie. My husband, as you mentioned, was not happy with

00:15:15.680 what was going on. You know, he was nervous, obviously he knew that I was doing it for the

00:15:21.120 right reasons, but he was worried about me. And I don't know what kept me going. I like to say it

00:15:28.540 was my in-laws that kept me going and they gave me strength every day. But I think, you know,

00:15:33.880 we've discussed this before I've had building blocks of getting to this point, right? I think

00:15:38.920 if I was a 25 year old that just moved to New York and had this happen, I would never have the

00:15:45.020 strength to go against the most powerful politician in New York state and somebody who wanted to be a

00:15:52.160 president. And I always thought to myself, even if he doesn't leave office, but he's wounded enough

00:15:58.540 that he doesn't seek higher office, then what I did was justified. So to see him yesterday, step down,

00:16:07.660 which I was surprised he did because he's, you know, dug in his heels for so long. It's not just, it's not

00:16:13.700 part of his personality to sort of step aside. You know, yesterday was a, was a very good day.

00:16:19.980 Yeah. He, he was all over the map yesterday in trying to respond to the allegations. Um, it was,

00:16:30.780 well, the standards have changed over time, you know, sort of, I'm an accurate, I'm, I'm an

00:16:35.020 anachronistic. Um, but also this is a political hit job, but also the women are liars and they

00:16:42.040 misinterpreted things and whatever, you know, kissing or whatever went on is because they wanted it. I mean,

00:16:46.840 it was like all over the board, but let's just start with the old changing standards, uh, defense

00:16:53.780 because we hear this one a lot. Listen, I thought a hug and putting my arm around the staff person

00:17:00.640 while taking a picture was friendly, but she found it to be too forward. My sense of humor can be

00:17:07.560 insensitive and off putting. I do hug and kiss people casually, women and men. In my mind,

00:17:19.400 I've never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn't realize the extent to which the line has been

00:17:31.320 redrawn. But I want to thank the women who came forward with sincere complaints. It's not easy to

00:17:39.680 step forward, but you did an important service and you taught me and you taught others an important

00:17:48.700 lesson. Personal boundaries must be expanded and must be protected. Okay. The line moved. This is

00:18:00.140 basically the same as when an old boss from the 1960s would get in trouble by today's standards

00:18:06.040 for calling someone sweetie. That's basically what this is. You know, he's always blaming others

00:18:11.520 though. I mean, I've been covering him now for a year and a half and he never fessed up to the

00:18:17.740 nursing home stuff. You know, it was always God and mother nature and the New York post and Trump

00:18:22.620 and Fox news and political it's political. Uh, so I'm not nurses, even the nurses, he will blame it on

00:18:28.800 people who have far less power than he does. And at one point he even blamed the nursing home

00:18:34.080 residents. They're old, they're going to die. I mean, I listen, I think the guy actually has a

00:18:42.940 personality disorder. I don't think he has any capability to, to be empathetic in any situation.

00:18:49.120 What you saw there was his best, you know, uh, actor, you know, he's, he's like De Niro,

00:18:56.400 you know, his hero trying to act his way out of a terrible situation. Um, so, you know, I'm,

00:19:04.100 I'm used to hearing him sort of that broken record of blaming everyone else, except the guy

00:19:08.920 who signed the mandate to put COVID positive patients into nursing homes. And the guy who

00:19:14.160 sexually harassed and probably sexually harassed, assaulted, uh, an employee.

00:19:20.760 And now he's looking at potential criminal charges. The woman who was his executive assistant,

00:19:25.560 who said he groped her breast, uh, is saying she is pursuing criminal charges against him.

00:19:30.340 There are DAs in a few different jurisdictions looking into it. Lindsay Boylan says she's going

00:19:35.080 to sue him because the retaliation against her was well documented in the Tish James report.

00:19:39.980 Um, but I'll tell you what, JD, I listened to the daily, the New York times is podcast that they

00:19:45.820 put out every day, uh, this morning. And there, there was talk over there about how he's not done.

00:19:54.000 He's going to take that 18 million he has in the bank. How do you make 18 million as a sitting

00:19:59.500 governor of New York? Um, and he's probably going to run again. They were basically saying,

00:20:04.200 don't count him out. If not for New York state governor for higher office that he, you know,

00:20:09.340 he'll wait some time and we could see him rise again. What do you think of that?

00:20:13.700 I think Albany lawmakers need to stop being so spineless and impeach him so that that never

00:20:19.380 happens. So I'm glad you gave me that information. Cause I'm going to get on the phone to Ron Kim and

00:20:25.480 say, listen, if this is the case and this guy is, you know, thinking that he's going to run again,

00:20:31.560 at some point, you need to put a nail in the coffin. You need to make sure that he can never run

00:20:37.840 again. And that means impeaching him. Which they can do is similar to what the Democrats tried to

00:20:43.200 do to Trump. They wanted to impeach him among other reasons because they wanted to get, um,

00:20:48.180 to the point where he could never run again. And that would also happen to Cuomo if he were in fact

00:20:52.080 impeached and found guilty. Um, but I don't think there's will to do that. Do you JD? I think these

00:20:57.240 Democrats in the New York assembly who have been slow as molasses and doing anything about any of these

00:21:02.240 problems, they're relieved today that they don't have to go forward with this relieved and almost

00:21:07.760 bragging. I was just on social media, uh, before I got on the interview with you, Megan, and these

00:21:13.480 Albany lawmakers, Democrats, some of whom are notoriously known for hiding in the bathroom

00:21:20.560 when having to vote against something Cuomo wanted, um, are going on telling, telling war stories about,

00:21:27.720 Oh, in their defense, they were in there looking for their balls.

00:21:34.320 Yes. I'm so glad you said that. Uh, you know, I'm so sick of it. They're so spineless and now

00:21:40.460 they're coming out. Oh, I remember when he did this to me, where were you guys when we needed you most,

00:21:46.600 Megan, it was a year ago yesterday where my invitation was rescinded from lawmakers to testify

00:21:55.640 on behalf of my family about nursing homes in Albany. They took away my invitation because

00:22:02.520 quote unquote, they were uncomfortable with what I had to say and where I worked.

00:22:09.080 So yeah, I mean, from the very beginning, these people tried to silence me and I won't ever forget

00:22:14.700 that. That's right. And today, when you look at the media coverage today, JD is so disingenuous,

00:22:21.120 all these left wing papers and left wing TV shows pretending like they sound like they knew it all

00:22:27.240 along, you know, that he's a bad guy and he had to go. It's like you played defense for him for 14

00:22:34.100 months. This result was forced upon you by the attorney general's report. You came to it kicking

00:22:40.400 and screaming, even as media people don't try to fool us that you somehow support him being deposed in

00:22:47.440 this way. Right. I mean, the media has just been complicit in this the whole time with exception

00:22:53.200 to many like yourself, uh, you know, Fox news, the New York post, uh, the daily caller, uh, town hall,

00:23:02.120 all of those, um, you know, places that do reporting good reporting and didn't back down because he was

00:23:10.040 the emperor, the one that controlled everything and, and truly had the most power in New York state.

00:23:16.100 They didn't back down, you know, even Chuck Todd yesterday, right afterwards, right after the guy

00:23:22.980 leaves, he's like, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but you know, he'll be back. He, I don't see why he

00:23:28.600 wouldn't try to seek office again. And I'm just, please, you know, he's lobbying right now, probably

00:23:36.660 to get Matt Lauer, his job back, get Andy lack back at the top of NBC. That's how Chuck Todd sees the

00:23:41.520 world. Yeah. They'll come back. Sure. Why not? Well, the Chuck Todd. Hi, if you're listening,

00:23:46.180 I'd love for you to give me a call so I can give you a rundown of things that you never reported on

00:23:51.680 and things that actually the governor might go to jail about. Right. Well, and so that's,

00:23:57.560 that's the other question, right? We've talked all along when this first broke with the women,

00:24:01.260 you were torn because he really wanted to see him held to account for what he did on the nursing

00:24:05.700 homes. And it's insane. We've talked about it before that the 15,000 dead seniors doesn't seem to

00:24:10.880 register with the, with the populace, with the media, with the Democrats in control in New York,

00:24:14.780 but 11 women saying that they've been inappropriately touched does not in any way to

00:24:19.380 diminish the women. It's just one story caught fire and the other one was totally buried and ignored

00:24:24.760 intentionally. So how are you feeling about it today? I've always said, I don't care what,

00:24:29.760 you know, takes them off the stage. Uh, I am in full support of these women and I I've become close

00:24:35.680 to these women as well. I don't think that this would have happened without them. I think

00:24:40.260 it's terrible what they went through. And I've used the analogy about Al Capone going to jail for

00:24:46.260 tax evasion. It wasn't for the really deeply corrupt criminal stuff. Yes. What they did was

00:24:53.580 could be construed as criminal and assault and all of that. But when you talk about over 15,000 elderly

00:25:00.180 and the fact that he put infected patients in a nursing homes where the most vulnerable reside and

00:25:05.780 then covered it up, uh, to sell a $5.1 million book, I mean, listen, the apples into oranges here.

00:25:13.560 And so I don't care what ultimately makes him leave the building, but I do want these investigations

00:25:21.960 to continue because he does need to be held accountable. And, you know, this morning we had

00:25:28.080 Ron Kim on Fox news in the morning with us. It was the first time I had seen him, you know, via zoom

00:25:34.380 and I got choked up because I'm so grateful to him. You know, it's not about politics, you know,

00:25:40.140 he's a Democrat and I'm sure we disagree and agree on things when it comes to politics and then what

00:25:46.240 happens in the world. But when it comes to our connection about what happened to our loved ones

00:25:53.220 in nursing homes, like his uncle, uh, you know, the story he tells about his uncle, helping him

00:25:58.380 come to the United States, help his family come to the United States. It's quite, it's quite a story

00:26:04.560 he tells. And so I'm grateful to him. And I feel like I have an ally of him in a world where I really

00:26:12.940 need their support. And he can be somebody inside of there to say, this is what we need to do.

00:26:19.280 And let's do the right thing. Yeah. Because right now he's going to go off. I predict into private

00:26:26.160 practice, get a job with a posh law firm, make a few million bucks a year and say, Oh, changing

00:26:32.120 standards. You know, I just didn't understand as if men who are 64 years old elsewhere, don't know

00:26:38.020 not to grab their executive assistant's breast underneath her blouse or squeeze her bottom and

00:26:43.660 hold his hand there while doing a selfie or touch the chest of a woman who comes to meet them in a rope

00:26:49.080 line or rub a state trooper's belly. Who's just trying to protect him. This creep who pulled her

00:26:55.340 over onto his detail before she was even allowed to be there. She was so young and inexperienced,

00:27:00.600 but he clearly caught, she clearly caught his eye. Right. So like, he's going to go off into private

00:27:04.920 practice and be like, Oh, changing standards. And it may be in five years. He says, I'm going to throw

00:27:10.360 my hat back in the ring for national politics. And unless, unless these legislators or the, those who are

00:27:15.620 investigating him on the nursing home scandals, do something more. It's possible. I don't think he

00:27:20.460 has a lot of friends right now. You know, if, if there was the possibility that he had allies,

00:27:25.780 I would think that there was more of a possibility of that, but I think he's burned so many bridges

00:27:31.080 and so many people have stories of corruption. Ronan Farrow has, has an article out about, you know,

00:27:37.660 some of his terrible misdeeds several years ago. I haven't read it, but I I'm sure if it's Ronan

00:27:43.920 Pharaoh and he's writing about, um, Andrew Cuomo's misdeeds, uh, it's probably pretty, uh, lethal.

00:27:51.720 So listen, he doesn't have many friends and he doesn't have anywhere to go or to hide. And all

00:27:59.840 of the people that work around him are jumping off the ship like rats. So I don't know if he comes back

00:28:08.760 from this. Um, but I suppose if you're Andrew Cuomo, you probably think you can survive anything.

00:28:17.400 Well, let's talk for a minute about the me too aspect of it because, um, you know, there,

00:28:23.280 there are people now defending Andrew Cuomo asking, you know, saying this is a political hit job.

00:28:29.860 Even our friend Tucker, we both love Tucker was saying, you know, Lindsay Boylan, where was she?

00:28:35.760 Why didn't she come forward earlier? You know, and there's no question that some politics are

00:28:40.300 involved in this. Whenever a politician finds himself in the me too lens, you got to ask what

00:28:45.140 the politics are. Tish James does want his job. One of those guys who did the report had gone after

00:28:51.460 Andrew Cuomo in the past on other scandals. So it wasn't completely independent. Um, even though she

00:28:58.360 wasn't doing the investigation herself that that's true. Uh, but I don't see how you dismiss all these

00:29:05.680 women as political operatives when there's no evidence of that. And, and honestly, the thing

00:29:11.540 about Lindsay Boylan, think about it, you know, you know, as well as I do, you're working for the

00:29:16.340 governor of New York. The guy was singularly powerful in this state in a, in a way we hadn't seen in recent

00:29:22.280 history. And even though it was post me too, post Roger Ailes, post Harvey Weinstein, 2018, when this

00:29:29.080 allegedly happened to her, you, you have the same fears. No one else is going to come forward. You're

00:29:34.440 going to be left twisting out there by yourself. He's got all the power I've gotten on. He's a huge

00:29:37.840 bully, huge bully. And indeed he did retaliate against her if you believe the Tish James report. So I just

00:29:43.620 think, you know, you gotta, you gotta understand where, what it's like to be the powerless one in a

00:29:49.020 relationship like this. Absolutely. And I love Tucker as well. And he certainly helped me with,

00:29:54.780 you know, bringing my voice into the open about the nursing home issue. Tucker was the one I went

00:30:01.080 on his show the day after I decided to come forward with my story, but I was very disappointed to hear

00:30:06.720 that he was, you know, sort of questioning why these women didn't come forward beforehand. And I say to

00:30:14.860 men, you haven't walked in our shoes. You have no idea. Pretty much every job that I have ever been

00:30:22.520 in, there has been some sort of harassment and you either, you know, take it or you leave. That was

00:30:29.280 the problem. You know, there was, there was never an avenue to go to complain, uh, even here at Fox.

00:30:35.940 So I would like to have a conversation with Tucker off the air and just say to him, you know,

00:30:41.620 I want you to talk to your wife. I want you to talk to other women before you go forward and say,

00:30:47.000 well, I don't really know if I believe this story. And I think she's politically motivated. Um,

00:30:52.320 because he doesn't know what we women have to go through with these powerful bosses, with these men

00:30:59.880 that are in power. And, and in some cases they get into this powerful position to be able to

00:31:07.800 do this kind of thing. Uh, you know, think about it. He's got grown men and their families in tears

00:31:14.560 with his threatening and bullying. Think of what you think of how it'd be for a young executive

00:31:19.080 assistant, for example, you know, to try to cross him and think about Lindsay Boylan, who wanted a

00:31:25.280 future in democratic politics in New York, what she's thinking, like, no one's going to believe me.

00:31:30.100 He's going to kill me. And sure enough, when she came forward, we now know that the governor's

00:31:35.100 office, according to Tish James, went to this guy who's now running human rights campaign,

00:31:40.500 this woke organization that fights for LGBTQ issues and said, Hey, give me her personnel file

00:31:45.760 because that guy had once worked for the governor and he did it. And then it was used against her.

00:31:51.060 She leaked to the media by the Cuomo team. I mean, they did retaliate against Lindsay Boylan. She had

00:31:57.060 very good reason to fear him. As it turned out, she's the one who's now going to file a civil lawsuit

00:32:02.920 for what was done for her because it's illegal. So her concerns were really well founded.

00:32:08.080 And I'm grateful to her because she was sort of the first one to go forward. And I haven't talked

00:32:12.600 to Charlotte Bennett, who also came forward, but I believe the reason she did is because of Lindsay.

00:32:18.140 So there is that domino effect of that woman who comes forward and then the others feel safe enough

00:32:23.100 to do the same. And with Charlotte, if you do some research with her story, she did go to a

00:32:31.920 superior and they did not address her issues. Instead, they moved her. Yeah. So Lindsay had,

00:32:38.720 you know, nowhere to go, nowhere to, no one to talk to and no one to complain to.

00:32:44.060 And what about the state trooper? What was she reluctantly came forward? She never came forward

00:32:48.580 until the investigation got started with the attorney general. And, um, she, she basically had,

00:32:54.660 it had been witnessed and she got pulled in there and told the truth. But, you know, if you look at the

00:32:59.400 story of these women, it doesn't, I understand the need to say, is this political? Always when it

00:33:05.380 involves a politician, you got to do that, but you got to follow it through and be open-minded to

00:33:09.780 maybe it isn't political. And it's just the thought of all 11 of these women, the woman on the rope

00:33:14.100 line who was waiting there to meet the guy who was a fan, you know, like what she made up some weird

00:33:19.660 story about him touching her breasts and pushing in on the letters just for, I don't know. It's just,

00:33:24.580 I think, um, as far as we've come, we haven't come far enough. And I think I understand the need to

00:33:30.720 not be a canceled culture warrior. You know, I don't think you're that person and I'm not that

00:33:34.780 person. Um, but this is different. This is illegal. This is sexual abuse, assault, harassment.

00:33:42.220 There's a reason it's unlawful under the law. You can't put people, whether it's a woman or a man

00:33:46.440 in lower positions of power, in the position of having to lose their job or go along with somebody

00:33:53.320 fondling them. That's just an impossible place. Yes. And, you know, I have to say this in Tucker's

00:33:58.940 defense and other men who, you know, have felt like they have been wronged by the system. You

00:34:06.380 know, Tucker's been accused, falsely accused of, of harassment as well. So I can understand why some

00:34:12.360 of these men are, you know, have a lot of questions as well. You know, is their story real? Because I've

00:34:18.300 been attacked and I've been, people have come after me for, for false, uh, accusations. So I,

00:34:24.120 I get that. I get that men are, you know, certainly weary and afraid, uh, that some women will not tell

00:34:31.360 the truth, but, uh, there is a pattern of behavior with this governor. And so we can't ignore that.

00:34:40.720 Yeah. Well, that's, I think about it too, from not just a legal standpoint, cause I'm a lawyer

00:34:45.740 and due process is owed to those being accused, but as a mom of two boys, you know, I have two

00:34:51.440 boys and a girl, as you know, you're the godmother of one of those sons and, and you have two boys

00:34:55.880 and I, I don't want them to find themselves in a situation when they go off to college or

00:35:01.900 after where for, it doesn't even have to be political. It could just be vindictive reasons.

00:35:07.700 Let's say a team of women, three or four, whatever women decide, let's get him. You know,

00:35:12.840 let's say they turn out to be just big personalities or sort of arrogant. Let's God forbid, but if they

00:35:17.820 do, they could be targeted. And so there does have to be a standard for the women coming forward as

00:35:23.660 well. You know, proof has to be offered. It has to be contemporaneous. It can't be 30 year old

00:35:27.880 Christine Blasey Ford type allegations. These were, these were very recent time. They were witnessed by

00:35:33.860 other people. There was a full fledged investigation where Cuomo was allowed to defend himself. And I

00:35:38.860 think if this goes to a court of law, the standard will be much, much higher, much, much higher. I

00:35:43.960 don't see anything happening in the court of law, to be honest with you in terms of these potential

00:35:47.360 criminal charges, but this was a court of public opinion and people are free to believe that Tish

00:35:52.580 James report versus Andrew Cuomo's lengthy defense, which is in writing too, or not. It turns out in this

00:35:58.600 case, I mean, virtually everyone sided against him. And listen, I wonder if there wasn't the other

00:36:05.560 charges of the nursing home and the other abuse of power, you know, using state resources to give out

00:36:11.480 friends and family COVID tests to his friends and, you know, to his friends and family, including Chris

00:36:15.880 Cuomo and using state resources to drive to his home and the Hamptons and then actually do the test and

00:36:23.200 then drive upstate to get the test, you know, done that takes hours to do that while nursing homes

00:36:30.300 couldn't test incoming patients. So the abuse of power doesn't just go to the harassment. It goes to

00:36:38.380 the other big investigations into this governor. So if it was just the sexual harassment, you know,

00:36:46.040 obviously there would be a case to be made, but I think the fact that there are all these other

00:36:51.660 piles, uh, that this governor has left in his wake, that kind of speak to the character of this person.

00:37:00.520 And I think the me too stuff is easier for lawmakers to digest and to get him on than the really corrupt,

00:37:08.960 awful stuff that he could potentially go to jail for. So there it is. That's there's the rub that the

00:37:16.180 politics certainly are at play, but it's most likely the politics and his own allies wanting to dump him

00:37:23.840 on a story that will play in the media and is easy to point the finger only at him on, because let's

00:37:30.180 face it. I mean, I see Cuomo like a big giant, like a strong giant, kind of a monstrous figure standing

00:37:36.520 over the city of New York. Right. And he was untouchable. You could never bring him down. Those,

00:37:41.820 those humans below slinging their little arrows at him. But what happened with the nursing home

00:37:47.660 scandal was you, Ron Kim and others who just wouldn't let it go weakened that big giant. You

00:37:53.680 know, the legs had taken too many hits and he wasn't standing quite as strong anymore. And those around

00:37:58.260 him were starting to get worried that he was going to go down and take them with him. And then the women

00:38:02.980 came along in this airplane and took shots from up above. And he was just weak enough that he went down.

00:38:10.480 Whereas if, if it had just been the nursing homes or it had just been the women, it wouldn't have

00:38:14.940 happened. And so those politicians kind of used the women's testimonials to, to get rid of a guy who was

00:38:21.960 becoming deeply problematic for the nursing home and related reasons you just listed.

00:38:26.320 Absolutely. I think the nursing home issue also implicates a lot of other powerful people, lobbyists,

00:38:33.260 Medicaid, Medicare, you know, the, the rot that is underneath the floorboards when it comes to our nursing

00:38:39.900 home system here in the United States, which is corrupt. I believe that needs to be cleaned up

00:38:44.800 and overhauled. They didn't want to get into the weeds with that stuff. Uh, because again, it it's,

00:38:50.740 it's, it would take down big people, a lot of money. Um, so they, they thought to themselves,

00:38:56.480 well, here's something that we can, you know, really use to our advantage. And it's also salacious.

00:39:04.300 For some reason, the media doesn't like to talk about our elderly and their deaths because it

00:39:10.440 doesn't sell newspapers and it doesn't, you know, bring eyeballs to the cable news networks.

00:39:15.640 Well, it would have if they could have blamed it on Trump. I mean, there's zero chance that would

00:39:20.940 have been front page news every day had Trump been responsible for that order. Uh, but because it was

00:39:25.800 a Democrat, Andrew Cuomo in particular, they had no interest. Up next, what about Chris Cuomo vacationing

00:39:34.160 in the Hamptons on his boat after having taken his helicopter? Seriously, this is the life this

00:39:39.860 guy's leading while he's attacking women behind the scenes. What about him? That's next.

00:39:48.660 Can I just ask you to comment on Chris Cuomo and the way that's going now? Because now the reports

00:39:53.580 are that not only was he advising the brother behind the scenes, okay, everybody's like,

00:39:57.880 oh, he advised his brother. I understand that. And it's not about the advising of the brother.

00:40:01.500 It's not about how he behaved as a brother. It's about how he behaved as a news anchor,

00:40:05.360 not disclosing any of it to his audience, doing it behind the scenes, then going out there when

00:40:09.840 caught by the Washington Post and saying, oh, I care deeply about sexual harassment. And like,

00:40:14.420 whoops, it was just about my family. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. How is he supposed to

00:40:18.120 report on sexual harassment issues now? He sided against all the women. He didn't disclose it. He wasn't

00:40:23.180 honest. And now we know that even though he promised he would not continue advising Andrew

00:40:28.480 Cuomo, there's a report out today saying he has been. So he broke that promise. So what should

00:40:35.020 happen to him? I don't think he should have a news program. I think, is he supposed to be a

00:40:40.760 journalist? He's supposed to be unbiased and bring information without judgment? Well, he's failed

00:40:47.300 many times at this and it's, it's CNN's fault. I mean, they're the ones that never disciplined him.

00:40:53.140 And for many years, he wasn't able to have his governor on his brother, who was a governor of New

00:40:58.780 York to talk about issues for the ethical concerns. And then what happened during the pandemic was all

00:41:05.320 about ratings, right? So Andrew Cuomo is riding high. He is the pandemic politician. They love him,

00:41:12.420 the love gov. And Chris Cuomo says, let me bring my brother on now when he's here on a role in it.

00:41:20.160 Absolutely. And so that happened and he was on many times and they never talked about the issues

00:41:25.760 of the body bags piling up outside of nursing homes. Never once asked about the nursing home issue.

00:41:31.140 And to be clear, that was happening at the time, because I remember you being like, Hey,

00:41:35.020 you forgot to ask about this. And that was one of those situations in which Anna Navarro was like,

00:41:39.220 Oh, lighten up, you know, a few, two brothers with some levity, you know, but so the point is,

00:41:44.380 it was happening. A question at least should have been asked, but Chris Cuomo chose to ignore it.

00:41:51.320 Right. But then, you know, I have this sort of mixed feelings because if it wasn't for his arrogance

00:41:57.060 and his stupid Cuomo brothers comedy hour with a giant Q-tip, I would not be here because that's what

00:42:04.280 got me angry. That's what got my grief to turn to anger and advocacy is those two clowns on CNN

00:42:10.500 talking about his love life and who makes the best meatballs. So I'm grateful actually for that

00:42:17.540 ridiculous hour of television where he wasn't ethical and he brought his brother on to talk

00:42:24.080 about their love life. But now we fast forward to today where his brother has taken a week off.

00:42:30.060 How interesting the timing. He takes the week off where his brother steps down and, you know,

00:42:35.580 doesn't talk about any of the issues after for months and months and months. That's all he did

00:42:41.660 was bring his brother on to talk about no issues that were happening in New York state. I think CNN

00:42:49.380 should fire him. I really do. There's, there's enough there. And actually he's involved in some of

00:42:55.920 these, um, investigations by advising his brother, uh, and giving him advice and actually telling him

00:43:02.780 that maybe he should perhaps retaliate against some of these young women. So he might be implicated.

00:43:08.760 So I wonder if that's going to sort of unfold. Uh, but I think we, you and I know well enough that

00:43:15.080 CNN is probably not going to do anything at all. The thing that's really bothering me about it

00:43:20.520 that I just, I can't get past is I, I grew up in New York state. I've lived my whole life in New

00:43:26.540 York state and in Albany, which is the seat of power for most of it. And the Cuomo name is like

00:43:33.640 gold. They're, they're the next generation Kennedys. Mario Cuomo was totally beloved. I mean,

00:43:39.460 he was, he ran for president. They really thought he was going to be president. Um, but within the state

00:43:45.280 of New York, absolutely adored. So these they're part of a political dynasty, these two kids now,

00:43:51.060 now adults, Andrew and Chris that I don't believe they would have achieved anything near what they've

00:43:55.680 achieved. Had it not been for their Cuomo name, their connections, their privilege, their, you know,

00:43:59.860 growing around powerful people and having those folks to help them out later in life. And just the

00:44:04.720 name itself opens doors. Just ask any Kennedy, they'll tell you. And so they're in these enormous

00:44:10.180 positions of power and privilege, thanks to that name. And when things are going

00:44:14.880 great for Andrew Cuomo and he looks like the world's leader, Cuomo sexuals and all Chris wants

00:44:20.700 to revel in it. He wants to roll around in it and he has him on. And it's basically a forgive the term

00:44:27.100 circle jerk. Um, but then that's what happened. These two are on the air, you know, fondling one

00:44:33.320 another figuratively, but how amazing they are. And then remarks were made by Chris Cuomo towards his

00:44:38.220 brother about how you're the greatest politician ever and so on. And he wanted the glory for himself as

00:44:43.800 well. And Andrew knew just where to go to celebrate only what was being portrayed as his accomplishments.

00:44:49.820 All the negative ignored, not even touched on as people were dying, you know, Mickey and D among them

00:44:56.980 dying. And now, now that the shoes on the other foot, now that, you know, it's hit the fan,

00:45:04.620 they go underground. Now I can't cover my brother. Clearly I can't touch. I can't touch the scandals,

00:45:10.840 obviously, because I'm biased. Now he goes underground. Now he goes on vacation. Now we

00:45:15.200 see him in the post this week on his helicopter going to and from the Hamptons, then on his big

00:45:21.500 boat. Um, all these millions, he reportedly gets $6 million a year from CNN. Why again, because of

00:45:27.980 his name. Don't tell me otherwise. The two of them sitting there and conspiring against a person like

00:45:32.860 Lindsay Boylan, Lindsay, whose dad was a Marine, Lindsay, whose mom was on food stamps, who got pregnant

00:45:38.160 with her older sibling at age 16 and had to pull herself up. Lindsay, who's entirely self-made,

00:45:43.020 gets a position in the governor's office, sees nothing but opportunity in front of her, and then

00:45:47.440 gets kissed on the lips by this creep, told he wants to play strip poker with her. No one's claiming

00:45:52.620 that's like a rape, but trust me, it's extremely diminishing and jarring. And, and, uh, it's a fall

00:45:59.320 for a woman where she thinks she's coming up on her own merit only to realize it's something else.

00:46:03.440 The thought of these two jerks using all that power and privilege against someone like her and

00:46:10.000 all the other women, the executive assistants, the cop, it's infuriating to me. How can CNN not

00:46:16.260 answer for that? How can they ignore that? Like it's nothing. How, how can a law firm hire Andrew

00:46:21.300 Cuomo and say generational conflict? Bullshit. Something more must be done. Chris Cuomo has to speak to

00:46:30.080 this. Jeff Zucker has to do something about this. I don't know if it's fixable, recoverable,

00:46:37.460 changeable in any way, but some sort of accountability must be unleashed.

00:46:42.500 Uh, listen, you're preaching to the choir. I agree on all of that, but what can we change? You know,

00:46:50.440 we can talk about it. We can raise awareness, which is what we've been doing. He'll get,

00:46:56.020 he'll get his karma eventually makes its way around. And sometimes it takes a long time,

00:47:01.000 Megan, but I think I'm old enough to know that it does happen. It doesn't maybe happen in the way

00:47:08.160 we want it to, but even if it's at the end of their lives and they have to go up to the pearly gates and

00:47:14.160 knock on the door and someone comes and says, you know, you have some things you need to take care of

00:47:21.000 before you get in here. You know? Um, I think you just have to, it's like, I can't take the weight

00:47:28.240 of the world on our shoulders. Right. We just have to, to know that somewhere down the line,

00:47:34.400 do you really think that Chris Cuomo is a happy guy? I tend to think probably not. Right.

00:47:39.700 No, definitely not. I don't know him or his family. Um, but you know, somebody like him,

00:47:46.740 who's kind of gotten away with stuff because of his name, all of his life, you know, at some point

00:47:52.660 that's got, something's going to happen. Something's got to give, and we might not see it in our lives

00:47:57.720 or on television or, but I, I do believe that eventually your actions come back, uh, in ways that

00:48:05.980 maybe we will never know. I have to say, I feel for the guys like Jake Tapper who, you know, I know

00:48:12.320 that the right doesn't like him. He definitely was not pro Trump and you could see that in his

00:48:16.020 reporting, but I think he's a decent man and I've seen him. He did try to ask questions about the

00:48:21.780 nursing home scandal, though he was at CNN. He did speak as the only person at CNN who spoke out

00:48:27.480 about this scandal and Chris Cuomo and said, he put us in a terrible spot, you know,

00:48:33.400 obviously inappropriate. Can you imagine how frustrating it is for him to look around and

00:48:37.220 see the boss not doing anything about this? I know Jake Tapper. Uh, I'm, I'm friends with him.

00:48:44.100 You know, we haven't gone out or socialized, but we are friends via social media and, and he does text

00:48:51.580 me and he has been very good about trying to let me know that he's doing his best to bring the

00:48:59.340 situations to light on his network that, that I've been fighting for. I do feel for him. And I do think

00:49:06.000 he is one of the good guys, uh, that has been trying to do good. So for people like Jake Tapper,

00:49:13.060 I'm thankful. I know that, uh, Stelter, Brian Stelter was on, uh, Colbert last night and Colbert

00:49:19.440 asked him a few questions about Chris Cuomo and he didn't really know how to answer them.

00:49:24.020 He tried to dismiss it all as an optics problem on his show that he was forced to do this past

00:49:29.920 weekend as an optics pro it's not an optics problem. It's an actual behavioral issue that

00:49:34.980 Chris committed by joining the governor's team without disclosing it to his audience or anyone

00:49:39.280 at CNN. Yeah, you're, you're right then, you know, the Chris Cuomo issue and the fact that no one has

00:49:45.020 spoken, spoken out about that is, is quite something. I don't know. I just think, uh, you know,

00:49:51.120 at Fox, when everything went down, the women privately joined together and then did speak

00:49:57.040 up. You heard from them in droves, uh, so far crickets over there and maybe they condone it.

00:50:03.460 Maybe they have no problem with what Chris Cuomo did. Maybe they're not in the Jake Tapper camp and

00:50:06.900 they think he should advise away because there's a brotherly relationship and damned the, the ethics

00:50:11.880 of journalism. It wouldn't be the first time CNN had basically taken that attitude, but I just think,

00:50:17.440 um, a lot of people, a lot of people are showing their colors right now and they're so tribal and

00:50:22.220 they're so political and this story it's been that way from the beginning. All right. Let me ask you

00:50:27.740 before I let you go. I was thinking about you last night. I did not want to talk to you because I

00:50:30.460 wanted our first time to be on the show today. Did you have a big glass of wine? Did you and Sean

00:50:35.360 have a moment? Like, was there a moment JD where you, you know, you sat together and said, Oh my God,

00:50:40.560 it happened. No, but that will come. Um, we had a memorial for Mickey and D on Monday at Mickey's

00:50:47.740 firehouse that he was at for 23 years, uh, engine three 23, uh, flat Bush, Brooklyn. And, uh, you know,

00:50:55.740 God bless them who put that together. They really put the whole memorial together. We really didn't

00:51:00.880 have to do anything. And they had, you know, priests there. We had a full mass. Um, and we had friends

00:51:07.060 and family that came. My mom came from Canada. I haven't seen her in 20 months. And we had, uh,

00:51:12.660 D's sister come from Texas. So there was talk about at the memorial. Wouldn't it be something

00:51:19.640 if Andrew Cuomo resigned when we were honoring our in-laws, something that we weren't able to do when

00:51:25.940 they, when they died, because we were in quarantine, we weren't able to have wakes or funerals or last

00:51:31.420 rites, and we didn't see them before they died. But then yesterday, Sean came home and he said,

00:51:37.060 I'm glad it didn't happen on the Memorial day because it was about Mickey and D and the Cuomo

00:51:43.600 stuff would have taken over that narrative. Right. It happened the day after. And so we had a moment

00:51:50.540 where, you know, he, you know, Sean, it's overwhelming for him. This is over. He doesn't

00:51:56.940 want to be a public figure at all. He married the wrong gal then. Right. But listen, uh, you know,

00:52:05.160 how much he means to me, he's the best guy I've ever known. And he is the father to my most blessed

00:52:11.580 children. Um, but I know that he's proud of me. He's proud. And he, he has said to me several times

00:52:20.280 that, that he knows that Mickey and D are looking down and smiling. And, and so we will have our glass

00:52:26.560 of wine. I'm actually, I'm taking off this Friday and all of next week to, to hang out with Stella

00:52:32.060 and my family and we'll have our glass of wine and, and, and we will, um, you know, we will raise

00:52:37.740 our glasses, but we're not done. We're not done yet. You know, it's still, I still want the nursing

00:52:43.160 home investigation to continue in all of the investigations, um, that are ongoing against

00:52:48.840 this governor. And then maybe, you know, maybe then we can, we can toast to success.

00:52:55.020 Uh, I think you're entitled to one now. Uh, you may, you may be three quarters of the way there,

00:52:59.640 not all the way there, but you're, it's time for a glass of wine and you should be looking for a

00:53:03.320 special delivery from me and Doug to help you along. Love you lady. Love Sean. Say hi to Stella for me too.

00:53:09.760 And really proud of you. I look forward to toasting with you at two, my friend.

00:53:14.720 Up next, Stuber here. He's going to count to five seconds in a moment. You're going to want to

00:53:21.080 hear. Uh, but before we get to that, it is time for another edition of you can't say that or think

00:53:26.840 that or do that. Oh wait, this is America. And today we've got something new. Now it's also time

00:53:32.520 for you can't shout that at a baseball game. A couple of nights ago at a Colorado Rockies baseball

00:53:39.020 game, this could be heard during the broadcast. Okay. Now listen, we're going to play it for you.

00:53:43.280 You're going to hear the announcer in the foreground. Don't listen to him. Listen to the

00:53:46.640 crowd in the background. There's a, there's going to be sort of a loud crowd noise. Try to listen for

00:53:51.240 the word that you hear. Then it gets a little dull, a little lower, quieter. And then again,

00:53:57.220 you hear a background crowd and the same word is repeated. See if you can hear it.

00:54:02.820 No. And again, it's two and oh, and this is not to pick on, on Ben.

00:54:08.160 All right. Again, listen to that background crowd first when they pop up, then it gets quieter.

00:54:12.540 Then again, listen, one more time. No. And again, it's two and oh, and this is not to

00:54:18.140 pick on, on Ben. What did that sound like to you? Maybe it does sound a little like the

00:54:23.300 N word, but before we all go jumping to the conclusion that a fan behind home plate was

00:54:28.460 screaming the N word at a black baseball player in front of a field stadium full of people

00:54:33.960 with TV cameras rolling and so on. Let's consider a couple of other facts. The Colorado Rockies

00:54:39.340 have a mascot whose name is Dinger. Dinger, which is another word for a home run. I did

00:54:45.940 not know that, but it is. Dinger is a triceratops dinosaur. And if you were watching the clip,

00:54:51.900 instead of just hearing the clip, you can actually see Dinger behind home plate a few rows away

00:54:58.180 from where the fan was screaming. The fan, by the way, can clearly be seen gesturing toward

00:55:03.860 the dinosaur named Dinger, trying to get his attention. Immediately after this started making

00:55:10.420 the rounds, the Colorado Rockies and Major League Baseball Players Association put out statements

00:55:14.800 condemning this terrible act. What did the media do? What they always do. Uncritically,

00:55:21.620 unskeptically reported the story as if a racial slur was said. A few hours later, the Rockies announced

00:55:28.400 they investigated the incident. And well, it was Dinger after all. Can we hear it one more time?

00:55:34.420 No. And again, it's 2-0. And this is not to pick on Ben.

00:55:39.740 Hmm. But even after we all knew that it was actually Dinger and the investigation told us so,

00:55:44.880 and not the other word, USA Today ran a column asking, quote, what word did you hear that Rockies

00:55:50.040 fan yell? The answer probably depends on your life experience. Oh, okay. So if you heard the word

00:55:56.640 Dinger, you're just a racist. But if you can make your way out to Denver for a baseball game,

00:56:02.860 remember, if you're thinking of saying the mascot's name, which will likely be changed after this week,

00:56:07.660 let's face that. Well, you can't say that. And now, back to Stu Bergeer right after this.

00:56:17.780 Stu, good to see you. Hi, Megan. How are you? Thanks for being here. Wow. Okay. So give us the big

00:56:24.060 30,000-foot perspective on the fall of Andrew Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo is awful. And he's awful for

00:56:32.480 so many reasons. And I think a lot of people look understandably at this and say, Andrew Cuomo is

00:56:39.440 awful because of the nursing home scandal. Or Andrew Cuomo is awful because of the sexual harassment

00:56:46.140 scandal. And totally a legitimate way to look at this. However, I do think it's backwards in this

00:56:52.120 particular case. I think Andrew Cuomo is so awful at his core that these things are just byproducts

00:57:00.880 of the type of person that he is. It's impossible for a person for him, excuse me, like him to be in

00:57:07.200 power for this long and these types of things not happen. He is completely self-absorbed. All he cares

00:57:14.360 about is himself and his own power. And he abused people around him for such a long time that not

00:57:21.920 only do these scandals occur, but that people are actually willing to hold him at some level

00:57:26.880 accountable. In many other cases, if he had a better relationship with some of these Democrats

00:57:33.060 around him, he may have skated through all of this. I mean, as scary as that is to think about,

00:57:37.000 he may have been able to get away with this. But because he has been he was skating through the

00:57:41.880 nursing home scandal. He was. I think in a way, I think all of these things were necessary for this

00:57:48.300 to occur. I think you needed not just the sexual harassment scandal, but you needed the nursing

00:57:54.820 home scandal, which in many ways made other Democrats also look bad who defended him. I mean,

00:58:00.820 they were, as you remember, of course, Megan, he was the guy. I mean, they were talking about him

00:58:06.020 replacing Joe Biden on the ticket because people were so nervous about Biden. He was he had a 72%

00:58:11.980 approval rating in New York. And that that type of person doesn't get taken down, I think, by one

00:58:18.000 thing. The fact that he left so many people out there looking so silly for elevating him. And then

00:58:26.320 when all of this information, which were things that, you know, that some conservatives were talking

00:58:30.840 about, some in the New York Post was talking about it, some publications were talking about

00:58:34.760 what he did with the nursing home scandal. The fact that that was out there and it seemed like

00:58:40.300 some conservative evil attack after this wonderful governor, America's governor. And the fact that

00:58:46.620 that it all turned out to be true and backed up by Democrats that he appointed really, I think,

00:58:53.020 took a toll and set the stage for this series of events. It was the the nursing home scandal in a way

00:58:59.560 was like the covid lab leak theory. It was not to be reported on. It was not to be discussed.

00:59:04.820 Only cranks were discussing such a thing. How can you blame deaths in nursing homes during a pandemic

00:59:09.480 on a governor? This is totally unfair. And it's like the normal journalistic instinct is to say,

00:59:15.180 is it unfair? Let me bring my skepticism to this story and every story and any claim by a governor

00:59:20.540 that he's done perfectly and see what I find. And you would have found what the attorney general

00:59:25.380 found, which was he issued this order over massive objections from the medical community saying,

00:59:30.700 don't do this. This is dangerous to the most vulnerable population. Look how much they're

00:59:35.920 making us go through right now. Our kids have to wear masks in school, lest one of them who then

00:59:40.420 they're not vectors for the virus somehow contract it and managed to get through the mask and managed

00:59:44.760 to bring it home to grandma because they're so worried about that one grandma dying. Nevermind

00:59:48.500 sending a bunch of covid positive patients into nursing homes. It's so clear now. No interest in it.

00:59:54.340 Yeah, it really is fascinating. I was talking to someone about this and they were like, well,

00:59:59.100 you know, remember, this is March of 2020. We don't know a lot about the virus. Lots of people

01:00:04.560 made mistakes. And that is actually true. I think there is a legitimate level of grace that should

01:00:10.280 be allowed for public figures at that time in particular who didn't know everything about covid.

01:00:16.040 But stop and think about what this quote unquote mistake was. You are importing covid-19 positive

01:00:23.600 patients into nursing homes around the most vulnerable. You're guaranteeing their import

01:00:28.900 people you know that are currently testing positive for covid-19. In addition to that,

01:00:36.680 and he was one of a few governors who did that, all Democrats. But there was he was the only governor,

01:00:41.540 I believe, in the entire country who also prevented nursing homes from even testing incoming patients

01:00:48.880 for covid-19 because he worried in their own words that they would be discriminating against covid-19

01:00:55.840 positive patients as if it was like their skin color or something. That's not discrimination in

01:01:02.580 a pandemic to say that we shouldn't have people around the most vulnerable in our society that we

01:01:09.980 know have a deadly virus. This isn't a mistake. It's not something that can be blown off as some

01:01:17.260 some understandable malfeasance in the middle of a difficult situation. This is like

01:01:25.020 insanely obvious to every living human being on Earth that you don't do this. It's obvious. He even

01:01:33.380 stated he knew they were the most vulnerable and still went along with it. It is among the worst

01:01:39.540 single decision made by any public figure here to Wuhan throughout this entire tragedy.

01:01:46.820 Think about it. It was March, April last year. We were quarantining for the most part in Montana.

01:01:52.920 While there, you had to wear a mask. There was that period where you couldn't go out at all.

01:01:56.480 Of course, you know, the whole nation was basically locked up. But then you had to wear a mask because

01:02:00.280 lest a droplet, you know, get out of your mouth and onto another person and it spread. And yet this is

01:02:06.020 when this is when he issued the order saying take people who have the virus, put them in the nursing

01:02:12.480 homes where the nurses were saying, Governor, they're basically going to be right next to an

01:02:17.900 elderly patient who doesn't have covid because this is not Montana. We don't have a lot of room.

01:02:24.020 We don't have a lot of facilities. These are not sprawling buildings. They're going to be on top of each

01:02:29.620 other. That's not safe. And he said, shut up and do it anyway. And when the when the when the non sick

01:02:36.500 got sick, he blamed the nurses, the elderly, God, the media, everyone but himself.

01:02:44.620 Yep. Yes. A hundred percent true, Megan. And they and what's incredible about this is he was told

01:02:50.760 point blank right after this order by the nursing homes themselves who said we don't have the people.

01:02:57.960 Our people are at home quarantining. We don't have the protections. We don't have the masks and all

01:03:04.580 the things that we might need. We don't have private rooms. They specifically said that these

01:03:10.300 people were going to be in there probably next to other people who didn't have covid. And we're never

01:03:15.300 going to know the true toll of what this was. They're still undercounting deaths overall in New

01:03:20.940 York. Their numbers are different than the CDC's. We have a situation where we can only

01:03:26.740 we can only guess at what the actual death toll here was. But I mean, it has to be in the thousands,

01:03:33.040 thousands of people for a decision that I think anybody you don't need to be a scientist. You

01:03:38.060 don't need to have anything other than the most basic common sense to say, let's not stick the

01:03:43.460 people who are sick with a contagious virus next to the people who are most likely to die from it.

01:03:48.400 And he didn't care. He did it anyway. And when it all went down, he launched an investigation

01:03:53.080 against the nursing homes. That's the type of person Andrew Cuomo is.

01:03:58.480 Yeah. You talk to the nurses. They don't have a lot of nice things to say about him.

01:04:01.840 And yet, what do you make of the fact that it was a Me Too issue that technically brought him down?

01:04:06.940 I just talked with Janice Dean about, you know, people saying this wasn't due process,

01:04:11.300 that, you know, that Tis James had an axe to grind. You know, what do you make of that?

01:04:15.980 Well, partially, I would say to start that a Me Too issue is bringing him down is a huge part of

01:04:22.540 this. I would also say a Janice Dean issue is a big part of this. Without Janice Dean,

01:04:28.340 there is no way this would have happened. No way. She's the single most important person in all of

01:04:34.360 this. Because she and I think, you know, partially because it's so unexpected from her. She's like the

01:04:45.420 nicest person in the universe. And I think completely incentivized to not speak out about

01:04:52.720 this. I don't think she wanted this. I don't think she she wanted to be the face of this.

01:04:57.900 And she single handedly was a just a firestorm making sure he was held accountable. I love her

01:05:05.140 to death. And I can't say enough about her and everything that she did here. Because, you know,

01:05:09.740 you know, you know, her her fantastic book is, you know, a collection of multiple books,

01:05:15.300 collections of stories about these warm things, you know, a parent, a teacher does something

01:05:19.140 wonderful for a child. And then here she is just out there laying it out, not holding back at all.

01:05:26.200 But it was, I think, jolting to people who who would normally maybe let one of these scandals

01:05:31.440 go by as political nonsense. The fact that she was able to dismiss. Right. You can't hard to dismiss.

01:05:37.280 Yes, she works at Fox News, but it's like two minutes spent listening to her will tell you this

01:05:41.340 is not some partisan operative. Can I tell you something, Stu? This is reminding me when when

01:05:46.260 Janice and I, you know, obviously very close friends when we were talking to one another about

01:05:51.100 the Roger Ailes investigation, which was so supercharged. It was before there was a Me Too movement.

01:05:55.600 You know, everyone was scared. We didn't know what to do. We knew what the truth was, but we didn't

01:05:59.660 really want to go talk to investigators and all that stuff. And I had gone in and I knew Janice

01:06:05.120 needed to go in. She had a disturbing story. And the night before she was supposed to go in,

01:06:10.340 I talked to her and she was like, I can't do it. I don't think we should do it. You know,

01:06:14.060 we have to protect our families. She doesn't make a lot of money. She's a meteorologist. She has a nice

01:06:18.220 living, but her husband's a firefighter. She's a meteorologist. She's not basking

01:06:21.580 in 18 million dollars like Governor Cuomo is, according to what I heard this morning.

01:06:26.320 She's like, we know we have to protect our families. You know, I need my job and I don't

01:06:29.840 want to go against this guy. And I totally got all of it. And I think about that version of Janice,

01:06:34.800 who, by the way, did go in. She she had a moment of doubt, but she got up the next morning. She went

01:06:40.560 in. Sean and I were talking to her. It was funny because Sean had the infamous line. The Long

01:06:45.640 Island Railroad is depressing because she had written it home and sort of decided, I can't do

01:06:50.200 this. I'm like, J.D., I'm getting you a car. You're taking a car service. And anyway, that it's been

01:06:56.000 such a journey for her. Right. So to go from that woman to like all these people, the CNNers, the the

01:07:03.340 the actors, the Soledad O'Briens of the world coming for her, she just wouldn't be stopped.

01:07:09.680 No, I mean, it really is a powerful story. I mean, and now it's, you know, it's been multiple

01:07:15.540 times in her life. I mean, you know, it's it might be what she's here to do. You know, I mean,

01:07:20.640 I really it really does. You're getting me today, Stu.

01:07:26.420 I mean, it's it's it's a tough one to to to look past. I mean, her role in this was so incredibly

01:07:31.860 important. And she would be on the cover of Time magazine if she worked anyplace other than Fox News.

01:07:37.280 It's it's a great point. It's a great point. And I think that's of course, you've seen,

01:07:41.280 you know, I know you covered the people who tried to dismiss her in that way. She works for Fox News.

01:07:46.340 What does she know? They tried it. It did not work. You know, and I think it works against most people

01:07:51.160 at Fox. You know, I mean, it worked at Fox for a while and it worked for a lot of people. You could

01:07:56.680 kind of dismiss. It's Fox News. What can you do? Janice is able to overcome that. That's not common.

01:08:01.980 And I mean, she's she's uncommon. I would say that, you know, to your question about about me,

01:08:07.900 too. You know, it's interesting because it's such a central. It's why I keep looking at it this way,

01:08:13.340 where these these scandals individually are byproducts of who he is. You look at the scandal

01:08:18.320 of me, too. And yes, he was. I read the report. I'm sure you read the report. There's a lot of detail

01:08:24.420 in there about a lot of things that he did that were completely wrong and terrible. But it really

01:08:30.220 wasn't just a report about sexual harassment. It went much, much deeper than that, to the point

01:08:35.700 where people in in his office were continually terrified of him and the people who were accusing

01:08:44.720 him were terrified of him. It was about ruining the lives of the people who did accuse him. You know,

01:08:50.760 a lot of people keep saying, all right, well, these were Democrats that were actually bringing this

01:08:56.340 report, which is a big deal. It's also Democratic accusers, people who who's who who their livelihood

01:09:03.620 was wrapped around the Democratic Party and a Democratic message, people who loved him, people

01:09:08.220 who loved him, who said it was their dream job to work for him, people who came out just to shake his

01:09:13.480 hand on a on a line for to meet a politician and wound up getting groped in the middle of it.

01:09:19.400 I mean, it's not every little piece of this, Megan. It shows that he's a just a bad guy from

01:09:26.380 beginning to end. And I don't know, without all of these pieces together, if this could have happened,

01:09:33.760 you needed the Janice Deans of the world to step up and be brave and call all of this out.

01:09:38.880 You needed the women who are Democrats who had to fear for their own livelihoods, who had to fear for

01:09:46.580 how they would be treated in the press. We've seen what people like Melissa DeRosa did to them

01:09:51.740 in the press and other aides. The jackal. She's his jackal. That's how I refer to her. Also,

01:09:56.940 that rich as a party. He's the one who dismissed Janice. She's not an expert in anything but the

01:10:03.600 weather. How do you like me now, Rich? That's what Janice is tweeting.

01:10:08.460 It's true. And that that culture is just was everywhere. And he eventually you wind up hiring people

01:10:16.280 who are willing to go along with this. And so he has enough of those people around to keep

01:10:21.260 these voices quiet for a really long time. But eventually they were heard. And thank God.

01:10:26.800 It's such a good point. The one of the accusers who only came forward to the attorney general

01:10:33.020 and sweet gal, she actually issued an apology to the other women saying, I'm sorry, I didn't come

01:10:38.080 forward earlier, which is totally unnecessary. I mean, it's just it's such a complicated issue for any

01:10:43.060 any target of sexual harassment to decide, you know, for her personally, whether whether to come

01:10:48.780 forward. But anyway, she gave an interview to CBS this morning and talked about and this is his

01:10:53.560 executive assistant. She's listed in the report as executive assistant number one. Here is now she's

01:10:57.940 come out as Brittany Camiso talking about Governor Cuomo and what he did. The hugs at first were hugs.

01:11:04.280 And then they were hugs when he would pull me close to the point where he could feel my breast on his

01:11:12.200 chest. With my right hand, I took the selfie. I then felt while taking the selfie, his hand go down my

01:11:22.980 back onto my butt. And he started rubbing it, not slot not sliding it, not, you know, quickly brushing over

01:11:33.620 it, rubbing my butt. I became so nervous that my hands were clearly shaking, came back to me.

01:11:42.000 And that's when he put his hand up my blouse and cupped my breast over my bra.

01:11:47.600 I mean, I know people want to dismiss this as like, ah, where were these women? All right,

01:11:52.700 this is a young woman who just she only reluctantly came forward when the AG got involved. She has no

01:11:57.280 axe to grind. It's not like she'd been bitter and fired. And, you know, this is a young woman just

01:12:02.460 trying to make a career in Democrat politics as an executive assistant. Really tough to dismiss.

01:12:07.360 This isn't a situation. And I say this with all due respect to the Trump accusers, but they hated

01:12:13.220 Trump. You know, like most of the women who came forward hadn't worked for Trump, hadn't been total

01:12:17.320 loyalist to Trump. These were women who and I'm not saying I disbelieve them in any way. I interviewed

01:12:22.460 them when I was on NBC. I'm just saying I understand why there was more of a political air and scandal and

01:12:27.740 accusations in the Trump case. But like you look at Roy Moore, the women who came out against him, they

01:12:34.780 were Republicans. In this case, these are Democrats. And so I think it's a little easier. And Christine

01:12:39.940 Blasey Ford was obviously not a supporter of President Trump. So it's like in this case, it doesn't line up

01:12:45.420 the way the detractors of me to accusers tend to want it to. Yeah, I think there's real reason to to treat

01:12:52.740 anything with real political consequences with some skepticism. I mean, anytime someone makes an

01:12:58.700 accusation, the person who's accused really does deserve due process. That's not just a silly

01:13:03.560 slogan. That's really, really important here. I think, though, you look at the credibility of this

01:13:08.600 particular accuser, executive assistant number one in the report. You know, as you point out, she didn't

01:13:14.200 even try to report this. She she told her friends about it and her friends believed they were legally

01:13:20.480 required to report it. That's the only reason anyone knew about it. And when the story hit the Albany

01:13:26.100 Times Union, she didn't even know it was coming. So like this is a real, you know, a different

01:13:33.460 situation. She has real credibility and multiple accusers in the report have the same type of

01:13:38.160 credibility. The troopers, another one who didn't have any intention of talking about this at all.

01:13:43.520 But I mean, you mentioned in there, she talks about what what happened in this photo.

01:13:49.260 And she outlines that he rubbed her butt in the middle of this photo. And it says for at least

01:13:56.220 five seconds. And I remember thinking about that. Think about this. One, two, three, four, five.

01:14:07.100 Does that not blow your mind how much time that is when you really experience it? This was I mean,

01:14:15.080 creepy does not begin to describe it. And that that particular accusation, because of the way it

01:14:24.000 came through the system, because she didn't even report it for a long time and was basically dragged

01:14:30.720 into the report unwillingly. That's a I think that's really powerful. And now she's going even

01:14:37.380 further, trying to make sure that he's held accountable. The fact that she's apologizing for

01:14:41.940 not coming forward earlier is is heartbreaking, I think. And it breaks anybody's heart who hears it

01:14:47.980 unless you happen to be a Cuomo. Most women. Right. Right. Exactly. Most women want nothing,

01:14:53.580 nothing to do with this. Most women are horrified it happened, not even necessarily because it's

01:14:57.680 traumatic. Exactly. It's not like I don't know. Let me let me put it to this way. I just had a

01:15:03.160 conversation with a 20 year old woman who needed my advice, who had been. Her boss had come on to her

01:15:10.660 and in a totally inappropriate way and she didn't know what to do. And, you know, I talked to her and

01:15:15.840 I was like, you know what? I got to tell you, I'm sorry to tell you. This won't be the last time

01:15:20.120 it's as a woman, especially she's an attractive woman. Sadly, it's still part and parcel of coming up

01:15:27.220 in a professional world. And there are all sorts of complicated reasons why men and women are attracted

01:15:31.600 to each other. Men tend to think beautiful women want them no matter what, whether they're the boss,

01:15:36.080 whether they're unattractive, whether they they just think all of us want them anyway. And they

01:15:40.600 make stupid mistakes. And if it's a one off thing, I think it's forgivable. Even if it's a two off thing,

01:15:44.940 it's forgivable. If it's an 11 off thing, it's less forgivable. So like this is the position she

01:15:50.840 found herself in. And I don't think there's reason to discount her her testimonial or that of the other

01:15:56.960 women in this case, having read having read them all. I really don't. I think people can be

01:16:00.840 assured that Cuomo did get due process. He sat for 11 hours with Tish James. He released his

01:16:05.560 own statement. He had way more access to microphones and television shows than any of

01:16:10.560 these women did. And that's one of the things that's driving me insane, Stu, is that these two

01:16:14.000 Cuomo brothers sat there. These two these two brats of privilege with the Cuomo family name,

01:16:21.200 with access to this television show every night, you know, to use however they want. And they used it

01:16:26.040 to promote Andrew Cuomo is the second coming. Lindsay Boylan doesn't have a TV show. You know,

01:16:31.720 this this gal, Brittany Camiso, she didn't have a TV show. They knew what would happen to them.

01:16:35.980 And sure enough, it did. They did come for for Lindsay. And now this guy, Cuomo, Chris Cuomo's

01:16:40.760 underground, right? He's well, he's on his boat and he's on his helicopter and he's in the Hamptons,

01:16:44.480 but he won't speak. Now, suddenly, when the shit hits the fan, he's like, who, Andrew, who? Oh,

01:16:48.980 I can't talk about him. He's my brother. I know. I that whole saga is amazing. I think that's the

01:16:54.780 next step here. I mean, there's there's plenty of things that are going to go on with Andrew Cuomo.

01:16:58.580 But the Chris Cuomo part of this is really, really important. You trace this back. They had a ban

01:17:03.240 on Chris Cuomo interviewing Andrew Cuomo for obvious reasons who for anyone who's ever even heard

01:17:08.820 of journalism, right? Like it's their brothers that shouldn't be doing interviews. That's the crazy

01:17:13.720 thing. He's a governor and his brother should not be interviewing him on any self respecting

01:17:18.920 network. And they lifted that ban at the most important time when Andrew Cuomo was in the middle

01:17:25.460 of this nursing home order fiasco, when he was in the middle of making these terrible decisions

01:17:32.100 during the beginning of COVID. I mean, people look at it's interesting, you know, especially

01:17:36.880 conservatives tend to look back at Andrew Cuomo and think, oh, he's this guy. He wants shutdowns all

01:17:41.240 the time. That is not who he was at all at the beginning. In fact, he was continually blowing off

01:17:47.260 COVID as if it were nothing. People continually tell me, hey, you know, I understand what you're

01:17:53.360 saying about Cuomo. And yeah, he's he's done a bad job. But at the beginning, those press

01:17:57.240 conferences, they really were reassuring. Well, they were reassuring because he was continually

01:18:01.560 lying about everything that was going on. He was telling people that he was good at just the

01:18:06.300 Yeah, he was good at lying, which is a core characteristic of Andrew Cuomo. He would go

01:18:13.760 out in front of the public and say, don't you don't need to change your life. The worry is much

01:18:18.680 worse than the virus. We have a pandemic of worry in this country. It's not the virus we have to worry

01:18:23.900 about. He said the thing that conservatives were beat up for over and over again, that it was more

01:18:31.240 people die in this country from the flu. This is not SARS. This is not Ebola. He continually downplayed

01:18:37.800 this as if it weren't hurting people and encouraged them to go about living their lives. And while I'm

01:18:43.800 highly critical of mandates and all of the things that wound up developing out of this virus, if there

01:18:50.340 were any time where alarmism may have been the right way to go, it was then March in New York City.

01:18:58.100 And he went the other way. And then after things got improved and we had tests and we understood the

01:19:05.000 virus a little bit better, he went the wrong way then, too, and shut down to ridiculous extent and

01:19:11.440 horrific effect on the city and the state itself. So he was really wrong at every single turn when it

01:19:17.680 comes to COVID-19, all the way up to the vaccines, when he told the people in his state he was going to

01:19:24.920 implement another round of checks on the vaccine because he believed Donald Trump was manipulating

01:19:30.600 it to win the election. We talk about vaccine skeptic skepticism. That was he was one of the

01:19:36.600 main sources of it. He told his he delayed the vaccines to the people again who most needed them

01:19:43.640 in his state for a dumb political game, because that's all he cares about.

01:19:48.100 Mm hmm. All while he was letting people sit in the nursing homes untested and funneling tests out to

01:19:53.480 his friends and family members. Like, again, the brother, the brother with his fake act of emerging

01:19:58.840 from quarantine. Meanwhile, he'd already been out and emerged and had a fight with a neighbor who knew

01:20:04.000 he was infected because it had made news and said, what the hell are you doing out? And then he did the

01:20:08.340 fake emergence from the basement scene on CNN. Another thing CNN allowed. It's like one thing after the

01:20:14.260 other. And and honestly, still like, I don't know whether CNN is going to do anything about him.

01:20:18.180 But I just like the power differential that they used against these women as they as this guy

01:20:22.680 conspired against them behind the scenes using that name, using his connections. And and no one seems to

01:20:28.620 give a damn infuriates me. It is incomprehensible the way they've handled this. And look, the media

01:20:35.520 deserves a lot of criticism for many things. And we do it all the time. I am happy to criticize the

01:20:41.000 media. But also, I think at times you can find there are people I used to work at CNN. I know

01:20:45.540 people at CNN. Some of them are really good people and are doing their best to try to actually tell the

01:20:51.280 stories that matter to people, even though I think it's less and less frequent by the minute over at

01:20:55.660 CNN. But there are still people over there. The fact that they treat Chris Cuomo this way is mind

01:21:02.180 bending. They treat him as if he's like Michael Jordan in his prime and the Chicago Bulls need him to

01:21:07.860 win a championship. This guy has no numbers. He has no ratings. I don't think anyone is interested

01:21:13.080 in him other than the fact that he's involved in these scandals over and over and over again.

01:21:18.400 And then he won't he won't even address it. They give him an out. You know, if he was,

01:21:22.520 you know, as a as a host, I think if you were involved in a scandal, Megan, if there's something

01:21:26.440 going on and I've heard you talk about things that have happened in your past, you just talked about

01:21:30.380 one a few moments ago. It's really interesting to hear from a person that you trust that you want to

01:21:36.180 hear their perspective. If you're a Chris Cuomo viewer, then you want to hear what Chris Cuomo

01:21:40.680 really thinks. And we know what he thinks. He thinks that these women are trash. He thinks that

01:21:44.940 these women don't they deserve to be trashed in the media. He did. They deserve to be attacked. I

01:21:49.560 mean, think about this in the report. There is an email that from Chris Cuomo basically outlining

01:21:55.400 the exact words that Andrew Cuomo said in his very first response to this. So while CNN is

01:22:01.400 ostensibly trying to cover the news, Chris Cuomo is writing the news. Think about that. He was

01:22:09.500 literally writing the speech that CNN had to cover about this scandal and no punishment. They come

01:22:17.000 out and say, hey, you know what? Look, we understand he's going to talk to his brother. We've said,

01:22:21.240 you know, this isn't appropriate, though. We can't have this happen anymore. And then look at the

01:22:25.220 reporting over the weekend. He was still advising him up till the very end over and over and over

01:22:31.980 again. He didn't stop. Well, he promised not to do that. He promised that he would not advise him

01:22:36.080 further when he came out and he got caught by The Washington Post for doing it the first time.

01:22:40.720 Yeah. And I have a little bit of, you know, it's interesting. I think certainly he was talking to

01:22:45.140 his brother and that's it is widely reported. And you'd think, well, how did it get reported? If he's

01:22:49.700 talking one on one to his brother, why would that be in all this news? And I think there's a real

01:22:55.940 answer to that, which is in each one of these reports, he is identified as a person who was

01:23:03.280 the calm, sensible voice when Andrew was waffling. I don't know. I might resign. I don't know. Maybe I

01:23:09.720 should keep fighting. And Chris came in and Chris said, you know what? I think you need to resign. I

01:23:13.880 think it's the right thing to do. I think this is a PR effort to protect Chris Cuomo.

01:23:18.520 Well, you're telling me that he leaked it. You think he leaked it or someone around

01:23:23.560 him who's his ally did? I do. I mean, it was supposed to be an individual conversation

01:23:29.880 between brother and brother. In fact, that is their out in defending it. And that when he said

01:23:34.800 the initial conversation about not being able to advise his brother anymore, the out was, well,

01:23:42.220 he can't be advised in any conversations around AIDS. There can't be any like government employees

01:23:46.580 involved. If he's talking to his brother, he's talking to his brother. We can't stop that.

01:23:49.900 So this had to be by their telling a one on one conversation. How does that make it into every

01:23:55.340 single mainstream press report about this? And the fact that Chris Cuomo was just happened to be

01:24:00.700 the voice of reason in this situation. I think they've realized the Andrew Cuomo level is lost.

01:24:07.140 The Chris Cuomo level is next. And they need to do everything they can to protect that.

01:24:11.320 And I think the only way to make Chris look good in this is to say that, yes, he advised him,

01:24:16.840 but he said the right thing. He was the voice of reason. He was standing up for these women

01:24:20.860 at the at the last minute. He came to his senses.

01:24:24.320 Bullshit right after he stuck the knife in them, right? Just right after he stuck the knife in them.

01:24:28.220 So people have said and I've heard people who I like say, I defended his brother. You know,

01:24:32.680 you can't they can't default the guy for defending his brother. It's not his behavior as a brother.

01:24:36.640 That's the issue. It's his behavior as an anchor. You have dual responsibilities. I'm sorry for

01:24:41.460 better, for worse. He chose to sit in that chair at a network that reports on Andrew Cuomo. And he

01:24:46.060 reported on Andrew Cuomo and interviewed him numerous times in the most laudable terms and ways.

01:24:51.420 And therefore, he stuck with it. He didn't he made that bed. Now he's going to have to lie in it.

01:24:55.200 And it hadn't been me and God forbid, a sibling of mine found themselves in that position. I were on

01:24:59.440 the air at the Kelly file. I would have said I do need to take a leave of absence. And I will be honest

01:25:03.420 with you. I'm going to go help my brother. And so I'm disclosing to you that I have a I have a dog

01:25:08.000 in this hunt. And you can understand why and try to explain it to my audience. And if they held it

01:25:12.900 against me for being anti me, too, or whatever the issue was, then I'd have to live with that.

01:25:17.220 But it has to be disclosed. And you can't be on the air reporting on anything while you're doing

01:25:20.560 while you're a partisan operative. That's not OK. It's not ethical. No, it's not OK. And it's especially

01:25:25.260 not OK because of the way they handled it to allow Andrew to come on the air and be continually praised.

01:25:31.440 And by the way, not not just praised, but praised with a real contextual sort of understanding of

01:25:39.460 what the situation was. You know, we kind of look back at those interviews with Chris and Andrew

01:25:43.440 and you think, oh, well, that's when he took out the big nose, you know, the Q-tip and the nose swab.

01:25:48.360 And like you kind of remember these moments. Oh, well, it was a funny laugh. But all of it was built

01:25:53.040 around this idea that he was everything was going so well for Andrew Cuomo, that he was doing such an

01:25:58.480 incredible job that it was it was brothers busting on brothers like, oh, you think he says over and

01:26:06.340 over again, oh, you got some pretty you're pretty hot stuff now. I guess you got an answer for

01:26:09.600 everything. You know, now everyone thinks you're attractive all of a sudden. Well, what does that

01:26:14.200 joke mean? It implies that they think he's attractive because he's doing such an incredible

01:26:19.380 job in leading America through this amazing crisis that only he seems to be able to handle.

01:26:24.520 Well, that is a news position. That is a news position. They were all of the CNN coverage at

01:26:30.900 that time was seen through this prism of Andrew Cuomo is essentially COVID God. And any questioning

01:26:38.220 of what he's doing is not even worth bringing up. It's worth it's only worth as a as a fuel,

01:26:45.320 essentially, for the idiotic Cuomo brothers stick. And the fact that that when things turned badly and

01:26:52.740 we realized all of that was fake, they just gave him this pass to not even mention it.

01:26:58.240 I mean, it's it will be incomprehensible from the Huffington Post to do this. But CNN is supposed

01:27:04.320 to be a news network. They're supposed to be the ones with all the credibility. And they have

01:27:10.380 just abandoned it. Yeah. So can I ask you about the Times Up role in this and the guy who runs HRC,

01:27:17.340 the human rights campaign? I mean, that guy's one thing because he's supposed to be a woke activist

01:27:23.000 and he worked for Cuomo and he had, I guess, Lindsay Boylan's personnel file. So I don't excuse

01:27:27.520 anything he did, but I'm just saying his organization is meant to promote LGBTQ rights.

01:27:32.400 Times Up is all about sexual harassment. That is that is literally the reason they were born

01:27:38.080 was to fight on behalf of victims of sexual harassment. And what we now know is Tara Reid,

01:27:43.600 who I interviewed, told me at the time she went to Times Up when she was accusing Joe Biden.

01:27:48.100 They told her they wouldn't take her case because it involved politics, which turned out not to be

01:27:51.940 true. Then she later finds out that Anita Dunn, who's on the board of Times Up, is advising Joe

01:27:56.900 Biden is basically his comms director behind the scenes. And they didn't want to take it because

01:28:01.940 it was Joe Biden. That's, of course, why. And now we find out that this woman, Roberta Kaplan,

01:28:07.640 who is the director, that Cuomo's office went to her and said, hey, would you help us take a look

01:28:14.120 at the draft of the letter we're going to release of the statement we're going to release about

01:28:17.400 Lindsay Boylan? And she was only too happy to oblige. She's now been forced out. But too little,

01:28:22.580 too late. That that organization has been embarrassed out of its knee jerk instinct need

01:28:28.740 to be close to power. It's that's an incredible piece of this. It really is.

01:28:34.820 I mean, first of all, it's fascinating to see that a woman was multiple women. I mean,

01:28:39.580 DeRosa's another that were forced to step down before Cuomo actually did.

01:28:43.320 And this jackal went that exactly Roberta Kaplan went before he that was one of the things that

01:28:48.960 like he had to go now. You can't have two women take the fall for all of his me too behaviors.

01:28:52.840 And he's still sitting in the governor's mansion. Yeah. And I, you know, I firmly believe,

01:28:57.500 by the way, that this was not a resignation. This was Andrew Cuomo only seeing that he had no

01:29:03.100 other path. I mean, this is only self-preservation. It's not a resignation and that he thinks it's

01:29:08.040 better for New York or thinks it's the right thing to do. It's I this is the only way I can

01:29:12.660 get through this. I know I'm going to get impeached. I have to step down. So even calling

01:29:17.680 it a resignation, I'm uncomfortable with. But Time's Up and some of these other organizations,

01:29:21.860 you realize how fake this stuff is. You realize that none of it, they don't believe word one of

01:29:31.020 it. You know, you I was I was listening to your great interview with Andrew Sullivan the other day

01:29:35.720 and you you talked to I was fantastic and he's great. But in the middle, you talked you and Steve

01:29:42.140 Krakauer, your producer, talked about this clip from what is Sharon Osbourne? The talk. Yes.

01:29:49.020 I had not heard that clip. It blew my mind listening to it. The off air comments about

01:29:56.120 what they really felt about this, you know, this accusation that Sharon was some big racist. And

01:30:01.400 they seem to basically admit, yeah, like, I don't really believe this, but I kind of have to say it

01:30:05.240 because if I don't say anything, you know, I'll get beat up in the media. The same thing with the

01:30:10.400 LeBron James advisor in the ESPN saga where he was saying, like, you know, oh, this stuff,

01:30:17.280 this Me Too and Black Lives Matter, it's driving me crazy. And I really do think a lot of this is

01:30:23.940 real. And you think about like media like yours, for example, independent media, the blaze. We do

01:30:29.660 this as well here. At least we try to where we're incentivized, incentivized to say the thing that is

01:30:37.280 uncomfortable. We're incentivized to say the thing that we mean, even if, you know, a good chunk of

01:30:43.340 our audience might hate us that day. But that's our job to do that. And you realize that the average

01:30:49.480 person has almost no ability to be able to speak up in these situations. They feel as if every piece

01:30:58.140 of pressure is against them telling the truth of what they really believe. Even these high levels

01:31:04.060 of media, they don't even feel that they can be honest with their own audiences. And that is a

01:31:09.640 tragedy, I think, for a country that values free speech the way we do. But it also tells you a lot

01:31:14.480 about these political organizations that just tend to line up with their side of the aisle over and

01:31:20.220 over and over again. This is not a coincidence. Don't leave me now. We got more coming up in 60 seconds.

01:31:30.100 Take a look at what happened to Tara Reid, speaking of what the establishment can do.

01:31:35.100 They dug so far into her past, embarrassed her or tried to with her bankruptcies.

01:31:41.640 So she doesn't have a lot of money. If you if you if you have ever had a period where you don't

01:31:45.120 have a lot of money, it's hard to pay your bills on time and you can get really bad credit and you

01:31:48.640 might even have to declare bankruptcy. I used to have terrible credit. I have family members who

01:31:52.700 have been facing bankruptcy over the course of my, you know, 30 plus years as a grown up.

01:31:57.580 It happens. Doesn't mean you're a liar or a bad person. Tried to make her sound like she didn't

01:32:01.520 graduate from school. And Ryan Grimm of The Intercept has done very good reporting on what

01:32:05.980 actually happened there. Of course, the mainstream media will never touch it. But I mean, what then

01:32:10.440 you wonder, like, why? Why wouldn't Lindsay Boylan come right forward? Well, what? You know,

01:32:16.180 it's a quote, a line from a great movie that could be my head in a basket, right?

01:32:21.260 It's true. Why would you? You know, I thought one of the one of the really powerful parts of the

01:32:25.960 Cuomo report was from this state trooper. And, you know, she's talking about, first of all,

01:32:32.380 you know, it wasn't just that he sexually harassed her. He seemingly very clearly identified her as

01:32:38.620 someone he found attractive and then bent the rules, said she normally needed, I think it was

01:32:43.080 three years of experience. She only had two, bent the rules so she could be on his personal detail

01:32:47.480 and, you know, did all sorts, you know, minor things here and there. I think she had referred to

01:32:52.780 it as grooming as they went through this process. But at one point he kisses her on the lips and

01:33:00.720 another officer sees this happen and comes over and says to her, wow, well, he's never kissed me

01:33:06.700 on the lips before. You know, I don't think he meant anything by it. But I thought about the position

01:33:11.580 it put her in, where now she's seen as someone who had the rules bent for her to come on board and for

01:33:18.440 someone who's getting kisses on the lips from the subject of their protection. Here's someone who

01:33:24.020 now thinks her own co-workers see her as a person who's only there because she's hot.

01:33:30.540 She has no value. She doesn't deserve to be there on the merits. She's only there because of the way

01:33:35.060 she looks. So it puts her in an impossible position. Can I add to that, Stu? The added horror

01:33:40.860 that you have of maybe that is the reason, right? Like the woman actually coming to the realization,

01:33:47.780 holy shit, this actually never was about my skill. Yeah. And then what do you do, right? What do you do

01:33:54.280 with that information? You know, I mean, it's impossible. It's an impossible situation. And to

01:33:58.720 put someone who's, you know, who's supposed to be protecting your life and risking their life to

01:34:04.840 protect yours in a spot like that is, it's unforgivable, unforgivable. And I, you read that

01:34:11.840 report and you say to yourself, unforgivable about a thousand times. And good riddance. I don't shed

01:34:18.200 one tear for him. I don't know anything about this lieutenant governor other than I think she's also

01:34:23.380 a centrist, which is good because I still live in New York and I don't want some far left person

01:34:27.920 coming in. We've never had a female governor, so that'll be kind of interesting. It's there's some

01:34:32.100 divine right order there and ousting him and he gets replaced by a woman, though it didn't have

01:34:37.060 to happen, but I'm totally fine with it. Last question. What do you think happens to Andrew

01:34:41.120 Cuomo? Because I mentioned this to Janice, but The Daily, you know, the newscast, the podcast,

01:34:45.120 The Daily was saying he could very well come back. There could there could yet be a future for Andrew

01:34:50.320 Cuomo in politics. You know, you can never brush something like that off, I guess. You know, he he wants

01:34:56.380 it. I could tell you the reason he resigned was because he sees some sort of future, whether

01:35:01.900 it's some, you know, influential funding mechanism that gets his policies through and his friends

01:35:08.520 into places and of prominence in the future. I mean, he's not going to go away. He's going to try

01:35:14.820 to do something. He he he lives for this, Megan. He lives for this power. It's you know, it's all he

01:35:23.200 cares about. All he wanted was a fourth term as governor and be daddy. Oh, yeah. He wanted to

01:35:31.040 be daddy. And I'm very happy he will. He actually came short of daddy. I did not even finish his

01:35:36.280 third term. Of course, that's assuming, by the way, he actually leaves. We should point out.

01:35:41.320 I know he's got two more weeks to Colbert was saying what's with the 14 days like he gave himself

01:35:45.240 two weeks, two weeks notice. But can I just add one of the other things to this? I spoke with

01:35:53.660 somebody in the know who spoke with Andrew Cuomo after the Tish James report broke. And this person

01:35:59.880 was telling me that he was not going to resign. He was totally dug in, even though people around him

01:36:04.060 were saying, you got to go. He was like, no way. If I resign, it's going to make me seem guilty. And

01:36:08.980 I'm not guilty. Right. He was maintaining. But I think I will. I will surmise that what happened was

01:36:14.800 somebody smart, sat him down and said, you could still have a future, be it in politics,

01:36:20.020 be it a law firm, what have you. What you don't want is that state trooper getting on the stand

01:36:25.160 at an impeachment trial and telling her story and the American people seeing her firsthand,

01:36:30.520 hearing her, seeing the trooper who backs up her story, seeing executive assistant number one.

01:36:35.280 And then you get up there, your lawyer and cross examines that young woman, tries to tear holes in

01:36:39.420 the story. You don't want that, that you can't come back from. So just leave now while it's still

01:36:46.000 Oh, cultural generational. I didn't mean anything by it.

01:36:50.300 Oh, and that, that excuse in particular is so infuriating. He's acting as if I, I mean, what,

01:36:57.640 when, when did people think he got into office? Like it, he wasn't like, well, Gladys from the

01:37:02.560 steno pool just came by and I gave her a little goose on the rear end. Like that. He came into the

01:37:06.960 office in 2010. What, what era are you talking about here? I, I never in a point where I've been

01:37:16.440 like, never at a point, this isn't mad men here. I mean, I don't, I never at a point, uh, that I've

01:37:24.360 been alive. Do I remember any of that type of activity being appropriate or accepted or justified?

01:37:30.440 It's, you know, when it's happened, thankfully it's been called out more recently and we've come a long

01:37:37.520 way. Thank God in that, in that stance, but he acts as if he's, you know, he's acting in another

01:37:42.420 era that no one is familiar with. He's 63 years old. I mean, I don't know. Is that an average age

01:37:48.000 of a governor? I would say. And I don't think we have that many other reports like this around the

01:37:52.920 country. I hope Andy McCarthy was on the show last week saying I'm one year younger than him. And I can

01:37:58.180 tell you this was never okay. And he blames like the Italian thing. Well, let me tell you, my pop

01:38:03.540 up was a hundred percent Italian off the boat from Italy born in 1907. And he ran a little boat yard

01:38:10.540 in just North of New York city and had a lot of women running around. They had, there was a little

01:38:14.820 burger stand and people who helped the guys with the boat. Never once pop up was not touching the

01:38:20.280 women's bottoms, reaching up the blouses and touching their breasts. And the only one he kissed

01:38:25.240 was Nana. So it's not generational because he was a lot older than Andrew Cuomo.

01:38:30.800 Yeah. And he was one of these guys that always brought up, like, I don't like these Italian

01:38:33.620 stereotypes. And now he's like, well, groping is pretty much Italian culture. Sorry.

01:38:39.280 Incredible.

01:38:40.600 Viva Italia. That was amazing. I'm going to be laughing for a while about Gladys from the standout

01:38:44.980 pool. That was perfect, Stu. So good to talk to you.

01:38:47.700 Thanks so much for having me on.

01:38:48.840 Do not miss Friday show. So happy and excited to be bringing you Heather McDonald. She's so

01:39:00.560 brilliant and she's got all of her facts. I've read everything she's written and this is well,

01:39:06.700 well worth your time. If you don't know Heather, you're welcome. If you do, you're welcome. And

01:39:11.240 we'll talk Friday. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:39:20.340 The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.

The Megyn Kelly Show - August 11, 2021

Cuomo is Done - And What Comes Next, with Janice Dean and Stu Burguiere ｜ Ep. 144

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