Chris Cuomo is back on air as his first NewsNation show is set to debut

Chris Cuomo is returning to the airwaves tonight for the first time since he was ousted from CNN, mere days after implying the new show was a step down from his former primetime glory during an interview with New York Magazine editor Kara Swisher.

The 52-year-old’s new show – simply called ‘Cuomo’ – premiers on the NewsNation network at 8pm EST, and is set to feature guests like Anthony Fauci, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Maher, and Tulsi Gabbard in its first week.

The show marks Cuomo’s attempt at a comeback after he was canned by CNN executives for violating journalistic ethics by advising his disgraced brother – former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – through sexual misconduct allegations in 2021.

Cuomo has since maintained he did nothing wrong in advising his older brother and is currently suing CNN for $125million for lost wages, with the lawsuit claiming the firing left his reputation so marred that it would be ‘difficult if not impossible for Cuomo to find similar work in the future.’

During his appearance on On With Kara Swisher last week, the NY Magazine editor pointed out the incongruity of Cuomo’s lawsuit’s claims about his future employment against his new primetime show.

‘And you have a new job now, which I’d like to talk about, so you can be hired apparently,’ Swisher asked Cuomo, after reading a passage from his lawsuit.

‘Well, do you believe that where I am now is equivalent to where I was?’ Cuomo responded.

‘Depends on what you do with it,’ Swisher said.

‘I’m talking to you in my dining room. I was the number one show at CNN and I would be recognized in Malawi as much as I would be in Milwaukee. That is a very different.’

Cuomo will reportedly earn $1 million for his new hosting gig on NewsNation – a fraction of his former $6 million-a-year paycheck at CNN. 

Swisher, editor of New York Magazine, asked Cuomo how his firing from CNN made him unhireable as he has already landed a new job

NewsNation is a new broadcaster which bills itself as offering neutral reporting on current events – a marked departure for Cuomo, who enjoyed inserting his opinions into stories while on CNN.

During a promotional interview for the new show, Cuomo appeared to try to distance himself from the partisan reporting of his past.

‘Everything’s gotta be context, and balance,’ he said in an interview with NewsNation. ‘It can’t just be that everything is wrong, everything is bad, and I see that now having been outside of it for while, and I hope to bring that perspective in.

‘NewsNation is just getting going, the idea of developing an audience, growing something, that’s really important to me. Cause I’m really trying to speak to a group, which the good news is its the biggest group, which is regular people who don’t identify with either extreme of a party,’ he said.

Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo was grilled by journalist Kara Swisher and asked about his termination at CNN as he sues the network for $125 million over his firing

‘I was helping him in ways that I thought were reasonable,’ said Chris Cuomo, right, of helping his brother Andrew, left, defend against sexual harassment allegations

Despite his hiatus from broadcaster’s chair, Cuomo has remained in the headlines since his departure from CNN.

Many have speculated Cuomo may have sparked the shakeup currently rocking CNN by ratting on former CEO Jeff Zucker over a consensual relationship with the network’s Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Allison Gollus, which led directly to the executive’s firing.

Asked whether he leaked news about the affair by Swisher, Cuomo vehemently denied the rumors.  

‘No, I didn’t,’ he said. ‘People think a lot of things and very often it’s for bad reason or self-serving reason or to hurt somebody else,’ Cuomo said. ‘I’m not the guy to play petty, gotcha shots and go after people.’

He went on to call Zucker ‘one of the best makers of television’ and the relationship being revealed gave him ‘no joy,’ adding that Zucker ‘gave me tremendous opportunities.’

Despite the kind words for his former boss, Cuomo bitterly lamented that he was ‘recognized in Malawi as much as I would be in Milwaukee’ before his firing.

 Swisher glossed over an anonymous sexual assault allegation against Cuomo, and simply checked if he denied the allegations.

The former CNN front man bluntly answered ‘yes’ to each of Swisher’s questions about the subject before she moved on to the next subject, refusing to dig deeper into it.

Swisher also went easy on the former CNN anchor when it came to his brother’s sexual harassment allegations, and the ex-governor’s younger brother dutifully sidestepped the questions anyway.

When asked whether he felt it was inappropriate for him to help his brother wriggle out of the allegations, Cuomo said ‘what’s the difference between helping him personally and strategically?’

Former CNN boss Jeff Zucker was terminated from his position when he didn’t disclose a relationship with CNN executive Allison Gollust, though Cuomo denies exposing them

Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Allison Gollust, who resigned along with Zucker, is thought to have engaged in the relationship with him for years

Cuomo continues to maintain he doesn’t see anything wrong with his actions, and says because he wasn’t covering his brother’s allegations, he was free to help him.

‘I was helping him in ways that I thought were reasonable,’ said Cuomo.

‘I don’t know how it hurt the audience. I’ve never heard that it hurt the audience,’ he said of his helping shape his brother’s defense against sexual harassment allegations.

At the time he issued an on-air apology on CNN, Cuomo said that he ‘knows where the line is’.

He addressed the conflict of interest again in his podcast, saying: ‘I really do regret how everything ended, but I will never regret helping my family.’

Andrew Cuomo’s career collapsed as a politician after he was accused of inappropriate sexual behavior towards 11 women.

He resigned in August 2021 after months of pushback and eventually all criminal charges were dropped against him.

Cuomo was found to have helped his brother, ex-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (pictured here), defend himself from sexual harassment allegations from 11 women

The charges against Cuomo were based on allegations by Brittany Commisso, who said Cuomo reached up her blouse and grabbed her breast in late 2020 while they were alone in his Executive Mansion office, where she´d been summoned to help with his cellphone.

He insisted he did no such thing, saying ‘it would be an act of insanity.’

Commisso’s testimony was among the most damning in a report released in August 2021 by Democratic state Attorney General Letitia James that concluded Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women.

Chris maintains that he was not ‘the main guy’ in helping his brother overcome the allegations and was merely a ‘side piece’ in the efforts.

This notion is backed up by notes from his brother’s top aide Melissa DeRosa, who noted ‘Chris sends me a lot of things a lot of the time. Half of it I don’t engage in. He gives unsolicited advice.’

The former governor was also blamed for many of New York’s 15,000 nursing home COVID deaths after forcing the facilities to accept COVID-positive patients at the start of the pandemic.

Chris chummily interviewed his brother on his CNN show during this time, and admitted to Swisher he knew having his brother on his show was a conflict of interest ‘all day long.’

He defended the decision to do that as well, and said ‘When I did have him on, it was not about news and covering a governor of state. That’s all I’m saying,’ despite interviewing him on a news show.