CLAY: Well, Andrew Cuomo lost his job for sexual harassment, and today there is a New York Times guest essay that is headlined: āChris Cuomoā¦ā That, of course, is Chris Cuomo of CNN. āChris Cuomo Sexually Harassed Me. I hope Heāll Use His Power to Make Change.ā The woman who is writing this is Shelley Ross. She was a television journalist and former executive producer at ABC and CBS.
Her article here, her essay begins, āI was Chris Cuomoās boss at ABC News nearly two decades ago,ā and she says that she was sexually harassed. Sheās writing this in the context of Governor Andrew Cuomoās incident. She says that she was harassed by Chris Cuomo back in 2005, and here are the details, Buck. Iām curious. Is this or should this be a significant punishment, maybe even a lost job?
She says she doesnāt want him to lose his job. She says that she doesnāt believe when he claims that he profoundly is concerned about sexual harassment based on his own behavior. So she publishes this email, which is kind of strange, I think, that she saved the email. But this is from June 1st of 2005. What happenedā¦
Iāll read you the email in a sec, but what happened was he showed up, according to herā¦ He showed up at a party. She was an executive producer of an ABC entertainment special. And before that, she had been the executive producer of Cuomoās show. And she says she āwas at the party with my husband who sat behind me on an ottoman sipping his Diet Coke as I spoke with work friends. When Mr. Cuomo enteredā¦ā
Again, this is Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor. āWhen Mr. Cuomo entered the Upper West Side bar, he walked towards me, greeted me with a strong bear hug, while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my butt. Then he said, āI can do this now that youāre no longer my boss.'ā She says he said it āwith a cocky arrogance.ā
She said, āNo, you canāt,ā and then she stepped back to show that her husband had seen the entire thing. She says they quickly left, and then he sent an email, saying, āNow that I think of it, Iām ashamed, though my hearty greeting was a function of being glad to see you,ā which sounds a bit like what Andrew Cuomo has said before.
āChristian Slater got arrested for a kind of similar act, and as a husband, I can empathize with not liking to see my wife patted as such. So pass along my apology to your very good and noble husband, and I apologize to you as well for even putting you in such a position. Next time, I will remember the lesson no matter how happy I am to see you.ā
BUCK: Okay. Okay. Oookay.
CLAY: Thatās the context, Buck. For people out there who may not have heard it, I wanted to lay it out.
BUCK: So thereās a few things, a few things that come to mind here right away, Clay. I know weāre both gonna have some thoughts on this. First of all, once again, the guys who are the ones always running around pretending to be āmale feministsā and huge advocates of the #MeToo movement publicly speaking? Guys who treat women with respect donāt have to walk around talk about it and ā
CLAY: Bragging about how much.
BUCK: ā how he respects women, you know? Itās justā¦ You either do or you donāt in the workplace, and the guys whoā¦ I would note, even in New York, obviously, Andrew Cuomo resigned, the attorney general for the state of New York, if memory serves, was Schneiderman. He also had a #MeToo incident where he was abusive and horrible to a girlfriend. And that came out. I donāt know if you remember this from a few years back in New York.
CLAY: And you believe so Eliot Spitzer. Thereās been a lot of dudes in power in New York.
BUCK: But Schneiderman specifically was almost like Justin Trudeau level, āI am a male feminist and Iām going to stand up for women in the #MeToo era.ā Total scum this guy, right? So people that make a big deal of it you always should think, āHmm, I donāt think you should have to say you respect women.ā The part of this that wasā¦
I just saw headline and I remember you told me the story, the details. The part of this thatās the most troubling ā and thereās a few ā is first of all, you donāt walk up and squeeze somebodyās butt because youāre excited to see them, you know what I mean? This is not something that happens. People make jokes that might be a little appropriate, sometimes people say something they think could be taken two ways.
Squeezing the butt is not a thing that just happens ā and beyond that, doing it in front of a married womanās husband? This is the kind of thing where if he took a swing at him and there was a tooth on the ground afterwards and I was on the jury, Iād be like, āCanāt squeeze a guyās ladyās butt. Sorry.ā
CLAY: First of all, the fact that she remembers that heās drinking a Diet Coke. Sheās so enfeebled this husband of hers, right? (summarized) āMy husband was sitting behind me drinking a Diet Coke, and then this man walks in and grabs my butt, and we were so upset we just left, and he didnāt say anythingā? Iām just trying to put myself in that situation. If somebody walked up and grabbed my wife in a bear hug and grabbed her ass in front of me, at an absolute bare minimum, you would confront the guy and be saying, āHeyā¦ā
BUCK: Letās also just tell everybody, Mrs. Travis would throw a roundhouse herself.
CLAY: Oh, yes. Yes. She would not stand for it. Maybe my answer would be I would just let her like tee off on the idea. Iām actually kind of curious what women would think of this scenario. I think there are several things that are strange here. One, again, the fact that he did this. Two, the fact that she saved his email from 16 years ago.
BUCK: What do you make of that? By the way, if she accepted his apology then, why bring it up now?
CLAY: Yeah. To me, thereās a statute of limitations. Itās a little bit like youāre saving it in case you need something later. Right?
BUCK: Yes.
CLAY: And so itās like Monica Lewinsky with the blue dress.
BUCK: That was a shorter time. (laughs) That was pretty quick.
CLAY: Understood. But you talk to most women and theyāre like, āOh, she saved the dress with the stain on it?ā Thatās a super-weird thing to do. Thatās always been to me the strangest thing about the entire Monica story, because she was saving that for a reason, maybe because she wanted to be able to use it against Bill Clinton in the future to have proof of it. All of that. But the fact that you would save an email 16 years old and then go public in the New York Times?
BUCK: And this whole thing she doesnāt want him to get fired? I can I understand sheās gonna say so she doesnāt seem vindictive 15 years later. But look, he shouldnāt have done it. Bad thing to do. He did apologize. His apology could have been a littleā¦ āIām happy to see youā¦ā
CLAY: Also, maybe donāt write the apology in an email?
BUCK: Well, I think people have become ā just in general ā much more cognizant of everything they sent electronically now. I feel like in the early 2000s it was, āEh, ou send an email, it goes through the inner webs and maybeā¦ā
CLAY: Yeah, 2005 maybe he wasnāt thinking that she was gonna save it. But to send an email admitting that you did it? Because otherwise itās just a he said, she said; 16 years ago, I didnāt do this.
BUCK: This is confirmed because, by the way, if someone says they have an email from you that they didnāt the easiest thing in the world would be say thatās a fake email. Clearly ā
CLAY: I donāt think heās commented on this yet, has he?
BUCK: No. The facts are not in dispute. Itās gonna be interesting to see how this is handled. I have a sense that first we have to remember, he already had to go out there, Chris Cuomo, and do the whole apology over coordinating with his brother while a journalist while interviewing his brother as a host on CNN for the help with him on the PR side.
And I will say, I would do anything for my brother, so I actually didnāt blame him for that at all. But it just goes to show you CNN is a joke. But this issueā¦ CNN is essentially a kingdom ruled by Jeff Zucker. Whatever he decides is what will happen there. Thatās the way it goes.
CLAY: Buck, CNN banned me for saying that I believed āin the First Amendment and boobs.ā They wouldnāt allow me to appear on their network ācause they said it was disrespectful.
BUCK: You got a lifetime ban from CNN. Thatās like a friend of mine who had a lifetime ban from going back to Iran after he wrote about it. Thatās amazing, by the way.
CLAY: Yeah, but so, if your standard is a guy canāt come on to your network and give his opinion in kind of a lighthearted, jocular way, then I donāt know howā¦ Let me say this. I am fundamentally opposed to cancel culture. I hate the idea that you can have done something 16 years ago; that somebody can save it, and decide to deploy it against you nearly a generation later, and say you donāt deserve to have your job.
BUCK: And, by the way, pretending that itās not beingā¦ Letās actually unpack this part of it a little bit. She wants him to use his platform for change? Come on. What does that even mean?
CLAY: I agree.
BUCK: That to me seems a little self-indulgent here. Itās like if you wanted there to be consequences, you had a long time to bring this up and deal with it, and I agree with you. At what point are we willing to say, āThere has to beā¦ā Even if the other side will not forgive anything on our sideā¦ I know that happens never, but at some point, we have to start saying to everybody, āIf youāre gonna find something that was texted or written 20 years ago by someone and say that now they should get fired, it better be really bad.ā
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
BUCK: Lillian in Wisconsin. A mom of three. Whatās up, Lillian?
CALLER: Actually, Iām a mom of four but I have three sons, and, yeah, this does bother me because for someone to go back like they did with Justice Kavanaugh and bring up stuff that you could have dealt with at the time, itās just not right and it concerns me for my own sons. So ā
CLAY: As a woman saving it for 16 years and then deploying it now? I see your argument. My wife and I have these conversations, too, ācause when the Kavanaugh hearings were going on, I was saying, āOkay you can have your opinion as a woman which is interesting, but also youāve got three sons. How would you want them to be treated if they did something when they were teenagers?ā
BUCK: This is also what you see ā and thank you so much, Lillian ā Clay, this is what you see with moms who have college-age sons who feel very, very differently than what we are led believe women generally think in this country about these campus tribunals.
CLAY: Oh, itās crazy. You canāt even cross-examine ā
BUCK: Both people were drunk and the girl the next day is saying, āOh, I had such a great time last night,ā and then a month laterā¦ These kind of cases ā
CLAY: Happens all the time.
BUCK: My college Amherst, by the way, has been in the headlines for a number of really egregious, Title IX tribunals.
CLAY: Weāre not talking about criminal investigations. Weāre talking about on-campus investigations which are kangaroo courts and a lot of moms have gotten fed up about this because, again, everybodyās been in college, alcoholās involved. The day after, everybodyās fine and then, like you said, couple of days, weeks, months later somebody decides, āHey, actually I was assaulted,ā and then the kid gets kicked out. The man, the boy gets kicked out of school.
BUCK: Let me ask you this: If youāre Jeff Zucker, which thatās an interesting thing just to begin with. If youāre Zucker over at CNN, do you take any action against Cuomo over this? Iāll tell youā¦ Well, you go first.
CLAY: (big sigh) The problem with taking action, from my perspective, if youāre an executive, is you set the precedent, if anybody that has ever been employed by you has done anything over the last 16 years ā and let me say this. They let, they let whatās his name come back after he got caught!
BUCK: Oh, yeah, Toobin.
CLAY: Toobin masturbated on a Zoom call with his New Yorker colleagues, and CNN let him back! So if Iām Chris Cuomo, Iām like, āWait, you let the guy who masturbated in front of his female coworkers continue to be a legal expert at CNN but you are firing me for something that happened 16 years ago?ā
BUCK: Heās definitely not gonna get fired. Iāll just say, āLook, ācause Iām not a leftist, I just donāt want to go around destroying peopleās lives all the time because I get some kind of glee ācause Iām a miserable person as unfortunately so many people on the left actually are,ā which is a whole other conversation. I donāt think that this guyā¦ She says he shouldnāt be fired. I say he shouldnāt be fired, and letās get real here, folks. But it does go to a mentality here and, you know, thereās some interesting conversational pieces of this.
CLAY: I think it makes her husband look like a total wuss. Thatās the person who I think emerges here, looking the ā like your wife right in front of you, a guy walked up and grabbed her ass, and you were like, oh, we better leave this party now, like, thatās your reaction?
BUCK: Yeah. Not good. Not helping him out. Thatās for sure. Natalie in Scottsdale, Arizona,ās got some thoughts on this one. Hey, Natalie.
CALLER: I canāt stand Chris Cuomo. Iāll just say it that way but when something happens and then you bring up 15, 20 years down the road, if it affected you that badly, why are you waiting that long? Thatās ridiculous. As a mother, I have three sons. As a mother, it is very concerning because when youāre young youāre a teenager, yeah, you might say or do something stupid, especially when drinking is involved, all that kind of stuff.
But something 15, 20 years down the road? Clearly did not affect you that deeply. Thatās ridiculous. And Iāll tell you, if I was in that womanās shoes and Chris Cuomo had grabbed me like that, he wouldnāt have been eating very long. He would have beenā¦ (giggles) He would have had his jaw wired shut for six months.
BUCK: Whoa, Natalie, Natalieās got a right hinge apparently too.
CLAY: I think a woman that would have physically reacted. Again, we donāt know what their relationship is, but the thing thatās the weirdest about this to me is saving it for 16 years and then deploying it on editorial page of the New York Times.
BUCK: You donāt want there to be realā¦ At a minimum thereās reputational embarrassment here.
CLAY: And you saved the email like you were planning to be able to deploy this at some point in time in blackmail.
BUCK: And give me back with the sanctimony here. āHe should use his platform for change.ā Yeah, Iām sure. Everyoneās gonna turn to Chris ā everybodyās gonna turn to Bro Cuomo when heās not, like, taking Matrix shakes or whatever.
CLAY: When heās working on his lats.
BUCK: When heās not getting his macros in before he goes out there to throw the kettle bells around or whatever, which, by the way, thatās all great, and I should do more of it. But this guy puts a lot of the videos of himself doing these things out there. I donāt know if youāre aware of this. I donāt think heās the guy to go to for necessarily the H.R. woke compliance actions in the workplace.
CLAY: I wish I was super ripped, but I think it would be weird if I were super ripped. After three or four, what are you so ripped for?
BUCK: When I was in Iraq, Iāll never forget this Navy SEAL. One of the older Navy SEALs told me once, āLook, if youāre over 40 and you have a six-pack, I donāt know if I trust you.ā (laughing)
CLAY: Itās a great line.
BUCK: I was kind of like thatās interesting. āYeah, I donāt know if I trust you.ā
CLAY: Who are you staying so ripped for?
BUCK: Now weāre gonna hear from all the 60 years olds who listen to this show who have 8 packs for abs.
CLAY: Well, they claim to have 8 packs. If thereās any 65-year-olds with 8 packs, good for you.