Chris Cuomo Relishes the Opportunity to Host Town Hall With Donald Trump, and Deliver a Balanced View on NewsNation

NewsNation is set to host a town hall event centered on the first 100 days of the Donald Trump administration. Chris Cuomo is set to host, and he’s relishing the opportunity.

On Wednesday, April 30th at 8 PM ET, Cuomo will be joined by Bill O’Reilly and Stephen A. Smith for a live event originating from New York City. During the conversation, President Donald Trump will join the two-hour program for a live phone interview.

Other guests scheduled to join the town hall are Sarah Palin, along with Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Democratic Party leaders.

The NewsNation town hall in New York City will include a live studio audience. Those in attendance will be Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.

The NewsNation event will be available as a simulcast on The CW and will also be made available to radio stations through a partnership with Key Networks. Additionally, it will air on SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S. Channel 124 on Wednesday evening.

In a wide-ranging conversation, we asked Chris Cuomo about the town hall, why he enjoys live events, his thoughts on the cable news landscape, if political office is in his future, and whether or not he’s been satisfied by his ratings growth on NewsNation.

*Editor’s note: Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Garrett Searight: You’ve got the town hall coming up. It’s not the first time you’ve done something like this. What is it about doing live events that excites you and makes you want to keep doing them? 

Chris Cuomo: I think that it is one of the fundamental services to the audience is to provide, at NewsNation, a broad perspective on what’s going on. When it comes to the presidential administration, the 100 days is not a real number, right? Like, 100 is no different than 90, or 70, or 130.

But, traditionally, it was just if the administration had kind of gathered itself in any fundamental way, and with this term in particular, I think the question is whether or not what was expected is being executed. And I think that’s a very big question right now. So, it’ll be interesting to get a range of perspective on it from people who are reasonable about what the expectations were, positive and negative.

GS: You mention that it’s one of the fundamental services of NewsNation. I assume that you recognize how vastly different that is compared to some of the other cable news channels?

CC: By design. The problem is obvious in media right now. You get the same question I do, which is “Where do I go to find out a balanced view on what’s going on?” That’s what people want and that’s what NewsNation is. The idea of “We report, you decide” is really not — rightly — the mantle of Fox News anymore. That is the Trump home team.

And I understand the choice. I understand the attraction that choice gives you these days. It’s certainly harder to be commercially successful if you don’t pick a side. But I think ultimately there’s the neglected side, which is the majority — people who aren’t motivated by the fringes, people who aren’t extreme, people who are independent and critical thinkers.

That’s the bet that NewsNation is making. We’re betting on the majority and that the parties are fading. The partisan outlets are fading and they’re getting lost in the noise. That there is a need and an appetite for people who are doing the work, the rigor, of balancing perspectives because it’s much easier to get just one side.

GS: From both a personal and professional aspect, how refreshing is that, that that’s the way you get to, or want to, operate?

CC: It’s not refreshing. It’s hard. (laughs) Everything is against you. The media, first of all, does not like disruptors. We are fundamentally a disruptor. Not just in the ‘If you can’t make it, break it’ mode. We are doing something that is definite, deliberate, and difficult. It’s much easier to say ‘Here’s why Trump is wrong’ or ‘Here’s why Trump should be praised.’

So I don’t see it as refreshing because it’s so (expletive) hard. But it is meaningful. And there’s a difference when you’re working hard on something that matters and has meaning to you versus it’s just marketable and that is a valuable distinction to me at this stage of my career.

GS: Are you a disruptor at heart?

CC: Yeah, 100%. Organically so. It’s not a strategy, it’s a disposition. I am not a good follower. I’m not a joiner. I’m hard to manage. That is the nature of the beast. It’s a corporate — it’s news business, right? And there is something oxymoronic and challenging about that, but I really believe that there is a service element of this. Or there should be. And that’s what I’m really focused on.

I have what they call these days a following. People know who I am and what I do, so I don’t have any desperate sense to be noticed. It’s about the value that I can provide. And what NewsNation wants is exactly what I want, which is to talk to independent, critical thinkers and give them a balanced view of what’s going on so that they can make decisions for themselves about what they like and don’t like, and want and don’t want.

GS: How important is it at this stage of your career to be in lock step with the mission of the outlet that you’re working for?

CC: Well, it’s not a coincidence. It’s what I’m building. NewsNation is a start-up. And that’s its design, so it’s the “If you build it, they will come” model. That’s what we’re doing. That’s tricky, and challenging and — again — commercially difficult because we would be way ahead … if tonight, I decided I’m gonna be the new lion on the left or I’m gonna be the man for MAGA. I think that I would become a dominant presence in a matter of days.

But why? What satisfaction is there in that? It’s disingenuous. The idea that one side has it all figured out and the other side is the enemy is preposterous. So, how can you see yourself as having any real meaningful sense of purpose if you’re just playing the game?

GS: You mentioned that it’s hard to be down the middle and fair. Do you ever encounter burnout?

CC: Yeah. I’m 54 years old. I experience burnout every day in 10 ways. The whole trick of it is to coach yourself that it’s worth it to keep keeping on. And then that’s what Let’s Get After It (his podcast) is all about. It’s that you have to have an aggressive disposition. You have to go out and take what you want in life.

You want to be a good partner? Work on it. Do you wanna be a good parent? Work on it. If you wanna be smart? Work on it … I always tell my kids “Choose your hard. It’s hard to be smart. It’s hard to be dumb. Choose your hard.”

GS: As a non-partisan media…

CC: I’m not non-partisan. I’m anti-partisan.

GS: Fair.

CC: I am against partisan. I think that the biggest difference in my professional disposition from ABC or to fox is I know parties are the problem. People just accept it like “This is what we have.” They used to say separate but equal. That’s what they used to say about non-discrimination. That’s what they used about Jim Crow. “Yeah, that’s the way it is, you know?”

That’s what the political parties are. They’re a tradition. That’s not my thinking, that’s the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1970s. They ruled that a political party is just a tradition. They’re not in the law. They’re not in the constitution.

It’s just a tradition. And the problem is is that they only work for the people in power. The division only works for them. It doesn’t work for the majority. There’s a reason that (George) Washington took all that time in his farewell address — that was written by (James) Madison and (Alexander) Hamilton, don’t forget, so that was a real consortium of intelligence. They took all that time to say “Avoid anything sectarian, specifically parties, which will be populated by a few powerful men, and will ultimately be bent to their own interest.” Here we are.

GS: Knowing that the cable news audience expects some partisanship, what was the experience like for you trying to win people over who expected to hear strictly one side or the other?

CC: I believe that the outlets, the digital outlets, the pod people, they are focused on fringe followings and playing to extreme ideas, and us versus them, and picking a side. I believe that there is an unsatisfied and significant majority in America that is on the sidelines because they know everything they’re seeing is crazy and doesn’t comport with anything that they see anywhere else in ther lives. There’s no workplace that works like our politics, there’s no relationship, there’s no dynamic in your life that’s anything like what you allow for social media political resistance. And those independent, critical thinkers are who I’m looking for.

They’re there. And the more that people come to the conclusion that the parties are just different flavors of the same crap, the better it will be for NewsNation. And I have to be right. Because that’s why we’re growing. Why are we growing in a stratified market where everybody is reducing their share? I think it’s because of exactly what I’m saying. It takes people time to find you.

And it’s a noisy environment, and people have their habits, and people have their confirmation bias and their comfort food. But, especially when it matters, especially when people know that what’s going on doesn’t make sense, there’s an opportunity. And that’s the space for NewsNation.

GS: Has the show grown at the rate you expected when you joined NewsNation?

CC: It is better than I expected and less than I want.

GS: That makes sense, actually.

CC: It happens every once in a while.

GS: What’s been the most rewarding moment or aspect for you at NewsNation?

CC: I’m not there yet. I’m very grateful for the opportunity. As the song taught us “You don’t know what you got until it’s gone.” I don’t know that I valued being the number one show on the most known platform the world over. And when you don’t have that, especially when you lose it for petty reasons and concerns, there becomes a real question about the nature of your purpose, and how you make a difference, and what value you can provide now that what you had is gone. And the opportunity to do it in a different, better way — in my opinion — is a real blessing. I take it as that.

I’ve always been a grinder. People may beat me, but they’ll never outwork me. It’s not even a close call. So the opportunity to be able to put the effort into something that I know is fighting the good fight is great. People tear you down, people in the media don’t like that I’m back. They want to cancel me. They don’t like that I’m saying what they’re doing is wrong or self-serving. There’s so many different reasons for rejection. I get it. I signed up for it.

So that’s why I say whatever they’re gonna do, let it come, and you just keep doing what you believe is right. You keep fighting the good fight. You work very hard, and then you work harder, and if you’re doing the right things the right way, good things come.

GS: Being in the media now has become a pipeline to working in the government or running for elected office. That runs in your family. Has that ever or will it ever be in the cards for you?

CC: Oh, yeah. I plan on announcing my run for President in about three to five months. (laughs). I run from office and not for office. You got the wrong brother for that. But I have a real dislike for what the process is about and what’s rewarded. It doesn’t work for me.

Frankly, the choice that I’ve made already with my life is too much of a burden on my family. There’s something shameful in that because having grown up in public life and knowing what it cost us, I had kind of always assumed myself that I wouldn’t do that with my own family. And yet here I am here. So I guess, in some ways, you do what you know.

GS: How much does having that intricate knowledge of what the public life looks like, how does that shape the opinions in the way you talk about some of the most famous leaders in the country on your show?

CC: I wish this weren’t the case, and it’s certainly not a point of arrogance, but I just know more and better than most people who cover politics. They haven’t been in the room when it’s off the record, really off the record. Meaning, there’s no media person there that everybody knows they can’t trust. Which is always the case.

And it should be. The media is not to be a friend to people in power. That is not the job. That’s why I won’t go to nerd prom. And that’s why I think it’s shameful that these people pretend that they’re fair brokers when they’re hanging out with these people.

The most interesting thing of the cable news segment is what happens in the commercial. You see people go from going at each other’s throats to shaking hands. Why? Because it’s a game. And that’s why I don’t have competitive yappers on my show. I don’t have many political pundits. They gotta be players. They gotta be stakeholders.

For me, you know Neo in The Matrix? You know when he has that moment, where all he does is see the code? I’ve been seeing the code in the political matrix for 20 years. I was raised in it. I sat and listened to some of the greatest Democrats and Republicans of the modern era talking among intimates and among their own, and understanding what was going on. And why, in a way, that was completely divorced from any spin.

That’s invaluable in understanding the mentality and the culture of campaigns, and of individuals in power.

GS: Going back to the town hall, how different is that preparation compared to just a normal nightly show?

CC: It’s all an extension of the life. I mean, I’m doing this all the time. This is in the town hall. You have big names, big guests, smart people. All of the better minds weigh in on all of this stuff. This is a treat for me.

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