(NewsNation) — NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo told Tucker Carlson he disagrees with the former Fox News host’s views on the Jan. 6 Capitol riots in a wide-ranging conversation.
The exchange, “Cuomo & Carlson: The Conversation,” airs Monday at 8p/7c on NewsNation.
Cuomo appeared on “Morning in America” earlier that day to explain why it’s being called a “conversation” and not an interview.
“An interview is where I prepare, I have different angles, different roads I’m going to walk you down, different areas of pushback that I’m not going to move off, and there are certain goals and objectives that I want to come out,” Cuomo said. “That’s not what this was. This was Tucker and I meeting under circumstances that were unique to both of our lives.”
Despite Carlson and Cuomo being critical of each other in the past, both were fired from major cable networks the past few years — Carlson from Fox and Cuomo by CNN. They also have the same lawyer, Cuomo said, who encouraged them to “bridge the gap and talk to each other for personal reasons.”
Cuomo said he started the conversation with what he shared in common with Carlson — though not “ideologically.”
“You’re not supposed to do it, but I want to take people through understanding that disagreement doesn’t have to mean that the other side is dangerous and to be demonized,” he said. “That only works for the people that want us divided.”
Jan. 6 Capitol Riot
Speaking to Carlson, Cuomo said those who took part in the riot were “way over the line.”
“I think they were motivated to go over the line, in part by (former President Donald Trump),” Cuomo said.
In response, Carlson said that “parts of” Jan. 6 “were a riot,” though asked, “Why can’t we know how many federal agents were in the crowd, and what they were doing there?”
“I am fine with knowing,” Cuomo told Carlson. “I love transparency. It is the key to understanding.”
Carlson in the past has made the claim that federal agents incited people on Jan. 6, though this has been widely debunked. Poynter wrote that “three years of investigations and hundreds of arrests” have not provided evidence for Carlson’s assertions, and Politifact rated them as “false.”
“While there may have been individuals who were trying to quell passions, it’s clear from court filings in hundreds of cases that the people who were instigating violence were largely Trump supporters,” Politifact wrote.
Fox News ousted Tucker Carlson last year, but before his firing, the commentator aired Jan. 6 security footage he was given by then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
While Carlson maintained that he “aired what they sent me,” Cuomo said he “cherry-picked” the clips he showed.
Putin Interview
Part of Cuomo and Carlson’s conversation touched upon the latter’s widely criticized interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Associated Press reports Carlson barely questioned Putin and let the Russian leader talk about his country’s history unchallenged.
“I don’t disagree that sitting across from Putin and getting into a shouting match, or whatever, is going to bear much fruit for people. But you made choices,” Cuomo said.
One of these choices Carlson made, Cuomo said, was not asking about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who later died.
“Don’t you feel that if you are gonna go and sit with someone like that you have to hold them for account for things that matter — the fact that he may have murdered somebody or a lot of people?” Cuomo asked.
The Kremlin has said Navalny’s death in a remote Arctic penal colony was from natural causes, while Western leaders are pointing the finger at Putin. Navalny had been one of Putin’s biggest critics.
Carlson, to Cuomo, incorrectly stated that the “Ukranians say he didn’t kill Navalny,” although the country’s officials and Navalny’s family have said the opposite.
“Now what’s going on there? I can’t even guess,” Carlson said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said it is “obvious” that Navalny was killed by Putin, adding that he “doesn’t care who dies — only for him to hold his position.”
To Carlson, Cuomo asked: “Who killed him then? Guy looks good one minute, the next minute he’s dead.”
After Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Washington doesn’t know exactly what happened, “but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did.”
What happened to Tucker Carlson?
Carlson, once the most popular figure on Fox News, was fired in the wake of Dominion Voting Systems settling its defamation lawsuit against the news outlet. He had initially replaced Greta Van Susteren in Fox’s prime-time lineup with his show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in 2016.
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” Fox News confirmed in an April 2023 statement, a week after Fox settled with Dominion for $787.5 million.
Dominion argued Fox helped spread claims of fraud and stealing in the 2020 election despite producers, hosts and executives knowing they were false.
In a statement of his own, Carlson did not directly address what Fox said after he was fired but wrote that American media does not permit “legitimate debates.”
He then started his own show on X, despite a cease-and-desist letter sent to him from Fox accusing him of breaching his contract.
Now, Carlson has his own streaming network, which launched in December.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.