Chris Cuomo played outsize role in Andrew Cuomo’s defense, CNN host Chris Cuomo and guest Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) literally had to be pulled away after the two got into a heated discussion in the middle of an interview about gun control.
Cuomo, an unabashed Cuomo loyalist, asked if the governor’s attack on President Trump over the U.S. economy being better since Trump was elected was a “softening of his position.”
“He’s always been bold in his progressive politics and his vision of what this country can be,” Cuomo said. “I wonder, if there is a softening, are they willing to embrace what the country is and what they can do as a nation to sustain what we’ve got,” he said, claiming “It’s the kind of passionate progressive politics that I’ve seen.”
Cuomo continued, “And so I am surprised if this is a waffling of his stand, because, I mean, you do these proclamations. I mean, his attacks on Trump have been harsh. But is this softening on what he should say?”
Before Cuomo could get to Kasich’s rebuttal, a producer pulled the governor away as Cuomo accused the Ohio governor of “backtracking” on his gun control policy and “not putting his finger on the pulse of what Americans want.”
Watch the exchange below:
“Isn’t it just like, he flipped-flopped and he’s now backtracking, backtracking, backtracking, backtracking?” Cuomo asked. “I mean, isn’t that the problem that we have today? This is the big national gun control debate, there’s been different approaches and now it’s backtracking, backtracking, backtracking,” Cuomo said.
Kasich stepped in to defend the Second Amendment. “Well, Chris, you got to ask yourself why we have gun control laws if it’s too easy to buy guns,” Kasich said. “If you want to take the basic of the Second Amendment, I think we need to take a real look at it and we have to admit that the Second Amendment is getting out of hand and we have to find a way to get it under control.”
“I get it,” Cuomo said. “But you’re taking these provisions that are the reason for us having the Second Amendment right and all this effort is to take away the basic protection that we have and we can’t do that. The Second Amendment is not to keep us safe from criminals and felons, it’s to keep us safe from tyrannical government, a different kind of situation, but we have to focus on keeping us safe. We shouldn’t have to actually do the things that are necessary to protect us if it’s too easy to get a gun.”
Cuomo was forced to continue the conversation after the governor was pulled away. “As if when a governor comments on Second Amendment rights, we shouldn’t take that at face value and that we should be having the debate,” Cuomo said. “Should we not have this discussion? I mean, does the Second Amendment provide a right that the American people won’t address the extent to which people can get guns? That is the big distinction that I think we need to make. It has to be sorted out, Chris.”