'This is bulls**t': Chris Cuomo loses it on live TV as Trump endorses Goya products, but what's the fuss all about
President Donald Trump found himself at the receiving end of the media on Wednesday, July 15, after he displayed support for Goya products, something he has been doing for sometime. Goya faced backlash from the president’s opponents after its CEO Bob Unanue said recently that his company would donate a massive quantity of foods to the country’s food banks as part of the president’s Hispanic Prosperity Initiative. He even said at the White House that the US is blessed to have a leader like Trump who he called an “incredible builder”. Even Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, promoted a can of Goya Foods black beans on Tuesday, July 14, raising serious questions over violation of ethics.
A number of CNN anchors lashed out at Trump by turns on July 15 for his promotion of the food products and that too while he was sitting in his executive office and at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has affected nearly 3.5 million people and claimed more than 137,000 lives.
'A pandemic-time president has time for this bulls--t'
The most prominent among the anchors who targeted Trump was Chris Cuomo, brother of New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo. Taking a dig at the president’s grinning inside the Oval Office and giving two thumbs up while sitting behind a spread of the company’s products on the Resolute Desk, a fired-up Cuomo said: “You tell me how a president in the middle of a pandemic has got time for this bulls---! Are you kidding me! Hawking products? Goya, I don't care who it is? Resolute desk? This is what he is resolute about! Pandemic priorities?”
He then added: “Are you kidding me! On your dime in the middle of a pandemic, they’re selling beans! Are you kidding me! Seriously, this is not left and right, this is reasonable my brothers and sisters!
"The idea of him messing with Fauci while he’s selling magic beans is crazy,” the 49-year-old who is a Covid-19 survivor, further said. He did not spare Ivanka either, stressing her to be a “top White House adviser”. It may be mentioned here that Cuomo himself faced flak in recent times for cracking jokes on air with his governor brother over coronavirus testings and also claiming the latter to be the “best politician in the country” despite New York getting badly hit by the pandemic with over 32,000 deaths.
'Grinning like he won a prize'
Another senior CNN anchor Anderson Cooper also blasted the president over his promotional act while sitting at his office. “Thumbs up. Orange. Grinning like he won a prize. 137,000 Americans dead and this is our self-proclaimed wartime president’s answer to it,” he said in a somber voice. “Given the death toll and the spread of the virus, you might think he would spend every waking moment trying to combat it, talking to victim’s families, rallying Americans to be patriotic by wearing a mask, washing their hands, protecting their neighbors, but no. This is what he wants the world to see, the infected, the recovering, the newly grieving, anyone on Instagram. The more clicks for this president, the better.”
“This is our president and people are dying and people are getting sick and more will die and more will get sick and our economy is in shambles. W’'re in a public health battle for our lives and our futures and our president is sitting there behind the Resolute Desk resolutely clutching at beans,” Cooper added. He also criticized Trump and the White House over their alleged efforts to undermine Dr Anthony Fauci, saying they lack guts to apologize to the veteran infectious-diseases expert.
Jake Tapper, another CNN anchor, targeted Trump on Twitter, tweeting: “When you want aggressive leadership pushing a nationwide testing and contact tracing program to contain and then end the pandemic but instead get bupkes.”
Goya was founded in 1936 by Don Prudencio Unanue and his wife Carolina, immigrants from Spain, in Manhattan. The New Jersey-based company calls itself the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States. The current CEO is the grandson of the founder.
Why is the Goya Foods controversy so big?
The Goya CEO’s kind words for the president led to an eruption on social media as people slammed him for supporting Trump who has been less kind towards Latinx immigrants. The citizens were mostly not in favor of a brand that is popular with Latinx households and even as a boycott of Goya products was organized fast, Unanue refused to apologize and saw the response as “a suppression of speech”. The Democrats also called for boycotting Goya products and members like New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and former Obama administration official Julián Castro spoke in support of the food products.
Trump, however, has refused to budge. He even politicized the food issue by tweeting that the “Radical Left smear machine backfired” and people were crazily buying the Goya products. Observers feel the embattled president, whose poll ratings have headed south in the run-up to the November polls in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and race riots, is making an cultural effort to influence the Hispanic voters by trying to convince them against the left. He has tried to convey the message that those seeking to boycott Goya are actually trying to erase the Latinx culture from America’s soil. Even Ivanka exhibited a similar tendency by captioning her promotional act saying: “If it’s Goya, it has to be good”, in both English and Spanish.
“Not even croquetas would be safe in Joe Biden’s America. Pass it on,” the Trump campaign’s Latino Twitter account, Equipo Trumpo, said on Monday, July 13, in reaction to former labor secretary Robert Reich seeking a boycott of Goya.
But with charges of violation of ethics set to take a serious shape, Trump could see himself landing in yet another legal trouble. He has survived an impeachment trial earlier this year in Senate on similar charges but could the Goya episode nail him? We have to wait and see.