CNN's Chris Cuomo refuses to air Donald Trump's speech, calls him 'conman' trying to 'blow up as much as he can'
CNN refused to air any of President Donald Trump's 46-minute-long speech from the White House, which was uploaded on Facebook on December 2, as anchor Chris Cuomo branded him "a conman and a liar".
The network host said the POTUS' nearly an hour-long diatribe only repeated unfounded claims of voting fraud, which were based on "nothing but division and malice" in the light of the fact that Trump has refused to concede the presidential election to President-elect Joe Biden defeat despite losing dozens of legal challenges.
Cuomo claimed Trump was trying to "blow up as much as he can" even as the United States was in the midst of an "abject crisis" due the Covid-19 pandemic. "Donald Trump is so far gone, that I cannot in good conscience play the substance of a 46-minute spiel that he spewed tonight," he said. "It is lies and ugly suggestions that have a basis in nothing but division and malice. It is a spiel, it is a con only to benefit his own coffers, as followers continue, most in good faith, to donate to a cause for an alleged billionaire, despite the fact that that cause is already over."
He also lashed out at members of the GOP, asking them, "Where have you been for a month? Trump has never produced a shred of proof of any suggestion and you know it. Rudi, the other jesters, no court has found anything significant to any outcome, and you know it. Even Bill Barr, an Attorney-General who will be remembered for bending over backwards to protect the President, even he says the election should stand. You have traded loyalty to oath and office for fealty to a toxic man." He added that Republicans were "those who empowered his deception - whose silence should deafen all ears craving decency".
However, Attorney General Barr has presently joined the growing number of Republicans who have broken with Trump over his claims of voter fraud. Earlier this week, Barr said the Department of Justice had found no evidence of widespread irregularities that would change the outcome.
In the pre-recorded video posted by the White House, Trump was seen complaining about what he claimed was an "orchestrated effort" to pervert democracy and declare Biden as the winner. He said that the speech was "maybe the most important speech I have ever made" as he urged the Supreme Court to overturn the result. The POTUS also held up charts claiming to show massive "dumps" of votes as he repeated a series of debunked allegations.
"This is about our democracy and the sacred rights that generations of Americans have fought, bled and died to secure," he said, calling the election a "national catastrophe." "If we don't root out the fraud, the tremendous and horrible fraud that's taken place in our 2020 election, we don't have a country anymore." He also claimed it was "statistically impossible" that he was defeated. "This election was rigged. Everyone knows it. I don't mind if I lose an election, but I want to lose an election fair and square. What I don’t want to do is have it stolen from the American people," Trump said.