Chris Cuomo said President Donald Trump “hit all the right notes” in his Monday “teleprompter” speech against white supremacy following two mass shootings over the weekend, but also contended that the words were just “lip service.”
The CNN anchor’s Monday night “Cuomo Prime Time” comments came during a larger segment about the concept of adjusting U.S. terrorism laws to cover white nationalist terror.
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“Thoughts and prayers, yes, amen to them,” Cuomo said. “Pray that the people in the country see their common cause in opposing hate. And that our leaders think hard enough about what really matters to do something to keep us safe. Here’s the easy part. A white nationalist coward who kills people to motivate a political cause is no different than an ISIS coward doing the same thing. They are both terrorists, and you know it. But only the self declared Muslim guy is covered by terror laws here.” (RELATED: FACT CHECK: Is The Far-Right Largely Responsible For Extremist Violence?)
The CNN anchor said some seek “political advantage” by “arguing white nationalists are better than Muslim extremists,” calling those who point out leftist extremism “whack whataboutism.”
“All extremism from any corner that turns to violence as political expression is terrorism,” he said.
Insisting it’s “not a both sides issue,” Cuomo cited Anti-Defamation League reporting that claims “right wing extremists killed more people last year than any year since 1995, since the Oklahoma City bombings.”
“The president could only give them lip service today,” Cuomo said, regarding Trump’s speech. “And yet we are being killed by our own. Americans. Not migrants. Not an other. Our own. And there’s an easy fix. Treat it under law. Treat it with the resources that terrorism gets.”
“Today, President Trump maybe did read a speech off a teleprompter, but it did hit the right notes,” said the CNN anchor before playing a clip from the speech. “But you can’t just read it, you’ve gotta own it.”
