By Dan Murphy
For many Westchester residents, 9 o’clock at night is a time to unwind and watch a little television before going to bed; 9 p.m. is also the “golden hour” to the cable news networks, who go head-to-head with their top shows.
MSNBC had “The Rachel Maddow Show,” which is now the number one cable news show. Close behind is Fox News and “The Sean Hannity Show.” Both Maddow and Hannity have gone head to head for several years and both are polar opposites of the other, with Maddow and MSNBC presenting a progressive narrative, and Fox and a conservative slant.
For many years, I have switched back and forth between 9 and 9:30 p.m. to watch a bit of Hannity, a bit of Maddow, and whatever CNN had on at the time, to try and capture both arguments, or spin, on each side of the political discourse.
Last year, CNN changed its 9 p.m. show to feature Chris Cuomo, until recently, better known as the brother of Gov. Andrew Cuomo. While Chris Cuomo and CNN usually present a left of center slant to the news of the day, I was pleasantly surprised, and even shocked to hear Cuomo present an argument about the wall, or fencing, on the southern border that I had always wondered about, but never heard on either the far left or far right of cable news.
On his “Cuomo Prime Time” show, Chris Cuomo said that based on his numerous visits to the southern border and interviews with law enforcement there: “There is a barrier system all along the southern border. They need more.
“Anybody who does the reporting, anybody who talks to the people down there doing the work — the men and women — they need more of what the president is increasingly describing as his own idea for a bollard fence,” Cuomo said, referring to a type of fence that uses steel slats and has been requested by border patrol agents, and as a possible compromise structure with democrats.
When Cuomo’s CNN colleague Gloria Borger said that Democrats believe a wall is “not necessary because there are other ways to attack the problem that are better,” Cuomo responded, “But is that true?” Cuomo shot back. “Who says that a barrier isn’t helpful?”
Cuomo also took CNN host Don Lemon to task one night, saying: “Wanting barriers along the border is not propaganda. It’s not immoral. It’s not wrong.”
Cuomo tweeted the following last week: “None of this is ok. Enough with the stunts and the letters and the bs. Do what you were ALL elected to do. POTUS and Pelosi must make a deal and vote on it. Stop making good people pay for your bad job performance.”
On most of his “Cuomo Prime Time” shows, Chris Cuomo goes after President Donald Trump, saying: “There is no Trump wall. There never was going to be. There never will be,” and criticized the President for lying, “Mexico was never going to pay for the wall,” and that while law enforcement may want the bollard fencing, “they want more – more types of technology, more manpower, more judges and caseworkers.”
Cuomo recently closed his show with a “farce v. fact” comparison, in which he accused Trump of appeasing “the farthest right, most anti-immigrant people in the game,” and that the wall “is not a panacea. Not even close.”
“Barriers matter,” he said. “They always have … that’s why they have them. They’ve been built and changed for years. If you want more, fine, it’s probably a sound judgment. But we’re not a wall away. And if you say we are, you lose for sure. You need to address the system.”
We have also learned from channel surfing the cable news shows, including “Cuomo Prime Time” that most terror suspects get caught on airlines coming into the U.S., and that most illegal immigrants fly into an American airport and overstay their 30-day visa, and most of the drugs that are smuggled into our country come from ports of entry, in trucks, cars and boats.
The inability for our elected officials, and now even the American viewing audience, that has dug into their side of the argument and their side of the aisle to acknowledge the rationale of the other side is so glaring that when you hear someone on the air speaking truth, and both sides of the argument, it deserves mention. We thank Chris Cuomo for saying what most Americans believe, regardless of whether they watch Rachel or Sean at 9 p.m
