Face of Nation : Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor, has been filmed in a heated exchange with a man he accused of calling him “Fredo” — a term Cuomo said was a slur for Italians.
“Punk-ass bitches from the right call me Fredo,” said Cuomo in a video that surfaced on a right-wing social media account on Monday evening. “My name is Chris Cuomo. I’m an anchor on CNN. Fredo is from ‘The Godfather.’ He was a weak brother. And they’re using it as an Italian aspersion.”
“It’s like the n-word for us,” Cuomo went on to say in the clip that was uploaded to a right-wing YouTube channel called “That’s the Point with Brandon.” On Tuesday morning, the account said in posts on Instagram and Twitter that the video was taken down from YouTube, posting a screen shot of a notice that it violated the site’s guidelines, without providing more details.
The man talking with Cuomo responded that he thought Fredo was his name. Later in the exchange, Cuomo told the man he would “throw you down these stairs.”
It was not evident from the video what happened prior to Cuomo’s reaction.Cuomo has said in previous Twitter posts that he views “Fredo” as an “Italian slur.” The name refers to Fredo Corleone, a character in the Godfather saga who was viewed as the weakest brother in the mafia family; he was eventually murdered on orders of his brother, Michael Corleone. He was portrayed by John Cazale in the first two Godfather movies.
“Chris Cuomo defended himself when he was verbally attacked with the use of an ethnic slur in an orchestrated setup. We completely support him.”
Conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh has in the past described Cuomo as Fredo, both on his show and on social media. The president weighed in on the video Tuesday morning, tweeting that he “thought Chris was Fredo also.
Trump has frequently criticized CNN, repeatedly calling it “fake news” and accusing it of bias against him and his administration. Conservative social media accounts criticized Cuomo’s reaction, with some pointing out that he didn’t say anything when pundit Ana Navarro used the word Fredo to describe Trump’s son, Donald Jr.
