Chris Cuomo defends media amid tribal politics, calls for end to two-party system

Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo called for an end to the two-party system while discussing media bias on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” on Friday night.

“Is that possible, in this partisan country that we live in, to have the one place — I would love to see that — the one place where I don’t feel like I’m getting anybody’s narrative?” Maher asked Cuomo on the show after speaking about that purported bias.

In response, Cuomo praised Maher’s show and podcast while promoting his own new podcast, “The Chris Cuomo Project,” and said he believes people “do want an alternative.”

“I believe the majority of people in this country are what I call free agents,” Cuomo said. “They have open minds and open hearts. They’re not about party.”

As the audience applauded, Cuomo continued, “They’re about respectful conversation. And you can get after, you can disagree, you just don’t have to surrender to hating a person that you don’t agree with and you’re open to the idea that maybe they know something you don’t.”

Cuomo also defended the media, however, pointing toward the broader political landscape and what he said viewers want to see.

“My defense of the media, though, is this, even though it didn’t end that well for me most recently,” he said, apparently referencing his firing from CNN late last year after reports emerged that he had played a larger role than previously known in aiding his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), in his defense against sexual harassment allegations. “You can’t expect the men and women in the media to not play a game that everybody else is playing. You are watching because of the game. You are allowing yourself to be put on teams or in tribes or any way you want to designate it, but they’re supposed to somehow break away from that when it’s what you want? When it’s what resonates with you? No.”

“I think that culturally we have to end the two-party system,” Cuomo said to audience applause.

He continued: “It’s not in the Constitution. It’s not in the law.”

Cuomo advocated for more parties, ranked-choice voting and a “shame campaign on purple states who apportion their electors” to create more choice and less partisanship in American politics.