Chris Cuomo, the former CNN news anchor now working with NewsNation, earned swift derision Wednesday after he promoted a blatantly deepfaked AI video of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), continuing what has been described as a “one-sided feud” with the lawmaker. And when called out on the flub, he didn’t appear particularly remorseful.
Cuomo, the brother of disgraced former New York Gov. and mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo, shared the video on X, in which Ocasio-Cortez appeared to deliver an obscenity-ridden and lewd speech calling the recent Sydney Sweeney “good jeans” commercial “blatant Nazi propaganda.” “Nothing about hamas (sic) or people burning jews cars…but sweeney (sic) jeans ad? Deserved time on floor of congress (sic)? What happd (sic) to this party?” wrote Cuomo on X. “Fight for small business…not for small culture wars.”
Ocasio-Cortez swiftly noticed the flare-up and replied, “This is a deepfake, dude. Please use your critical thinking skills. At this point, you’re just reposting Facebook memes and calling it journalism.”
Cuomo then deleted the post, but was quickly hit back with another post.
“You are correct…that was a deepfake (but it really does sound like you). Thank you for correcting,” wrote Cuomo, who didn’t attach the post to Ocasio-Cortez’s response. “But now to the central claim: show me you calling on hamas to surrender or addressing the bombing of a car in st louis belonging to the idf american soldier?…dude?”
He followed up with similar comments on his NewsNation program: “AOC was right. They got me. AI. It did seem like something she would say. But… she ignored the part of the tweet that mattered.”
Just as he was drowned in mockery for his original post, it didn’t get much better for him.
“Good save, Chris,” wrote Capitol Forum reporter Paul McLeod.
“I like how after falling for an obvious fake, you try to double down while failing to even reply to her. Bang up job all around man,” wrote internet personality Jordan Uhl.
“Hi Chris, I’m calling from Saguache County jail. Your nephew was just arrested and needs $100,000 for bail. Please provide me with your credit card number otherwise he will be staying the night here,” wrote menswear critic Derek Guy.
“Chris you said Democrats are focusing too much on culture war and not enough on small business in the previous tweet,” wrote columnist Zaid Jilani. “Now you’re talking about Hamas. Maybe you should talk about small business in America instead of Israel?”