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In a meaty interview that raged on for the better part of twenty minutes this morning, CNN New Day anchor Chris Cuomo sparred with Kellyanne Conway of the Trump campaign on a wide variety of controversies, foremost of which has been the President-elect’s willingness to seemingly discredit our own intelligence community.
The senior Trump advisor took issue with the fact that talk of the “alleged” Russian hacking (as she puts it) is being conflated with why Hillary Clinton lost, a claim that Conway put at the feet of CNN itself. “Your network is doing it constantly,” she told Cuomo. At times, two continued to spar even over the basic premise of questions asked due to Conway’s effective filibustering.
“I’ll ask you a third time!” Cuomo said at one point about the October joint report from the Homeland Security Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: did the intelligence community announce its findings of Russian involvement, yes or no?
What transpired was an (at times) infuriating battle between a fast-talking New Yorker and an equally abrasively stubborn and witty woman from New Jersey, both also aided by legal backgrounds. “Chris, I see you’re very passionate about this,” Conway said.
“Sure I am. Russia trying to hack during our election, being ignored by our President-elect? That’s troubling,” Cuomo shot back.
Remarkably, Conway responded. “Right. No it’s not.” She furthered at one point, “You just want to argue with me.”
“You’re ducking the obvious,” he said, “and I don’t know why.”
At one point, when the New Day anchor alleged that Trump was “sheltering Russia,” Conway defiantly shot back, “Don’t you say that again.”
The best part of the hit (in my estimation, anyway) comes when Cuomo repeatedly tried to bait Conway into simply including Russia among those foreign entities that should not hack or interfere with the United States. She refused to name the country on its own, saying instead we reject interference, “by anyone. By anyone. By anyone, Chris, by anyone. By anyone.”
At the conclusion of the interview, Alisyn Camerota quipped, “That was a calorie burner.” Watch above via CNN.