Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was repeatedly pressured by CNN’s top brass to appear on his brother’s primetime television show during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new book claims.
Melissa DeRosa, the onetime secretary to ex-New York Gov., says in her upcoming book, What’s Left Unsaid, that CNN was eager to use the governor’s appearance to boost the network’s ratings. In an excerpt obtained by The Daily Beast, DeRosa claims that when she pushed back on Chris Cuomo’s producer, telling them the governor wouldn’t be available to appear on the program one evening, then-CNN president Jeff Zucker and chief marketing officer Allison Gollust immediately rang up Andrew Cuomo and guilt-tripped him into changing his mind.
In DeRosa’s telling, this occurred at the height of the pandemic when the Cuomo brothers’ “love-a-thon” segments had become a staple of CNN’s weeknight programming, with the network riding the wave of high ratings despite the obvious conflict of interest issues stemming from a CNN journalist interviewing his politician brother.
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CNN eventually reinforced its ban—which was first put in place in 2013 but relaxed during the pandemic—on the chummy chatfests after Andrew Cuomo became embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal that ultimately led to his resignation as governor. The governor’s downfall in 2021 was soon followed by that of Chris Cuomo, who was ousted from CNN that December— for, among other things, digging up dirt on his brother’s accusers. Zucker and Gollust were soon gone themselves, undone by an internal investigation into their own close ties with the disgraced ex-governor and a failure to disclose their sexual relationship.
DeRosa’s claims further expose the friendly relationship that Zucker and Gollust—who once served as Andrew Cuomo’s spokesperson—enjoyed with the longtime New York governor. Her book also lends support to a narrative that Chris Cuomo’s legal team has argued since his firing: The ex-New York governor and the network were intimately entangled in a way that went well beyond the Cuomo brothers’ familial bonds.
Representatives for DeRosa declined to comment for this article. Gollust also declined to comment.
In her book, DeRosa—who has also been a contributor to The Daily Beast—notes that she “didn’t see a problem with the arrangement” at the beginning, adding that every “other rule was being suspended” during an “unprecedented crisis” so why shouldn’t they follow suit?
“In fact, we didn’t even discuss it as an issue at the beginning; it happened the same way everything else did then—on the fly. And the public loved it,” she writes. “In the absence of being able to be with their own families, they got to watch one on TV. The interviews were factual and informative but included brotherly banter and teasing, each ending with three words: ‘I love you.’”
DeRosa points out that media critics who normally would have chastised the situation expressed approval over the interviews, and notes that Zucker “leaned into” the spectacle. But, she says, it didn’t take long for the shine to wear off.
“While things may have appeared rosy to viewers at home, behind the scenes the arrangement began to cause agita and became a source of consternation between the governor and me,” the ex-Cuomo aide writes.
Recalling an instance when a producer for Chris Cuomo called up Dani Lever, the governor’s communications director, to book another interview, DeRosa says she tried to convince her boss to decline the invitation.
“‘I don’t think you should go on tonight, I said,” she asserts in the book. “‘What’s the issue?’ the governor asked. In the beginning, the governor had enjoyed the spots, a fun respite for him from the usual COVID crisis management.”DeRosa adds: “‘The schtick was great at the beginning—comforting even,’ I allowed, ‘but it’s too much now. The jokes, the back-and-forth.’ I paused. ‘At some point soon, the press is going to blow the whistle on this. Let’s end it before they do.’”
After stating that the governor wondered if “someone was saying something,” DeRosa says she told Cuomo that it hadn’t hit “critical mass or anything” but she could see where this was heading and it would be bad for both brothers in the end.
Claiming the governor agreed with her to pass on the interview, she writes that Lever expressed relief since other networks had been complaining about the “clear favoritism” Andrew Cuomo was showing CNN and his brother. However, that comfort was short-lived as DeRosa would soon receive a call from Gollust.
After telling Gollust that the governor was already booked for another show, DeRosa writes that the CNN exec grumbled that they “were counting on him for the top of the show, and not doing it will create a headache for us,” adding that she had texted Andrew Cuomo earlier that day and “he didn’t indicate there’d be a problem.”
DeRosa says that she told Gollust she’d “really appreciate it” if Gollust went through “the normal channels” to schedule interviews rather than contacting the governor directly, prompting a huffy response.
“‘Uh-huh,’ [Gollust] said, her tone clipped. ‘You are completely screwing us, Melissa, but I got it. Thanks so much. Talk to you soon.’ She hung up,” DeRosa writes. “Message sent and received.”
A few minutes later, DeRosa claims, the governor was looking for her—he’d just received a call from Gollust, noting that she was “pissed” because she believed a prior text had been confirmation for the show. While the governor was discussing his call with Gollust, DeRosa adds, Zucker called him on his cell phone.
“‘Look, Melissa, I know I told you I’d take a pass, but . . . ,’ Cuomo waffled. ‘I don’t want this to become a thing,’” she writes. “‘Your giving in and going on is what’s going to ensure it becomes a thing,’ I protested. ‘Melissa, he is Chris’s boss,’ he answered, resigned.”
In the book, DeRosa says that the Cuomos put their “relationship above all else” and that they “support one another unconditionally,” suggesting that the governor would side with his brother to “protect” him.
“‘I heard your point, but this is what it is right now,’ the governor decided,” she writes. “He was done arguing with me. ‘Let Dani know I’ll do it tomorrow. Set it up with the producer.’ Conversation over. Point, set, match to Allison Gollust. From then on, the precedent was set in stone.”
DeRosa adds: “If they wanted the governor on air, CNN would reach out initially through our press office, but they wouldn’t take ‘no’ or even ‘maybe’ for an answer. Anything less than a solid commitment and either Allison or Jeff would go running straight to the governor. I typically found out about the arrangement afterward, and would then coordinate with Allison on the back end.”
Between March 11 and June 19, 2020, the day of the Cuomo administration’s last daily COVID-19 press conference, the governor appeared on his brother’s show 11 times. DeRosa says that after the final press briefing in June of that year, the interviews stopped after she “vehemently disagreed” when the network wanted Cuomo to come on the air.
“Chris had grown exasperated by the endless debates while his show lineup hung in the balance, so we collectively decided to end the interviews,” she writes.
In the fall of 2020, the governor wanted to see if CNN would resurrect the brotherly chats in order to “bring attention to what he believed was an inadequate vaccine rollout plan,” asking DeRosa to reach out to the network.
At that point, according to DeRosa, “he was no longer the TV ratings giant he’d been, and Allison took a pass.”
Indeed, towards the end of 2020, the accolades that the governor had basked in over his pandemic response had been replaced by growing criticism over his management of the crisis, especially as it related to the state’s nursing home death tolls. Eventually, in early 2021, New York State Attorney General Letitia James reported that the Cuomo administration had undercounted COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes by as much as 83 percent, sparking accusations of a cover-up.
The scandal grew even worse in February 2021 when it was reported that DeRosa had apologized to New York Democratic leadership for intentionally withholding nursing home death data. In the leaked audio, DeRosa said the governor’s office didn’t share the stats out of concern that it could result in a federal probe and give the Trump administration an advantage in the 2020 election.
Chris Cuomo’s show ignored the nursing home controversy, as well as the subsequent sexual harassment scandal that ended the governor’s reign. By that point in time, though, the network had conveniently decided to reinstitute its rule preventing the anchor from interviewing or even covering his brother.
As for Zucker and Gollust, DeRosa notes in her book’s epilogue that the internal investigation they launched into Chris Cuomo inevitably “led to their own demise”
“In the course of the investigation, top brass uncovered that the two were engaged in an affair and raised questions about their own allegedly unethical conduct,” she writes. “Zucker was fired from CNN, and Gollust resigned, upending the entire network.”
