NEW YORK – Seven months after being fired by CNN, Chris Cuomo is emerging publicly with a new podcast and plans to return to host a prime-time television show starting this fall on NewsNation.
Cuomo made this latest announcement Tuesday on NewsNation, a fledgling cable news outlet created by Nexstar Communications in 2020 to replace WGN America. He was interviewed by Dan Abrams, who hosts a prime time show there.
“I’ve been jealous of you while I’ve been out watching and I want to help,” Cuomo told Abrams. “I want to find a way to help people.”
NewsNation said Wednesday that Alexandra “Dusty” Cohen, who spent 20 years behind the scenes on “The View,” will executive produce for Cuomo. No show name, time slot or premiere date have been announced.
Cuomo, once CNN’s most popular prime-time personality, was fired in December after the network said he was insincere about the extent to which he was helping his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, trying to weather a sexual harassment scandal. .
During the inaugural episode of “The Chris Cuomo Project” that appeared on YouTube and podcast services last week, Cuomo said that “as far as CNN, I will never be an enemy.” However, he considers his firing unfair and has asked an arbitrator to award him $125 million.
“This has been a very heavy period for me personally,” Cuomo told Abrams. “I really didn’t see what was coming at me.”
Cuomo cited the litigation for not specifically answering some of Abrams’ questions about the circumstances surrounding his firing. “I’m telling you, I never lied and there were no secrets,” he said.
At NewsNation, you’ll be joining a network that has ambitions to be a 24-hour news outlet, but currently broadcasts news in the morning and evening hours. Ashleigh Banfield and Leland Vittert, formerly of MSNBC and Fox News, respectively, have shows in prime time.
Last year, the network had an average prime-time audience of 46,000 viewers, compared to CNN’s 1.1 million, the Nielsen company said.
CNN has not named a full-time anchor to replace Cuomo for the 9 pm ET slot.
Cuomo’s freewheeling YouTube show was filmed at his home. The first episode was two hours long and featured a 45-minute interview with actor Sean Penn conducted via a video service. They discussed Penn’s Ukraine documentary, and Cuomo also showed video of his recent visit to the war zone.
“Thank you for checking on me and the family and telling me to come back here,” Cuomo said in an opening monologue. “I really appreciate it more than you can imagine.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, “The Chris Cuomo Project” had received more than 47,000 views on YouTube in nearly a week.
Cuomo told listeners that “now more than ever, I speak to you as myself… these words are mine alone. Nobody tells me to stay in a story, even if it has hit the ground.”
The son and brother of two men who spent more than two decades as Democratic governors of New York, Cuomo said he was not a Democrat. Or a Republican. He said that he was “against bipartisanship.”
He also revealed that his first vote, while his father was governor in 1988, was for Republican George HW Bush for president.
