Cuomo: ‘Morning Joe’ Visit to Mar-a-Lago Is ‘Opportunism’

CUOMO: “What do you think of that?”
Smith: “Well, I’m certainly not going to accuse him of not making sense, because I think that ‘Morning Joe’ going to Mar-a-Lago speaks volumes. That’s number one. Number two, I just think it’s important, the point that Bill O’Reilly is bringing up- For years he had the no-spin zone, for years you’ve been on television, and no matter what opinions people may have had about you guys, the fact of the matter is, is that you never spoke about people the way that we heard people speaking about Trump going into this election. And I — you know, again, putting myself on front street, I didn’t vote for Trump. What did I say? What I said was I didn’t like I think the president sees the statesmanship position to some degree. I didn’t like the way that he divides the country. And I didn’t think the country needed that. What you never heard me saying was the kind of stuff that you heard on ‘Morning Joe’ and beyond. And I think that because of that, as Bill O’Reilly just stated, it’s not the difference of opinion, it’s not a different ideology. It’s the hatefulness. And I don’t really — I’m working at that time, so I haven’t seen a lot of MSNBC in that regard. But based on everything that I’ve read and the things that you’ve heard them say and what he just articulated about them being ordered to go up to Mar-a-Lago, it all makes a load of sense. And I’m not in a position to be questioning Bill O’Reilly, who’s been right more than he’s been wrong.”
CUOMO: “I’ll question him. I don’t know what the decoupling is about, if it’s about tone versus PNL, I don’t know. And we’ll see, it’ll come out, but, you know, wasn’t just MSNBC they spun off. They got like 8, 9 brands they’re putting in this new vehicle. But be that as it may — “
O’REILLY: “Yeah, but that’s the big one.”
CUOMO: “Right, it is. Well, yeah, that’s the biggest one. But the — the backstory — “
O’REILLY: “Do you have any questions, Cuomo?”
CUOMO: “No, I have something to say. That’s why the name on the show is mine. The interesting part here is the backstory. Before they hated Trump, they did more to get Donald Trump elected, Joe and Mika, than anybody in the media. I am as guilty as any for giving Trump a lot of attention and his rallies during the campaign. Okay? There’s an explanation for that, too, but doesn’t matter right now. What does matter is, they loved him. They were on videotape, Bill will remember this, in a commercial break, asking Trump what they should talk about when they come back. And if I did that, okay, I would have been fired, and they liked me at the time there and it would have been dunzo for me. So, to me, what it reeks of, Bill and Stephen, is opportunism, that this was never an act of conscience.”
O’REILLY: “No, it’s money.”
CUOMO: “It was just money. And now they need it so they go, as we have seen other people do, who once went at it with Trump and now are going there and they’re standing at his rallies and they’re doing whatever they’re doing. All right, I gotta jump. Bill O’Reilly, thank you — “
O’REILLY: “Justin’s giving me the wrap. One more.”
CUOMO: “Nobody likes Bill O’Reilly.”
O’REILLY: “‘Confronting the Presidents,’ number 4 on The New York Times bestseller list this Sunday.”
CUOMO: “Number four? What happened?”
O’REILLY: “You guys gotta read this.”
CUOMO: “What happened?”
O’REILLY: “Come on, I’ve been out for 10 weeks, Cuomo!”
CUOMO: “I don’t know.”