CNN's Chris Cuomo's reemergence claim from coronavirus quarantine gets panned on social media
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CNN anchor Chris Cuomo is being accused of staging his own emergence from the basement in his Hamptons home where he had been recovering from the coronavirus after his widely-reported spat with a bicyclist last week.
On Monday night's installment of "Cuomo Prime Time," Cuomo addressed his road to recovery, which included a video showing him emerging from the basement of his South Hampton home where he had been quarantined.
"Alright, here it is... the official re-entry from the basement, cleared by the CDC," Cuomo narrated as he walked upstairs to greet his family. "This is what I've been dreaming of, literally, for weeks."
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The video then showed him greeting his wife, who had also been diagnosed with the virus. The anchor said she was also "cleared by the CDC" as well.
"This is the dream, just to be back up here doing normal things," Cuomo said to the camera.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}However, over Easter weekend, Cuomo was reportedly involved in a heated altercation that took place at his East Hampton property after a bicyclist claimed that the CNN anchor was violating quarantine guidelines that were being enforced by his brother, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
According to a New York Post report, a 65-year-old East Hampton resident named David was riding his bike on Easter Sunday when he spotted who he thought was the CNN anchor with two women and three children outside on their property. Cuomo had been recovering from his widely publicized coronavirus diagnosis.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}David, who did not disclose his last name to the Post, claimed he was "well over a hundred feet" when he paused and hassled Cuomo about whether he should be in quarantine instead of being outside with others.
"I just looked and said, ‘Is that Chris Cuomo? Isn’t he supposed to be quarantined?'" David said.
An alleged confrontation ensued.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"He said, ‘Who the hell are you?! I can do what I want!' He just ranted, screaming, ‘I’ll find out who you are!’" David recalled. "I said to him, ‘Your brother is the coronavirus czar, and you’re not even following his rules — unnecessary travel.'"
David alleged, "He said, ‘This is not the end of this. You’ll deal with this later. We will meet again.’ If that’s not a threat, I don’t know what is."
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He told the Post he filed a police report the next day after the CNN anchor slammed the bicyclist on a radio show, saying that Monday, "I don’t want some jackass, loser, fat tire biker being able to pull over and get in my space and talk bulls--- to me, I don’t want to hear it."
"I hate bullies," David, a self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat and supporter of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, said.
David added that he does not intend on pressing charges against Cuomo unless "I get any more feeling that this guy’s a threat to me."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Cuomo's so-called "emergence" raised eyebrows after his colleague, CNN's chief media correspondent Brian Stelter, included the video in his nightly media industry newsletter.
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"He got in an altercation with a cyclist who called him out for violating his quarantine roughly a week ago. And here is CNN saying he has been riding out his quarantine in 'his basement' for 'the last several weeks.' I hate the term fake news. But this is literally *fake* news," author James Hasson reacted.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Is this a joke? Yes, this is from Stelter's newsletter. Chris Cuomo was in East Hampton 8 days ago. This is bananas," New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz exclaimed.
"What sort of gaslighting is this? Chris Cuomo didn't just emerge from a basement quarantine - I mean, the guy got in a well-publicized fight with a biker outside of his second home in the Hamptons on Easter. This is ... pretty shameless stuff by CNN," Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy wrote.
"This is a proven lie. As usual, CNN doesn't care about the facts (or most of you)," NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CNN did not immediately respond to FoxNews' request for comment.