The CNN couple that no longer tweets together
Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo are the CNN couple that no longer tweets together.
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They share a desk each morning as anchors of CNN's "New Day," but have vastly different philosophies on social media.
Camerota publicly broke with Twitter last week, saying the anger she sees there "grosses her out." Cuomo dives in all the time, relishing combat with everyone from anonymous trolls to the president of the United States. He's tweeted more than 17,000 times.
Camerota announced her breakup with a "Dear John," er, "Dear Twitter" letter posted on CNN's website Wednesday. A relationship that began with a "Happy Mother's Day" post in 2009 had soured. Camerota was avoiding Twitter's calls and messages until finally cutting things off.
She barely bothered with the "it's not you, it's me" trope.
"You're a shadow of your former self, the one I was first attracted to," she wrote. "It's no fun to be with you anymore. You've become mean and verbally abusive. In fact, you gross me out. You're a cesspool of spleen-venting from people who think it's acceptable to insult other people in public and anonymously."
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AdvertisementAll she can do, she wrote, "is save myself from the bitter, dark places where you like to dwell."
"Maybe sometime in the distant future, we can be friends again," Camerota said. "Maybe you'll become more thoughtful, and I'll be excited to see your icon on my screen again. But I'm not hopeful."
And by the way? "I won't miss you for a second," she said.
Cuomo understands. "Her analysis of the atmosphere is spot-on," he said, on Twitter, naturally (both anchors sent word through a CNN spokeswoman that they did not want to talk about social media).
"If she is happy, I am happy," he typed. "I ain't going nowhere."
Cuomo proudly notes in his Twitter profile that he's been described as "a boiler waiting to explode" by President Donald Trump, who shares his love for the service. Trump also described Cuomo this spring as a "chained lunatic."
Cuomo has fought back, once pointing out the president was in error with tweeted criticism of his interview with Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal. He has no use for Trump's usual epithet directed at CNN. "Fake news = I don't like this fact," Cuomo wrote.
He answered slyly when one tweeter suggested Cuomo had a stack of shady Hillary Clinton emails. "Fess up, come clean," the person wrote.
"I don't," Cuomo answered, "but I vaguely remember someone asking the Russians to find them for us."
He can lecture, too, urging some critics to think before they tweet. He throws shade at cable rivals "Morning Joe" and "Fox & Friends," suggesting one show was full of "hot opinion and insults" and the other for "people who don't want to hear anything but praise."
Remember, this is the son of a man — former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo — who argued for sport.
Twitter's gotten him into some hot water. Conservatives targeted Cuomo last winter for suggesting that proponents of bathroom restrictions for transgender people were intolerant. Cuomo posted, then quickly deleted, a post earlier this month asking readers what they thought of CNN's decision not to name the Reddit user who posted an anti-CNN video later retweeted by Trump.
Mostly, it's an entertaining feed and a two-way conversation with viewers, one of whom went online last week to praise Cuomo for a "New Day" interview.
"You are going to need a hug from a big-breasted black woman after the interview with this spinmaster," a viewer wrote, "and maybe a couple of hits of weed."
Answered Cuomo: "I have been offered a lot of remedies for what ails. But this is a first."