In a striking turn from partisan expectations, NewsNation host Chris Cuomo reportedly delivered a fiery rebuke of The Wall Street Journal over its coverage of a decades-old letter allegedly written by President Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein.
Cuomo, no stranger to confronting media narratives, accused the Journal of engaging in “a hack job” designed to distract from the real stakes of the Epstein scandal.
“This Wall Street Journal piece is a hack job, OK?” Cuomo declared during his Thursday evening broadcast, referencing the Journal’s decision to publish what it claimed was a birthday letter Trump sent Epstein on his 50th birthday. “The letter is meaningless. You put out the piece anyway. And there’s no light on what really matters.”
Cuomo’s defense of Trump, while framed through his own trademark skepticism, echoed growing frustration from both sides of the political aisle over media attempts to smear the president with tenuous associations.
Trump, who has forcefully denied writing the letter and labeled the report “FAKE,” has vowed to take legal action against Rupert Murdoch and the Journal. “I get that he’s pissed off,” Cuomo said bluntly. “And he’s not wrong.”
The timing of the Journal’s reporting has raised eyebrows.
As pressure intensifies on the Justice Department and Attorney General Pam Bondi to unseal key Epstein documents, and as even MAGA-aligned voices begin to question the administration’s handling of the files, the focus on a questionable letter has struck many as a red herring. “It’s so stupid,” Cuomo said of the Journal’s decision to publish the piece.
“The Epstein story is about abusing kids who didn’t have the power or agency to do anything about it,” Cuomo explained, stressing that the real story lies in how “rich and powerful people may have known it was going on and they got away with it.”
He dismissed the Journal’s angle as a distraction: “It’s not that Trump liked a scumbag, OK?”
In his rant, Cuomo criticized Murdoch directly, noting the likely financial motivation behind the story. Sarcastically applauding the 94-year-old media mogul, he quipped, “It’s gonna make you some money, Rupert. Great for you, just what you need.”
Cuomo also mocked the Truth Social post from Trump, which was reportedly written in the third person. “I don’t know why he talks about himself in the third person, but I get that he’s pissed off, OK?”
The broader takeaway from Cuomo’s commentary is that sensational reporting on minor artifacts of Trump’s distant past does little to serve public understanding of Epstein’s crimes or the powerful individuals potentially implicated.
“This is why we can’t get anywhere,” Cuomo lamented. “The guy says I didn’t write the letter. The letter is meaningless. You put out the piece anyway. And there’s no light on what really matters.”
For once, Trump found an unlikely ally in Cuomo—who, despite ideological differences, recognized the danger of weaponizing innuendo over substance.
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