CNN’s Chris Cuomo had a heated interview with Corey Stewart, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Virginia on Tuesday night.
At one point, Stewart attacked Cuomo’s father, the late former governor of New York, Mario Cuomo.
That moment came after Chris Cuomo called out Stewart’s association with Paul Nehlen, the anti-Semitic Republican hoping to replace Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as well as Stewart’s ties to neo-Confederate Richard Hines.
Stewart replied with the attack on Cuomo’s father.
“By the way, your own father said anti-Semitic things. Did you ever condemn him? That’s true!” Stewart claimed.
“Oh, please,” Cuomo shot back. “My father is dead and buried and was 10 times the man you’ll ever be on your best day!”
Stewart snickered.
It’s not clear what he was referring to. Mario Cuomo, a Democrat, was elected governor of New York three times with widespread support from the state’s Jewish community.
Upon his death in 2015, The Jerusalem Post hailed him as “the rare politician who appealed to the Jewish tent’s opposite poles” while The Jewish Voice, a weekly newspaper in Brooklyn, said he was “remembered as a friend to the Jewish community.”
Stewart, for his part, said he didn’t agree with Nehlen and other extremists and claimed that “this is the guilt by association that the left always plays.”
“Of course it is,” Cuomo shot back. “You’re in front of a Confederate flag accepting the endorsement of a known hater. What are you talking about?”
Stewart didn’t disavow that support.
“I take support from whoever wants to give it to me. That doesn’t mean I support their views,” he told Cuomo. “I do not want to have anything to do with anybody who is racist and bigoted or anti-Semitic.”
Stewart will face off against Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) in November. Kaine had an 11-point lead in a Roanoke College poll conducted in May.
Trump on Wednesday tweeted his support of Stewart.
“Don’t underestimate Corey, a major chance of winning!” he wrote.
