CNN's Chris Cuomo unexpectedly comes to Sean Hannity's defense — by bashing Joe Scarborough

CNN's Chris Cuomo is not pleased about Fox News' Sean Hannity failing to disclose to viewers that he was a client of President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, but the New Day host went out of his way Thursday to point out that Hannity is not the only TV journalist to have waded into the ethical quagmire.

"How's this different than Morning Joe?" Cuomo asked his colleagues as they discussed the Hannity scandal. "Remember in the days of the glow, when [Joe Scarborough] and Mika [Brzezinski] spoke to Trump all the time, they had him on, discussed what questions to talk about in the break? They were the Trump whisperers." Morning Joe was "applauded for his relevancy" while people now bash Hannity for a similar relationship, Cuomo went on.

Cuomo admitted that Morning Joe, which is on MSNBC, is a direct competitor of New Day, but he explained that was part of why he paid attention to how their hosts interacted with Trump. "I was watching the headlines very closely, because I believed it worked against us here," he said. "Because we didn't have that kind of access — because we weren't mwah mwah mwah mwah with Donald Trump all the time," he added, making kissing sounds.

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Media analyst Brian Stelter pushed back, asking: "Isn't the difference that [Trump] is now president and Hannity is providing a shelter from the storm?" Watch the whole conversation below. Jeva Lange