Chris Cuomo made an on-air apology to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday night (August 6) after getting into an online argument with the Democratic Congresswoman over a deepfake video.
Earlier in the day, Cuomo fell for a spoof A.I. video, which saw the US representative for New York’s 14th congressional district calling out Sydney Sweeney’s controversial American Eagle jeans commercial on the floor of Congress.
“Sydney Sweeney looks like an Aryan goddess,” the fake Ocasio-Cortez says in the video. “And the American Eagle campaign is blatant Nazi propaganda.” She also uses terms like “sultry little temptress,” “Canadian tuxedo,” and “bouncy little fun bags.”
While most recognized the video as blatantly fake, Cuomo took it seriously, retweeting the clip on his X account and writing, “Nothing about Hamas or people burning jews cars…but Sweeney jeans ad? Deserved time on floor of congress? What happened to this party? Fight for small business…not for small culture wars.”
Ocasio-Cortez responded to the now-deleted post, telling Cuomo, “This is a deepfake dude. Please use your critical thinking skills. At this point you’re just reposting Facebook memes and calling it journalism.”
The spat continued, with the NewsNation host acknowledging his mistake while continuing to prod at Ocasio-Cortez. “You are correct… that was a deepfake (but it really does sound like you). Thank you for correcting,” he said.
“I’m going to assume you were trying to reply to me and burped this tweet into the ether instead. You seem to struggle with knowing how to write an apology. Do you need help? Maybe you should call someone,” Ocasio-Cortez fired back.
Burped? You can do better… you are a new yorker! I am sorry I didn’t listen to the whole clip…obviously wrong. I do struggle…to understand why you won’t tell hamas to surrender…you have ducked it repeatedly … do you apologize for that? Far more worthy of reply – and… https://t.co/umhGGTNO7G
— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) August 7, 2025
The back-and-forth went on until Cuomo eventually apologized on-air later that day on his primetime NewsNation broadcast. “You listening? I was wrong,” he stated. “I was tweeting today and saw a clip of AOC saying that Sydney Sweeney ad was racist. And so I replied to it, and I said, ‘Why do you care about this and ignore what matters most?”
I was wrong…but what is right? pic.twitter.com/HUe24ri4Rt
— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) August 7, 2025
He continued, “Why in all the times that you’ve called on Israel to stop why have you never told Hamas to stop? Told Hamas to surrender? Why would you ignore the St. Louis attack on that Jewish guy who had his car bombed?’”
“AOC tweeted back and said, ‘Dude, that’s a deepfake, that Sydney Sweeney ad. You suck,’ in so many words. And she was right. They got me. AI. It was really good, and it did seem like something she would say, but it wasn’t her,” Cuomo added. “So I thanked AOC for correcting me.”
Social media users blasted Cuomo for believing the video, with one X user writing, “OH MY GAWD. I’m just seeing the video for the first time. It’s unbelievable he could believe that!! It’s so obvious this is satire.”
“There’s no way he thought that video was real omg,” said another.
“Omfg he thought this was real?! I am actually astonished at his stupidity,” another added.
Another wrote, “Chris is now a gullible troll.”