CNN’s Chris Cuomo has had some banner moments when it comes to outright lying on his show. After all, this is the same guy who staged a “resurrection” scene of him emerging from his basement, healed of the coronavirus. In reality, he had been out several times, including traveling when he was supposed to be under quarantine. CNN has yet to offer any real explanation for how that was presented.

But there’s something different about choosing to stare into the camera to repeat a bald-faced lie while claiming to be an objective “journalist.” That’s exactly what Cuomo did last night, and to be clear, I’m not talking about political spin. That’s to be expected. I’m talking about actually lying about economic numbers that any random intern could have told him were wrong.

Cuomo did a whole segment premised on the idea that our GDP loss was significantly worse than Germany’s because of our terrible Covid-19 response.

Only problem? US Q2 loss- 9.5%
Germany Q2 loss- 10.1% https://t.co/9wzq7MF7Qe

— (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) July 31, 2020

This was a game being played by the media all day yesterday. Over and over, “news” outlets released the GDP data in annualized form with commentary clearly meant to make people think Q2 decline was actually 32.9% instead of the actual 9.5%.

Here’s NBC News also lying.

BREAKING: US GDP falls by a record 32.9% in 2nd quarter, and more than 1.43M people filed for unemployment benefits for the 1st time last week, rising for a 2nd week. https://t.co/uteJlqnHhf

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 30, 2020

Other outlets were more clever, using the 32.9% number in a knowingly misleading manner but claiming that it was the “rate” that GDP fell. Of course, in reality, the annualized number is irrelevant because what happened in Q2 isn’t happening again. Something big happened during that quarter, and if you watched the news you may have heard of it. The media want you to believe that the circumstances of COVID in April, May, and June weren’t unique though. They want you to believe the pain is going to not only continue, but that it will get worse (which is clearly not happening). Most of all, they want you believe it’s all Donald Trump’s fault.

In the end, that’s what this is about. Chris Cuomo went on CNN last night and touted a 32.9% annualized rate against Germany’s 10.1% Q2 rate with a straight face, both because he’s an idiot and because he’s shameless. He knew what he was doing, but he’s just stupid enough to think people wouldn’t notice. Anything goes in the service of bashing the orange man.

In reality, the United States had a smaller GDP drop than Germany despite dealing with far more issues related to COVID (including the dumpster fires that were New York and New Jersey). If Cuomo had an honest bone in his body, he’d have reported that fact. Instead, he lied about it to his dwindling audience in a pathetic effort to own the President.

Will any other “journalists” call him out? Will his network offer a correction? Don’t hold your breath.