Chris Cuomo ‘insulted’ that Kanye West only agreed to do interview from car: source

NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo was “insulted” that Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, refused to sit down with him in person for the explosive interview earlier this week in which the rapper unleashed a wild, anti-Semitic tirade, a source told The Post.

A person close to the situation said Cuomo, who interviewed Ye on his 8 p.m. show Monday, was particularly miffed that the “Gold Digger” singer had sat down in a studio for Fox News’ Tucker Carlson last week — but would only agree to a video interview with Cuomo from the backseat of a car.

“Cuomo tried to get Ye to do the interview in the studio,” the source said. “Chris was insulted that he sat down with Tucker Carlson and that all he got was a Zoom interview from his car.”

“Chris thought it was at least going to be well-lit,” the source said of the video call. “He wouldn’t have accepted that at CNN.”

Meanwhile, some NewsNation staffers are fuming over Cuomo’s interview with Ye and the fledgling network’s subsequent push to publicize the artist’s anti-Semitic rant on its other primetime shows.

Insiders said the ratings-challenged network told Dan Abrams, who hosts the 9 p.m. show after Cuomo, and Ashleigh Banfield, who anchors the 10 p.m. hour, to dedicate a lengthy segment to unpacking the feisty interview.

According to insiders, employees and guests pushed back over giving more airtime to the volatile artist and Yeezy fashion designer following Monday’s show.

“People didn’t want to appear on the [other two] shows following Chris Cuomo’s interview because they didn’t want to talk about anti-Semitism and to give Kanye more attention,” one source said, confirming that some guests declined to go on the primetime shows.

“Anyone who thought Kanye looked stupid already thought he was,” the source said noting that giving the rapper a platform is “dangerous.”

“Kanye’s fans can take what they want from the interview,” the source added.

“I guess the issue is, do you give people like that a platform?” another source said.

Some employees expressed discomfort over the interview, in which Ye said he was targeted by the “Jewish underground media mafia,” and that the music industry run by Jewish record execs was like “modern-day slavery.”

“It’s disgusting,” said one insider, who pointed to a glowing note from Newsnation’s press team that was circulated internally among staff on Tuesday morning.

The email included clips from what it called a “powerful” interview, as well as excerpts from Cuomo criticizing Ye’s stamenents as “anti-Semitic.”

NewsNation declined to comment.

Despite the pushback and poor production values, sources said Cuomo, who joined NewsNation after getting canned from CNN last year, is still puffed up over his big get.

“Chris thinks he’s the orator of America but his show gets 100,000 people a night,” the source said. “Chris needs to calm down. He’s acting as if he was Oprah interviewing Meghan Markle!”

According to Nielsen, Cuomo’s interview drew 129,000 total viewers on Monday. Oprah Winfrey’s aforementioned interview with Markle and Prince Harry garnered 17 million viewers when it aired last year.

Cuomo has been pushing to get buzzy guests to juice the network’s anemic ratings. Aside from reruns of “Blue Bloods,” which typically bring in around 300,000 viewers per show, Cuomo’s has the second-highest ranked show with between 120,000 and 190,000 viewers on any given night.

But nabbing newsmakers has been tough for Cuomo, who was fired from CNN in the wake of revelations he secretly aided the defense of his embattled older brother, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo had booked right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for an exclusive live interview on Monday after a judge ordered him to pay $965 million to Sandy Hook victims’ families― and the network even publicized the interview. But, Jones failed to appear on Monday’s show.

A reason was not given when The Post reached out for comment.

Other guests have included HBO’s political talk show host Bill Maher, failed mayoral and presidential candidate Andrew Yang and former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.

“NewsNation is going to look for guests that have followers and a big audience already to pump up the ratings,” a source noted.

NewsNation, which was launched by Nexstar Media Group in 2021 with the mission of being a “fact-based, unbiased” news organization, is figuring out its voice and where it fits in the fractured media landscape.

“The big question is what does the network want to be?” added another source.