Chris Cuomo Feels 'Haunted' by PTSD That Comes With Covering War Crimes (Exclusi
Chris Cuomo Feels 'Haunted' by PTSD That Comes With Covering War Crimes (Exclusi
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00:00 You've had a very long career.
00:01 You've covered many wars.
00:03 You've been in the middle of a lot of conflicts.
00:06 But how does this one compare
00:08 to what you've covered in the past?
00:10 - Israel occupies a unique place on the planet.
00:14 The existential threat is unlike
00:16 any other conflict situation.
00:18 The taking, stealing of mass hostages,
00:22 specifically American ones as well,
00:25 is something we've never handled before.
00:27 In this conflict, this is a very bizarre situation.
00:31 And you add to that what happened to the people
00:35 in this terrorist attack,
00:37 depending on how you want to define it.
00:39 And I've never seen anything like it.
00:42 - Do you ever fear for your life?
00:44 - No, I'm not a hero.
00:46 I'm not a cowboy.
00:49 I'm not a soldier.
00:50 This is no place for people who are seeking glory.
00:54 So you just keep the risk low.
00:56 The stories are basically obvious.
00:58 The realities are usually obvious.
01:00 And you try to make it as not dangerous as possible.
01:03 - So how do you and your team stay safe?
01:06 - Every possible way that you can, okay?
01:09 You try, if you can,
01:10 like if the American military is involved,
01:12 obviously you try to stay close.
01:14 You try to pay attention to where the conflicts are
01:19 and how you get in and how you get out
01:21 and where you stay and what you do within conflict
01:25 and how you regard instructions.
01:27 You try not to ask for trouble.
01:29 You try not to go to places
01:30 where you know it's easier to be taken.
01:33 You try to not make yourself vulnerable.
01:35 A lot of this is just common sense being reasonable
01:39 and depending on the instincts that you develop
01:42 over many years of putting yourself in bad situations
01:46 and knowing what has worked and what hasn't in the past.
01:49 - You are a journalist.
01:50 It is your job to be the eyes and ears for us
01:53 who are not there, but you're also a person.
01:57 You have a heart.
01:58 And we've seen a number of reporters get emotional.
02:02 We just saw a BBC reporter break down at a hospital
02:05 the other day.
02:06 You're a dad, you're a husband, you're a father,
02:09 you know, all of those things.
02:10 So how do you keep it together?
02:12 - It's helpful to divorce your humanity
02:16 from what you're doing.
02:17 I mean, the line's pretty obvious.
02:19 I mean, Nichelle, you've been doing this
02:20 to the high level for a long time.
02:22 It's not about you, but you are the proxy for your audience
02:27 and certain things are overwhelming.
02:30 I don't think it's so much a factor of holding back
02:35 on your humanity as it is reading in your own opinions
02:40 and feelings about things.
02:43 I think that's more a balancing test on the job
02:47 and dealing with emotion, the interconnectedness
02:50 and interdependence of people and the connection
02:53 of their emotions to a story that this is, you know,
02:58 your fill in the blank, brother, sister, mother, father,
03:01 whatever, your child.
03:03 I think that's an asset to your reporting.
03:05 I think a feeling is an asset.
03:07 I think as a human being, there is a tendency
03:11 to close yourself off in relationships and dynamics.
03:15 And I don't know that that is ever a benefit
03:17 to anyone in your life, let alone your audience.
03:19 We talk a lot nowadays about mental health
03:22 and about keeping ourselves, you know, in our best,
03:26 being our best selves.
03:27 And I just remember, I remember when I was covering Katrina
03:30 and how it sat with me so much.
03:33 And I remember just standing in the shower
03:36 after maybe a week and a half of being on the ground
03:39 and just taking a shower for the first time
03:41 and just crying and letting it all out.
03:44 How do you keep going so it doesn't sit with you?
03:47 So that doesn't start to weigh on you?
03:51 Because covering this day in and day out, Chris,
03:53 I know it can be heavy.
03:56 It can be a burden.
03:57 - I don't think, I don't know.
04:05 I mean, look, everybody's different, Michelle.
04:08 No question that I have never been able to wash it off.
04:12 I think that it is haunting.
04:16 I think that it changes you.
04:18 I think that it compromises you.
04:21 I think it makes it harder for you
04:23 in your personal life, in your relationships.
04:26 I think that it has changed my ability
04:30 to process emotion and trauma
04:33 and that things that should be upsetting sometimes aren't.
04:37 And sometimes things that shouldn't be too upsetting are.
04:42 I have been diagnosed with PTS in the past.
04:46 You have to work on it.
04:47 And I think that so much of what we see
04:49 in these situations is inhuman.
04:52 And there's a wickedness and a darkness.
04:55 And I think that it can often be absorbed.
05:00 And hide from that reality doesn't do anybody any service.
05:04 And you're really just not being honest.
05:06 So I don't think I do wash it off.
05:08 I don't think I do get away from it.
05:10 I think it's haunting.
05:12 And the guy who's shooting this right now,
05:15 who's my producer, and I think technically at News Nation,
05:18 my boss, he's got all these titles now.
05:21 Marlee and I have been all over the world together.
05:23 And often as an inside joke,
05:25 when we're around traumatic things,
05:28 we'll look at each other and be,
05:30 look at each other and kind of go like,
05:32 nah, nah, nah, nah, well, I'm glad I'm not there.
05:35 I'm glad I'm not having to see this firsthand.
05:39 And because we both know that it is real.
05:42 And I think that that is part of
05:46 what you gotta give in this job.
05:49 You've gotta give in this job
05:51 in order to connect people to it.
05:53 And there is a price to be paid.
05:56 And often we think in our heads
05:58 that the only price is that somebody's gonna hurt me.
06:00 Somebody's gonna take me, shoot me,
06:02 blow me up, whatever it is.
06:04 It's inhuman stuff that you see.
06:07 And it stays with you.
06:08 And I think that price, I think that's the price.
06:11 - Your family has seen you do so much.
06:14 Do you have a directive to say to them,
06:16 maybe don't watch this?
06:18 Or do you say to them, yeah, you know,
06:20 yeah, I want you guys to be connected
06:22 to what's happening and what I'm doing?
06:24 - You know, Nichelle, you've known me a long time.
06:27 I have put my family through things
06:30 that I never anticipated.
06:33 You know, with what I've been through recently,
06:36 I had no idea how much of a burden my family was carrying,
06:40 my kids were carrying.
06:41 It's the only part of the dynamic that really pains me
06:45 and I wish I could do differently and do over.
06:48 - Yeah.
06:49 - And I'm very aware of that.
06:51 So what I do is, my life, my personal life
06:56 has very little to do with what I do professionally.
06:59 And look, when you go to a war zone,
07:02 everybody's worried about you.
07:04 And I try to reach out,
07:05 and I reach out to them in a very obvious,
07:08 day-to-day, quotidian way, you know?
07:11 I'm talking to them about their stuff,
07:13 what's going on, and reassuring them that we're fine,
07:15 we're fine, we're fine.
07:17 But it's not easy.
07:19 You know, this job can suck, you know?
07:22 It can just suck because you're confronted
07:25 by so many things that you can do so little about.
07:28 - Yeah.
07:29 - And the longer that I do it, you know,
07:32 that reality becomes more and more raw for me
07:36 that I've seen so much, I understand so much,
07:40 but you can see so little, you know?
07:42 It really is just haunting.
07:46 - Have you been able to get any sleep?
07:48 I mean, what is your schedule when you're there?
07:53 - This is no good.
07:54 You don't sleep a lot.
07:55 You know, it's hard.
07:57 Today, we were in Jerusalem,
07:59 and thank God there wasn't a lot of really vicious conflict.
08:02 You know, there was some scourges going on there
08:05 after prayers, but they lit garbage bins on fire,
08:10 like big ones, and it's just a wretched stench
08:15 that gets all over you,
08:17 and willow, like spray, bleach, and stuff.
08:19 And of course, this is nothing compared
08:21 to so much of the suffering that's going on around you,
08:24 right?
08:25 - Yeah.
08:25 - But you're never gonna sleep.
08:27 You're never gonna sleep after watching the Iron Dome
08:31 operate and a Patriot missile take out some projectile,
08:35 and hearing the air raid sirens,
08:37 and remembering this kid telling you
08:40 that her eyes were murdered by what Hamas did to her,
08:43 and, you know, hearing what's the latest in Gaza,
08:46 and how desperate the people are there.
08:47 You're not gonna sleep.
08:48 You're not gonna sleep.
08:49 You're not gonna sleep well.
08:51 And that's the reality.
08:54 - What are we working on tonight?
08:55 What are we gonna see on News Nation tonight with you guys?
08:58 - I am very focused on bringing people
09:00 the story of who's missing,
09:04 and trying to appreciate this sticky space
09:08 in America right now,
09:09 between understanding the suffering
09:12 that is going on in Palestine,
09:15 and how wrong what Hamas did.
09:20 And that you can hold these two thoughts
09:24 in your head at the same time,
09:27 that what's happening in Gaza with Palestinians
09:31 is wrong and horrible,
09:33 and that in no way justified terrorism,
09:38 the likes of which we saw here,
09:39 which I gotta tell you, Nichelle,
09:41 I've been a lot of places.
09:42 I've seen a lot of the worst of humanity.
09:45 I've never seen anything more barbarous
09:48 than what I've been seeing.
09:50 And that's important, and it matters.
09:53 So tonight, I'm gonna talk about what's happening in Gaza.
09:57 We're gonna have people on.
10:00 I'm gonna show you what happened today.
10:02 And fortunately, the skirmishes that broke out today,
10:05 'cause they were big protest call, wasn't that bad.
10:07 What does that do to the timeline?
10:09 What does that do to this balancing
10:12 between trying to get the hostages,
10:14 and them rolling deep and hard into Gaza?
10:17 That's what we'll be talking about tonight on News Nation.
10:19 (upbeat music)
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