Anderson Cooper was sharply criticized on Wednesday about an interview he did the afternoon before with Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. She stated that instead of discussing ways people can help victims of the Sunday massacre in Orlando, the Cable News Network anchor spent most of the time challenging her status as “a champion” for gay people.
The host repeatedly charged that in court, Bondi claimed that same-sex marriage could “impose significant public harm” on citizens of the state. The official responded that she was sworn to defend the state constitution, which she did in that case.
According to an article by Josh Feldman on the Mediaite.com website, Bondi kept the focus on the victims and said LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual land Transgender) Americans are “citizens just like anyone else.”
The fact that Cooper diverted the conversation was on the minds of the hosts of the Len Berman and Todd Schnitt in the Morning radio program on Wednesday, Bondi said it was unfortunate that Cooper got confrontational outside a hospital “where people were clinging for their lives.”
Schnitt began the segment by playing a portion of the interview, when Cooper said:
You've basically gone after gay people, said that in court that gay people -- simply by fighting for marriage equality -- were trying to do harm to the people of Florida, to “induce public harm,” I believe was the term you used in court.
Do you really think you're a champion of the gay community?
Bondi replied: “When I was sworn in as attorney general, I put my hand on the Bible and was sworn to uphold the constitution of the state of Florida."
“Anyway,” Schnitt noted, “this goes on for like two minutes,” and he told Bondi: “I want to give you the opportunity to talk about what you're doing to help the victims.”
However, cohost Len Berman interjected with a question because he was “just curious. I know Anderson Cooper a little bit. Todd said earlier on the air that he thought you were really sandbagged. Did you feel that way?”
“You know what?” she asked. “There's a time and place for everything, but yesterday wasn't the time nor the place in front of a hospital when we could have been helping victims."
“Anderson Cooper is the champion for the LGBT community, and he could have been helping people yesterday, so I was disappointed in that, I was extremely disappointed in that,” Bondi added.
All the interview did, she noted, “was encourage anger and hate, and families who were trying to help, to probably not trust my office and the 14 advocates we brought in who are trying to help them get compensation to bury their loved ones.”
“That's what they told us they wanted us to talk about,” she continued, “and we felt like Anderson Cooper had a huge audience to help people yesterday. So we went over there, we went on since the interview was supposed to be about helping victim's families, not creating more anger and havoc and hatred.”
“Yesterday was about unity, about bringing people together, about helping these people,” the attorney general added.
Bondi noted: “Before we went live, I said: 'Anderson, these are all the issues we need to help people with,' and he said: 'OK, that's great.'”
“We started off with maybe a couple minutes, if that, about the scams, the potential scams that people all over the world want to donate, and they just need to make sure these websites are legitimate,” Bondi stated.
As an example, she told the listeners of the radio program: “People have set up more than 120 GoFundMe websites throughout the country, and we just need to be sure that this money is going to go to these victims and their families.”
Bondi had harsh words for people trying to take advantage of the massacre: “You're not going to take advantage of these victims and these victims' families!”
Sometimes people will start a website with the word "Red" spelled "Redd" to try and fool people into giving them money instead of the real Red Cross, Bondi explained.
“Of course, I've been getting horrible hatred emails and texts now based on Anderson's story, so that was just sad because he had a real opportunity to bring our country together yesterday and talk about what's right and what's good instead of a story filled with anger,” the attorney general continued.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Bondi stated that “when Anderson Cooper posted the clip, he cut out the entire first portion that discussed people donating to legitimate organizations.”
“Wait a second!” Schnitt declared. “They cut out the good stuff about helping people, and they just posted him attacking you on LGBT and constitutional Florida issues like gay marriage?”
“Yes, they did,” she replied.
