Transcript of the interview:

Chris Cuomo: I have said it before, and I will say it every time, okay? I'm embarrassed that this guy has an Italian-American ethnicity and a name that uh speaks to that ethnicity. I am embarrassed that people think that murder is a way to address a bad system. And you can be absolutely right about what's wrong with healthcare, but you are so wrong about anything that Mangione did that makes anything right.

And I gotta tell you, he is obviously paying attention to his fans because it was so embarrassing for anybody who supports what this guy did. That he said, no, no, no. I didn't know what I was doing. I'm asserting as my defense extreme emotional disturbance. I didn't know. I couldn't form the intent. I was out of my mind. Because it makes you guys look like you're out of your mind if you support what he did. But now he dropped the idea. Why? I turned to my attorney, famed defense counsel Mark Geragos. A little surprising it took one day.

Mark Geragos: I'm actually not surprised. I...And I think you've put your finger on the pulse kind of unintentionally and let me tell you why. 

Chris Cuomo: Can't I have done it intentionally? Can't I have just made a good point? 

Mark Geragos: No. 

Chris Cumo: Go ahead.

Mark Geragos: Look, I gave you kudos when you were talking with O'Reilly the other night, so I don't want to give you back to that.

Chris Cuomo: Yeah, you don't want to overdo it. All right, go ahead.

Mark Geragos: Exactly. I don't want your head to get any bigger. But the fact remains that they have a federal prosecution behind this case. So right now, the sequencing is they go first in state, second in federal. Given that, there's no way that they can stick to the EED because the EED only applies in the state. It doesn't apply to the federal.

You can't walk them into a death penalty by virtue of doing the EED. The only criticism and mind you, these are some of my closest friends in the world there. The only criticism I would have is if you look at the transcript from yesterday, they knew the judge was going to unseal certain things after they redacted it. This was entered. People forget this. This plea, if you will, because that's what I always call it, was entered in September of last year.

The only thing that happened yesterday was the judge said, okay, now I'm going to unseal it. What they should have done in retrospect is just have said, just because people would be running with the other interpretations, they should have said, no, judge, we're withdrawing, so there's no reason to go through that.

Chris Cuomo: Explain the federal piece again about why you can't use this there.

Mark Geragos: They don't have this same, whatever this is, 210 EED component as a defense in federal. So you don't have this mens rea. You don't have the mindset diminishing mitigation. It's something you would use in the penalty phase if you got convicted over in federal. But it's part of the conundrum that they face. They've got both the feds and the state coming at them. They don't have double jeopardy protection.

So the fact that they go first in the state, win or lose, doesn't matter. The feds are coming afterwards. They can't do the EED first, because if they do the EED first, they're going to get hammered in the federal proceeding.

Chris Cumo: Counsel Garagos, thank you for making that understandable, even to me.

Mark Geragos: \[Laughs\] I just have one other thing that I would like to point out.

Chris Cumo: Please.

Mark Geragos: Okay. You talked, you had that whole segment about players going to the White House and people saying keep politics out of sports or the other. You know, you and I both remember less than 10 years ago, I represented Colin Kaepernick. We're the same people who were saying that then, now. So I'm leaving it at that.

Chris Cuomo: I get you. And look, my phone blew up immediately. Thank God. You know, I said, look, I'm not a black athlete. But it hits different What this administration has said. And yes, they did criminal justice reform with Van Jones, and that got them credibility within the minority community. But what's happening with gerrymandering, what happened with Voting Rights Act, what happened with people who spoke up like Kaepernick is also part of the equation here.

You're right to bring it up. Appreciate you.

End of interview.

  
The interview link was posted by [u/WhereIsTheSemicolon](https://www.reddit.com/user/WhereIsTheSemicolon/) and I'm posting the interview in a playable video for everyone who said they couldn't get it to play and the transcript of the interview for those that requested it. The discussion has been going on in [u/WhereIsTheSemicolon](https://www.reddit.com/user/WhereIsTheSemicolon/)'s post [Mark Geragos on why Mangione’s legal team abandoned key defense strategy | CUOMO](https://www.reddit.com/r/LuigiNation/comments/1ud4s2s/mark_geragos_on_why_mangiones_legal_team)

[Mark Geragos on why Mangione’s legal team abandoned key defense strategy | CUOMO](https://www.newsnationnow.com/video/mark-geragos-on-why-mangiones-legal-team-abandoned-key-defense-strategy-cuomo/11897729/) on NewsNation.com

Cuomo interview with Mark Gerados on why Mangione’s legal team abandoned key defense strategy