CNN's Chris Cuomo lectures Breitbart editor after site's editor-in-chief argues rape is now defined as regrettable sex

CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Tuesday battled Breitbart senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak over his website’s own history of downplaying sexual assault, specifically pointing at comments made Tuesday by editor-in-chief Alex Marlow arguing that rape now means “any sex that the woman ends up regretting that she had.”

“Rape used to have a narrow definition,” Marlow said while discussing sexual assault on college campuses. “Rape used to have a definition where it was—it was brutality, it was forced sexual attack and penetration. Now it's become, really, any sex that the woman ends up regretting that she had. And that leaves us without a lot of clarity, because when words lose their meaning, then they can be manipulated.”

“We see a little bit further muddying of it coming from one of your own, Alex Marlow,” Cuomo told Pollak. “Alex Marlow says, ‘You know, rape, what is it, man? You know, like, we used to know, it used to be clear. Now it seems to be any sex that the woman ends up regretting that she had.’ Do you believe that? Do you believe that you're not really sure when something's rape, Joel?”

“You know, I knew you were going to bring this quote on, it's the Media Matters pull quote, and I guess it's gone around the talking points,” Pollak began.

“Yeah, yeah,” Cuomo shot back. “Answer the question. What do you think about that, Joel?”

Pollak insisted the quote is “out of context,” arguing the website Media Matters distributed it without noting that the Breitbart editor-in-shied was “talking about campus culture and the situation where young men are being accused on campus.”

“So what Alex is talking about is true, there are situations where this happens,” Pollak said. “And there are debates what constitutes consent and what doesn't, you've to include that context and not just read from the Media Matters smear piece.”

“Listen, you can keep saying, ‘Media Matters,’ it's not a dog whistle here,” Cuomo replied. “You can say it as much as you want, I don't care where else you've seen it. We pulled it from him.”

“Who gave you the quote?” Pollak demanded.

“It's from Alex Marlow, he said it,” Cuomo said.

“Chris, you took the quote from a partisan activist organization called Media Matters, and you're not going to be able to deny it because that's where it's from,” Pollak argued.

“But who cares?” Cuomo asked. “He said it. Look, I get what you're doing. There's no need to go into it. He either said it or he didn’t."

Pollak then asked Cuomo if he believes context matters. “You can't come up with a context where it is not dangerous to ignore what's rape and what isn't rape,” Cuomo explained.

“What we're dealing with in our culture right now Joel is we're trying to figure out how you treat women and how you don't treat women,” Cuomo said. “And when you say something like who knows what rape is anymore, and when you say something the guy denies it and that's good enough for me, it sends a message. Are you concerned about that message at all, or do the seats in the Senate just overpower it?”

Pollak eventually explained that he’s “concerned” about allegations of sexual harassment but argued that “when these allegations come up during prime election days, it's actually bad for victims when their claims are handled in this way.”

“We have to care not just when Hollywood's imploding and not just when Charlie Rose is getting fired from CBS,” Pollak said. “It has to be all the time.”

“Then every time it happens you have to respect it, and you have to give it the dignity of hearing them out, and not attacking them and telling a different back story of who they are, and assailing the timing and ignoring the fact they don't want to come forward,” Cuomo said.

Watch below, via CNN: