NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo on Tuesday issued a blistering takedown of Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) as he accused the GOP lawmaker of pulling a “punk-ass move” by bailing on a scheduled live interview just five minutes before airtime.

“Let me make sure this guy didn’t text me with some kind of apology before I bash him,” Cuomo said at the top of the segment. “Nope. Good.”

Cuomo claimed Kennedy canceled after learning the interview would touch on President Donald Trump’s demand for the freedom of his 2020 election-denying supporter Tina Peters, who was jailed over an election security breach.

While Cuomo acknowledged that Kennedy “makes a good case on a lot of things” and has “a real populist feel for himself,” he blasted the senator’s no-show. “They pull him out. He doesn’t even call me himself. He just bails,” Cuomo said. “Mr. Man’s Man. Mr. ‘I’m a straight shooter.’”

It’s “very poor form,” Cuomo continued. “I’ve been in this business a really long time and nobody does that unless they’re a coward.”

Cuomo expressed his frustration with the political climate in which he argued officials are “more afraid of getting caught saying something that will offend the president than any kind of duty, any kind of morality, any kind of philosophy, any kind of principle.”

“They are about nothing but fealty,” he added.

Cuomo challenged Kennedy to respond: “I hope this clip gets out there [...] and I hope Kennedy has the dignity and the integrity to reach out to me to explain this. Tell me how I have it wrong, because you bail on my show because you’re too much of a coward to make a case unless you’re on Fox News getting some laugh track behind you when you’re talking about these talking points.”

As of Wednesday morning, Kennedy had not publicly addressed the cancellation.