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When Life Gives You Don Lemon · Pod Save America

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I am Alex Wagner.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: This week I sat down with journalist and newfound target
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: of the Trump administration, Don Lemon, to talk about the
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: federal charges the Department of Justice brought against him after
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: covering an ICE protest at a Minnesota church.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: We talked about what.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Those attacks on the free press mean for this political moment.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: And how his move from mainstream journalism at a major
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: network to independent journalism on his own platform has changed
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: how he does the news, a move I am also.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: A little bit familiar with.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: As always, the best way to support Crooked Media is
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: by subscribing to Friends of the Pod, our subscription community,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: where you will receive more pods like Dan Pfeiffer's Polar Coaster,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: our growing roster of newsletters like Pod Save America Open Tabs,
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: and ad-free episodes of Pod Save America. You should also
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: check out my podcast, Runaway Country. This week, I spoke
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: to Stephanie Villarreal, whose husband has been detained despite the
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: fact that he is a DACA recipient. And I also
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: got into it with The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last. It
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: is a good, good, good episode. You can subscribe wherever
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: you get your podcasts. Thank you in advance. So let's
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: get into it. Here is Don Lemon.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: I got to say, I am so excited to talk
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: to Don Lemon.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: I just read the name Don Lemon in the headlines
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: and follow the national news about Don Lemon. But here
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: we have the man in the flesh. Well, not quite
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: in the flesh, but in the internet flesh. It's great
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: to see you, man.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It's good to see you as well. Can I say something?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: And unsolicited by Alex Wagner, I think that you're one
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: of the best reporters in the business. And I loved
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: your work on the circus. Um, I just, I just
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: think that when, I don't know if you remember, we
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: did an interview a while back when you were on
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the circus and it was just, I loved sitting down
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: and talking to you guys, but I mean, yes, you know,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and I love your work on MS now and look,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I get you. I see you. I get you because
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: as they say, the networks give it and the networks
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: take it away. You just keep moving, reinventing yourself.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Can't knock the hustle.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Like a real pro and a survivor. So congratulations. Can't
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: knock the hustle.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you, my friend. That means a lot coming from you.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: You know, I mean, we're going to get to all that, actually.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I'm thrilled. I'm excited to talk about.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Our new tomorrows, our new realities, these great adventures we
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: find ourselves in. Yours involving more court time, I would say,
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: than mine.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: But I look forward to the day when I am
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: unjustly charged with something. We're going to get to that
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: in a minute.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: I will say just big picture, Don, like in these,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: you know, in the normal times, the full frontal assault
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: on the press, the authoritarianism that is so clearly on
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: display where our president is, you know, effectively trashing the Constitution.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: He's using the.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Full force of the government against any critics, whether they
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: are in the media or otherwise. He's trying to arrest
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: people who don't agree with him or stand in his way.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: That would be the headline story, and yet it's not.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's so much incoming. I wonder, as you
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: look out on the landscape and you do this awesome
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: reporting out there in the world, what do you think
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: is the biggest story of right now? What to you
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: is the most important thing that's happening in all this swirl?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Well, that is a very good question because I think
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: all of it is– no, it really is good. I
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: think a lot of it's related. I think the First
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Amendment– the freedom of the press and the war go together.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Especially if you look at what's happening over at the Pentagon,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: you look at what's happening with the Department of Defense,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: excuse me, Department of War, where they are restricting reporters,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: making them sign agreements that they can, you know, we
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: don't do that. That's one of the reasons that we're
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: in Iran, right? Is because they have state-run media and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: people don't have freedoms and they shoot protesters and whatever.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: And we're doing similar things here. So I think that altogether,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the war and the assault on the press because they
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: don't want people reporting accuracy and what's really happening with
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the war. You hear Pete Hexeth at almost every update
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: that he gives about the war that he says, and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: this is how you should be reporting it. And then
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: that has seeped into Donald Trump saying the very same thing.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: You never know that if you listen to the fake news, right?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: And so I believe his advisors are only giving him
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the information that makes the war look positive. So when
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: he looks at the news, the press, which is supposed
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: to be free, and he sees somewhat of a more
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: balanced picture of what's actually happening, it doesn't compute with
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: him because he's like, what is going on? This is
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: not what my advisors are telling me. We're doing great.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Look at how much we bond. So I think those
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: are the two things. And I am surprised that it
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: is not one of the leading stories every day, the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: assault on the press. And my arrest, it's way bigger
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: than me because if they're coming for me, this independent person,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: they're coming for you, but they've already neutered the corporate media.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: So I'm surprised that it's not out there. I'm surprised
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: that it's not a bigger headline because it affects everyone.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: The press, whether you're in streaming or whether you're print,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: whether you're a broadcast journalist, whether you're magazines, even publishing.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And so if they can tell you what you can write,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: what you can't write, where you can report, how you
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: can report it, then what's the purpose of the First
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Amendment freedom of the press? Then what is it?
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: It also just challenges the basic idea of shared reality
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: and facts, right? I mean, if you no longer have
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: if you refuse to recognize a truth that's inconvenient, then
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: what does a truth matter ever? I mean, it's just
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: information that's weaponized for personal or partisan gain, and that's
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: not a world. I mean, that makes living in a world,
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: to say nothing of living in a democracy, pretty complicated.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: I wonder if, you know, like you mentioned both the
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: direct targeting of you, which is, I totally agree, bigger
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: than you. It's meant to send a chill down the
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: spine of any journalist. To like the FCC chair coming
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: out and threatening to revoke broadcasting licenses if the coverage
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: of the Iran war is not deemed satisfactory by this administration.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Are you at all surprised by how far Trump is
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: taking it?
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised at how far we have allowed him to
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: take it. Because the folks who are on the Republican side,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the more conservative side, love to talk about Free speech
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: absolutism and this is we're about free speech and you know,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: we can't cancel everybody. We want to say the r-word, right?
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Comedians should be given a wide berth to be able
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to do whatever they want and be funny or whatever
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Then they get upset when a comedian, you know makes
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: fun of someone, you know in there You know that's
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: in their tribe so to speak so I I am
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: surprised Where.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Like where the free speech absolute is now.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: They're not anywhere. I mean, they're hiding.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Because it was never about free speech.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Right? It was. So I'm surprised at how
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: far he has been able to, how far we have
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: allowed him to be able to do it. And look,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: this is the, if you really believe in the Constitution, Alex,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: if you really believe in the Bill of Rights and
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: you really believe in freedom of speech, if you're a
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: mature person, you understand the importance of the press. And
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: whether you agree with them or not, the reason that
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: this country has been able to, we've been able to
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: get as far as we have with this experiment is
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: in large part because of the First Amendment. People write
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: things about me all the time that I don't like.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: But I would fight for their ability and their right
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to be able to say it. Like there was a
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: profile of me that came out in the New York Times,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: overall positive, Everything in there, did I like it? I
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: think there were some things that were out of context.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I got something. Sure. But overall, I was like, okay,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: it's fine. And it's out there. Enjoy it. And I
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: didn't even think twice about it. For me, I was like, oh,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: that's great. I got a big thing in the New
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: York Times or whatever. Do I like something?
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: I thought it was a great piece, actually.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was great. And I don't like
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: it when they're too effusive. Like if they're doing a
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: glowing profile on me, it doesn't really mean anything. I
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: think that they were critical on some things. I was like, great.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: That's good because it makes you think. So Donald Trump
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: is not a mature person. He doesn't believe in the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: First Amendment and in the Constitution because if he did,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: then he would not be so critical of the press
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: and he wouldn't try to make us have state-run media.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: Well, the essential notion of a presidency is you want
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: to be aware of all sides of a debate, even
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: if you don't agree with it. And that notion of
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: a team of rivals extends to every part of the democracy, right?
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Like we're a two-party democracy. We're going to be a
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: push and pull.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: It's never going to be perfect, but it's not about
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: annihilating one side and declaring victory. You've had like just
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: this extraordinary year and it's only March.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: My God. I thought you were going to say it's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: only going to get worse. No. I mean, it could.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: It probably will for all of us, but especially you, Don. No,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I'm kidding.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: I let's talk about what happened in Minnesota in January.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: You went out there. I went out there after you.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: But I remember.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: Thinking like, oh boy, everybody who went out to Minnesota
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: after seeing what happened to you, every journalist I think
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: was way more cautious, way more concerned about where they were,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: how they were doing, not because you had done something
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: necessarily wrong, but because of what the administration did. So
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: let's talk about you were live streaming a protest inside
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: a church. and I, so what were you hoping to
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: cover and sort of how did that all come about?
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Well, as you know, this, this is still going on. So, uh,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: what I will say, they can talk about it.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Yes. So what I will say is that, um, I
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: went there, there's no conspiracy, which is what I'm, there's
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: no conspiring, uh, a protest as a protester, a journalist
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: as a journalist. I didn't like, I didn't even know
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: where they were going to go. I didn't know until,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: you know, we got there and like, Oh, this is
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: where we are. But, um, I went there with the
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: intention to do journalism and that's what I did. And
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: so as Steve Schmidt said about, what's his name? John Miller,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: who now works for CNN and worked for the NYPD
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: for a long time and worked with national law enforcement
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: for a long time and was a journalist. And he said,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: when John Miller went into the cave with Osama bin Laden,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: he did not become a terrorist. He was reporting on
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: someone who was a terrorist. And he also knew that
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: he was going into a cave and they didn't, I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: don't think they had to tell authorities or whatever, but
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying, just because I was in a church
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: with protesters does not make me a protester. And just
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: because you may disagree with questioning people, it doesn't make
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: me less of a journalist that you disagree with my questions.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: That's kind of what the whole thing is about. So
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: that was my intention. And I wasn't even going to
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: go there. I just happened to be going to Chicago
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: to host the Martin Luther King Day breakfast for the
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Reverend Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition. And I was talking
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: to my husband. He goes, you know, maybe you should
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: just take a stop. And I said, yeah, maybe I
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: should go there. I was only there for like six hours, seven,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: not even that long, maybe six, maybe seven hours. It
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: was extended because the flights were late, snowy and all that.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: But that was it. I didn't even know the people
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: who were part of the protest. They had been on
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: my show like a Thursday before, but I didn't know
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: them personally. I had never met them in person. Very
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: little communication with them besides coming on the show.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Even if you did know them.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: And even if people were offended by your questions, that
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: doesn't make you any less of a journalist.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean? I just, in defense of.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: That, like I know plenty of people that I interview
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: and that still makes it journalism. That does not disqualify
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: it from being journalism. And I will note in that
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: live stream, you recognize that there are two sides here.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: And at one point you're like, maybe they could get
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: together and talk and figure this whole thing out. I mean,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: it was like the idea that this was somehow that
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: you were inciting people some sort of offensive or wounding
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: engagement that caused suffering and harm is like, I don't know,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: just as a layperson that watched.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: The journalism that you did, it all seems quite cocked up.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: And I don't know the degree that you can tell
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: me about this, but we can always cut it out
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: and post if you can't. Like the case that's being
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: brought against you is like, I mean, ironic is not
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: the right word to use. I think it's like designed
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: to be offensive. And it is deeply reflective of a
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Department of Justice that likes to use race in a
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: pernicious and damaging way.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: They are charging you with a law.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: From 1871 called the Clu Clux Klan Act. And that
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: historically is a law that's been used to To protect
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: against white supremacist violence. Now it's being used against you,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: a person of color, alleging you were part of a
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: conspiracy to intimidate churchgoers. As one of the country's most
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: prominent black journalists, do you think that this.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Is a sort of deliberate play here?
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Look at the people who were arrested. They're black journalists.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Is it a deliberate play? Yes, of course it is.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, everything is calculated with this administration. And anyone
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: who is writing or prosecuting this, I feel that they
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: should be embarrassed, especially if they are any sort of
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: person of color or a woman, a minority who's used
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: to being, you know, discriminated against. Did I think about that? Absolutely,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I thought about that. That's just the symbolism of it.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And especially considering the history of this country. One of
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: the biggest stains on this country is slavery. And then
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: from slavery, Jim Crow. And everything is not, you know,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: just because something is black doesn't mean the other is white.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Everything is not equal in this country. There were people
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: who are part of a culture or a part of
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: an ethnicity in this country that have not been treated
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: fairly for the, the, for longer than this, the majority
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: of the time that they or we have been in
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: this country. And so, yeah, I think it's designed that way. Yeah,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and it is pernicious, but I also believe that there
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: is a reason that it happened to me is to show,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I believe, the hypocrisy of this and the pernicious nature
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: of it will be illuminated because it's me. And so
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I do believe that
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I'll come out on the right side of this. And
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: when that happens, I think people will, you know, ultimately realize,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: and I think there are going to be a lot
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: of people who are embarrassed. And, you know, so I did,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I thought about that as I was sitting in a
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: holding cell about people just because they don't like what
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: you're saying or reporting or who you are, that they
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: can take your freedom away. That's huge, huge. And I
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: do think that the people who are doing it should
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: suffer some consequences. I think that they, you know, there
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: is a malicious intent in nature of what they're doing.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: It's malevolent. It's malicious. It's evil.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: I would take it one step further.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: And racist. And it's racist.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Let me get that.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: And it is racist.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, I think this is a
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: really- That's the first part.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I should have said it.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: This is a really, it's part of a suite of
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: actions from this administration, assisted by the Supreme Court, to
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: first of all whitewash America's racist history and the legacy
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: of slavery by saying that all of the civil rights
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: protections that we have in place are effectively reverse racism
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: against white people. And to weaponize the legacy of King,
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: to weaponize things like the Ku Klux Klan Act, against
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: people of color and therefore render the idea of disparity
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: and institutional racism sort of moot, right?
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: No one's a racist. Everyone's a racist.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: White people are being discriminated against. And therefore, any protections
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: that exist in our society should be done away with
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: because it's all kind of meaningless. I mean, I think
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: that's the kind of natural endpoint is to effectively turn
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: back the clock and get rid of all the gains
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: made on race and in civil rights in the last,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: I'd say, 100 years. I really think, and using you
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: as a kind of example of like, oh yeah, see,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: we need to protect the country. White church congregants need
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: to be protected from the black menace. Like, don't you talk,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: don't at us about the Klan and like all the
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: black people suffer. Look what's happening to white people with
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: these black people storming their churches.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: I feel like it's a way of making, A, white
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: people feel better about the history they have in the
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: United States of America, but also rendering that history, the
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: real history of America, less potent, less malignant.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: And that's fucked up.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Well, the first thing I'll say is, I'll let you
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: say that. I'll let you say that.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I think it's a very cogent and articulate argument and logical.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I believe, not that I'm correcting you, there's no such, well,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: there is such a thing as reverse racism. Reverse racism
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: would be equality. It's racism. Racism is racism is racism,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: no matter if you're doing it against an Asian person,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: a black person, a white person, or whatever it is.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: So when people say, well, white people are the victims
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: of reverse racism, I'm like, really? What does that actually mean?
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: And if you actually think about it, as you're talking
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: about black people in America, if you say something is reverse,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: that means that there is racism there. for the most part,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: which is sort of what the definition of what racism is,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: is against black people in America. And so I think
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: that they should be keen. You understand what I'm saying?
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: They should be keenly aware of that.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's an acknowledgement.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Inherent in it is discrimination against people of color.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: But it's a trick. It's a trick for power and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: for political expedience. And so what they're doing is tricking
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: people into being aggrieved that, If you are not doing well,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: let's just say that you live in a coal mining
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: community or you live in some community that is suffering,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: rather than realizing that you need to be retrained, you
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: got to do, you know, these things happen. You know,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: department stores used to be a big thing. Now people
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: are buying online. You know what I'm saying? Coal used
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: to be a big thing, and now it's all about technology.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And unless they start making cell phones out of coal,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: then it's going to diminish. And if you're not doing
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: as well as you think you should, and you see
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: minorities and women who are gaining agency in society, they
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: have really good jobs, they have positions of power, somehow,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: as a white person, especially a white man, that person
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: must be taking something away from you. Yeah. And not
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that you are maybe not qualified for the position. Maybe
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you don't have enough get up and go, as they say.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: You're not motivated enough. You're not ambitious enough. And maybe
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: it's just that, again, you're just not as qualified for
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the position as the other person. And so I think
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: that's a trick to make you vote for them. Donald
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Trump is very good, and especially this MAGA, very good
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: at making people feel aggrieved. And that aggrieved, that and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: fear are great motivators. It makes people sit in front
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: of the television all day and watch Fox News and go, yeah,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: that's right. And they're discriminating against white people. And if
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: you ask them, really, if you think that white people
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: are being discriminated against, ask them, would you change positions?
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Would you be a black man in this society? Would
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you be a black gay man in this society? Would
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you be a woman or a black woman in this society?
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Most of them will go, well, I don't know. Because,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, quite frankly, white people and white males, I think,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: have it pretty good. Pretty good in this country.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm getting against to say a lot of white
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: male Trump supporters not that interested in being people of color,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: to say nothing of the power grid, but just culturally.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that doesn't mean that there aren't poor white Americans,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: that white Americans aren't struggling. I'm talking, I'm generalizing overall.
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that's part of it too, is that
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: it's the zero-sum race game. And all of this, I
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: will just say, is explored so brilliantly by my friend
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Heather McGee in her book, The Sum of Us, which
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: is like the idea of if someone else is doing better,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: that means you're doing worse. And in fact, like in
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: the example she uses is during segregation, in lieu of
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: having black kids and white kids swim at the swimming
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: pool together, some communities shut down the pool entirely.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: And that's basically what we're doing to our society.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Rather than saying like we're We're better together. There's some
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: for all. We're like, let's just shut the whole thing
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: down so that we don't have to deal with each other.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: And that is- What just so happens, I leaned out
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: of the screen for a little bit because I wanted
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to pick this up. I did this very similar to
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: what you just said. I wrote about this and during
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: George Floyd in the, remember the summer of unrest? This
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: is the fire, what I say to my friends about
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: racism and what I tell, meaning mostly my white friends
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: about racism. And it debuted at number one in the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: New York Times, and it was really great.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Of course it did.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Because, well, I just think there was a right time
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: for it, but there's also explanations in there about what
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: you just said and how they are able to co-opt
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: people almost in a cult-like way to believing that if
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: those people, things would be better if we just stopped
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: talking about racism, if we just sort of ignored racism. uh,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: about slavery. If these people could just pick themselves up
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: by their bootstraps, have you ever tried to pick yourself
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: up with bootstraps? And especially if you don't have any boots,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: how you do it, get into some real boots and
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: try to, and try to lift yourself up and see
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: if you can do it. But I'm just, you know,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: I know it's a, it's a term, but that's, it's
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: not a real thing. And, you know, so I think
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: we need to like really sit down and talk about
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: and come to an understanding about What this country really is,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: which is, I don't think that we are going to
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: do it as long as there is a Trump administration
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: in place, as long as MAGA and Christian nationalism are
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: front and center in this country.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Religious nationalism.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say white Christian nationalism.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: White Christian nationalism.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: A specific strain of it, right?
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Evangelicals.
• 24:17
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• 27:01
  Speaker 2: It is worth, it is worth talking about.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Like after your arrest, the White House tweeted out, when
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: life gives you lemons, with a chain emoji. Like the
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: White House cheering on the arrest of a journalist, a
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: black journalist with slavery chains. I mean, did you, first
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: of all, ever, you know, you've been in the crosshairs
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: of this administration before, right? Like, you know what it's
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: like to be a journalist at CNN, to have a
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: big platform, but did you, what did that.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Moment mean to you when that tweet went out?
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: If you, If you really want to, I'm not surprised.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: And look, I'm a big boy. And I just kind
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: of shook my head, Alex. But I only think that
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: that made them look bad. I think that I do believe,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I thought that they, that was sort of a test
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: to see how that went over. And I don't think
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: it played well in the public. And I think that they,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: after that, they quickly realized it. And they, you know,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: they had, they tried to squash it. They didn't go
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: as far as they could have with it. Um, and
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I do think that they underestimated where the public sentiment
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: would be in this particular thing, even conservatives saying, okay, guys,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: this is way too far because what happens if they're
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: a democratic administration and they start doing this to us,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: then we're in trouble. So, you know, I looked at
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: it and I was like, okay, whatever. I'm not surprised. Um,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Is it disgusting and racist and inhumane and bigoted and
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: all of the things? Absolutely. But I don't sit there
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: and dwell on it because I have great legal counsel.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: And all of the things that they have done will
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: pay off in court.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Can I talk about that?
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: And that's where I intend to fight this. Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Because I know that you're... lawyers, and again, if you
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: can't talk about this, just let me know, but your
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: lawyers want to see the facts that the government presented
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: to the grand jury in order to get the indictment.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Because they're saying, we don't really trust whatever facts the
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: government gave to the grand jury.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: They have a history of, what is it? Your lawyers
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: are pointing to what they call a small.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: But growing body of case law involving the government engaging
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: in highly unusual conduct. simultaneous to political pressure to bring
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: charges and misstatements of the law at the highest levels
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: of government. I mean, they see this persecution effectively. And
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: they want to see what the government case is for
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: all of this because they look at what's happening to you.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: I know James.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Comey is another person cited as an example of this government,
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: this highly unusual government contact.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Letitia James.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Tish James.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: I mean- Can you talk more about that or how
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: optimistic you are that you're going to get more insight
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: into the justification the federal government is using to charge
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: you criminally?
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know what's going to happen in that ruling.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And this is all public knowledge. This has all been
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: in the public legally, so I can't talk about it.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: So that's what my attorneys filed, and they believe that
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: that will be illuminating. And obviously, if they file that,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: they believe that there is something in there that may
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: show the abnormalities.
• 30:29
  Speaker 6: Is that right?
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Abnormalities. Abnormalities, or the anomalies or whatever in their prosecution
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: of me. This went to three, it went to a
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: magistrate judge, and you usually have to the magistrate judge
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: is just like, okay, well, that's it. That wouldn't do it.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Then they went to someone else. And I think that
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: either three, and then they went to someone else. I
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: think it was like three different tries or two or
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: three different tries. And everyone said, no, we're not doing this.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: And then- they took it to a grand jury and
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: you know, and they say, you can indict a ham
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: sandwich with a grand jury or whatever.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: You're talking about the government running up various flagpoles.
• 31:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Various flagpoles until they found something. And I wasn't surprised.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I knew that they would try to do it because
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: they just couldn't be embarrassed. So right now I feel
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that they're just prolonging their embarrassment. So, you know, we'll
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: see how the judge rules. And if there's something in there,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: then I think that's going to be problematic, really, for
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: the government. And if there's nothing in there, if the
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: judge or if it is deemed that there's nothing in
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: there that wasn't abnormal, then so be it. But still,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I still think that at the end of the day,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: it's going to be, I'm going to end up on top.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I'm going to end up the winner in this.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: I think maybe you already have, Don.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: In a way. I've heard that. Why do you say that?
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: I just feel like, first of all, I mean, I
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: know it's been difficult, and I want to kind of
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: talk a little bit about the arrest part. But it
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: is brought to the fore in such a concrete way,
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: the way this administration is going after people, the inherent racism.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Of its maneuvering.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: It's given you an extraordinary plow. People are really paying
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: attention to what's happened to you, what's happening to you.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: And I'm not just saying that from like a business level,
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: but I just mean, you know, your voice is essential
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: right now. Your struggle is, I'm not going to say universal,
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: but it's much bigger than you.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, and it really.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Crystallizes the essence of this administration, which is all of
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: its fascistic impulses. It's the authoritarianism that is, you know,
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: the order of the day. I mean, in that way,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: it has been a victory for people who've had a
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: hard time really pinpointing the malignant nature of what's happening
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: right now. Although, of course, you're still facing trial. So
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: let's talk a little bit about what's happened to you.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: First of all, were you freaked out by the fact that,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: you know, you're an independent journalist and there is some
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: safety like being part as someone who used to work
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: at MSNBC, now MSNOW.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: There is some safety.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: There's a whole bunch of lawyers that work for these
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: big corporations.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: It's huge safety. They just say, the lawyers will take
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: care of this. And you just go, OK. You show
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: up for whatever it is.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: And you didn't have that, right? You do have incredible representation.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: But were you scared initially?
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: About before or after? Before.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Just like as it's happening, you're like, oh, they're going
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: to– I mean like this– they charge you while you're
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: in Beverly Hills, I think, right? And like– well, maybe
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: you knew this was coming because Trump was telegraphing all
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: of it. But like when it first happens, are you like, oh, God,
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: like I got to.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: I'm on my own here.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: No.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Alex, I am– As Dr. King says, I'm not fearing
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: any man. I don't fear that kind of thing. I
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: am lucky and fortunate enough to have some agency and
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the ability to be able to fight this. And there
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: are people who cannot. There are people who cannot pick
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: up the phone and call Abby Lowell and say, will
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: you represent me? And so for those people, that's where
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: out of this process, I've learned more and become appreciative
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: of the folks who are able to do this like myself.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: And there's a greater understanding of what people, some people
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: cannot do this because I know it's a very expensive process.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It's a very taxing process. And so people are all
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the time, even by this government, maybe they don't have
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: the resources to be able to do it, but I'm
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: very fortunate somewhat. It's really, I mean, that doesn't mean
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: that I can afford to go the distance with the government,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: but we'll see. Was I angry? Was I scared? No,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I wasn't afraid. The only time I was a little
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: bit startled when they grabbed me in the elevator because
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I thought I was being mugged.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: This is when they first are charging you.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when they finally did. Now, before that, they were
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: saying that they were going to do it. Yeah. And
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I'll give you something that nobody else knows, is that
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: before that, there were people who were parked outside of
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: our home in New York City. and would follow us
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: when we got into the car. And I have never
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: said that to anyone. And I don't know who they were,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: but usually people don't follow me. A group of cars
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: don't follow me when I'm going to eat dinner with
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: my friends or when I call an Uber or whatever.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: And so that was a little bit unnerving. And like
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the nerve, like the nerve, even if you have not
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: gotten permission from a judge or a court, to be
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: able to detain me, then you shouldn't be able to
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: follow me. You know what I'm saying? You should not
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: be able to follow me around. So that was a little,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: you know, innocent until proven guilty. And then once that happens, okay,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: let's do it. So there was frustration in that. And
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: when I said it was a little startling, but there
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: was some frustration in that this was all so unnecessary.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Because the reason I wasn't afraid is because I had
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: people who were in the business and they're saying, They
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: said to me, we're hearing your name a lot. They're
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: speaking from folks who are in power. So maybe it's
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: time for you to get a war room and maybe
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: you should reach out for some representation. And I did that.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: So I felt like, okay, if this does happen, then
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: I'll be taken care of to the extent that I
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: can be taken care of. But it was also unnecessary.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: It was a waste of resources, a waste of tax dollars,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: because the first thing my attorney did was send them
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: a letter saying, if you are serious about this, Then
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: let us know. Let's get this process started. He will
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: self-report and turn himself in. Nothing. Instead, whatever, 20, 25,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: whatever people show up. And it's like, why? If you
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: had just called me and said, I would say, okay,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I'm jumping in a taxi. Give me the address. I'm
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: going to come down. But it's a waste of tax dollars.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: They did it because they want you to be afraid
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: and because they want to embarrass you. I was neither
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: embarrassed nor was I afraid. And on the other side,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I realized once I come out of this, I have
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a story to tell and I have a platform, whether
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: people are on my side or not, whether I have
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: public support or not, I'm going to fight this to
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: the end and I'm going to do it in the
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: courtroom and I'm going to stand up to you and
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be afraid and I'm not going
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: to stop doing what I do because I'm a citizen
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: of this country. And I have a First Amendment right,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: not only for freedom of speech, but for freedom of
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the press. And if there's anyone who is deserving of
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: all the rights and privileges that go along with this, right?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: If there's anyone, there's someone whose ancestors came here involuntarily.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: And who has faced discrimination and racism and whose ancestors
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: came over in chains. And so I believe it's me.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I believe it's people like me. And for those people,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm standing up. They're not going to silence me.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be afraid, no matter the outcome
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: of this. No matter. I'm still going to be here,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: still doing my thing.
• 38:46
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• 39:52
  Speaker 3: It was never in question whether Don Lemon was a
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: shrinking violet, right?
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Like that's never been your brand, right?
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: But I kind of wonder, you know, you and I
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: have both made the move from establishment media to independent media, right?
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Me from MS Now, you from CNN.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: We won't go into the circumstances of those departures.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: You're still there, though. You still have a big voice.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: Yes, I go and hang out with my buds on
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: set sometimes. But, you know, I'm not working. That's not
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: my home anymore. And CNN isn't your home. And you
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: have built a new home for yourself. And an extraordinary
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: one at that. I wonder, you know, how that transition
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: has changed your approach to journalism. And like the way,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: first of all, let's just say right up front, it
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: is a hustle, right?
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Like it is full on. We're both working real hard.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: You're working harder than I am.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: But, like, do you think that, you know, being out there, being,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: you know, who you are in this new media landscape
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: changed you and made you more tenacious, especially in moments like,
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: you know, when the Trump administration is coming after you?
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Now, I always felt, you know, I've always
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: been tenacious.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: But I also think– and I don't want to– I
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: don't want people to think that I'm criticizing. I'm not.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: But I think there needs to be more people like me.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: And even if you are afraid, you need to fight
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: through that fear and stand up for the press, stand
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: up as a journalist. I believe that the folks who
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: are in the White House press corps need to stand
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: up more. They need to do what Richard Engel did
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: with Benjamin Netanyahu the other day when they killed his mic,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: when they muted his mic. They need to continue to
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: ask the question even as Caroline Leavitt is calling on
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: another reporter. Wait a minute. This is serious, right? They
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: need to continue to ask the question when Donald Trump
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: is being rude. And when Donald Trump calls someone a piggy,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: everyone in that press corps on the plane should say something. Yeah.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: And not ask the next question. They would say, my
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: colleague who you call a piggy, which is the president
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: of the United States, I'm surprised, sir, that this actually
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: came out of your mouth. My question is her question.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: So I believe that people should be more tenacious. I
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: believe that journalists, and I've always believed this, maybe I'm naive,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: they're like doctors and lawyers, do no harm. And the
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: way to do no harm to the public is to
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: fight to have them educated, to be informed, and to
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: stand up to power. And that's what we're supposed to do.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: So I think every journalist in this time should be
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: doing that. And even the journalists who are in corporate media.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: And I know you're worried about, you know, you got
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: to pay for your kids' private school. You got to
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: do all these things. I get it. But I think
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: if more people stood up to the corporation, to the conglomerates,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: to the powers that be, to the gatekeepers... I think
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: we would be in a better place right now. And
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: especially the people, even more so than the journalists who
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: are sitting at the desks or out in the field,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: who are in war zones, even more so the people
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: who are assigning them to these positions, who are putting
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: them on the anchor desks, who are deciding who gets
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: to be on what program, they should be standing up
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: to the powers that be as well, because that's what journalism,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: we're supposed to do without fear of favor. We're supposed
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: to do it, we're supposed to hold power to account. Otherwise,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Then you get a dictatorship and authoritarianism. So I've been
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: surprised by, and especially my exit from CNN, I was
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: surprised by how many people lacked the courage to be
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: able to say the right things and do the right
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: thing and how many people just wanted to survive. And
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: if you're a journalist, you can't just want to survive.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: You have to want to protect the Constitution and you
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: work for the American people, not for the government and
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: actually really not for the company. You work for the
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: American people.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: I feel like it's like your essence is in full flower.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Like you are destined for this.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Like you're out there. You're like, you're out there. I mean,
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: you're out there.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Do you think I'm nuts though? Because I'm naive.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: It's what the moment demands.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, but the other thing, the thing that I
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: think people, you know, if you, If you are a lemonhead,
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: you know this. But like one of the things that
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: really does set you apart is you're out there talking
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: to people on the streets.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: You're like moving around.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all the time. After this, I'm going.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: Which is why do you– first of all, as someone
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: who loves field reporting, I think it's like the essence
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: of journalism and we've completely lost it in mainstream institutional media.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Why did you decide to do that? Why was that
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: important to you?
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Because I noticed that there was a disconnect between what
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: I was hearing– you know, on sort of the mainstream,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I hate that term mainstream media, but that, that's what
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: it is between what I was hearing. And I also
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: know when I, when I did what, the reason that
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: I became an independent journalist is because I, you know,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: I could have done something else or not done anything
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: at all. But the reason I took the path that
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I'm taking is because I wanted to be closer to
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: the ground. I wanted to be out there with people. Um,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: and During the 2024 election, when I started just going
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: out doing man on the street interviews, which, you know,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I think are really important because most interviews are man
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: on the street. If you go to breaking news and
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you're talking to people that were there for the breaking news,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: that's man on the street, right? And that's actual, that's journalism.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: And when I started talking to people, I, during the
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: 2024 election, I started hearing a lot of Trump. I
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: like Trump and from demographics that I didn't expect to
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: hear it from. And it was eyeopening. Um, and illuminating
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: to the response that I got. Well, to hear it,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: considering sometimes what you hear on the news, and then
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: the response that I was getting from different news organizations,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: like some of the liberal folks and people who are liberals,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: why are you doing this? Are you curating these things?
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no, this is just, I'm doing it. And
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: then on the right, come on our show. Oh, or oh,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: this wasn't the answer that Don Lemon wanted. This guy
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: owned him. And I'm like, no, that was the exact
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: answer that I wanted, whatever their answer is. That's the
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: answer that I want. And guess what? If I was
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: embarrassed by it, dumbass, I wouldn't put it on the internet.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't put it out on my channel or on
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: my social media if I was embarrassed by it. And
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: if I had any sort of fear or was embarrassed
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: by what people are going to say to me, people
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: who may not like me. I know that there are
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: people out there who don't like me. I get it
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: every once in a while. Most of the people, you know,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: I like you or whatever. And there's some people like, eh.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: But so I actually go out and I do, you know,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: an IRL in real life live. I do man on
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: the street live and not everybody is in love with me.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: And I put that out there too, because.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: That's real.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: That is real. And that's what being transparent is about.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: And so really it's not about me personally and I'm
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: not embarrassed by it. Okay, fine. So, you know, that's
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: why I did it. That's why, and I think that maybe,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: I guess that's why I'm successful. If you see me
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: that way, I'm too close to it. I don't know
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: what's success and what isn't in this whole streaming thing.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Well, what I've noticed is, first of all, in the
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: new media landscape, when you break out on your own,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: so much of it is actually about your personal resonance
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: with the audience. And there is a much more intimate
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: relationship between your audience, people watch you, in new media
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: than there is, I think, in broadcast.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Would you agree with that? Or I don't know. I mean,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: do you feel like it's the same?
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Do I think more people watch me in new media?
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: Well, do they, do you feel, I feel like they
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: have a more, it's a closer relationship.
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, like, I bet, I'm sure Lemonheads as a
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: concept existed while you were at CNN, but now it's
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: like a bonafide, like, subscription tier, people wear the sweatshirts, like,
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: it's a thing.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: And that seems to be, to me at least, unique in, like,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: new media, that they want that connection.
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: They want that sort of tribal kinship with the people
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: that they follow on YouTube or Substack or whatever.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: More than anything, I think, is that they want authenticity. Yeah.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: And they want people they trust. And if I just
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: happen to be a familiar face and someone who had
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: been out there and in their living rooms long enough
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: for them to know me, And I gained trust from
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: that whole CNN experience. But also I think that that
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: came from me as well, as you're saying, being tenacious
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: and then just being myself in front of the camera,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: the same person that I am in my everyday life.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: And I think that that resonated with people, didn't necessarily
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: resonate with management all the time, but if they were smart,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: they would lean into it. And even some of the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: things that were like, oh my God, I can't believe
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: you said that. They should, I believe that, Journalism organizations
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: should lean in and have a conversation about them and say,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: but this is what you do. But they're afraid. Oh
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: my God, we can't do this. What are the advertisers?
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: The audience. So I think that it's authenticity is what
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: people want. and they want people they trust. And they
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: also want to feel connected. When I first started doing this,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: it was a different thing that I was going to do.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: And then I realized it's like, you know, what I'm
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: doing is very similar to kind of what I was
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: doing at CNN. No interaction with my audience. It feels canned.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: And I'm just going to sit in my living room
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: and do a show every day called Live at Five,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: where I just talk to the people and do the
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: stories they want and sort of give my point of view.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: And it worked because that's what people want. And so now,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: as you were saying, it's a thing because people feel
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: that they know me and they can trust me and
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: that they are actually a part of something. So what
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: I did was build a community rather than a channel
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: or a program. And I think people were looking and
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: are looking for community in this moment, but they're also
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: looking for people who are flawed, for people who are outspoken,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: for people who are not perfect, for people who are
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: tenacious enough to stand up to authority, even if it's
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: from the highest office in the land, or stand up
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: to someone on the street, or be vulnerable enough to
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: let someone criticize them live or taped. And so it's,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: for me, it's just, that's what it's about. And it's
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: not really about me because if it was about me,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't invite people into my life and I wouldn't
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: invite the criticism that I get just for being so transparent.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: Well, you may not think it's about you, but people
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: who watch you want it to be about you. I mean,
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: I think they want Dawn. They want to be Lemonheads.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I think they want those things, but then I'm the
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: one who's giving them those things. So yes, yes. But
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's just about me. But maybe, I
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: I don't think your ambition is just to make it
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: about you. But I think that because it's you, people
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: are attracted to it.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: They want it.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: Even the people that are paying to insult you online
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: are paying to.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Insult you online.
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: Because I know you made note of this, and I
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: think it was a Times piece.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: If you're making a nasty comment, you're paying to make
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: that nasty comment, so bring it on.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's me paraphrasing you.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: I know you addressed this on your show on Wednesday,
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: but I do want to ask because we're talking about
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: the sort of what broadcast is trying to mimic. And
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: there's been a lot of reporting on this, how they're
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: trying to capture some of the authenticity and roughness of
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: like the sort of podcast universe. And CNN is trying
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: to emulate the style of a podcast using Jake Tapper.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: And I know Fox News has a sort of similar
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: model with Will Kane.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: What do you think? When you saw that, what did
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: you think of it?
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Well, I talked about it. I have to say, I
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: just have to be real. I can't be fake about it.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: I know. That's why they're lemon heads.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: But the initial thing that I said, I thought it
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: was a compliment to my colleagues who I think are
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: the best in the business, the best journalists in the world.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: And so I was saying that they don't need tricks.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: People trust Jake Tapper because it's Jake Tapper and he's credible.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: People trust Anderson Cooper because he's Anderson Cooper and he's
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: an iconic journalist. And he's built his name and his
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: brand on being out there in war zones and dodging
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: bullets and moderating debates and holding people accountable 60 minutes. Like,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: that is.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: You know, that's some high level shit. And so I,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: you know, they can do what they want to do,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: but I don't think that they should be trying to
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: make their anchors into podcasters because their anchors are anchors
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: and they're in this elevated, vaunted position because of that.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: And I think they need to own that and should
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: not diminish the, not only the anchors, but those three
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: red letters that mean so much to people around the world.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: And so it's not a, I'm not, disparaging them. I'm
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: saying maybe this ain't it.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: I'm going to just take it one step further.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: They shouldn't be trying to be me. If they want podcasters, Alex...
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: hire some podcasters.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: Well, MS now is putting Runaway Country and Pod Save
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: America and Crooked Media on MSNBC, which is another way
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: to sort of retrofit it. But if you're talking about authenticity,
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: you can't retrofit authenticity. It has to naturally spring forth
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: from both the person and the place. Like you naturally
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: authentically have come to the position that you're at and
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: you speak the way that you do and you are
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: who you are, not because someone was like, Don, let's
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: try it in your living room. And why don't you
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: wear these glasses with this picture in the background? You
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: just are doing you. And that's what that's what works.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: And I mean, you know, the other piece of it
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: is the tech part, which is it's going to be
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: really hard to convince a 25 year old.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: To get a cable subscription.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: There's just a fundamental fucking reality about who's consuming podcasts
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: and what they'll pay for and what they won't and
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: what they culturally and socially normally gravitate towards and linear
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: cable and broadcast in general. I'm not saying this is
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: a good thing for the news industry because I do
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: think there's some utility to having newsrooms and authentic anchors
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: with lots of experience, but the trend lines are not
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: in that direction.
• 54:50
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• 56:28
  Speaker 3: You know, I must ask you because CNN is on
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: the verge of being run by the Ellisons. And we
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: see what's happening at CBS. We see Barry Weiss mismanagement
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: of CBS, a place I used to work. It has
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: had the worst ratings they've had this century, Dawn. Barry
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: Weiss is shepherding the worst ratings in CBS's history this century.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: I'm not surprised.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: Do you hear from people inside CNN? Are you worried
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: for CNN? You talk about those three red letters that
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: mean so much to the world over. Yeah. And I mean.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Look, I loved CNN. I think CNN is obviously those
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: three red letters. They do mean a lot, right? That
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: there's credibility there. And again... I didn't like my exit.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: I thought they treated me poorly on the way out.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: But I'm rooting for them. And I'm rooting for them
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: not because of the management, because it was ultimately them,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: but because of my colleagues who are there, who are
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: working their asses off, who are great journalists. And I
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: don't believe that the people in positions of power and
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: the gatekeepers are doing them any justice. And so that's
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: sort of where my heart is. But I'm not surprised
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: that CBS has its worst ratings. And I will tell
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: you why. Because in this time that we're living in
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: that is so unusual, when you have such aberrant behavior
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: by the highest people who are in the highest positions
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: in the world and the highest office of the land,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: and where you see that there's no truth to what
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: they're doing, where they turn an insurrection into a walk
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: in the park, where they exonerate and pardon the people
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: who broke into the United States Capitol and smeared VCs
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: on the wall and peed on the wall and beat
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: up police officers when they are, I can go on
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: with a whole litany of things. And so when you
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: try to, look, if you want to try to move
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: a network to the right, when they say, look, they
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: want to move the network to the center. First of all,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: where's the center? I don't know.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Tell me if you find it.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: When you find the center, let me know. I just
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: believe that there's truth to it. And sometimes the truth
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: may be on the liberal side and sometimes the truth
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: may be on the conservative side. But in this particular
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: time that we're in, if you say I'm going to
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: move the network to the right, people think you're going
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: to move it to MAGA and it's going to be
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: about disinformation and lying and racism and misogyny because that's
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: what this is about. This is the wrong time to
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: try to do that, first of all. And secondly, you
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: don't try to move or change a network ideologically, a
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: news network ideologically, because that's not what journalism is. Look,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: CNN tried it. They lost their core audience. There was
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: no payoff for them, for the core audience. And kind
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: of what they're doing now, there's no payoff for it,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: except if people are wondering like, what the hell is
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: going on? This is just like a sort of another
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: whiplash moment for the people who are watching CNN. So
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: I believe if CNN goes down the same road that
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: CBS does, then they're gonna need a miracle to get
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: out of it. So I'm not surprised that they had
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: their lower ratings because people want the truth right now.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: They want people to stand up to authority. They don't
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: want false equivalence. They don't want people coming on just
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: to lie. They don't want people who are being just
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: booked on shows just to fight. There's nothing productive about it.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: People want the truth. Some things are objectively bad. And
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: much of what the MAGA administration, Donald Trump administration is
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: doing is objectively bad for not only people, but for
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: the country and for democracy. And people want that reflected,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: the real world reflected on the news when they turn
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: the news on, whether it be on broadcast cable or
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: even in streaming.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: I got to just on that last point. No, you're not.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: Because I have to ask you this. Candace Owens is always,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: I think, in the top 10.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: She's always ranked in the top five on Apple News podcasts.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: Does that worry you? I mean, because I'm with you
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: on people want authenticity. But I think people have been
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: lulled by a lot of these MAGA personalities that they're
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: the truth tellers, that they're the ones that actually have
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: the readout on what's up, what's real.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: But I think you're making my point because you're never
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: going to, I'm not talking about the MAGA folks. That's
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: a cult. Those people have, the people on the right
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: have cult-like fans and viewers because it's just the nature of, conservatives.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe they felt like their voices weren't heard for so
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: long and they actually got into these streaming places. They
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: were pioneers. So that's one reason they're doing so well.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: But the people who listen to Candace Owens, they're not
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: going to, I'm sorry, they're not going to watch the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: CBS Evening News. They're not going to watch CNN. They're
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: going to watch Megyn Kelly. They're going to watch Candace Owens.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: They're going to watch Tucker Carlson. They're going to watch
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: people who are preaching their gospel at every single turn.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: And if you want to be a news organization, if
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: you want to deal with facts, and as you said,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: shared reality, right? We talked about that. Then you're not
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: going to watch those, and not because they're bad. It's
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: just because they're truthful and balanced if you do it right.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: But if you try to move it to the right,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: they're not even going to watch that because they don't
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: trust that. And that's actually not where the news is
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: going right now. They're going to watch Fox News. And
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: they're going to watch, as I said, all the other
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: people and the Nick Fuenteses of the world and all
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: of that. That's what they're going to do.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: I'm just, it worries me, though, that they are seen as,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, you're saying, forget it. They're part of a cult.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: Unless you're going to, like, what is it when you
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: get someone out of a cult?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: De-escalate?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: No, what's it called?
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: De-program.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: De-program.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: They need to be de-programmed.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't look at those people as journalism or journalists.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: I look at them as influencers and streamers. I'm talking
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: about the people who do what I do, what Pod
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: Save does, what The Bulwark does, what... Sam Sater does.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: People who are bringing information and have a shared sense
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: of reality, but then they have some swag, right? Then
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: they lean into it. The editorial has teeth. You know
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: where they're coming from.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: About a Barack Obama and a Michelle Obama tweet from
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: the president where he depicted them as apes. And then
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: you're going to have someone come on and go, that's
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: not racist. And then you're just like, of course it's
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: fucking racist. Why, why are you doing this? It's racist.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, I'm not talking about those folks.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about a place where that us who are
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: doing this now are, and have success in it, that
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: we're coming from a more factual, informative, truthful place. place
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: where we don't try to say, well, this is the
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: middle and that's right and that's left. Sometimes my subscribers
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: don't want to hear what I'm saying, but I tell them, look,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: I know you probably don't want to hear this, but
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: here's the truth. And then at the end of the day,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: they'll say, thank you for informing us. I may not
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: like it, but thank you for informing us.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: So that's that.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, then that is an important distinction.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, look at the success. Look at Pod Save's success.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: Look at Brian Tyler Cohen's success. Yeah. Look at, you know,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: and these people, I don't believe that they are, they
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: may be some of them left-leaning, and that's okay, they're
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: transparent about it, but at least there's facts and a
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: shared sense of reality, and they're not saying, well, the
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: first lady of France is a man. Nobody's saying that
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: on the left, or outrageous shit like that. You know
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying?
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: So, yeah. It's not propaganda.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: And I think that there's an established sort of baseline
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: of truth and the pursuit of, you know, reality. I
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: will ask you, my friend, before we let you go,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: two things.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: Hopefully you like answering both of these questions.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: You are, I.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: Mean, I just, it is, like, it's not a coincidence
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: that I'm talking to you the week this massive profile
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: comes out about you in the New York Times. Like,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: there's national interest in what you're doing, the fight you're
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: fighting against.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: The Trump administration.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: You've always been in the public eye, but this feels
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: like a different level, right?
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: Like you're in, as they.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Say- This is why you're a great reporter. I know
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: where you're going, but yeah.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: You're in your power. Dare I say you're in your prime.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: And I wonder.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: I'm.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: Giving you a chance.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: Like, has, has this, what you're doing now at, at,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: you know, at a, I'm not, I'm not trying to
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: air out anybody's age here, but like, this is not
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: the normal, like sort of metabolism, the normal career arc
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: that we see, right. After you've been in the game
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: for some decades, like, has it changed your idea of
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: what it means to be in one's prime and when
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: that happens?
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: No, because I think that that whole thing about not
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: being your prime, that was misconstrued. And the one thing
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: that I, that, if there was one thing that I could, um,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: that bothers me the most of anything is that whole thing.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: When I said, if you go back and look at it,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: I said, I'm not saying that I believe that the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: whole point of it was that that is how society
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: treats women. And someone who has been treated or discriminated
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: against should know better. If you have been, uh, especially
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: with the way the Republican Party has treated her. They're like,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: we don't want her, right? We don't want Nikki Haley
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: to be president or whatever.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: Oh, I think Democrats, plenty of people like have a
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: hard time with women over 40. Yes, but so, but
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: it wasn't really- Women have a hard time with women
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: over 40.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: Exactly, but that was, that's how society treats women and
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: you should know better. So you shouldn't be an ageist
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: when someone has been sexist or misogynistic towards you. You
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: should have more knowledge than that. And I think people understood,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: some people understood when she was like, you know, what
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: was the Civil War about? It wasn't about um, you know, slave,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: she said, wasn't, wasn't, she didn't say it was about
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: slavery and then other things about, so when that came out,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: some of our ideas were just not, you know, for
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: the prime age, but that wasn't necessarily about that. I
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: thought that about women. I don't, I think the exact opposite.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: I think women are, uh, the, uh, smartest and strongest
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: of the sexes. And every show that I had at
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: CNN was run by a woman. And our motto was,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: if you want something done, hire a woman. We hired all,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: mostly women. I had, finally at the end, I had one,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: my personal producer was a man, but every single pretty
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: much person on the show, my lead writer, woman. And
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: I grew up in a family of all women. So
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: that is, that's the one thing that bothered me is
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: that people took that out of context. I could have
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: been a better communicator about it since that's what I
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: do for a living. That's living. But that's not what
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: I meant. And I told them that. I think they
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: understood it. And you know how that works, right? So
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: what I will say is that, do I think that
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: I'm in my prime? Absolutely. Of course. I'm not delusional.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: I can't run 10 miles and not die anymore. But Um,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I need more sleep. I have to think
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: about people's names. Like, wait a minute. What's, what's that? Oh,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: that guy. And it's like, it's your husband. His name
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: is Tim. Oh yeah. So I'm not delusional, but yes,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: I do think that because of the, that, um, uh,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: I surprised myself in what I've been able to do
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: over the past two years. Yeah.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: Do you think you might ever run for office?
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, boy.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: That was a long pause, Don.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: I hear that all the time.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: And then what do you think of what happens in
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: your head when you hear it?
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: First, I hear, I don't want to ruin my life.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: Why would I invite that sort of even more criticism
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: or whatever? I don't, why would I want to ruin
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: my life with people digging into, you know, everything about
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: me and, and, and campaign ads, putting everything that I've
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: ever said that's deemed controversial, but I don't even think
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: people would care about that. So I think they, I
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: think they, they would know, right. I've never said that
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: I was going to grab anybody by the pussy.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: So that doesn't surprise me.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: I've never said that a woman had blood coming out
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: of her wherever, but also I'm not a white man
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: and the rules are different for me. And so just
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: like the rules, I believe sadly are different for women.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: They're different for Hillary Clinton, for Nikki Haley, which was
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons that I, that, you know, what,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: what I, what I meant to say, they're different for
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. They're different for Alex Wagner. Um, And white
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: men get away with way more than women or black
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: people or any minority. And so I think the rules
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: are different, but I don't know why would I invite
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: that criticism? And the people who, my mentors will say,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: why do you want to take a pay cut? But
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: it's not about money for me. So do I ever
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: think about it? Yes. Could it happen? Yeah, it could happen.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: If the opportunity presented itself, the right opportunity presented itself. Look,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: if I wanted to, I know people are going to
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: think I'm crazy. This is going to be the headline
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: and people are going to laugh about it. I think
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: I could be president of the United States. I could
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: definitely run this country better than Donald Trump.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: Paper towel roll could, but yes, you would see a
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: market improvement.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: As an independent though, there would be a hard time
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: for me to run for anything because the way the
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: system is set up, I'd have to choose a side.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, I probably, I probably would have
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: to become a Democrat. And, um, yeah. So, you know,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: am I at the point at that point now? No.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: And I know people are going to say Don Lemon
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: is crazy, but yeah, that's look, why can't I think
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: about running for office? Why can't I think about being
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: president of the United States when look at what we have,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: when anybody, did anybody think Barack Obama, as he says,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: this guy with a funny name is from a, mixed background.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: Did anybody ever think that he would become president, that
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: he had that aspiration? I don't have an aspiration to
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: become president, but I do think that I could run
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: this country a lot better than Donald Trump. You know
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: what else I think that I could run better than
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: most people? And I actually talked to my husband about
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: that last night.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: Please tell me.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: A news organization. Because I was there, I'd been in
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: the game for so long, and I'm not interested in
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: being the anchor out front I could come in and
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: fix the bulk of their problems and lickety split in
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: no time flat.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: Boom.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 6: Boom. Wow.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: I feel like we're making news.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: The Lemonheads merch is about to become collector's item.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'm busy now. I'm building my own channel
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm building my own network and we'll see where
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: that goes. But if I had to, like if they
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: dropped me into a news organization, I could fix it up.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: I could clean up the place.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: Don Lemon is ready to conquer the world, ladies and gentlemen.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: You heard it here first.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to see the headlines about the president part.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 6: Oh, my gosh.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: God bless you for launching your presidential run on Pod
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: Save America.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: We appreciate it.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: That would be the perfect place to run. And I forgot.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, also, too.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: You're definitely running as a Democrat if that's the case,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: my friend.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: And I forgot about Midas. So, yeah, I totally.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: Well, that's why I'm saying thanks for launching it on
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: You know where your bread is buttered.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: Don, I knew it was going to be excellent to
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: speak with you, but you've, as usual, exceeded my conception
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: of what was even possible.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you. I'm sorry that there are certain things
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: that I can't talk about legally or whatever.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: I think you delivered, Don. I really think you delivered.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: You think so? I hope so.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: You gave me big time. You definitely did.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, but go out, journalists. Be bold. Be tenacious.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: Talk to people. Be unafraid.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, go talk to people. Be unafraid. Unbothered and unafraid.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: Just like Don. Thank you, my friend. It's great to
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: talk to you. It's great to have some time with you.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you. And become a subscriber of The Don Lemon Show. YouTube, Twitch, Substack, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your streaming, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: There are many opportunities.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Like and subscribe.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: Go and love Don. Thanks, dude. Thanks to Don Lemon
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: for coming on the show and breaking news. It's always
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: a pleasure to have you, Don.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: John and Levitt will be back in your feed on
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: Tuesday with a brand new episode.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: See y'all soon.
• 1:13:50
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• 1:13:52
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• 1:13:59
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• 1:14:02
  Speaker 7: episode and everything we do here at Cricut. Pod Save
• 1:14:05
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• 1:14:08
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• 1:14:11
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• 1:14:15
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• 1:14:17
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• 1:14:27
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