Don Lemon comically claims Trump ‘didn’t have the courage’ to come on his lowly-rated show

Little did we know that as CNN’s new president Chris Licht has been making cuts at the network, the demoted Don Lemon has been forced to pull double duty and work as his own hype man.

But such was the case in a recent interview when he made an audacious claim about former President Donald Trump’s lack of “courage” in relation to his own canceled program.

As Lemon prepares for his new role hosting CNN’s “This Morning,” the once primetime host joined the recently created outlet Semafor to offer his–unique–perspective on how things have progressed at the network since Jeff Zucker’s resignation. In response to the suggestion from former Politico reporter Max Tani that Lemon and Trump “occasionally butt heads,” the anchor had a much different perspective.

“I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that was a factor. I never really butted heads with the last president,” he said before claiming, “He didn’t have the courage to come on and take hard questions from CNN and me and my show.”

As laughable as Lemon’s claim was of the president who went out of his way to hold press conferences to confront corporate media’s reporting head-on, the anchor continued his revisionist history by suggesting his new role at CNN was a choice he made and not an alternative to getting fired altogether as Brian Stelter, John Harwood and Jeffrey Toobin had all departed with Licht’s shakeup.

“Look, has it been frustrating over the last couple of years having to deal with politics in the way it’s been dealt with in primetime? Yes. Was I tired of it? In some ways, yeah it’s gotten old. But I also think we were transitioning to a different time,” Lemon said and added, “So I was ready to move on and I think the audience is ready to move on as well. And even if he comes back, I think there’s a different approach that can be taken in primetime and in the morning. The morning gives me more latitude to educate and elevate the conversation.”

Lemon has endeavored to control the messaging on the changes at CNN for months now and went as far as to tell Comedy Central host Charlamagne Tha God on “Hell Of A Week” that the public perception of what Licht was doing at the network, shifting from leftist opinion to fact-based reporting was wrong.

“Let me just say, I don’t think that’s exactly what Chris is saying. I think there’s a narrative that has been placed in the medium,” Lemon said. “I think what Chris wants to do is to be able to have Republicans and Democrats and whatever your political stance is on CNN so that you can be accountable and that you can answer for it.”

He went on to argue what he does at the network is, “tell the truth” and “inform the American electorate and the American public and also the world, because we’re an international news organization. So if I’m not allowed to do that, then I will go on and do it somewhere else.”

Kevin Haggerty

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