News/Commentary

Don Lemon’s recent ‘sexist’ remarks dredge up long history of controversial comments

February 18, 2023 | | Print Article

CNN host Don Lemon is currently in hot water over remarks he made about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s age, but the truth is that he’s been spouting controversial things to and about women for ages — as far back as 2014, in fact.

Back then, Lemon interviewed one of Bill Cosby’s alleged victims, Joan Tarshis. She had at the time just accused Cosby of having forced her to perform oral sex on him decades earlier.

During the CNN interview, Lemon essentially victim-blamed her by suggesting she could have bitten Cosby’s penis to stop the oral sex.

“There are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn’t want to do it … meaning the using of the teeth, right? Biting,” he said.

Listen:

The remarks provoked enough backlash that Lemon was forced to apologize.

“As I am a victim myself I would never want to suggest that any victim could have prevented a rape. If my question to her struck anyone as insensitive, I am sorry as that is certainly and was not my intention,” he said, as reported at the time by People magazine.

Lemon later flexed his misogyny/sexism again just this past September when he asked CNN analyst S.E. Cupp whether she was suffering from what he termed “mommy brain.”

The two were discussing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents scandal when Cupp suddenly lost her train of thought.

This prompted Lemon to ask, “Did you lose your train of thought? I do it all the time. Is it mommy brain?”

Cupp didn’t seem to care for his goofy question.

“No, Don, I just forgot what I was going to say,” she snapped at him.

Listen:

Three months later in December, Lemon got into a heated exchange while arguing that male athletes earn more money than their female counterparts because male sports generate more revenue.

“Lemon made his comments during a ‘CNN This Morning’ segment on the pay gap between the U.S. men’s and U.S. women’s national soccer teams, frustrating his co-anchors Kaitlin Collins and Poppy Harlow, who argued that male athletes earn more because the media gives men’s sports a bigger platform,” according to Fox News.

“I know everyone’s gonna hate me, but the men’s team makes more money. If they make more money, then they should get more money. … The men’s team makes more money because people are more interested in the men!” he said.

This time he was actually in the right, though the comments didn’t stop “woke” critics from crying foul nonetheless.

Look:

Now, not all of Lemon’s controversial remarks have involved women. Some have involved Trump supporters and the unvaccinated.

In 2021, for example, he slammed Trump supporters for allegedly being on the same side as Ku Klux Klan members.

“If you are on that side, you need to think about the side you’re on. I am never on the side of the Klan. Principled people, conservative or liberal, never on the Klan side. Principled people, conservative or liberal, never on the Nazi side. Principled people who are conservative or liberal, never on the side that treats their fellow Americans as less than, that says your fellow Americans should not exist … that sides with slavery,” he said.

“If you voted for Trump, you voted for the person who the Klan supported. You voted for the person who Nazis support,” he added.

But he was wrong. He IS on the side of the Ku Klux Klan and even Nazis because Lemon is a staunch supporter of critical race theory, the racial essentialist ideology that seeks to define people worth’s or the lack thereof by their race.

That same year, he slammed the unvaccinated for “taking up the space” in hospitals and suggested they shouldn’t be seeking medical care.

“If you’re not going to get vaccinated, you don’t want to social distance, you don’t want to wear a mask, then maybe you don’t want to go to the hospital when you get sick. I know that sounds harsh, but you’re taking up the space for people who are doing things the right way,” he said.

Listen:

Lastly, Lemon defended the terrorist group Antifa in 2018 after the group interrupted some sort of protest by alleged neo-Nazis.

“It says it right in the name: Antifa, anti-fascism, which was what they were there fighting. Listen, no organization is perfect. There was some violence. No one condones violence… but there were different reasons for Antifa and for these neo-Nazis to be there. One, racists, fascists, the other group, fighting racist fascists. There is a distinction there,” he said.

But just because they call themselves anti-fascists doesn’t make them anti-fascists. Especially when their own behavior suggests that they themselves are the real fascists …

Vivek Saxena
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