The Hypocrisy of Don Lemon and CNN

Lemon's recent assertion that Presidential candidate Nikki Haley is past her prime is yet another hateful, bigoted comment from the news anchor.

Just this past week, Don Lemon made yet another sexist comment when he asserted that Nikki Haley, a Republican Presidential candidate, was past her prime — at 51. As a 56 year old man, his defense of this misogynistic, retrograde assertion: Google said so.

He said: “A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.” So says the Google, anyway.

Lemon refused to back down when his female co-anchors — Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins — were visibly peeved. Harlow softly challenged him by saying: “Are you talking about prime for child bearing?”

Lemon’s retort, hands in the air: “Don’t shoot the messenger! Look it up!” On Google.

It’s hard to fathom a more outdated, sexist contention than holding the view that a woman’s only value in the world — the one that keeps her “in her prime” — is bearing children.

But convinced of his own moral superiority, Don Lemon smugly spews discriminatory hateful nonsense all the time. In the fall of 2021, Lemon called unvaccinated Americans “stupid” and said they should be shunned and “left behind”.  I’ve yet to hear an apology for this vile statement.

Now, he argues that women should be put out to pasture after 40. Well, he allows that maybe they can still function in their 40s and be permitted to do stuff. But, he more than suggested that women should have no role in the public sphere once they hit 50.

Besides the fact that he himself is 56, who is he to say that women can’t operate in leadership positions beyond the age of 40 because they are “past their prime”? “Prime” for what? Perhaps having children. But to equate this one thing with a woman’s worth in the world is the most discriminatory backwards garbage I can fathom.

Whatever you think of the Democratic female politicians below, I’ve not heard Lemon criticize them as too old for the job:

• California’s senior Senator Dianne Feinstein is 89.

• Hilary Clinton was 68 when she last ran for President.

• Vice President Kamala Harris is 58.

• Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is 82 and still a member of Congress.

Even though it seems to be mostly Republican women who Lemon believes are incapable of contributing in the public arena after a certain age, he has also demonstrated sexist intolerance on-air in how he treats his female co-workers.

Lemon’s statement — that women have little value after childbearing years — impacts his ability to do his job. And when the things that you say in the workplace impact the ability to do your actual job effectively, it is, in fact, time to go. 

Chris Licht, CEO of CNN, has since rebuked Lemon’s comments in an internal editorial meeting saying: “His remarks were upsetting, unacceptable and unfair to his co-hosts, and ultimately a huge distraction to the great work of this organization.”

But this is not a one time offense. Just a few weeks ago, Lemon berated his co-anchor Kaitlan Collins on air for her interview with Representative James Comer (R-KY). Why? Collins didn’t challenge Comer for citing the NY Post as a credible source for its Hunter Biden laptop story. This earned her an on-air shaming by Lemon, the self-appointed arbiter of credible reporting.

In November 2021, Lemon was caught frolicking maskless in Florida after many on-air rants against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. “He [DeSantis] is not only speaking out against masks, but he's putting executive orders in place punishing schools who are trying to require students and staff to wear masks.”

Clearly Lemon didn’t believe he needed to wear a mask on his Florida vacation. But if being enthusiastically pro-mask is an opportunity to rant against the opposition, then Lemon is just fine availing himself of that opportunity.

CNN’s willingness to leave Lemon in place for so long — with repeated offenses under his belt — is representative of the Democratic Party overall. They pay lip service to equality and inclusion, and apparently to masking — when it serves them. But in practice, CNN allows and furthers discrimination and sanctimonious hateful rhetoric when it's expedient. The hypocrisy of Lemon and CNN reveal the hypocrisy at the core of the Democratic Party overall. 

Regardless of how CNN treats Lemon going forward, the fact that they’ve allowed the anchor to say these heinous things for so long is a blatant trespass of their own stated values, and reveals the emptiness of those stated values. They are platitudes. CNN’s true mission is to further the hollow platform of the Democratic Party. By any means necessary.