Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I am Alex Wagner. This week, I sat down with journalist and newfound target of the Trump administration, Don Lemon, to talk about the federal charges the Department of Justice brought against him after covering an ICE protest at a Minnesota church.
We talked about what those attacks on the free press mean for this political moment and how his move from mainstream journalism at a major network to independent journalism on his own platform has changed how he does the news, a move I am also a little bit familiar with.
As always, the best way to support Crooked Media is by subscribing to Friends of the Pod, our subscription community, where you will receive more pods like Dan Pfeiffer's Polar Coaster, our growing roster of newsletters like Pod Save America Open Tabs, and ad-free episodes of Pod Save America. You should also check out my podcast, Runaway Country.
This week, I spoke to Stephanie Villarreal, whose husband has been detained despite the fact that he is a DACA recipient. And I also got into it with The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last. It is a good, good, good episode. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you in advance. So let's get into it. Here is Don Lemon. I got to say, I am so excited to talk to Don Lemon.
I just read the name Don Lemon in the headlines and follow the national news about Don Lemon. But here we have the man in the flesh. Well, not quite in the flesh, but in the internet flesh. It's great to see you, man.
It's good to see you as well. Can I say something? And unsolicited by Alex Wagner, I think that you're one of the best reporters in the business. And I loved your work on the circus. I just think that when, I don't know if you remember, we did an interview a while back when you were on the circus and it was just, I loved sitting down. And talking to you guys.
But I mean, I love your work on MS Now. And look, I get you. I see you. I get you. Because as they say, the networks give it and the networks take it away.
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Chapter 2: What led to Don Lemon's arrest during the ICE protest?
I think a lot of it's related. I think the First Amendment, the freedom of the press, and the war go together, especially if you look at what's happening.
um at over at the pentagon you look at what's happening with the department of defense excuse me department of war where they are uh restricting reporters making them sign agreements that they can you know we don't do that that's one of the reasons that we're in iran right is because they have state-run media and people don't have freedoms and they shoot protesters and whatever and we're doing similar things here so i think the altogether uh
The war and the assault on the press because they don't want people reporting accuracy and what's really happening with the war. You hear Pete Hexeth at almost every update that he gives about the war that he says, and this is how you should be reporting it. And then that has seeped into Donald Trump saying the very same thing. You never know that if you listen to the fake news, right?
And so I believe his advisors are only giving him the information that makes the war look positive. So when he looks at the news, the press, which is supposed to be free, and he sees somewhat of a more balanced picture of what's actually happening, it doesn't compute with him because he's like, what is going on? This is not what my advisors are telling me. We're doing great.
Look at how much we bond. So I think those are the two things. And I am surprised that it is not one of the leading stories every day, the assault on the press. And my arrest, it's way bigger than me because if they're coming for me, this independent person, they're coming for you But they've already neutered the corporate media. So I'm surprised that it's not out there.
I'm surprised that it's not a bigger headline because it affects everyone. The press, whether you're in streaming, whether you're print, whether you're a broadcast journalist, whether you're magazines, even publishing.
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Chapter 3: How does Don Lemon view the current administration's attack on the press?
And so if they can tell you what you can write, what you can't write, where you can report, how you can report it, then what's the purpose of the First Amendment freedom of the press? Then what is it?
It also just challenges the basic idea of shared reality and facts, right? I mean, if you no longer have, if you refuse to recognize a truth that's inconvenient, then what does the truth matter ever? I mean, it's just information that's weaponized for personal or partisan gain, and that's not a world.
I mean, that makes living in a world, to say nothing of living in a democracy, pretty complicated. I wonder if, you know, like you mentioned both the direct targeting of you, which is, I totally agree, bigger than you.
It's meant to send a chill down the spine of any journalist to like the FCC chair coming out and threatening to revoke broadcasting licenses if the coverage of the Iran war is not deemed satisfactory by this administration. Are you at all surprised by how far Trump is taking it?
I'm surprised at how far we have allowed him to take it. Because the folks who are on the Republican side, the more conservative side, love to talk about free speech absolutism. And this is, we're about free speech. And we can't cancel everybody. We want to say the R word, right? Comedians should be given a wide berth to be able to do whatever they want and be funny or whatever.
And then they get upset when a comedian makes fun of someone that's in there. their tribe, so to speak. So I am surprised at how far he's- Yeah, where are those people now?
Like where the free speech absolute is now.
They're not anywhere.
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Chapter 4: What are the differences between independent and mainstream journalism?
I mean, they're hiding.
Because it was never about free speech.
Thank you.
Right?
It wasn't. So I'm surprised at how far he has been able to, how far we have allowed him to be able to do it. And look, this is the, if you really believe in the Constitution, Alex, if you really believe in the Bill of Rights and you really believe in freedom of speech, if you're a mature person, you understand the importance of the press.
And whether you agree with them or not, the reason that this country has been able to, we've been able to get as far as we have with this experiment is in large part because of the First Amendment. People write things about me all the time that I don't like. And, but I would fight for their ability and their right to be able to say it.
Like there was a profile of me that came out in the New York Times, overall positive. Everything in there did I like? Did I think there were some things that were out of context? I got something? Sure. But overall, I was like, okay, it's fine. And that's, it's out there. Enjoy it. And I never, I didn't even think twice about it. For me, it was like, oh, that's great.
I got a big thing in the New York Times or whatever.
Do you like some of that? I thought it was a great piece, actually.
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Chapter 5: How does MAGA media differ from left-leaning media?
Everybody who went out to Minnesota after seeing what happened to you, every journalist, I think, was way more cautious, way more concerned about where they were, how they were doing, not because you had done something necessarily wrong, but because of what the administration did. So let's talk about you were live streaming a protest inside a church.
And so what were you hoping to cover and sort of how did that all come about? Yeah.
Well, as you know, this is still going on.
Yes, to the degree they can talk about it. Sorry.
Yes. So what I will say is that I went there. There's no conspiracy, which is what I'm ā there's no conspiring. A protest is a protest or a journalist is a journalist. I didn't even know where they were going to go. I didn't know until we got there. We're like, oh, this is where we are. But I went there with the intention to do journalism and that's what I did.
And so as Steve Schmidt said about, what's his name? John Miller, who now works for CNN and worked for the NYPD for a long time and worked with national law enforcement for a long time and was a journalist. And he said, when John Miller went into the cave with Osama bin Laden, he did not become a terrorist. He was reporting on someone who was a terrorist.
And he also knew that he was going into a cave and they didn't, I don't think they had to tell authorities or whatever, but I'm just saying, just because I was in a church with protesters does not make me a protester. And just because you may disagree with questioning people, it doesn't make me less of a journalist that you disagree with my questions. That's kind of what the whole thing is about.
So that was my intention. And I wasn't even going to go there. I just happened to be going to Chicago to host the Martin Luther King Day breakfast for the Reverend Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition. And I was talking to my husband. He goes, you know, maybe you should just take a stop. And I said, yeah, maybe I should go there.
and just go, I was only there for like six hours, seven, not even that long, maybe six, maybe seven hours. It was extended because the flights were late, snowy and all that, but that was it. I didn't even know the people who were part of the protest. They had been on my show like a Thursday before, but I had never, didn't know them personally, had never met them in person.
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Chapter 6: What challenges does Don Lemon face as an independent journalist?
And so, yeah, I think it's designed that way. Yeah, and it is pernicious, but I also believe that That there is a reason that it happened to me is to show, I believe, the hypocrisy of this and the pernicious nature of it will be illuminated because it's me. Yeah. And so at the end of the day, I do believe that I'll come out on the right side of this.
And when that happens, I think people will ultimately realize, and I think there are going to be a lot of people who are embarrassed. So I thought about that as I was sitting in a holding cell about people just because they don't like what you're saying or reporting or who you are, that they can take your freedom away. That's huge, huge.
And I do think that the people who are doing it should suffer some consequences. I think that there is a malicious intent nature of what they're doing. It's malevolent. It's malicious. It's evil.
I would take it one step further. And racist. And it's racist. Let me get that.
And it is racist. Yes.
I was going to say, I think this is a really- That's the first part I should have said. This is a really, it's part of a suite of actions from this administration assisted by the Supreme Court to first of all whitewash America's racist history and the legacy of slavery by saying that all of the civil rights protections that we have in place are effectively reverse racism against white people.
And to weaponize the legacy of King, to weaponize things like the Ku Klux Klan Act, against people of color and therefore render the idea of disparity and institutional racism sort of moot, right? No one's a racist. Everyone's a racist. White people are being discriminated against.
And therefore, any protections that exist in our society should be done away with because it's all kind of meaningless. I mean, I think that's the kind of natural endpoint is to... effectively turn back the clock, like, and get rid of all the gains made on race and in civil rights in the last, I'd say, a hundred years.
Like, I really think, and using you as a kind of example of like, oh yeah, see, like this is, we need to protect the country. White white church congregants need to be protected from the black menace. Like, don't you talk, don't at us about the Klan and like all the black people suffer. Look what's happening to white people with these black people storming their churches. Do you know what I mean?
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Chapter 7: How does Don Lemon's experience reflect broader issues in journalism?
And if you ask them, really, If you think that white people are being discriminated against, ask them, would you change positions? Would you be a black man in this society? Would you be a black gay man in this society? Would you be a woman or a black woman in this society? Most of them will go, well, I all know.
Because, I mean, quite frankly, white people and white males, I think, have a pretty good Pretty good in this country.
Yeah, I'm getting against to say a lot of white male Trump supporters not that interested in being people of color to say nothing of the power grid, but just- Yeah, but that doesn't mean that there aren't poor white Americans, that white Americans aren't struggling.
I'm talking, I'm generalizing overall.
Well, I think that's part of it, too, is that it's the zero sum race game. And all of this, I will just say, is explored so brilliantly by my friend Heather McGee in her book, The Sum of Us, which is like the idea of someone else is doing better. That means you're doing worse.
And in fact, like in the example she uses is during segregation in lieu of having black kids and white kids swim at the swimming pool together. some communities shut down the pool entirely. And that's basically what we're doing to our society. Rather than saying like, we're better together. There's some for all.
We're like, let's just shut the whole thing down so that we don't have to deal with each other.
And that is- What just so happens, I leaned out of the screen for a little bit because I wanted to pick this up. I did this Very similar to what you just said. I wrote about this during George Floyd in the summer of unrest. This is the fire, what I say to my friends about racism and what I tell, meaning mostly my white friends about racism.
And it debuted at number one in the New York Times and it was really great.
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Chapter 8: What insights does Don Lemon provide about potential political aspirations?
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It is worth talking about. Like after your arrest, the White House tweeted out, when life gives you lemons. with a chain emoji, like the White House cheering on the arrest of a journalist, a black journalist with slavery chains. I mean, did you, first of all, ever, you know, you've been in the crosshairs of this administration before, right?
Like, you know what it's like to be a journalist at CNN, to have a big platform, but did you, what did that moment mean to you when that tweet went out?
If you really want to, I'm not surprised. And look, I'm a big boy. And I just kind of shook my head, Alex. But I only think that that made them look bad. I think that I do believe, I thought that they, that was sort of a test to see how that went over. And I don't think it played well in the public. And I think that they, after that, they quickly realized it. And they tried to squash it.
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