CNN’s Don Lemon, carrying the rancor he feels toward President Donald Trump into the Democratic presidential debate on Wednesday night, asked a question of a candidate in which he accused President Trump of issuing “racist tweets.”
Don Lemon turned to former HUD secretary Julian Castro, intoning, “Secretary Castro, after the president’s racist tweets attacking Baltimore and Congressman Elijah Cummings, the mayor of Baltimore slammed the tweets and said to the president — and I quote here — ‘Help us. Send the resources that we need to rebuild America.’ So what would you do for Baltimore and other cities that need help?”
The CNN anchor calling the President a racist is nothing new, but to inject his view into the debate as the moderator was definitely a new direction for a presidential debate moderator.
Lemon’s long history of calling President Trump a racist includes January 2018, when he stated, “The President of the United States is racist. A lot of us already knew that. Today, President Trump, talking with lawmakers in the Oval Office about immigrants from Haiti, from El Salvador and Africa, said, and I quote: “Why are we having all these people from s***hole countries come here?” But you know who he did say he would welcome here? He said the U.S. should bring in more people from countries like Norway – and CNN is told that he went on to say: “Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out.””
“Those comments are frankly disgusting. There’s other language I’d like to use, but we are on television. But you know what, they’re not shocking – not even really surprising because this is who Donald Trump is. This is what he thinks. Apparently, we have to go through this repertoire every time he says something like this or exhibits some racist behavior.” Lemon continued.
“With that said, here’s what’s worse, and probably the most important point, so gather around the television everyone. And this is for anyone who may be taken aback by my comments. I wanna be very clear here, I don’t really care if you are, I hope you are. For years now – it has been two and a half years since he officially entered the political arena – for years, I and others have been trying to tell you, the American people, that this man was exhibiting bigoted behavior.” Lemon added.
“I asked him about it a number of times, and he denied it, but kept up the racist rhetoric and behavior throughout the campaign and now while he’s in the White House.”
In August 2018 Don Lemon doubled down on his claims, stating, “The kids separated from their parents at the border or the kids who don’t have the chance to attend LeBron’s school or any half-way decent school? The parents who can’t honestly tell their children to be proud of the President of the United States? The people of color who are attacked by their fellow citizens who feel emboldened to be publicly racist? Because the president is.”