Tuesday near the top of his primetime CNN broadcast, network host Don Lemon addressed the controversy created by a segment that aired on his Saturday night broadcast featuring show regular Rick Wilson along with network contributor Wajahat Ali ridiculing President Donald Trump’s supporters.
The segment even caught the attention of Trump, who tweeted about it on Tuesday.
According to Lemon, he was not laughing at Trump supporters. Instead, he said he was laughing at the joke told by Wilson and insisted that he does not laugh at people for “who they are” or “for what they believe.”
“One final note that I have for you because this is personally important to me to address this,” Lemon said. Anyone, ask anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you, I don’t believe in belittling people. Belittling anyone for who they are, for what they believe, or where they’re from. During an interview on Saturday night, one of my guests said something that made me laugh. And while in the moment I found the joke humorous, and I didn’t catch everything that was said. Just to make this perfectly clear — I was laughing at the joke and not at any group of people.”
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