Don Lemon, joining “CNN Tonight” host Laura Coates during a handoff, filled in audiences about his impending transition from a prime-time solo show to co-hosting the network’s “reimagined morning show” with Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins.
Lemon presented the move in a positive light, referring to it as a “promotion,” and stressing that the move was his choice during the conversation Thursday.
CNN’s @DonLemon on being demoted from primetime to the AM: “I was not demoted” pic.twitter.com/WgatfCzPLT
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 16, 2022
Lemon told Coates, “I was presented with an opportunity that I can’t pass up at this network. And we have a new boss who is a morning show impresario. And he wants a morning show that will kick off the editorial direction of the network every single day, and I am honored that he asked me to do it.”
“He asked me, and I said yes. I could have said no. This is my show; I have a contract for this show. I decided that I would take him up on that and take this journey with him. So this is not someone moving me.”
He continued, “And by the way, this is not someone saying, ‘you must move to the right, Don Lemon, and you must not be so … um … give so much of your perspective.’ None of that has happened. All of that is fodder for Twitter, which is not real.
“So stop it! I was not demoted! None of that! This is an opportunity. This is a promotion. This is an opportunity for me to create something around me and I get to work with two great ladies, who you know,” the Lemon insisted.
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Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the Media Research Center, tweeted a differing opinion. “According to Don Lemon, Chris Licht wants to make the network more newsy and less biased, so he’s bringing on Don to kick off the day’s “editorial direction.” Does that make sense to anyone?”
According to Don Lemon, Chris Licht wants to make the network more newsy and less biased, so he’s bringing on Don to kick off the day’s “editorial direction.”
Does that make sense to anyone?
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) September 16, 2022
Sports and political commentator Keith Olbermann also expressed dissatisfaction with the move by CNN’s new CEO Chris Licht.
WARNING: The following social media post contains language some may find offensive.
Chris Licht (who, when we worked together at msnbc, I believed used to eat paste) has now surrounded Don Lemon with an ex-Daily Caller “journalist” and somebody who last month demanded an apology from Biden to Republicans.
The @CNN Shitstorm is here.
https://t.co/SumGjLwqHs— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) September 15, 2022
Outkick host Clay Travis bluntly tweeted, “CNN took away Don Lemon’s primetime show and made him part of a trio on their morning show. He says it’s a promotion. It isn’t:”
CNN took away Don Lemon’s primetime show and made him part of a trio on their morning show. He says it’s a promotion. It isn’t: pic.twitter.com/JXcpoauLtw
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 16, 2022
Travis added, “So Don Lemon is going to move from a prime-time CNN program that no one watched to an early morning CNN program that no one will watch. Congratulations to him on the massive, uh, massive, uh, uh, uh, massive promotion.”
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