Following President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Phoenix Tuesday night, CNN anchor Don Lemon delivered a concise and stunningly sharp rebuke to Trump’s speech. In his remarks, the president attacked the media — in particular for how his response to recent deadly violence in Charlottesville was covered — and criticized the GOP for failing to deliver on his agenda.
“This is who we elected president of the United States, a man who is so petty that he has to go after people who he deems to be his enemy, like an imaginary friend of a 6-year-old,” Lemon said in an under-two-minute monologue.
“His speech was without thought. It was without reason. It was devoid of facts. It was devoid of wisdom. There was no gravitas. There was no sanity there. He was like a child blaming a sibling on something else. ‘He did it. I didn’t do it.’”
Here’s are Lemon’s full remarks:
I’m just going to speak from the heart here. What we have witnessed is a total eclipse of the facts: Someone who came out onstage and lied directly to the American people and left things out that he said in an attempt to rewrite history, especially when it comes to Charlottesville.
He’s unhinged. It’s embarrassing. And I don’t mean for us, the media, because he went after us — but for the country. This is who we elected president of the United States, a man who is so petty that he has to go after people who he deems to be his enemy, like an imaginary friend of a 6-year-old. His speech was without thought. It was without reason. It was devoid of facts. It was devoid of wisdom. There was no gravitas. There was no sanity there. He was like a child blaming a sibling on something else. ‘He did it. I didn’t do it.’
He certainly opened up the race wounds from Charlottesville. A man clearly wounded by the rational people who are abandoning him in droves, meaning those business people and the people in Washington now who are questioning his fitness for office and whether he is stable. A man backed into a corner, it seems, by circumstances beyond his control and beyond his understanding.
That’s the truth. If you watched that speech as an American, you had to be thinking, ‘What in the world is going on?’ This is the person we elected as the president of the United States? This petty? This small? The person who is supposed to pull the country together? It certainly didn’t happen there.
Later on in CNN’s post-rally coverage, former director of national intelligence James Clapper called Trump’s speech “downright scary and disturbing.”
Lemon went on to suggest that Trump’s rhetoric could inspire more violence. “He has given oxygen to racists,” Lemon said, referencing Trump’s frequent reticence to condemn the alt-right and white supremacist groups. “He is clearly trying to ignite a civil war in this country.”
