CNN host Don Lemon said on CNN Thursday morning that networks cover former President Donald Trump too much, and pleaded with them to leave him alone.
“I just wonder if we over-inflate it, if we give too much of a voice to it, because Donald Trump right now is the Wizard of Oz,” Lemon began. “He’s the man behind the curtain. He really doesn’t have any power. His power comes from us. And we keep promoting him and we keep talking about this … sometimes we should probably ignore a lot of it. Because he has no power.”
Lemon referred to Trump being removed from nearly every social media platform following Jan. 6, and said that misinformation stopped spreading as easily following the former president’s removal. The CNN host also pointed to Trump’s blog, which was permanently deleted Wednesday. (RELATED: The Numbers Are In: Trump’s Exit From The World Stage Led To A Network Ratings Bloodletting)
I’m so glad @donlemon said this on @CNN today. We in the media give way too much coverage to Donald Trump. Yes, he’s a former president who says dangerous things that often need to be corrected. But beyond that, we need to stop covering him as much as we do and move on. pic.twitter.com/iXMxPlMLt9
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 3, 2021
Lemon speculated that if news networks ignored Trump, people would stop believing that there would be a new inauguration and stop thinking that Trump would become president again sometime in the coming months.
“They’re going to have to live in reality one day,” Lemon said. “But we cannot let minority rule become the rule in this country.”
“Trump, he’s always been a liar, he’s always going to be a liar, he’s always been a bigot, he’s always going to be a bigot, so why do we keep saying ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe that he’s a bigot’ – of course he is,” the CNN host continued. “That’s who he is. A leopard doesn’t change its stripes.”
Lemon also referred to Trump as a “very small, tiny, unhappy man who is living in a delusion.”
All major networks have suffered a drop in ratings since Trump left office, but none has fallen more than CNN, which lost nearly 70% of its viewers since January of 2021. The network has sought to hold onto what’s left of its Trump-era audience by featuring the former president nearly every day on its digital news site, and CNN’s opinion hosts have repeatedly talked about Trump during primetime hours even months after he left office.