Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

‘The View’ Co-Hosts Pamper Don Lemon While He Rehashes His Arrest

[Screenshot/The View]

“The View” co-hosts gushed over fired CNN host Don Lemon Thursday while he talked about his arrest.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) arrested Lemon in January after he filmed himself disrupting a service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, along with anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protesters. The co-hosts sympathized with Lemon and suggested that President Donald Trump’s administration was politically targeting him.

Co-host Sunny Hostin accused the DOJ of trying to “intimidate and harass” Lemon by not allowing him to turn himself in.

“And federal prosecutors do that and the Department of Justice does that to send a message and to intimidate and harass and it’s unfortunate, my friend, that you went through that,” Hostin said.

“Thank you,” Lemon said. “Thank you very much. And Sunny, I’ve been leaning on Sunny just as counsel, just as a friend, no legal stuff, but just as a friend. But here’s the thing, they do it because they want to embarrass people. They want to embarrass you, they want to humiliate. As my friend, who is also an attorney, said that they gave you the n-word treatment.”

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Co-host Joy Behar said Lemon’s arrest only made him more popular. Lemon said the administration’s alleged attempt to “embarrass” him backfired.

“[Trump] said that it’s the best thing that could have happened to you because you were back in the news with more viewers than before,” Behar said. “I said the same thing. It can’t hurt you. Now is that true? Do you have more people listening to your podcast for instance?” 

“Well, I’ll put it this way. It was the unintended consequence, I believe, by the administration to embarrass me and try to silence me did the exact opposite,” Lemon said. “And that only highlights just how important it is, especially as an independent journalist, that they’re targeting me, just how important the role that I have is. And so I think that, you know, Donald Trump calling me a failed host or whatever, I mean, 82 million people fired him in 2020.”

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The co-hosts were also in awe when Lemon said that a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent gave his husband, Tim Malone, his bracelet that he received on his wedding day. Lemon claimed the bracelet being handed to Malone was the only way that his husband knew where he was.

Lemon has maintained he committed no wrongdoing and did his journalistic duty by walking inside the church. Authorities charged him with conspiracy to deprive rights and interfering by force with someone’s First Amendment rights, which are violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) and Ku Klux Klan Acts.

The indictment against Lemon alleged that he conspired with others “to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate multiple persons … in the free exercise and enjoyment of the rights and privileges secured to them” under U.S. law. He and other defendants also allegedly blocked people from exiting the building and made people fear their disruption was the prelude to a mass shooting.