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Former CNN host Don Lemon slammed former President Barack Obama for having a laugh with President-elect Donald Trump during the funeral of the late President Jimmy Carter.
Lemon was speaking on his YouTube program when he initially aimed his ire at Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski for a segment on Friday, during which they discussed how to act around the incoming commander-in-chief.
Susan Glasser of The New Yorker compared Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin and warned against showing the new administration too much deference.
Lemon used the moment to slam Scarborough and Brzezinski – longtime critics of the former and incoming president – for meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November, the New York Post noted.
“You have to indicate to the American people that this is not normal … grinning with someone that you have called a fascist over the last couple of years and the last months. That’s not normal,” Lemon said.
“Folks are tired of the behavior being normalized. Civility does not mean befriending people or forgoing your morals and your principles and your character,” he added.
“If someone disrespects my loved one, I don’t have to smile in their f******* face!” Lemon ranted.
“And they’re going to know it. If Ted Cruz can’t stand up for his wife that Donald Trump calls ugly, then who is he going to stand up for?” he asked.
Lemon also took aim at Obama, who was seen talking and chuckling with Trump as they sat next to each other during Carter’s funeral.
“Barack Obama is a classy guy. But these are the very same MAGA people who have called, and Donald Trump has helped promote, calling Michelle Obama a man,” Lemon argued. “I’m not smiling in your face if you’re calling my sister and my mother or my wife or my girlfriend a man. F*** you!”
Trump came to political prominence pushing the debunked “birther” conspiracy theory, claiming without evidence that Obama was not born in the US and was therefore ineligible to be president.
Shortly before the new year, Lemon launched another profanity-filled rant on his YouTube program regarding Trump supporters’ dismay regarding the government handing out H1-B visas for foreign workers.
“Oh my gosh, I love this. Now you’re finding out, you dumb f****** idiots. Now you’re just figuring this s*** out. You’re so f****** stupid, and you deserve it. And you f****** deserve it because you’re so dumb,” he said.
“You have been co-opted because you’re in a f****** cult, and you don’t even realize it because you have stupid MAGA brain, and you don’t get it. How stupid and dumb are you?” Lemon asked.
