Don Lemon Arturo Holmes/WireImage Are you ready for “Lemon 2028” lawn signs?
Don Lemon says he thinks about running for president — and would do a much better job than Donald Trump.
The former CNN anchor said on the Pod Save America podcast that he could be down to become commander in chief.
“So do I ever think about [running for office]?” Lemon mused. “Yes. Could it happen? Yeah, it could happen — if the right opportunity presented itself. I know people are going to think I’m crazy. This is going to be the headline, and people are going to laugh about it: I think I could be president of the United States. I could definitely run this country better than Donald Trump.”
Related Stories
General News Don Lemon to Be Honored at Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation's New York Dinner
Music NAACP Image Awards: Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Cardi B Among Night Two Non-Televised Winners
“Why can’t I think about running for office?” the 60-year-old continued. “Why can’t I think about being president of the United States? Did anybody think Barack Obama — as he says, ‘This guy with a funny name, from a mixed background’ — that he would become president? I don’t have an aspiration to become president. But I do think that I could run this country a lot better than Donald Trump … one of my mentors, will say, ‘Why do you want to take a pay cut?’ But it’s not about money for me.”
Lemon also spoke to the downsides of such a move. “Why would I invite that sort of even more criticism? I don’t want to ruin my life with people digging into everything about me and campaign ads [airing] everything that I’ve ever said that seemed controversial — but I don’t even think people would care about that. I’ve never said that I was gonna grab anybody by the pussy, right? But also, I’m not a white man, and the rules are different for me. And so just like the rules are, I believe, sadly, are different for women.”
Lemon also weighed into CBS News losing ratings traction in the wake of Bari Weiss’ editorial takeover of the division.
“They lost their core audience,” he said. “I’m not surprised they’ve had lower ratings because people want the truth right now. They want people to stand up to authority. They don’t want false equivalence. They don’t want people coming on just to lie. They don’t want people being just booked on shows just to fight. There’s nothing productive about it. Some things are objectively bad, and much of what Donald Trump’s administration is doing is objectively bad — not only for people, but for the country and for democracy. People want that reflected on the news … If CNN goes down the same road as CBS does, they’re going to need a miracle to get out of it.”
THR Newsletters
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Subscribe Sign Up
