Bulwark Takes

Don Lemon Responds to Being Arrested and Put On Trump’s “Enemies List”

62 min
Mar 19, 20262 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Don Lemon discusses his arrest and placement on Trump's enemies list, the politicization of federal law enforcement, the illegal Iran war, media complicity in state propaganda, and the need for Democrats to mobilize aggressively for 2026 elections while maintaining faith-based values.

Insights
  • Federal law enforcement has become weaponized for political purposes, with career professionals experiencing brain drain as they're forced to participate in bogus indictments lacking factual basis
  • Corporate media networks are voluntarily bending the knee to the Trump administration, abandoning journalistic standards to chase right-wing audiences that will never watch them anyway
  • The Iran war represents a fundamental departure from Trump's 2016 anti-interventionist platform, suggesting ideological capture by warmongers like Pete Hegseth at the Department of War
  • Democrats must recognize that perfect candidates don't exist and must mobilize voters through grassroots organizing now, treating elections like public transportation rather than romance
  • Religious nationalism and white nationalism are merging to erase church-state separation, requiring faith-based progressives to speak more loudly about their values
Trends
Weaponization of federal agencies for political persecution of opposition figures and journalistsCorporate media networks voluntarily adopting state-run media aesthetics to appease authoritarian administrationsBrain drain from federal law enforcement and prosecution as career professionals quit rather than participate in illegal activitiesVoter suppression tactics backfiring by mobilizing previously disengaged voters through visible intimidationProgressive energy within Democratic Party concentrated among younger politicians with populist economic messagingFaith-based voters feeling unseen by Democratic establishment despite shared constitutional valuesIndependent media platforms gaining audience share as corporate networks lose credibility through political captureWar crimes and atrocities (bombing schools, deportations to gulags) becoming normalized without accountability mechanismsAesthetic conformity (Mar-a-Lago face, Foreshine shoes) as tool of authoritarian control and submission signalingState-level crimes as potential escape valve for presidential pardons in federal cases
Topics
Political persecution and arrest of opposition figuresFederal law enforcement weaponizationMedia complicity in authoritarian governanceIran military conflict and war crimesImmigration enforcement and deportationsChurch-state separation erosionElection security and voter suppressionDemocratic Party coalition managementIndependent media vs. corporate mediaProsecutorial brain drainFirst Amendment violationsState-run media normalizationGrassroots voter mobilizationProgressive vs. establishment Democratic tensionsFaith-based political values
Companies
CNN
Discussed as corporate media network compromising editorial standards; Don Lemon worked there 17 years before leaving
Fox News
Referenced as network dedicated to carrying water for right-wing administration; Don Lemon worked at Fox station befo...
CBS News
Criticized for installing warmongers during illegal war; predicted to potentially be absorbed by CNN or cease operations
MSNBC
Mentioned as displaying Trump's enemies list on air; part of corporate media landscape compromising on editorial inde...
The Daily Caller
Founded by Tucker Carlson 15 years ago with goal of 'New York Times of the Right' but failed due to lack of market de...
The National Review
Referenced as struggling publication compared to Tucker Carlson's successful podcast, indicating no market for highbr...
The Washington Post
Owned by Jeff Bezos; journalist Renee Goodell's house was raided and phone taken by federal agents
BJ's Wholesale Club
Sponsor offering Easter shopping deals and digital coupons
People
Don Lemon
Arrested and detained overnight by federal agents; placed on Trump's enemies list; discusses weaponization of law enf...
Tim Moe
Interviewing Don Lemon at Tulane basketball arena in New Orleans; discusses media, politics, and faith
Pete Hegseth
Criticized for wanting state-run media and for leading illegal Iran war; previously Fox News co-host
Donald Trump
Created enemies list targeting opposition figures; conducting illegal war in Iran; obsessed with size and appearance
Kristi Noem
Criticized for photo shoot at El Salvador detention facility; involved in deporting US citizens
Clarissa Ward
Praised for excellent international war zone reporting, particularly in Iran
Frederick Pleitgen
Currently reporting from Iran on safe passage; doing excellent work covering the war
Jasmine Crockett
Young progressive politician impressing Don Lemon; involved in Texas primary with James Tolrico
AOC
Young progressive politician with energy and ideas; represents progressive movement within Democratic Party
Bernie Sanders
Progressive politician with young ideas; represents energy on Democratic side
Jeff Bezos
Wealth increased from ~$50B to ~$800B in 12 years; owns Washington Post which has journalist under federal investigation
Elon Musk
Worth approximately $800 billion; represents extreme wealth inequality in America
Tucker Carlson
Founded Daily Caller seeking 'New York Times of the Right'; now hosts successful podcast; believes Churchill was bad ...
Nancy Pelosi
Don Lemon asked her about fair elections in 2026; she expressed confidence without apparent concern
Al Green
Described as rabble rouser who creates stir; Don Lemon believes Democrats should support such figures
Jesse Jackson
Recently died; was comfortable talking about faith; represented Democratic comfort with religious values
Barack Obama
Referenced as walking free despite being on Trump's enemies list; war crimes investigation not pursued
Tish James
Appeared on Trump's enemies list alongside Don Lemon; targeted for prosecution
Kevin O'Leary
Argued CNN needs to move to the middle to gain audience; Don Lemon disagreed with this strategy
Cheryl Landrieu
Puts on festival in New Orleans annually; allowed Bulwark to repurpose interview footage
Quotes
"The process is the punishment. They want to embarrass you. They want to take you through but you know they want to you know diminish your finances, diminish your ability to be able to make money, your credibility, your reputation, all of that. It's really maniacal."
Don LemonEarly in discussion about arrest
"I'm not going to let them steal my joy. I grew up with faith from a very faithful family."
Don LemonDiscussing perspective after arrest
"They are maniacal. And I believe that they are not patriots. I believe that they are, they don't believe in the Constitution. They don't believe in the Bill of Rights, because otherwise they would not be conducting themselves in the way that they are."
Don LemonOn federal law enforcement
"Every accusation is a confession. The bar is in hell for this administration."
Don LemonOn Trump's campaign promises vs. actions
"Politics is like a public transportation, which ever gets you closest to your goal or to your home is where you want to do. And the candidate is not going to drop you off at your door and take your bags in the house."
Don LemonOn Democratic voter expectations
"There's just no market for high brow right wing news. The viewers aren't there."
Tim MoeOn media economics
Full Transcript
Nicole hosts Easter every year. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, stocking up on spiral ham, baked goods, fresh flowers, candy, and five dozen eggs. I've got a lot of baskets to fill. Nicole's not worried because she knows she can save big and get it all done in one trip. It's like winning the Easter egg hunt. When you save, everyone wins. Get a $15 digital coupon when you spend $150 in one transaction. Now through April 5th, visit bj's.com slash Easter coupon for details. BJ's, your Easter destination. Hey, everybody. It's Tim Moe from the Bollwork. Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of interviewing Don Lemon here in New Orleans. I adopted him. He's from Louisiana. We were in the basketball arena at Tulane and had a great crowd for 9 AM. Hard to get up in 9 AM in Louisiana. And I got to see him for the first time since the Trump regime targeted him. We talked about that. I didn't really know the full backstory about how he was detained and arrested, what happened to him when he was being held. So we got into all of that. We also talked about independent media. You should go check him out if you haven't. Over on his YouTube feed and talked about news of the day. Got a little heavy at some point. So I also decided we needed to do some little lighter fare. Have some jokes for the people. So I hope you enjoy it. It was a really great shout out to Cheryl Landrieu, who puts on this festival every year here in New Orleans. And for letting us repurpose this for y'all. So stick around for me and Don Lemon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Out of town. How many of them out of town? What in the hell are you doing? They're all here for Tim. Look at all the people who came to see us. You did not do New Orleans correct if you're in from out of town and you're at this panel at 9 AM. I'm sorry. You've got to fix that tonight. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Like good morning. Good morning. Yes. How many lemon heads in the house? Elimination brother. Yes. Thanks for doing this Tim. Why didn't you bring me any swag? I could get you some swag. I know some people. I like some swag. We're going to start with this. Let's pull up the pants. Do you have an ankle bracelet? No. An ankle monitor? No? All right. That's a free man right there. Not that I know of but I did. I did. I lotioned. That is a free man. Yeah. Boy. I had to be pretty fucking weird. You know. Can arrest. Can I tell you something weird? So yesterday I'm sitting in the hotel room here and I did my show from the room. And you know after the show I look up and I had MSNOW on which you appear on and Ali Bel she had the president's sort of enemies list up there with all the people who had he had you know targeted. Try to arrest and fail. And then it had Don Lemon indicted. I was like why am I up there? I just said this is weird. I'm like up there with like Tish James. Like it's weird. Like did they give you a heads up? Like were you in your underwear? Like what's that? No. No heads up. No heads up. No. And look I can just so you guys know. How are you? I can only talk about what's public. I can't talk, discuss much of the details of whatever but anything that's out there I don't mind talking about it. And we can talk a little bit about the prison food. Yeah. You can ask me whatever you want. But the thing is is that you know I had heard them excuse me who is this changing this morning. I'd heard them talk about you know they were on TV right after it happened and saying you know Don Lemon, Don Lemon, Don Lemon and so I got an attorney and my attorney sent them a letter saying if you're serious and hey we're ready let them self report turn themselves in. Yeah. Never heard back from them. And so the idea, the motivation is to embarrass you. Yeah. Right? And as I said when I was released from the POKI the process is the punishment. Yeah. But that's what they want to do. They want to embarrass you. They want to take you through but you know they want to you know diminish your finances, diminish your ability to be able to make money, your credibility, your reputation, all of that. It's really maniacal. So how long are you in there? Like I've only been in one time. Wait, what did you do? Well I had a minor in possession of alcohol when I was 18 and then I didn't go to the classes and then I got a traffic arrest in Vale and they were like you have a warrant out for your arrest because you didn't go to your alcohol classes so I was in the Vale count. I should be interviewing you too. I was in there for about three hours and I got a t-shirt out of it. I still have it. It has the elevation on it. The Vale jail is not exactly where the heavy hitters are. So I was okay. But what was your experience? It was, I was in there overnight. I think it was from about midnight to, so about 12 hours, 11, 12 hours, midnight to I think noon the next day. Yeah. That's like by yourself. Yeah, but I was in a... Did you make some friends? Steve Banner made some jail friends. No I did not make any jail friends. I was in a holding room. Never like an official cell luckily. Yeah, I will tell you that the folks who, not the people who arrested me, they were jerks. But the people who were in charge of me and when they're in the holding part of it and processing, they could not have been kinder. I had the same experience in Vale. You did. You had the same experience. In Vale, yeah. Top was mean but the... So they're, look, I know we talk a lot about federal agents and all of that but those guys, there are career professionals who work for the Department of Homeland Security who are not the goons who are out there with 47 days experience robbing people of their due process rights to different people. And they don't like being associated with those people. You can tell, and we've talked about this a little bit, I'm interested in your view that I'm like of multiple minds about this, but your situation but also everybody's, Jim Comey's and Tis Jayne, everybody on the list that you saw in MSNOW. On the one hand I'm angry because it's un-American and it's horrible and you deserve to be upset at them. On the other hand, I kind of want to mock them because it's been so ham-handed. I mean, they came in with like, we have an enemy's list and they've unsuccessfully jailed a single enemy. You know, Barack Obama walks free, he walks free, Tim Walz walks free, the sandwich man walks free, like they're struggling. And so on the one hand I think it's better to mock them but on the other hand, like you're saying, the process is the penalty and it's wrong and I'm just wondering how you process that. Well, I'm sitting here now, you know, looking back with the perspective that I have now, we can joke about it a little because as I say, I'm not going to let them steal my joy. I'm from Louisiana and I grew up at very churchy household. Right? When we say, when we talk about New Orleans, we say down the road because it's south. Right up the road from Baton Rouge or as we say Baton Rouge. From the RBR. Growing up going to, you know, everybody goes to the Catholic school. When I was growing up, back in the late 60s, early 70s. No. Yeah. 1960s. I just turned 60. Really? Yes. You look great. Thank you. I know. It's, it's all, look, it's all genetics. Because the shit that I've been through in Alaska. Maybe 90. My forehead still moves, baby. Sorry. Tim, you know what they say, I'm trying not to say it. Black don't crack. I was trying to get you to say it. But here's the thing. I'm trying not to crack. I'm trying not to crack. I'm trying not to crack. I'm trying not to crack. I'm trying not to crack. I'm trying not to crack. I'm trying not to crack. But here's the thing. Good bays don't age either. And so, stay out of the sun. No problem. I'm just saying. But, so, I'm not going to let them steal my joy. I grew up with faith from a very faithful family. And, you know, I am, I'm not churchy. I do, you asked me the first thing, you said, did you go to church? You still go to church? And I said, yeah, the last time they tried to arrest me. Yeah. Sorry, the last time they arrested me for going to church. But I can joke about it now somewhat, but these are very serious charges. These are federal charges. And like conspiracy? Like, you know, it's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. But yeah, it's perspective that I gained is that they are maniacal. And I believe that they are not patriots. I believe that they are, they don't believe in the Constitution. They don't believe in the Bill of Rights, because otherwise they would not be conducting themselves in the way that they are, and they would not be going after someone who is who you consider your political rival. And you're right, they're not having much success, if any, in any of this. It's a waste of resources. It's a waste of your tax dollars for the number of people who came to arrest me and Georgia Fort and all the other people, even in different countries. These folks could have turned themselves in and saved you a hell of a lot of money. And it wouldn't be all the hoopla. But first of all, why are they doing it anyways, you know? Yeah, I like to mock them. So I want to start with that. Go for it. Because they just, they still haven't jailed anybody, which is pretty tough for them. Zero for, they haven't jailed anybody for the 2020 election theft, I've noticed either. The one that was stolen? Yeah, you'd think they'd be able to find a culprit by now. Cash has been on that. I know. You know, but we'll see. We're still waiting. Cash is busy. He's got locker rooms to do beer. He does. I guess he has girlfriend singing at semi pro wrestling matches on our plane. The, here, the serious part. So you're talking about the resources and that, that is serious, the waste of tax dollars. But it's also like, these are, this is federal law enforcement. There's real shit to be worried about. We've got a war now and we're about to start talking about, but you know, obviously we have domestic terror threats. We've seen that over the course of the past week. We've got a lot of people who are experts who have either been fired, quit, because they don't want to work for these guys or who are being redeployed to like, you know, do perimeter work outside the Home Depot. And like that's happening at the prosecutor level, at the agent level, at the FBI level and like that. You know, you have to believe that there are real consequences to that at some point. These people do real jobs. These people do work. They're supposed to, used to at least. They do real jobs and that's just, that's what I mean. They're not patriots and they don't believe in the constitution because these people are career professionals. You see the brain drain that's going on at all of these agencies. They are attacking very important systems and agencies and institutions in this country. So yes, there's a real consequence. But just think, let's just think about it on a human level, that you have worked your entire life to do the right thing because you do love this country and it is, you are serving your country in a different way than the military, but you're still serving your country. And then all of a sudden you have this lawless administration, or regime as I like to call it, administration. You have them come in and there are people who are there that just spoke to a friend last night who have been there for a while in, I mean, working for the government and working in these institutions. And maybe they have two, three years left. Right? And they're like, I just, I'm a couple of years away from retirement. I can't change my career at this point and all they just want to do is hang on and all of these bogus bullshit indictments and all of this stuff. Their names are on those things and they're like, I hope nobody notices that. Everybody had to quit Minneapolis and they don't even have prosecutors. They're like, they tried to go after René Good's spells. They're trying to go after, a lot of people quit. I got friends who are prosecutors in different places, other places like this and they're just like trying to keep their head down. I don't want to say what district they're in, you know, because they're just like, I hope that nothing happens where I live so I can just survive this and do my job of prosecuting actual criminals. But you know what they're doing is they just keep prolonging these cases because they don't have the resources to fight, to fight, to adjudicate them or whatever it is. Or the facts. Or the facts. Or the facts. But it doesn't matter. You know, people are going down looking around Georgia, you know, searching around for the ballots. I mean, those are all people that should be doing real work. Should be doing real work and... Should I just say it? Let's do it. How can you have someone who is mentioned and who is accused of some very untoward things in the Epstein files and still not be brought into question, to be questioned when there are heads of state in other countries who have lost their positions, who have faced consequences simply for the association. Yeah. Right? And not... That's worse than that actually. Yeah, we've got people actively who work for the government actively covering up. You know, like the fan body basically was like, you have to give me a shared file of all the times that the president and cabinet members are mentioned in here. Have you noticed how quiet she's been lately? Yeah, where is she? The other thing you're saying about them not being patriots is, like, these are fun... This is when my old Republican comes out. Democrats care... You know, you all care about the Constitution too, the Democrats, but I had a pocket Constitution before I was arrested in Vale. You know, I went through a pocket Constitution phase in high school, then a troublemaking phase, and then I came back around. Look, man, they went after you for your first... You're exercising your first amendment, right? Freddie and Renee Good are exercising their first amendment, right? Alex Freddy is exercising his second amendment, right? To carry that firearm. Multiple people have been exercising their fourth amendment, right? To not have their houses or cars, whatever, infringed upon. Like, these guys are trampling over the basic fundamental rights in this country. Luckily for you, it was just one night in jail, but like, look what happened to Alex Freddy. Yeah. Yeah. Alex and Renee and Keith Porter, right, in California. Yeah. I mean, it has real life or death consequences. And here's the hypocrisy and the irony of it all. We're in Iran, supposedly. This is one of the 10, maybe 25 excuses. Okay, hundreds of excuses that they've given for it to justify this unjustifiable war. The protesters? Yeah. And I'm going with the protesters, they said, because they shoot protesters. And I was like, we do too. In America. And or, you know, Maduro, well, he tried to steal an election. I said, so did you. So what happens if another country wants to come and arrest our leader for doing things that are unlawful? They have set a precedent to do that. All right, Mark Carney, looking at you, Emmanuel Macron. Yeah. Let's send some French lesionaires in here in this dip. But think about it. Think about this, Tim. You have that. And then you have them saying, Pete Hexeth saying, well, this is how the headlines should be written. This is how the news should go. Meaning... What happens when you put a Fox and Friends co-host in the whole department of oil? When he just realized that's not how the media actually operates like Fox News. We don't just put shit on the screen just because that's how we want it to be. It has to be factual so he doesn't understand that. But the fact that he thinks that it should be state-run media, isn't that... Don't you find that hypocritical? Because that's exactly what we're supposed to be fighting against Iran. That's why we're in this war with Iran is because they have state-run media. They don't have a free press. People don't have rights in the Constitution as we do. It's a First Amendment. And so he's saying, hey, look, this is how the... The press should only write favorable things about this administration and the war. It's outrageous. Yeah, let's talk about... Well, I want to talk about the meta-conversation about the press covering the war. But I guess before we do, just on the actual war itself, I mean, did you get as caught off guard as me? But I thought that Trump was... I have a pretty low regard for Trump. I don't know if you know that. I expect him to make a lot of bad decisions when he got back in. I accepted him to be corrupt. I expected it to be a shit show. I kind of didn't... I thought this was the one thing that I was like, you know, I don't think he's going to do this. I don't think he's going to get us into a stupid Middle East war. I know it was the fundamental case that he made against my candidates back in 2016 that he wasn't going to do that. And I just... I've kind of been blown away that he's doing it. You're not? Tim. And I'm just saying, if you're not meeting my expectations as Trump, it's like you're really... It's really ugly. When did you think he wasn't going to do it? It wasn't the time where he changed the name of the Department of War? And you're supposed to be a peacetime president and we're going to get you out of it. Every accusation is a confession. You know that. And so I had... Look, the bar is in hell for this administration. And so I had... I'm not surprised about that. And this is coming from someone... Did you know that I was a Republican in college? I was a young Republican now. No. At LSU. Yeah, you know, I was at LSU. It was, you know, it was the 80s. Everybody was doing it. Just Reagan maxing and cocaine at LSU. And ecstasy. Okay. Yeah. But then honestly, I grew up and I realized like, okay, political parties are kind of BS. Yeah. The coverage of this though, I'm looking at your old network and there's a lot of people doing good work. So I don't want to impugn with a broad brush. And I do think that actually before I start, before we do a little media criticism, let's acknowledge something. There's one limitation to what we're doing in independent media is like the bulwark doesn't have a Tehran bureau. You know, like we don't get the... You know, the lemon heads don't have somebody on the ground in Beirut. You know, like we can do what we can do. We can like try to, you know, find people, you know, in the moments to hire or something, bring in experts, all that kind of stuff, right? But like... We do bring folks in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course. Of course we do. We do. But like you need institutions that have the money and the resources and the expertise to do that kind of stuff. And no one does it better than CNN. Yeah. And there's a lot of people doing good work at CNN. So I want to acknowledge that. Okay. But now it does feel like there is this sense that they have to like, you know, you got to hand it to the administration sometimes. Yeah. Like that the panel can't... Like that the people covering the news can't just be blunt about what this is, which is it's a corrupt war. It's a stupid war. There's no point... They have not offered any rationale for it. And so underneath that, just because like they did some impressive bombings, like that doesn't... You know, what is... Who cares? Yeah. And I think that... And just because God loved the Iranian diaspora of people, but like just because they're happy, like does not take away the fact that this war was brought illegally and on false pretenses. And so I just don't know if they're capable of doing it in the old institutions. Like there's this old habits. There's still some sniffs of how they would have covered the shit in the 90s. Well I will say it's what you said. It's where you're 100% right. And I say it all the time. I don't know if you're watching, but I say it all the time. But I have... I think I have a bit more experience in corporate media than you do as someone who was a prime time host. I was there for almost 17 years and then NBC before that. Can you believe I worked at Fox? Before it was Fox News. I worked at a Fox station in New York that was... It was a Fox O&O station and it was called the Fox News Exchange. It was all the local stations that were owned by Rupert Murdoch and those guys. And so we would all get together and file reports and it would go into this big batch and it would go out to all the Fox stations. Then this was before Fox News. And so anyway, so I have a long history with corporate media and you're right. It's hard to turn that ship around because they think that's the way it should be done. They also think mistakenly that they're going to gain an audience by trying to move a network into a certain direction. And these days it's to move it to the right because they believe that that audience is going to come to them because... I was speaking to Kevin O'Leary the other night and he said, well CNN has to... They've got to come to the middles to gain more audience. I was like, you're out of your mind. That's never going to happen. Are you crazy? I was like, those folks are never, ever going to watch CNN and they're never going to watch any network that is a factual news organization. So that's never going to happen. So they think that they have to get people... Can I give you an anecdote on this? Yes. But hang on. Can I finish my talk? Can I get people who... They'll have a conversation and pretend like, well let's pretend this side is equal to that side and you've got to give it to the administration. When the conversation should be, this is all bullshit. There's no rationalization. They didn't do it. And why are you inviting these people on who are election deniers and insurrection deniers and people who are lying and coming on just to insult people, people who are bigots and misogynists? Why are you giving them an equal platform as people who are speaking the truth? So you're right. The habit is being broken and people have stopped watching because they see through the facade. And people are going to say a different thing on TV than they do in the green room. All the time. You know that, right? I hate this guy. He's crazy. He's out of his mind. He can never be our nominee and you get on camera and he's like, I love him. And I'm like, who are you? Yeah. I know. No, this is a hard thing because I've been wanting to have people that are at least, you know, aren't quite as TDS filled as me on the podcast. You know, I'm in the James Carville. You have like, I want the TDS to rain down on me from the heavens. Do you have TDS, you think? I do. Well, I mean, well, no, I think that I see him clearly. I just, I don't think you do. Thank you, Don. But I'm trying to bring on people that like, you know, we're all wrong sometimes. I don't know. Maybe there's something I'm not seeing. But it's hard. I finally had a guy on this week. I've been trying to get on his podcast on breaking points is a MAGA guy. It was a lot of terrible views and a lot of some of the things you just laid out. He has some of those sins, but like, at least he is saying what he really thinks, which is the Iran war is stupid and Trump is covering up the Epstein files, right? Like he has pretty hard views on immigration, but then at least we can kind of hash those out because I know you're not bressing. That's not what CNN is doing. No. Not having those people on. No. Not having people come on that just no matter what Trump does, they'll say that it's great, even if they think it's stupid. And that's not news. That's kind of their jobs there. It's like we need someone and that's been, that's at every network. We need someone who's on the right, except for Foxy. Do they have any legal, I mean any liberal? Well, look at my girl, Jesse, Charles. Except for Jessica, I love her. And Harold Ford Jr. here, man. Harold Ford Jr. Yeah. Yeah. But no, but Harold's pretty moderate. I think you need because that, no shade to Harold, I love him, but he's pretty moderate. But when you have a network that is that dedicated to carrying the water to the right, you need like someone on the left who's that dedicated, right? And that's what they feel that they have, that most networks feel that they have to do that. And they just get smart people who are living in reality. And rather than someone who's just going to be like, well, the president is always right and then make faces and laugh at the other people on the panel who are actually smarter than they are. Here's some real talk. Yes, yes. There's just no market for high brow right wing news. The viewers aren't there. Can I tell you how I know this for sure? We could have a third person on this stage if we wanted to and he could answer this and that's Tucker Carlson. Because when Tucker started the Daily Caller 15 years ago now, do you know what his stated goal was for it? What? He wanted to do the New York Times of the Right. They were going to do investigative journalism, real news, but from a right wing perspective. That did not do very well because there was no market for that. And so what ended up happening is that Daily Caller did like hot girls and conspiracy theories and now Tucker Carlson thinks that Churchill was the bad guy in World War II. We saw the whole pipeline. And you know who's doing really well? Tucker Carlson's podcast. And do you know what's not doing very well? The National Review. And so there's just isn't a market for it. Well maybe it's a Daily Caller. I had no idea. It's still around. It's still there. Yeah. And so that's the problem. Let's talk about the Ellison's and this merger. The Secretary of War literally said yesterday that he can't wait for CNN to get David Ellison in, which is insane. And that's the government, the head of the armed military saying that he's excited for a new propaganda network to come in. State-run media. That's what I said. But Pete Hexeth wants state-run media. This administration wants state-run media. Why do you think they're going after journalists? Why do you think they're going after, what's that for Miss Natanson's first name? Is it Renee from the Washington Post where they raided her house and took her phone? Why do you think they're doing that? So yeah, they want state-run media. But I have to say, it's obvious that this is what the administration wants. This is what MAGA wants, which means anyone who's supporting Donald Trump is MAGA, meaning the Ellison's and all that. But I have to blame the networks themselves and the corporate overlords and the companies that own them because they are the ones, the gatekeepers, because they are the ones who are bending the knee. Journalists don't, they don't own anything except for this and what they say. And what they say can get them fired. And so it's the gatekeepers. Why do you think we're doing so well and independent? Because we don't have gatekeepers. So they have, I blame them. And I mean, I have to blame even the people who are working inside of the news organizations now who are managers and supervisors and whatever, the head of the network, because they allowed this to happen. And not push back against the corporation and say, stay out of our business. We are journalists the way people did the Phil Griffin's of the world, the Jeff Zuckers of the world who said, this is news, this is journalism. Do your other things. And then, and those networks were much more successful when they did that. Do you ever think to yourself, what in the hell would I be doing right now if I was still on 9 p.m. on CNN and the sale was happening? Do you ever think about that? Hallelujah. I think about it and I was like, this is a blessing in disguise when my friend called me and said, Don, if I open the dictionary that says timing and lucky blessing in disguise, your picture is in there. Can you imagine being there right now? That's what I'm asking you. I can't imagine. If I were there right now, I would have been fired for cause. I probably would have cussed some people out or you don't miss the makeup people and the travel budget. No, no, no, because I mean, I don't miss the makeup people. I love those guys. I mean, do I miss them as yes, but I don't I don't miss putting makeup on because you don't need it. Have you ever won makeup on your show? No, no, I've never unless I'm coming back from like sometimes in the hangover. I'll do it. Under eye. I don't do that. I won. I'll come on and say, Hey, everybody. Good morning. Cause I do live. I'm like, I'm a little hungover. And I just tell them, right? If we went out last night and had a little too many and I get on with the news, people don't like the artifice anymore. So no, I can't imagine. You don't think like what if we have president, I don't know, AOC in 2029 and these corporate overlords are like, Oh shit, we got to tack back and they called you and they're like, I want to give you a prime time show again. What would you if only if they gave me a Rachel Maddow deal where I get to do what I want and work like one night a week for the most part and then come in on the stories. Yeah. From New Orleans. Sitting on the balcony on like Bourbon street or something. So maybe I would do it. But I will say that I worked with the best journalists. I'm talking about the corporate overlords. The best journalists in the world at CNN and their journalists, as you know, doing really great things, especially in a war zone. And when I said that no one does it better than CNN, I'm not necessarily talking about their domestic product. I'm not a real fan of it right now. But internationally, there's no one doing a better Clarissa Ward and all the folks who are overseas. Gosh, who's my, I can't remember his name. Why can't I remember a senior moment? But who is in Iran right now on safe passage? Frederick Pleitkin doing great job. Thinking about like kind of the inverse of you, good timing. How about the worst timing possible to take over a news network and install people that are unapologetic warmongers? Not great over at CBS. It's not. It's like this isn't real. Like when, right, like literally two weeks before the president started, I mean, I have to, I was about to say the stupidest war that I can, you know, of my lifetime. I guess Iraq, you know, there's some conversation there. At least they made the case for Iraq. I mean, hell, half the Democrats in the Senate voted for Iraq. Like in this case, it's totally pointless. Like a completely pointless war, no rationale. And that is right at the moment. CBS has put in people that are like, hell, yeah. Well, that's why I said it's kind of their own fault because I think CBS and other networks are bringing about their own demise because they are bending the knee and what you're supposed to be doing is fighting back even against the people who own the corporations. And if they, if those people were actually patriots and they understood the Constitution, the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights, they would not be doing what they're doing. But I will say, and I think, you can applaud if you want to, but I will say, okay, no one. Please clap. Please clap. That's not what I was saying. That was a joke. That please clap moment. So taking out of context. For another time. That was you, right? No, it's funny. You were there. No, no, that's really Parker's fault. We'll do it in the green room. Okay. That was fine. Everybody in the room thought it was normal. But I do, look, I have been informed by some smart people, and I say that they're going to bring about their own demise. I think CBS News might possibly go away. And I think that CNN will absorb that and then it'll basically be CNN and then CBS will be no longer. I think that's very possible too. Yeah. Just one more on the war, just like why they want the disinformation, like back to the substance of it, right? And we have the bombing of the girls' school. You know, luckily, not luckily is absolutely the wrong word, but because it was so obviously us, they haven't gotten away with it, I guess, is the way that we're trying to put it. They were going to try to say that Iran did it. Oh, they're still trying to say that Iran did it. Yeah, I know, but it's extremely ham-handed. I mean, at this point we have video of the Tomahawks and some people on Fox, so it seems like this is us actually. But the president is trying to say that it wasn't us still. You know, some of his biggest advocates and commentators are still trying to say we don't know for sure. It's insane that a government, you know, it's North Korea type behavior for the president of this country just to lie to our face about the fact that we wrongly killed a bunch of girls as part of this illegal war. And you know, but we don't really, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that is a serious crime. We also don't know exactly what's been happening with the other people who are injured. We know the number of fatalities that we have in this war, American fatalities, but there's a lot we don't know because they're lying and they're hiding from us to a degree that is unusual. It's not old style spin that we've seen from past administrations. They're just lying and covering things up. Look, you've got Minnesota and you've got Alex Pretty and Renee Good and Keith Porter, but then you have 175 girls. So the lying and the covering up and not allowing the investigations to happen, we've seen that. We know that it happened in Minnesota and other places. And the cover up, the cover up is not, it can be worse than the crime, but this is pretty bad. What happened in that girl's school is an atrocity. It should be investigated as a possible war crime. And we should be investigating how it happened. If it had anything to do with intelligence, there's possibly, reportedly an anthropic connection and what the defense secretary or the secretary of war or whatever it is, what he signed and deals or whatever that happened before that happened. And so I think that, I don't think, I think this is something that they will not be able to get away with. And if there is a military tribunal or a war crime or whatever, I think that some people in our government and in possibly the military, but mostly in the government, they're going to face some consequences for it. Yeah. I hope so eventually. I guess. Because imagine if that had happened in anywhere else in the world. And we know, we know that other places that they don't have Tomahawk missiles. And if they do, either we sold them to them or the fact that they got them should be concerning to us. So there's a whole lot of stuff going on there. And look, in wars, mistakes happen, right? People die. That's why we should have serious people in charge. That's why you should be judicious about deciding if we're going to use violence, right? In the past in this country, I don't want to glorify the past of America. We've done a lot of terrible things in various conflicts. Like even going back to Iraq, right? Think about Abu Ghraib. There were internal people who blew the whistle on that. Yeah. Right? And there was the spokesperson who was the Kaylee McAnamey for, I guess not Kaylee anymore. I'm mixing my blonde. Caroline Leavitt. Caroline Leavitt. It's early. I'm mixing my blonde. My Magga Blonde's up. He was the Caroline Leavitt. I mean, it's kind of crazy the Magga. Have you seen the Magga face? Yeah. It's a look. It's a look. It's a little cultish and a little, what do you call them? I don't know. It's not as cultish as the shoes. Now the men have to wear the same shoes and the ladies have to have the same lips. Was it Foreshine? It's strange. It's Foreshine, right? It's Foreshine. Donald Trump just discovered Foreshine. Like where is it? But I mean, do you're not old enough to remember Tom McCann? Do you remember Tom McCann? Anybody remember Tom McCann? Anybody remember, was it Paul Parrott shoes? Like Penny Lover's? I mean, I'm old enough to remember, but I mean, he just discovered Foreshine shoes? I'm not going to get back to the point. It's an important point, but while we're here. But they're all wearing them, which is frightening. And it's like the psychological torment, it must be, I think about how submissive you have to be to walk around in shoes that don't fit to make your boss happy. That is, you're the secretary of state and you're walking around in clown shoes. Your foot is sliding around and like you've got to have serious meetings and you're like, man, I have blisters and it's like, I do know why the boss is making me. You know why they don't fit? Because you're lying about his size. You wanted the boss to think he had bigger feet. I didn't think about it, but he's a, let's hold that thought because they're not wearing the right socks. They should be wearing some compression socks. Okay. And it would make it a little thicker and maybe they would fit because, you know, along with the shoes go the cankles. Yeah. Yeah. We'll tell Mark about that. But I mean, Donald Trump is obsessed with size. Donald Trump shoe size. Yeah. Donald Trump is the gayest president I think that we, and he talks about it all the time. He's like, oh, and these guys, they were straight out of central casting. They were so handsome, you know, built. And I'm like, dude. He would dominate me in Broadway trivia. Like he would run circles around me in Broadway trivia. It's so, it's so he's the makeup. It's the gayest thing I've. Yeah. And the other thing back to the Mar-a-Lago face, I promise you we're going to come back to Scott McClellan on the Mar-a-Lago face. They look like drag queens. Yeah. It's like a, the aesthetic is of drag queen aesthetic, you know, the big lips, the big lashes, the big makeup. It's very, but it's also very like show biz, Broadway. Yeah. Right. But it's, it is like drag queens. But you know, I have, honestly, I have friends who are in media and they say, I learned how to do my makeup for drag queens because you can drag queens, not a pain on a whole. Oh yeah. And they can, they can show you how to work some makeup. And so I think the Mar-a-Lago folks, but it is a lot of people with whole new faces. Yeah. But I look, I don't, I don't know insults to drag queens. It has become clownish for these women though now with the Mar-a-Lago face. They look like clowns. Yeah. I mean, have you seen what was the one Don Jr.'s ex-girlfriend like? Kim. Wow. Wow. I never, I never looked. And Kristi Noem has a whole new face. Yeah. I'm pro plastic surgeon. People got to do whatever they want to do to make themselves feel good. I'm pro. If you want to do gender affirming care, that's fine with me. But I, I do think it's a strange. Well, I'm not talking about plastic surgery. I'm talking about just the makeup. I don't know what surgery they have. There's some surgery happening. I think it's a strange thing to decide. I want to wake up one day and look in the mirror and have a whole new face. My friends from high school don't even recognize me anymore because I have a whole new face. It's a, there's a compulsion there. You know what though? If you did what they did, you probably couldn't look at yourself in the mirror either. That's a good point. So you've got to change your face in order to be able to. Especially Kristi Noem. Can you believe this woman went down to El Salvador to a foreign gulag and did a, like a pinup girl snuff photo in front of people that we had wrongly sent there? Yeah. It turned out to actually not be. That's because El Salvador in Situas in front of, like we sent these Venezuelans who did nothing based on their tattoos, who came to this country fleeing communism. Speaking of your Reagan Maxing from the 80s, these people were fleeing communism, looking for freedom coming to the shining city on the hill. We grabbed them and said, no, we're going to send you to a gulag in El Salvador and we're going to have our stone faced secretary of homeland security do a fucking photo shoot in front of you like your animals. It's sick. That's serious sick person. It is. It is sick. And she could have used the makeup artists that you interviewed to help Andre. Yeah. Who would have helped her out? I mean, imagine what these people had to go through or still are going through. And many of them, the people that they have rounded up are US citizens, by the way. Yeah, some of them. Right. And some of them have been, some US citizens have been shipped off to places or in detention for no reason. Yeah. And from the very beginning, I went to Chicago, went early part of this and I started interviewing people and they're like, Don, I'm a US citizen. I was born here in Chicago. I had my birth certificate and all this stuff in the house and they didn't want to see it. And so you have that and you have Kristi Noem standing in front of that jail cell with the shaved heads and the prison outfits for what? For a show. But you know, karma's a bitch. And every dog has its day and sometimes too. And I think that they are all again, I think that they're all going to suffer some consequences when, as you know, you're more political, you have more political history or you have a better political resume than I do. But every administration thinks that, you know, that they're going to be there forever. They're going to be in power forever. And they forget that it's going to be over one day. I mean, look at, you know, the Reagan era, everybody, other Republicans were great. And then it was over. Yeah. Right. And then you look at the Clinton era. Oh, this is great. And then it was over. Yeah. And one day Trump is going to be over and they're going to have to. And unfortunately, they're going to have to answer for what they did. Unfortunately, Trump's going to get away with it. But some of these other people are going to experience consequences. I think they're going to be in jail longer than you were. I agree. He's going to try to pardon some of them, but you know, there's state crimes. There's state crimes. And also, also I've been speaking to the legal people on background and they say if he does go in and he overuses these pardons, they will probably go, it will probably go to the Supreme Court and some folks and we'll see what happens with the Supreme Court. You know, I mean, he's kind of stacked the Supreme Court now, but some of these folks may not be, you know, saved by pardons that were handed out before. Which takes us back to Scott McClellan. Yes. He quit. Nobody's been quit. Nobody quit this administration. Right. There's no whistleblowers. In the past, our government has done bad things, but people from inside said this is too far for me. This has passed my red line, but there's something. You mean now? Yeah, now. Because John Kelly quit. Right, right now. No, because here's why this is my theory. I was going to get to. Is that if you signed up for this after January 6th, you basically said, I don't have a red line, right? And I know that he's going to do illegal stuff. You know, that first group, very misguided. I've said very nasty things about all of them because it was clear to me what his presidency is going to be like, but they thought that they were like putting the bumpers on the bowling alley and they were going, nobody thinks that now. And so that's why these guys can go and they do, and they can commit crimes. They can get heinous atrocities, whether it be in El Salvador or Iran or domestically in Minneapolis. And the people that have signed up aren't, there's nobody there to blow the whistle. I mean, they're the career officials, like the prosecutors we talked about, but of the political people, they're all in. That's why you're right. And that's why I don't believe in the false equivalents that I see on, you know, in corporate media now because we're in a whole new place. I don't believe that, you know, you can work with that on that side of the alley more, with the people on that side of the alley more because they're no levers for them. There's nothing that they won't approve from this administration. And people get upset with me and they're like, that's insulting when I say that many people in the MAGA movement are racists, right? And if they're not racists, they had to overlook the racism in order to support this president. Are the misogyny or the anti, you know, are the... I love that people like don't want you to say that they're like, oh, don't impugn their motives. And it's like the campaign was literally about how Haitians eat dogs and cats. And how he was going to deport, you know, immigrants and it was going to be nasty. That was the campaign. But if you had to... I say that a lot of them are racist, many of them. And if not, you had to overlook it. And I think that's even worse if you can overlook the racism, the misogyny, the election denial, the insurrection denial, the anti-vax and all. You have to overlook that. I mean, that... I think that if... Okay, if you know you're racist, okay, fine. But if you're not and you go, I'm going along with it, a lot of them go along with it because of the white supremacy. And that's where we are right now. Let's talk about the other side. I presume, given that that is the type of material that you're offering on the Don Lemon Show, that most of the viewers of the Don Lemon Show are going to be in the Democratic primary electorate, not all necessarily, but most. So you have a sense of this from your audience. Yeah. Like there are two things that I'm interested in, like kind of looking at how the Democrats are going to respond to all of this and things that make... That worry me a little bit about fissures within the Democratic side. Because look, people... Emotions are high right now. People are fucking pissed. And so when emotions are high, sometimes there's food fights on your own side. And there are two kinds of fissures I'm looking at. One we saw in Texas, which is like a really racialized, I think, fissure, in that Jasmine Crockett and James Tolrico primary. And then in some of these other primaries, we're seeing it over foreign policy, over Gaza and over Israel, where they're like some one side of the Democratic electorate is very hostile towards Israel's actions in Gaza. And that's like that is their primary issue. And then there are folks on the other side that are more national security oriented, more Israel's our ally. Among your audience, like how do you sense those kind of conflicts are going to be resolved inside the Democratic coalition or are they? It's tough. It's tough. I don't know that they are. It should be, especially considering the moment that we're in, but I don't know. I think that on the Democratic side, they've got to take quite frankly a lesson from the Republican side and they've got to fall in line and they have to realize that there are always going to be disagreements, some of them small, especially small disagreements, because it happens in families. And if it happens in families, I don't agree. I love my mom like the most, my mom and my husband and whatever in the world. And I don't agree with them all the time. And so we have arguments, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to, I wouldn't vote for them. Of course I would vote for them. You'd vote for your husband? Yeah, of course I would. Yeah, I know. That's true. So you wouldn't? He didn't come to the panel. He stayed at home, so I was just teasing him. Democrats are going to have to get over the idea that there's a perfect candidate or that they have to fall in love with the candidate. And I'm not going to say please clap again. So that they have to fall in love with the candidate and they have to realize, which they didn't during this last election, and I thought that they would, that I compare it to public transportation and having a private driver. Yeah. Right? Politics is like a public transportation, which ever gets you closest to your goal or to your home is where you want to do. And the candidate is not going to drop you off at your door and take your bags in the house. That's just not how it works. It's too many people that they have to serve. And there are so many different ideas in the Democratic Party, but they're going to have to realize that this is the most important election. I don't know if they're going to do it. And what the Democrats should be doing now, and this is what I thought about and I said, what am I going to stress when I'm with Tim today, is that if you're a Democrat or if you are a person who's not, you can be an independent or a Republican who has become disillusioned with the Republican Party. If you are anywhere in that. You should start preparing for the election now. You should start galvanizing people. You should start reaching out to neighbors or people you don't even know. You should start telling them, hey, does your identification match what's on your voting records? If it doesn't, you need to go fix that because the win has to be so big that there is no question about it because Donald Trump and the Republicans not might. They are going to try to steal this election no matter what they have to do. And so you got to get out there and go. So start now. Today is the day that you're going to the polling place. Yeah, I agree with you. Every time this topic comes up when I'm on the Coles show or on my show, I try to, I'm usually the pessimist. I don't know if you know that about me. No, not that. On campaigns, they called me rain clouds. And I was, and I always said to my boss, I was like, actually, I'm, I'm reality crowd we're losing. Yeah, I lost most of the campaigns. I was on not all of them, but most of them. And so I was like, no, I'm rain clouds. I was telling you what was happening. In this one, I think it is going to be too big to steal. You do. They are going to try. They are going to try. And I just, I worry sometimes that people in that big coalition that you're talking about are too, they're too negative about the trajectory, you know, and it's almost like it leads to nihilism. It leads to giving up and checking out, right? If you believe that like they're just going to steal it. Like we're not going to have elections anymore. And what you actually is true, what you've seen in the past, this is not true in like very extreme cases like the Jim Crow South, right? But in recent years, when they've tried to do voter suppression, more times than not, not every time, more times than not, it's backfired. Yeah. Because it draws attention to it. And I was kind of like when Steve Bannon was out there saying, we're going to put out ice outside the polls. Not everybody else was very freaked out about that. My message was put ice outside the polls because you know what that's going to do? A bunch of people who don't usually vote in the midterms are going to be like, fuck you. Right. Okay. I'll vote by mail. I'll vote early. I will walk past those ice guys and give them a big middle finger. And I do. And I, and I expect, I don't, I don't know, but I, I kind of think that's the direction we're on. I think you're right. But what, what I'm trying to convey to people is that you can do all of those things and when you get in there and they say you can't vote, then your vote doesn't count because it's not, you can't vote. And so you, you have to make sure that everything is in place so they can't say, oh, you can't do this. We saw this in Texas during this primary, right? It was just like, yeah, we saw this in Texas. They changed the rules. Like you always voted in this one precinct. They made it harder. Many fewer precinct people were shown up to the wrong place. We saw this last week or two weeks ago. We did. Which is, which was, I mean, it was an interesting election because there were two good candidates, right? Both had very positive, every candidate has positives and negatives. And I think that Texas will be, would it be, will be and okay with either one of those. Del Rico, yeah. What, what is your audience like? What, what has their passions going? Like what do you think? If you're, if you're saying to a Democratic candidate, you're like, I'm not giving you political advice. I don't know. I can only speak for my audience. Like here are the things that get them riled up. Well, you said that, you know, most of my audience, you, you thought that they were Democrats or liberals or whatever. I think, yes, I'm sure that's a big part of it, but they are mostly people who have become disillusioned with America, not just the political process. Yeah. And I think it's people, and they're Republicans who watch. And by the way, if you don't agree, I, I want you to be there as long as you're not trolling, right? I want you to be in the audience. I put my audience on the screen. Like if you have a membership in my audience, you can actually be on the show and voice whatever it is that you, you risk risky business. I've been on there with you and some of the audience. Yeah. But that's what you, that's what you have to do. You got to worry about that, Jeffrey Tubens. Um, but, uh, yeah, I asked you this question because the audience is on the screen. Sorry, it's just a joke. Come on, guys. It's a joke. Um, I asked you this because the audience is on the screen though, because you, that I think you're more in touch with them. Maybe you probably were as an anchor at CNN, right? So I'm just curious, like what, what are you hearing? Uh, I'm hearing that people want to know what to do and they feel, as I said, disenfranchised and they feel powerless and that they don't have agency. So I tried to get them to understand that they do by saying some of the things that I've said now, um, you, you do have, there are things that you can do. You do have elected representatives who do depend on you for their jobs. So you have to make sure that, and what they don't know, which I tell them, I know this is, it may sound crazy, is that you can, any, any American citizen can go and visit their Congress people in Washington. If you have enough resources to do that, you can go to their office and tell them and schedule a meeting with them. You can go and talk to them. You can go and bump into them as they're walking back and forth from whatever the Russell building or whatever it is to the Capitol. And most people don't realize that. So you do have agency, but I, but what I tell them is that you've got to, you've got to vote. Um, got to vote. I want to get you in trouble with the democratic politicians for a second. I think one cool thing about our platforms is that you do get a real sense for people. You get to kick the tires on them. You know, if they're going to come on the Don Lemon show, it's, it's just a little different than it used to be on CNN. You know, a lot of the politicians, they, you get into your rote system. You're like, I can survive this TV segment. It's eight minutes. You know, I'm going to do this and that and the other thing. And on internet, it's different. Um, and so I'm just wondering, is there anybody that's been impressing you that they came on here like, Oh man, they've got really chops. The audience loved them. Or then you became on here like, boy, they're, they struggle outside of, outside of the cons fines of their talking points. Well, I think they're learning the people. I mean, there's this guy on the bulwark. His name is Tim Miller, but he's, he's okay. I'm at the politicians. He's a, I'm not running for shit. Um, um, I have been, I am, I am impressed with the younger people who are in the Democratic party right now, the AOCs of the world. And, I mean, and, and the Bernie Sanders, because Bernie Sanders has young ideas. Right. And, um, I believe, and Jasmine Crockett and all those people, because I believe that the energy on the Democratic side is in the progressive movement of the party. When you think if you want people to have living wages, right, or, you know, and you want to raise the minimum wage to something that's so that people can afford to be able to live, that's a progressive idea. But that should, that's like a universal idea that people should have affordable healthcare as a progressive idea, but it's everyone should have affordable healthcare in this country. We're a very wealthy nation. Look, um, what is it? I think Elon Musk is worth somewhere in the $800 billion, right? And so we have enough money in this country to be able to make sure. It's coming out. Yeah. Start seeing, you know, the, the, the amount of money Jeff Bezos, like went from, since he's owned the Washington Post, I don't have this front of me, but he went from like being worth something like, like 50 billion to being worth 800 billion in the last 12 years. Yeah. I mean, it's enough to, it's like they're begging for the French. It's enough to feed an entire Trump at the Erwan. Yeah. It's like the Trump kids are the Erwan. They're stealing our money. They have crypto. Trump is finally a billionaire. Yeah. That he's made it off of the presidency since he's been in office just this time. It's one year. So it makes sense why the, the, the, that, that the energy is on the progress. But you asked the energy is on the progressive side. So I'm impressed with those people when they come on. I've been a little bit nervous about the establishment because, um, and look, much respect to the folks who have been, that's how King been on the party. How King Jeffers has been on my show. Nancy Pelosi hasn't been on the show, but I saw her recently in person and I ask all of them, do they think they're going to have an election, a fair election in 2026? And they all say, Oh, without a doubt, 100%. And then I go, uh, um, but I think that finally they are starting to get it and starting to realize that they need to have some, some fire in their bellies. And it can't be the same old way that they operated. And, you know, if someone, um, like an Al Green is a rabble rouser and, and, and, you know, creates a, you know, a bit of a stir, they've got to stand by that person because that's what's going to get the people to go to the polls and vote. It's not going to keep them on committees, maybe, but that's what's going to get them. I haven't talked to my girl, Liz Smith. We're not doing Q and a, are we? Are we doing? Are we doing? Are we doing? Are we doing? No, I don't think I don't think anybody wanted to hear from the people. Okay. They got a question. Do you want Q and a stick of my questions? Oh, no, I was just wondering, because, you know, time is running. We're running out of time. I've got a couple of good ones left. Okay, go for it. We're going to go through your sex life. You know, each, she and Carol, each and Carol, and she was on my show, listed to me every person she had ever had sex with, and it was the most impressive list. I've ever heard. She did? Yeah. She's had sex with like six people, but they all like, like we're Olympians and there's an Oscar winner. It was an astronaut. I was like, wow, what? And, and you? It was a great podcast. They don't know. I was larger and less impressive. The needy and Carol. Shit. I did have good questions left, but I forgot what they were now. We got distracted. I saved myself until I got me. You got distracted. Oh, did you? Good for you. That's because we're at Book Fest. That's because you wrote a book about how you once were lost. Yeah, I did. You wrote a God book. I wrote, I did. I was thinking about that. I was like, I have to talk to Don Lemon for an hour and to talk to him about how we bombed a girl's school, how you got arrested. We're sending people to gulags. And, you know, that might shake your faith a little bit. No, it actually strengthens my faith. And I think people when I wrote the book, it's called Once Was Lost, my search for God in America. And I talked about my struggles with grief because I lost my sister in 2018. And then, and then this is after the book, I lost my sister recently, May of last year. And so my two siblings are gone. So it's just me. And I've got to stay around because my mom was like, okay, you need to be okay. So it's strengthens. Mom's still around. My mom's still around. My mom is up the road in Baton Rouge. I said, mom, do you want to come? She goes, no, I'll watch you on the Seast Band. You're not, are you going to go see her while you're in town? Yeah, I'm going to go see her. Or, but look, I'll go see her or look, she'll be at my house this summer for a long time. Last time she was there, I was like, mom. I love you, but do you have a life in Louisiana? And she's like, yeah. And she goes, well, you know, I'm just hanging out and said, mom, you've been here for seven weeks. Way too long. I love my mother. That's seven weeks. And then she's like, yeah, I guess you're right. And then she goes, I'm going out to Baton Rouge to the LSU girls game next weekend. Let me know if I need to check in. Yeah, go say hi to my mom. I'll give you her address. Um, but, uh, so it's strengthened my faith. And I think people didn't realize that I have a faith that I had such a strong belief and that I am a Christian. Um, but I also live in reality and I understand that there is a separation between church and state. And the reason, one of the reasons that I wrote the book is to talk about that, uh, about the erasure of that line, not just blurring that line and how, um, religious nationalism and white nationalism are sort of, or not sort of, but they're combining and they're trying to erase the line between, um, church and state. And that is a very dangerous place to be in. And that's where we are politically right now. I wonder, this is another thing I, I were, I think that has hurt the Democrats a little bit. I look, I'm a lapsed Catholic. All right. The Catholics made some mistakes. All right. And that hurts my mother's feelings. And so it's like easy for me to say this, because it doesn't reflect my life from my experience, but I think that to the extent that there are Democrats, are people on the left who are authentically people of faith, like they should, they, I feel like they used to talk about it more. You know, Jesse Jackson just died and he was very comfortable. I'm more than comfortable, right? He was forever and talked about his faith a lot. And you, and I think that, um, there are a lot of people out there who maybe feel like those on the left are, are Godless or whatever. And, and it's obviously fake coming for the right, but there's something to be said about, I don't know, I think there are a lot of people, particularly older black voters, to be honest, but also Hispanic voters who vote Democrat, who go to church, who have those values and are maybe feeling less seen by the They are less seen because they're not quite as loud. The loudest voices will always get more attention, but I believe that those people understand what having faith means, whether it's being Muslim or Christian or whatever. They understand that we live in a country that is religious freedom. So they're not trying to push their values on other people and they're not trying to use the media and their politicians in order to do that. And so as someone who is a person of faith and however I feel about, um, about abortion, if I don't believe in it, I'm not going to have one, but I'm not going to tell you what you can do because that's what our constitution says. And so, um, I think that, or however you feel about anything, you, what, I don't wear my faith on my sleeve. It's like, it's going around with the Bible and this and that's not what faith is about. And I think those people actually understand even more so than sort of the right wing ideological folks, what real faith means. So what it means. Rapid fire. We have 30 seconds left. You're a Louisiana and we're in Louisiana. I want your favorite Creole dish, your favorite Louisiana musician and your favorite Louisiana homosexual. Oh my God. So one would be Tim Miller. We will, you know where that one goes or, um, I was going to say Lindsey Graham, but he's not from Louisiana. South Carolina. I don't want to insult people because there are so many folks here in Louisiana who, um, who I love. You can just say juvenile or master P. I don't have something like that. So I won't, I won't say that, but I like Louisiana is so rich, especially New Orleans. I mean, they're just artists that just like on every corner and it's fantastic. And the other thing was my favorite. Food dish. Creole dish. So obviously I love gumbo, right? Amazing. But my favorite thing in the world, boil crawfish. And so when I, I went to the, the reception at the president's house last night, apparently I was invited to, you invited, but you didn't read your email. I learned about that. Um, and when I left the first place I went, I asked the driver, I was like, you know where I can get crawfish? And he said, yeah, I'm going to take you guys know where Zara supermarket is. Oh yeah. I went to Zara supermarket and they said, you better. He called him. He says, you guys have boiled crawfish and he said, yeah, we got some crawfish, baby, but you better get here. You got 10 minutes. We're going to close. I was like, that is going to be some good crawfish. There we go. So I went and got, uh, almost four pounds of crawfish. All right. I took them back to my room. I made them give me a bunch of plastic bags from the restaurant. Yeah. And, um, I sat in my room and ate crawfish and then called the folks to come and get the, I love that. I know. So that's my favorite. Blessings is it for me. Thank you all so much. That's Don Lamedy's free. A free man.