Today I'm here with America's favorite independent journalist and one of my best friends, Don Lemon. Don, how are you? How is life? Hi, Jennifer Welch. Life is better when I can see you and hear your voice. It's a little crazy, as you know. We've discussed a little bit, Um, um, but it's, yeah, it's, um, I'm doing okay. How's that? That's good. Well, listener, as you know, the Trump, uh, regime, you know, prosecution that makes absolutely zero sense while ignoring the Epstein files. And they arrested our good friend, Don Lemon for doing his job, a journalist, as well as other journalists. Don wasn't the only one. And, um, Kylie put up the headline about his phone. I was told Don, we couldn't ask you about anything unless it was reported. It says defiant Don Lemon says the process is the punishment after lawyers reveal the feds took his phone. Do they still have your phone? They do. They still have my phone. Yeah. And look, there's been report, there have been reports on it because the reports say that it's difficult to open, you know, the phones or whatever, get access to the phones. And so I don't know because I've never tried to get in somebody else's phone, but there's nothing in there that, I mean, you know, good. I mean, I want my phone back, but what they'll find is that there's nothing in there that really helps them. So I would love to be able to get my phone back, but I would like for them to do it quick, fast and in a hurry. Because I think in the old days, you know, if someone, they took your phone, I don't think people were as used to having their life being on their phones. but my life is on my phone. You know, I, my work is on my phone. I did a live shot in the snow this morning from, you know, um, from a phone that was, that I borrowed. And so I need my phone in order to not just to be able to call my family and my friends and my loved ones, but to conduct my business. It's my livelihood. So is there, are your lawyers going to be able to get your phone back? I think so. But I mean, do I want it back after that? You know what I mean? And it's just, And it's difficult if you're a high-profile person, but especially if you're a journalist, right? There are certain things that you don't want revealed. And I think there's privileged information on my phone. And I have almost everyone who's of importance in the universe in there, from presidents to everybody, to heads of states and to important actors and actresses and artists and Jen Welch. You know, I just, so I don't want them seeing that they shouldn't, they shouldn't be allowed to see that it's none of their businesses. That has nothing to do with, with what happened in Minnesota. I can just picture these just gross little maggots going all through your phone and they'll find out the night that you were arrested. I sent you a text that said, I love you, Don. So that's what they're going to have on us. They're going to come back and get you. Okay, let's move on to, you know, I don't know about you, but I get a lot of, and I know you do too. I get a lot of like death threats, hate mail. When I just arrived back in Oklahoma City here from Mexico, I had a letter from somebody wishing death upon me, tell me there was anthrax in the letter. And I thought, who am I supposed to report this to? Kash Patel? Like he's going to give a shit. I mean, who do you report it to? Oh, you know, you're right about that because, you know, I still get those things. But when back in during the first Trump administration, you remember, I mean, you watched me, remember, they would send pipe bombs to CNN and news organizations. I was in the middle of my show one night and we had to be evacuated. And we did the show on the street in front of the in front of the CNN studios at Columbia, Columbus Circle in New York because of threats, bomb threats and death threats at security and all those things. And even now, you know, very similar. So who do you report it to? For me, do I report it to the same people who are going after me? Right. Do you know what I mean? Who do you report it to? That's what I was. The same people you criticize, Jen? I mean. Right. So, I mean, I got these horrible, like, death threat letters. And I thought, well, do I screenshot it and put at Cash Patel? But let's see what Cash Patel, the director of the FBI, let's see what he's up to, how he runs his department. Kylie, play the clip. Yeah. Okay. This loser, this loser putting somebody's gold medal on and- Stolen valor Totally stolen valor And he just such a loser I mean you know this is a guy who is just juiced up on MAGA and this compensatory narcissism He feels so insecure about his manliness, about his manhood that he thinks, well, if I'm director of FBI, then that's going to make me manly. If I go party with the hockey team, then that's going to make me manly. these people are just so incredibly broken. What's your take on that? What do you think would happen if Obama's FBI director did that? Oh my God, I said that. Well, not only that, if Obama's FBI director was flying around vacationing with girlfriends on a company jet, right, which, you know, they have access to, they're the head of the FBI. But imagine if that was Christopher Ray doing the same thing. But I also think that when I said stolen valor, they're birds of a a feather. I know it's a cliche and people sort of mimic what happens at the top. Donald Trump wants the woman. And you remember he took her, um, her, uh, Nobel peace prize. Right. And so now he's putting on the same thing like, Oh, this is he's someone is putting on a gold medal on him. First of all, I'm happy for the USA team, hockey team, but I'm like, why are they hanging out with this loser? And who wants to be associated with anybody in this administration right now, especially when you see what's happening on the streets of America with them pulling people, yanking people off of the streets, dragging them across the ground, beating up women, nursery school teachers, preschool teachers, moms in the carpool line. It's like, who wants to be associated with this administration? If I were on that hockey team, first of all, I can skate, but not that well. But if I were on that hockey team, I'd be like, no thanks to hanging out with Cash Patel or any sort of phone call or going to the White House for Donald Trump. I just wouldn't. But they're all the same thing. They're all the same level of narcissistic. But I called it, when I posted, Jen, I call it classless. These people have no class. If you're the FBI director, why do you need to be in there doing that? Show some class, a modicum of class. And don't be a hypocrite. They're all hypocrites as well, because as you know, he criticized Christopher Wray for not even that behavior, you know? Well, and if you think about it, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who's now left the FBI because it was too hard for him to go work in an office all day. His words, not mine. But they got their attention to Donald Trump because they were laser focused on the Epstein files. Laser focused. They were conspiracy theorists who spouted off on a microphone conspiracy theories. And then they get inside the Death Star and they realize, oh, shit, the call is coming from inside the house. And so he was so critical of FBI, which I think, you know, this is a free country. You can be critical if you're a podcaster, you can be critical of governmental agencies. But here he is, this thing, not only are these people classless, they're breathtaking hypocrites. The hypocrisy is overwhelming. Here he is, Don, talking about, before he was FBI director, about directors using the private planes for personal use. Play the clip. And I'm not saying take all their funding. I'm not the defund everything guy. I'm just saying Chris Ray doesn't need a government-funded G5 jet to go to big time. Okay. Maybe we ground that. Have you seen the reports of him? He's been criticized for flying his girlfriend around and going to WWE events and other sporting events and just and taking vacations with a company jet they're just so full of hypocrisy and they can't even see it and the maggots that make excuses for them and still support them i just i don't i don't get it i said the only difference between donald trump and jim jones is that donald trump would charge you for the kool-aid It's so true. Yeah. It is. Cash Patel to me, like here's a guy who really complained about everything that clearly he was jealous of and he doesn't have the skillset, the discipline to do this. Not only is he flying his girlfriend around on the PJ so she'll stay with him because you can see there's an attractiveness deficit in the two of them. But, and I mean, I'm just pointing out the obvious, but he also has FBI agents drive her drunk ass and her girlfriend's drunk ass his home from bars. He has FBI agents do this. And it's just what it boils down to Don is that these people believe in nothing. They believe in nothing. They're hollow. And so as MAGA is starting the sunset, you know, sundowner hour with his dementia starting to happen. I've spoken to some scholars on the pod that say, you know, first you have the strong man and they represent this toxic style of masculinity But when the strong man becomes frail and weak there fissures in the personality cult And here Trump today at a press conference And just tell me what in the dementia you think of this Play the clip. Not too good. But we're having a massive snowstorm right now. And I've heard that he's asked people to come out and help shovel the snow. Okay. So you get a shovel and you start shoveling, right? What the hell? You're not going to help too much, but you can help. And hello, darling. How are you? No, right behind you. Look, my friend, right? Are you okay? Yes, you. Are you okay? Are you okay? Good. Good. Are your eyes okay? I gave her money to get her eyes fixed. A lot money to get a rise fix that doctor ripped me off but that's okay oh my god as you know also at that press conference he was talking about polls and fake polls and i can't be i'm not you know underwater and he said they're saying that i'm at 40 i'm way higher than 40 this is the man who used to i would walk into an interview with him at trump tower wherever it was and he would bring the polls to me the ones that were favorable and i would say well what about these it's like and so So he talked about that, and then he went from that to he's talking about Zoran Mamdani here in New York asking people, New Yorkers, to come out and shovel. And he would offer them $20 an hour. What's wrong with that? Everyone knows that most people in big city, if you want to lose your mayorship, what do you do? Don't plow the streets. Don't shovel the sidewalks. And so he's trying to get it fixed and shoveled the best way that he can. I don't see anything wrong with it. So I don't know why he's criticizing Zora Mamdani for that. And then to go off and talk about that woman, it's like, just have some self-awareness and maybe talk to this woman afterwards. And then do you have to say, I gave a lot of money to you to have your, and then it's like, oh, God, he's addled. He really is. He really is. Can someone write a book, Jen, about that? Oh, yeah. Somebody should write a book about that because it's far worse than anything I've ever seen on the national stage. But speaking of the polls, he said he was at 40%. Well, Fox Business says, hold my beer, put up this poll, Kylie. Here we go. Washington Post, 34%. Jeff Bezos's paper on Fox Business, 34%. Now, on Fox Business, is he saying Fox Business is fake? I'm sure he's saying, you know, he loves Fox News. He loves you. He loves anybody or anything until it doesn't love him. And not even doesn't love him, until it, Jen, it tells the truth about him. And then he doesn't love it so much. And 34%, I'm surprised that it's still 34%. And it's not 34% of Americans. It's 34% of the electorate. And that's far fewer, far less than 34% of the country. So MAGA is not, you tell me this all the time. I think you do. MAGA is not as big as you think it is. It is just a small number of mostly, it's either uninformed people, small number of mostly uninformed people who are very loud or a smaller number of very rich people who have microphones and big platforms and lots of money to be able to fund him because he's a grifter and they want to make more money. So they're on his side. So that is the MAGA. That's the MAGA, MAGA votership or viewership or whatever it is that you want to call it. Movement right there is those two, mainly those two groups of people. All right. Let's talk about shifting gears, the resistance. So we have a new No Kings March coming up. I want to go with you in New York. I know you'll probably be covering it live. And we have the Democratic establishment and then we have the base. And it seems like these two things are not simpatico right now. It seems like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are kind of playing status quo politics. And it seems like the base of the Democratic Party is going, God damn it, just fight for us. It seems very out of sync. Are you picking up that vibe and that disparity from the leaders versus the voters? I am. Look, I do think the leaders are trying, but I don't know if their efforts are in the if they're if they're doing it properly. I give them an A for effort for trying. However, I have been saying for the longest time that the energy and the movement in the Democratic Party, that's with the progressive side of the party. That's with the Mamdani side of the party. That's with the AOC side of the party. That with the Jasmine Crockett side of the party And it not that these folks are you know far left liberals where they asking for things that are unreasonable They asking people to start leaning into cleaner renewable energy which is I think you know a pretty moderate position to have and a pretty logical position to have especially the time that we in because we never going to go back to coal mines This is not this is not what we do unless they're going to start making these things out of coal. We're not going back to that. And they're asking for universal health care, for people to have affordable health care in this country. That's not a radical position to have. And even the right wants that. And they're asking for people to have a living wage. That's not a radical thing to ask for in this day and age. And so and I think people have realized that because after we have gone so far to the right. So I think the energy is on the progressive side, younger people with newer, fresher ideas. And I don't know if the leadership quite understands that. And and and Jen, I think this and I think you'll agree with this. You can tell me if you don't. They don't want the respectability politics anymore. They don't want to sit around and say this is how we do it. And this is the rules, whatever, because we're not operating in rules anymore. People want now, like the state Senate candidate in Illinois with the ad that says, have you seen the fuck Trump ad that she gave? No. Where she has constituents and they say, fuck Trump. And it's like, you know, a man in a diner. And it's like, fuck Trump. And it's like a lady who's like a housewife. And it's like, fuck Trump, another lady who's sitting in, you know, whatever. And some, like a normal person. And then she comes on, the candidate comes on and she goes, they said it, I didn't. And then at the end, everyone, they're like, yeah, fuck Trump. So people want that. Like they want someone to say, fuck Trump, stop this, this fucking bullshit, stop it. And stop sitting around and being like, you know, we've got to be so pulled, you know, so sort of pulled up and, you know, buttoned up. And you know what I'm saying? They don't want that. And I think that's what the leadership still thinks. I completely agree with you. I think the base has moved away from establishment politics and it makes the leaders that are trying to preserve it feel somewhat conservative because they're preservationists, because they're preserving something. And this is what makes me crazy, Don. You're preserving a method that we lost to a fucking dipshit. I mean, we lost a presidential campaign to a convicted felon. And so it's it's really a time where I want to see the Democrats, even if they even if they don't give the popular answer, give a yes or no answer and then stand by it. There's at least some respect. There was a clip where Josh Shapiro was interviewed over the weekend asking if he should abolish if he wanted to abolish ICE. And he gave a both sides answer. Well, I think it needs to be reformed. And I wouldn't say abolish, but I wouldn't say keep it, you know, and it was just like, oh, shut up. Can I tell you something? I felt that way. And I have since changed my tune. I felt that, well, ICE is, you know, there's a place for ICE because they need to be able to do their work. And then I thought about it. I thought about what I was saying when people were saying defund the police. Now, I don't believe in defunding the police. I've never believed in that. Terrible branding. I feel that what they're saying now, I think the Democrats are saying defund ICE, the Department of Homeland Security. They want to defund it because they want to defund ICE. But I don't think – I think at this point, and it's because of Trump, the MAGA, Trump regime, I hate to call them administration, that I feel that ICE has now gone too far to be reformed. So I think they need to start from scratch. And if that means abolishing ICE, then that means abolishing ICE. But whatever, I think what I'm saying is you can call it abolish ICE if you want. I think they need to restart. They need to start over if they're going to do it and if they want to do it properly. And if we have to deport people, which we have to do, immigration and customs and border patrol, I think they're very capable of doing that. So I don't even know if we need ICE anymore. I think that they're past the point of reformation. And I think it's a moderate position. I think abolishing ICE is not even an extreme position. I think it's moderate. All right, Don Lemon, thank you for joining us. I will, everybody go watch Don Lemon, America's independent journalist. That's your new title, America's journalist, Don Lemon. Go watch him on his YouTube channel, Twitch, Instagram, all the stuff. He's the hardest working, all of it. Yeah. Jen, thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your support and just being a good person. And you're killing it out here on these independent streets. I love it on these podcast streets and I love it thank you we'll see you later don bye jen
