Hours after Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, CNN announced on Monday it was firing longtime anchor Don Lemon who worked at the network for 17 years.
“Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years. We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavors,” CNN’s top boss, Chris Licht, told the network’s staff in a memo.
However, the Cable News Network did not give a reason for firing Lemon.
Lemon reacted angrily to the sudden news on Twitter.
“I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned,” Lemon tweeted on Monday.
“After 17 years at CNN, I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network,” Lemon said.
Lemon was under fire since February for saying that the 51-year-old Presidential candidate Nikki Haley was “not in her prime,” adding that a woman is in her prime “in her 20s, 30s, and maybe in her 40s.” When co-hot Poppy Harlow confronted him over the statement Lemon said, “Don’t shoot the messenger; I’m just saying what the facts are.”
But the New York Times has now reported that a heated interview Don Lemon conducted with Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy may not have sat well with the network’s executives and could have been the last straw that led to his dismissal.
Don Lemon had a heated exchange with Vivek over Black History. California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, who like Vivek is also of Indian-American origin defended Lemon. “Don Lemon was right. As an Indian American, I was profoundly embarrassed by Vivek lecturing a Black man about Black history,” Khanna said.
