CNN’s Don Lemon abruptly ended an interview Tuesday afternoon after one of his conservative guests refused to stop talking about former President Bill Clinton’s many sex scandals.
The moment occurred after the CNN host failed repeatedly to get conservative columnist Kurt Schlichter to comment on GOP front-runner Donald Trump cracking bathroom jokes about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“Why did he have to go there?” Lemon asked Schlichter and Trump supporter Tara Grant.
“Don, it’s going to take a lot more for me to get upset at a woman who enabled a guy who turned the Oval Office into a frat house and his intern into a humidor,” Schlichter responded, “I just don’t care. I so don’t care.”
After some brief laughs, Lemon kept at it, trying to coax the conservative columnist into commenting on Trump’s toilet humor.
“Have you ever heard a presidential candidate say things like this?” the host asked.
Bill Clinton “set the standard a little lower than Donald Trump has even approached,” Schlichter reiterated.
Lemon interjected, arguing that his guest’s response was an “apples and oranges” comparison.
“You’re talking about someone who is running to be the leader of the free world. If you’re Republican and a conservative, you would hope that would have better practices at least in the Oval Office than the ones you’re mentioning,” the host said.
“So my question to you, without mentioning the Clintons and Bill Clinton, which has already been litigated and re-litigated on the own merits, Donald Trump’s statements on the campaign trail — you don’t think it’s fair that the media should be covering it?” Lemon added.
Schlichter conceded that it’s not wrong for media to cover Trump’s many controversial statements, but he added he doesn’t understand why the press’ isn’t focusing on the fact that the Democratic front-runner is an enabler of a “sexual harasser” and “abuser.”
“You’re talking about something that happened over a decade ago,” Lemon said. “She’s not responsible for her husband’s actions. Yet, you’re bringing it into a campaign and it doesn’t seem fair.”
Schlichter begged to differ.
“I would like to bring Hillary Clinton’s actions into it,” he said. “When she was given a chance to stand with a serial sexual abuser —”
“Stop, stop, stop. That’s not fair,” the CNN host said. “It is not fair. It is a low blow. It is not fair. I want to end this. This is the lowest of the low. It has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. It’s a cheap shot.”
Lemon then motioned to his producers to cut Schlichter’s microphone, and the discussion was brought to an abrupt end.
Undeterred, the conservative columnist appeared soon afterwards on Twitter to defend himself and criticize CNN.
“No, neither @DonLemon or anyone else gets to set the agenda. Hillary Clinton’s enabling of Bill’s antics is an issue to me & millions more,” he said on Twitter. “The media wants to put Hillary’s support of her husband’s misogynist antics off limits. Nope.”
