CNN’s Don Lemon this week ambushed the founder of the Coalition of African American pastors.
On Monday, a group of 20 black faith leaders met with President Trump at the White House. They met to discuss efforts to aid communities of color. Lemon attempted in a later interview to lure one attendee, Rev. Bill Owens, into criticizing Trump. Owens declined to take the bait, focusing instead on the mission of the group he founded. Lemon then sprung his attack, ambushing his guest for supporting traditional marriage.
The interview started out friendly enough.
Lemon asked Owens if he or anyone else expressed concern during the meeting for the president’s attacks on people of color. The CNN host asked if Trump himself discussed his recent comments about Baltimore. Lemon also asked Owens if he worries the president held the meeting only to “insulate himself” from criticisms that he is racist.
It was after this last question, and Owen’s refusal to go along, that Lemon flipped the discussion. It was then that the interview turned into a pointed attack on the conservative pastor.
“You’ve said some controversial things before. In 2012, you equated President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage to supporting child molestation. You later walked that back,” Lemon said. “But that in itself is an outrageous statement — why should anyone take you seriously?”
Owens denied he claimed any such thing about Obama, stating, “I have never said that.”
It was at this exact moment that the CNN chyron changed. It went from referring to Owens as one of several “faith leaders” to calling him a “controversial African American pastor.”
In other words, the interview was a setup.
Lemon challenged the pastor’s denial. He turned to notes on his desk, pulling up a quote from 2012 wherein Owens said of Obama’s “evolution” on same-sex marriage:
The conservative pastor clarified that same year that he did not believe Obama condoned molestation, as Lemon himself noted the interview this week.
Pause for a moment and appreciate that an already-litigated quote from 2012 was sitting on Lemon’s desk’s the entire time. He came prepared for the likelihood that Owens would decline to attack Trump. This was an ambush, and Lemon is nothing more than a troll – not a journalist, and not a thoughtful commentator.
Lemon never intended to shed light on some current White House-related issue. He never intended to explore the mission of the 20 individuals who met this week with Trump. It was never even about discussing why black pastors would agree to meet with the president. The interview was only ever about making sure no black faith leader could come out of this Trump event unscathed. If Lemon was actually concerned about Owens’ credibility, which was his supposed reason for bringing up the seven-year-old controversy in the first place, then he likely could have interviewed a different pastor who had met with Trump.
But that would have defeated the purpose.
Owens told Lemon he believes now as he did in 2012 that same-sex marriage is “ungodly.”
“I know it’s hard for you, you think it’s hard to believe that Trump is racist. But he’s repeatedly used racially charged language. He consistently attacks black and brown elected leaders. So, why is that hard to believe? Pastor?” Lemon sneered.
The pastor responded by pointing out Trump attacks everyone, not only people of color.
“He attacks who he will. He’s his own man. I can’t dictate what he should or shouldn’t do,” Owens said. “But he does not just attack black people. He attacks anybody and you know it.”
Lemon continued, diving deeper into absurdity, “So as a man of faith, as a Christian he attacks anyone. It sounds like you’re condoning attacks? Is that Christianly or Godly?”
Owens said nothing in that interview to suggest he was “condoning” the attacks. This is some grade-A, primo hackery from one of CNN’s chief hacks.
“I’m just stating a statement of fact,” the pastor responded to the host’s nonsense line of inquiry. “I’m not condoning anything. I’m stating a statement of fact. President Trump does not pick the people he attacks because of color. He attacks anybody he feels needed.”
“And is that okay with you?” Lemon asked, suggesting again that Owens had said a thing he never said.
The pastor shrugged, “I’m not his judge.”
He later recounted an anecdote from his days in seminary. Back then, he said, peers criticized him for helping to enroll minority students in a predominately white university. The point of the story was clear: He will work with anyone so long as it serves the mission of helping members of poor communities of color.
Lemon, hardly controlling his disgust, interrupted.
“I appreciate you giving me your biography,” the host said, [but] what does that have to do with this president?”
“What I am trying to say is I am trying to help our young people,” the pastor responded, having to clarify what was clear to any listener of moderate intelligence.
[Also read: Trump: Don Lemon is the ‘dumbest man on television’ for calling me a ‘bigot’]
As a brief aside, I would like also to direct your attention to the carnival lights behind Lemon. They are the perfect touch to this obscene clown show.
If you told me three years ago that CNN would be less restrained than MSNBC in the Trump era, I would not have believed you. But it is true.
