Don Lemon Addresses Segment Mocking Trump Supporters: ‘I Was Laughing at the Joke and Not at Any Group of People’

CNN’s Don Lemon took a brief moment during his show tonight to address the criticism he’s received over a segment of him laughing as his guests mocked President Donald Trump and his supporters.

Over the weekend, Lemon was joined by Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali as they criticized Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his treatment of an NPR reporter. Wilson’s joke about Trump’s inability to find Ukraine on a map set off Lemon’s fit of laughter. He followed him by mocking “the credulous boomer rube demo that backs Donald Trump” and Lemon continued laughing as Wilson and Ali kept joking back and forth.

All three have gotten criticism for the mockery of Trump supporters. The president himself weighed in, calling Lemon “the dumbest man on television.”

This is what Lemon said about the segment earlier tonight:

“One final note that I have for you, because this is personally important to me to address this. Anyone — ask anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you, I don’t believe in belittling people. Belittling anyone for who they are, for what they believe, or where they’re from. During an interview on Saturday night, one of my guests said something that made me laugh. And while in the moment I found the joke humorous, and I didn’t catch everything that was said. Just to make this perfectly clear, I was laughing at the joke and not at any group of people.”

You can watch above, via CNN.