Don Lemon and Republican CNN contributor Scott Jennings clashed Thursday evening after the latter said President Joe Biden’s speech in Philadelphia was overtly “political.”
Biden addressed the country in remarks where he portrayed democracy as being endangered by former President Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans.”
On Don Lemon Tonight, the host said Biden clarified he does not view all Republicans as dangerous. He asked Jennings how he feels members of his party viewed the speech.
Jennings, who opposes Trump, responded:
Half of Republicans consider themselves to be Trump supporters and about half I think consider themselves to be party-type Republicans first. That’s a lot of people. That’s millions of people that he’s talking about and has used pretty stark language about, you know, for him to say with all due respect to the White house staffers who call up and spin these things, for them to say it’s not a political speech when he literally ended it by saying vote, vote, vote.
Lemon disagreed with Jennings the speech was political, and the two went back and forth.
“I thought it was a convention speech,” Jennings said. “The only thing we were missing was a balloon drop.”
Lemon asked, “Why is it bad if it was a political speech?”
Jennings responded:
It was clearly a campaign speech. He was flanked by the military, it was a bit of an imperial
setting and his message to the Republican ear is, if you vote for Republicans, we can’t have a democracy anymore.
Lemon called Jennings’ argument “weak.”
“It’s called politics, of course he’s going to use everything in his arsenal to give a speech to try to do what he says it’s a battle for the soul of democracy,” Lemon said.
“I heard him say voting Democrat is what you have to do to save the democracy,” Jennings responded. “That’s the point I took away from it.”
Lemon concluded, “I just think everything you just said applies to Donald Trump.”
Watch above, via CNN.