Cenk Uygur Defends CNN’s Don Lemon: ‘Only an Idiot’ Would Think He Was Saying All White People are Terrorists

The Young Turks creator Cenk Uygur came to Don Lemon‘s defense on Wednesday night as the CNN continues to draw flak over his recent comments about white people.

There’s been a lot of commotion this week about how Lemon said that right-wing white men are the “biggest terror threat” to America. The CNN host doubled down on Wednesday by saying the country shouldn’t demonize Latin American people so much when statistics suggest most crime in the U.S. is committed by “far-right violent extremists.”

As Uygur covered the blowback Lemon got among conservative circles, he remarked on how domestic extremist terrorism has escalated in recent years, resulting in more deaths than caused by radical Muslims.

“That’s a fact,” Uygur said. “If you want to cry about that fact, that’s up to you.”

After mocking the notion of Lemon’s broad-brush prejudice against caucasians, Uygur said Lemon was “absolutely correct” to say that native-born Americans statically commit more crime than illegal immigrants. With a few more sarcastic comments about the outrage, Uygur said Lemon’s conservative critics “put facts on it’s head” when they “pretend” other kinds of people are far more prone to crime that right-wing extremists.

“‘So because of my skin color I’m a terrorist Don Lemon?’ No, he didn’t say that at all, nor is anyone on the left saying that. They’re just saying the percentage of people who commit terrorism in this country are unfortunately much higher in terms of white right-wingers. That happens to be a fact. Doesn’t mean all white people are guilty, only an idiot would think that.”

Uygur proceeded to say that Lemon’s white critics “can’t wait to be the victims” so they can cry “racism” whenever their race gets called out.

Watch above, via The Young Turks.

[Image via screengrab]

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