Don Lemon Battles Symone Sanders Over NYT‘s Sarah Jeong: ‘It Sounds Like You’re Making an Excuse’ For Her

On Friday night CNN host Don Lemon clashed with commentator Symone Sanders over the New York Time‘s controversial hire of Sarah Jeong.

Jeong has been facing intense scrutiny this week for several anti-white tweets she had made over the years. And amid the uproar, the NYT decided to keep her on their editorial board.

CNN commentator Symone Sanders defended Jeong by insisting that that her tweets weren’t racist and that they were just “taken out of context” by “right-wingers” who dug them up.  While she argued Jeoug wasn’t being racist because being racist is “prejudice plus power,” Sanders conceded that she may have a “prejudice perhaps against white men.”

“Does it make her a bigot?” Lemon asked.

“No, I don’t think this makes her a bigot either,” Sanders responded.

Matt Lewis of The Daily Beast insisted that had he written such tweets about another race he “wouldn’t have a job on Monday” and tied Jeong’s shaming people for being white to the animosity many Trump supporters feel about the media.

“We wonder why Donald Trump is able to turn all of these folks against us in the media. Well, guess what. If you’re a White Republican living in Ohio or Michigan and you have the idea that the media doesn’t like you, isn’t this proof that, in fact, that is the case?” Lewis asked. “I think it kind of reenforces Donald Trump’s message.”

After the commercial break, the conversation continued and Lemon read part of the statement issued by the NYT.

“I want to be clear,” Sanders said, “I’m not defending the fact that- I’m not defending it, but-”

“Just because someone said something terrible about you on social media does mean you have to respond!” Lemon exclaimed.

“I agree with you,” Sanders responded. “All I’m saying is, for instance, the assertion that because Sarah referred to white people in her tweets, she is now somehow against all white people when we all know that-”

“But Symone, I don’t think that’s the point,” Lemon shot back. “That’s not the point that she’s against all people. It sounds like you’re making an excuse for someone who actually did something that is bigoted.”

“I’m not making an excuse, Don!” Sanders said. “I literally said it’s not okay, I wouldn’t have written- I don’t- that no one should write things that are ending up on the front page of the New York Times or anywhere else.”

Watch the clips above, via CNN.