Don Lemon Claims Trump Was Afraid of Coming on His Nightly Show: ‘He Didn’t Have the Courage’

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CNN’s Don Lemon said former President Donald Trump lacked the “courage” to go toe-to-toe with him throughout the run of his nightly show.

Lemon, who is headed to mornings at the network alongside colleagues Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow, claimed during an interview with Semafor’s Max Tani.

Lemon told Tani he had grown frustrated with covering politics in prime time, and he is looking forward to a fresh start.

“Has it been frustrating over the last couple of years having to deal with politics in the way it’s been dealt with in primetime? Yes,” Lemon said. “Was I tired of it? In some ways, yeah it’s gotten old.”

The pair then discussed Lemon’s old gig and Trump’s role in driving many of the news cycles. Tani noted Trump and CNN shared an antagonistic relationship throughout the former president’s term.

“Throughout the previous administration, you would occasionally butt heads with Trump,” Tani noted. “You covered politics quite a bit on your primetime show. Was this something you got tired of?”

Lemon responded:

I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that was a factor. I never really butted heads with the last president. He didn’t have the courage to come on and take hard questions from CNN and me and my show.

Look, has it been frustrating over the last couple of years having to deal with politics in the way it’s been dealt with in primetime? Yes. Was I tired of it? In some ways, yeah it’s gotten old. But I also think we were transitioning to a different time.

“But after Donald Trump wasn’t president anymore, and we had a war in Ukraine — that changed our approach to what we did in primetime, which was not starting every single night with a monologue about Donald Trump and how bad he was and how terrible things were in the country,” Lemon added.

Read Lemon’s interview with Semafor here.