WATCH: Don Lemon Calls Off Commercial Break to Go Off on Kaitlan Collins Interview With James Comer
CNN’s Don Lemon delayed a commercial break on Tuesday because he was so outraged by comments made by a House Republican in an interview with his co-host Kaitlin Collins.
Lemon was reacting to an interview his CNN This Morning co-host Collins conducted with Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee. During a back and forth about upcoming House investigations into Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop and suggestions from the Twitter Files that the FBI targeted stories related to Biden for suppression, Comer mentioned the Post, which initially ran the Biden laptop story.
Comer accused the FBI of pushing to ban the New York Post and others, calling the paper a “credible outlet” and the fourth biggest newspaper in America.”
When the interview concluded, and Lemon was left to transition the show to a commercial break, he was visibly annoyed at Comer’s comments.
“That’s the time that we’re in, where facts are sort of flexible and you just throw things out there – citing uncredible sources, like citing the New York Post as a credible source and saying that facts are – it’s just, I can’t believe that we’re here,” Lemon said.
Co-host Poppy Harlow offered compliments to Collins for the interview and fact-checking Comer in real time, calling it “great,” though Lemon awkwardly did not initially join in on the praise — a notable omission following reports about tension between Lemon and Collins, which CNN has downplayed.
Outro music began to play so the show could cut to commercial, but Lemon wasn’t ready to move on.
“Hold on please with the music,” he said, the music immediately shutting off.
He then claimed there is no “shared reality” with someone like Comer.
“American people are going to have to suffer through all of this stuff from election deniers to people who don’t believe in facts, we don’t have a shared reality. And now it has taken center stage,” he said.
Harlow tried praising the interview by Collins again, noting she pointed out special counsels for probes into both Joe Biden and Donald Trump were appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. She called it “critically important” to constantly fact-check in real-time.
Later in the show, however, Lemon praised the interviewing skills of his colleague Collins, saying, “As I was watching that very good interview by Kaitlin Collins with Comer, and I had to come out and say something because he is citing sources as credible that are not credible, he is talking about facts of something that’s kind of flexible, and maybe you believe one thing or maybe another, facts are facts.”
The Post’s original report on Biden’s laptop was highly questioned by Biden supporters and led to the outlet being locked out of their Twitter account for a time, but multiple outlets have since confirmed material from the laptop, including CNN in a July 2022 report.
Watch above via CNN.
Editor’s note: this post has been updated to more accurately reflect the comments made on CNN This Morning.
