Politics and Current
Don Lemon Faces Backlash From Black Community, Accused Of Struggling To Stay Relevant After Controversial Comments About Kamala Harris
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon stirred up trouble within the black community this week but gained praise from conservatives after an interview with Jen Psaki on MSNBC by which he questioned the legitimacy of Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy and solid doubt on polls that show her ahead of former President Donald Trump.
Lemon, known for his controversial opinions and former outspoken criticism of Trump, sat down with “Inside With Jen Psaki” host on Monday to debate conversations he’s had recently with black voters who, surprisingly, support Trump.
Lemon claimed he spoke with many black voters who were unfamiliar with Harris and intended to vote for Trump, believing he was “on the side of black people” because they thought he could provide one other stimulus check if re-elected, despite Trump making no such promise.
“I don’t know if it was surprising, but it was definitely eye-opening to hear so many people, even people of color and women, saying they’re going to support Donald Trump,” Lemon said, before questioning recent polls that showed Harris leading the race for the White House.
Lemon taped his own interviews on the Atlantic City, New Jersey, boardwalk, which supports the veracity of his reporting, but he drew criticism from many black individuals who said Lemon was grasping at straws and struggling to remain relevant after being fired from CNN in April 2023.
“Oh my God, how the mighty have fallen” he wrote @delinthecity_. “Remember when mainstream news used to make fun of content creators and influencers? Now, former CNN employee Don Lemon is out on the streets doing content creator-style interviews, asking people if they support Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.”
Another user, @JennyBGoodX, said Lemon was “clinging to life.”
“Let’s be realistic, he could have fished on that boardwalk all day and night and probably gotten all the answers he wanted,” user X SausageMcBigot said. “He actually posted both sides, even though he made it clear he was still on his side.”
Lemon’s interview with Psaki, in turn, provided fodder for conservative activists and conspiracy theorists, who raced to share videos of Lemon on their social media channels while claiming without evidence that polls were being rigged to favor Harris.
“This is what I mean when I say Kamala’s popularity is fake” he wrote @BehizyTweets, verified X user. “How can she grow so fast when her most engaged base (black voters) knows nothing about her? It’s all a facade and some people are falling for it.”
In the comments section, other Republican pundits seized on Lemon’s remarks to discredit Harris and praise Trump.
“People are shocked to learn that Trump has done more for the black community than the current administration,” @USACannibal wrote, without providing any links to the bills.
Lemon, who occasionally appears on national news programs, continues to command respect within the media despite a bent toward biased reporting that has plagued him throughout his long profession as a political commentator.
“I’m not entirely sure if the polls are accurate in terms of the tightening of the polls and who’s going to support who,” Lemon told the host, sparking a virtual frenzy amongst Trump supporters who fiercely attacked Harris on social media.
Psaki, meanwhile, appeared surprised by Lemon’s recent comments in regards to the GOP nominee once they were in comparison with Lemon’s withering criticism of Trump following his election in 2016.
At the time, Lemon had his own prime-time show, “CNN Tonight with Don Lemon,” on which he blasted Trump almost every night, delivering sharp commentary on his presidency.
After Trump left office, Lemon’s rankings plummeted, and his show was eventually canceled. From there, he became a co-host of “CNN This Morning” before being fired last yr after 17 years on the network.
Earlier this yr, Lemon announced a brand new show on X called “The Don Lemon Show.” X owner and billionaire Elon Musk was the show’s first guest. However, after taping the interview, Musk reportedly canceled the show before it aired.
Following the disaster, Lemon launched the Don Lemon Show on YouTube, also often known as Lemon Live at 5, a prime-time news format by which he borrowed clips from his old station to present his views.
His last show on August 28 was titled “Will Black Women Save Democracy” and featured an interview with LaTosha Brown of Black Voters Matter.
Returning to the segment with Psaki, Lemon described his interviews with black voters and travels through key battleground states, where Harris began traveling this week in an effort to drum up support in rural areas.
Despite positive economic indicators favoring Harris within the race, Lemon claimed that many Black voters told him they planned to vote for Trump solely due to stimulus check they received in 2021 with Trump’s signature, stating that Black individuals are willing to “vote with their wallets.”
“There were a lot of black men, Jen, who said they supported Donald Trump simply because he gave them a stimulus check,” Lemon explained. “He gave them $1,200 when he was president. They didn’t remember that the current president also gave them a stimulus check, it’s just that his name wasn’t on it,” he added, referring to the incumbent President, Joe Biden.
Lemon said he has repeatedly reminded Black voters that the stimulus check was not issued by Trump but by a Democratic Congress, and Trump delayed its release so he could sign it.
“So when they got the check and his name was on it, they automatically thought it came directly from Donald Trump, which I think is good marketing,” Lemon said. “The same thing he does with buildings all over the country, especially in New York. He doesn’t actually own them, but he puts his name on them, which makes people think they own them, and that makes them think he’s richer, bigger, more charitable than he is.”
At that time, Psaki turned her attention to Harris, asking Lemon for her tackle how voters view the Democratic nominee in comparison with Trump.
“In most cases in Pittsburgh or the Jersey Shore, Ohio, a lot of people didn’t know who she was. They weren’t familiar with her,” Lemon said, before turning his attention back to Trump with gusto. “They thought he was better for the economy. That he brought money into the community. That he stood with black people.”
But Lemon noted that most of the reasons voters supported Trump were based on misinformation.
“I’ve been doing this long enough that you never know where people are going to be and how they’re going to vote,” he said. “That’s their personal prerogative. But I think it’s important that they understand and go to the polls with some knowledge that they’re informed about as voters. And for other reasons that they told me, all the information was false. They didn’t understand the actual reasons why they could vote for him.”
The host reminded Lemon of his earlier statements by which he called Trump a “racist on TV” and asked if the people he spoke to shared that view.
Lemon didn’t argue, noting that he’s repeatedly criticized Trump for “lying”: “Of course, I think he’s a racist. You look at his rhetoric and his history, and everyone can see that,” he replied. Lemon then asked why so many individuals within the black community support Trump, suggesting that folks are more concerned with “how much or how little money they have in their pockets.”
During the interview, Lemon repeatedly presented his theory about support for Trump among the many small group of black voters he interviewed as representative of the broader sentiment of the whole black community in America.
Lemon then suggested that black voters are ignoring Trump’s achievements and only supporting him to get one other stimulus check.
“We’re talking about low-information voters. I like to call them low-partisan information voters because a lot of the people I talked to weren’t sitting in front of the TV every day and every night following every micro-event about Donald Trump and what was happening in politics,” Lemon said.
Both during and after his presidency, Trump continued to spread rumors and deliberately stoked racial tensions through the election campaign to enrage his supporters.
He has previously sharply criticized black court officials who oversee his quite a few criminal and civil cases, making them targets of his limitless political grievances.
During Black History Month, Trump sparked one other firestorm when he called President Biden a “very nasty and vicious racist” during a speech on the South Carolina Federation of Black Conservatives’ annual gala.
Following her speech, Vice President Harris wasted no time in criticizing Trump for pandering to the black community, calling him a hypocrite and insincere.
“The audacity of Donald Trump to address a room full of Black voters during Black History Month as if he were not the proud poster boy of modern racism,” Harris fumed. “This is the same man who falsely accused the Central Park 5, questioned George Floyd’s humanity, compared his own impeachment trial to a lynching, and drove unemployment among Black workers higher during his presidency.”
Politics and Current
Missouri police officer fatally shot 2-month-old baby and her mother after relative called police for help, family says
A Missouri family and community are mourning the tragic death of a 34-year-old woman and her infant daughter who were killed in an officer-involved shooting earlier this month.
Family members say Maria Pike and her 2-month-old daughter, Destinii Hope, were shot to death on November 7 after police were called to an apartment in Independence, Missouri, in response to a domestic disturbance.
In the weeks for the reason that shooting, local law enforcement has released few details, but eyewitnesses have provided local media with their accounts of what happened.
said Talisa Coombs, the baby’s grandmother Kansas City Star that she was the one who called the police after a physical altercation with the kid’s mother. Family members say Maria Pike has had mental health issues, anger issues and most recently suffered from postpartum depression.
Coombs said that when she called the police, she thought authorities would arrive, arrest Pike and get her the assistance she needed. She told her son and Destinia’s father, Mitchell Holder, that she desired to press charges against Pike for assault.
When police arrived, Holder initially refused to allow them to inside, however the apartment constructing’s assistant manager persuaded him to let two officers inside.
Assistant manager Gavin Delaney told The Star that when police entered the apartment, Pike was sitting within the bedroom closet, holding Destinia, not doing or saying anything.
Destinia’s father, who witnessed the shooting, recounted the moments leading as much as the shooting to his sister, Ashley Greenfield.
Greenfield told The Star that when officers entered the apartment, she and Holder tried to take the baby from Pike as she moved from the closet to the bed. Greenfield stated that when Pike reached for an object on the nightstand, the officer shot the baby in the top while he was still in his mother’s arms.
Holder later recalled his horrified response to the shooting of “The Kansas City Defender.”
“They shot my baby,” Holder said outlet. “It looked like her head had exploded. Her blood splattered throughout my glasses and throughout me. All I could do was scream. I just kept repeating three words – the identical three words – “You killed her!” I screamed it. Time and time again.”
He added that Pike jumped after the primary shot and the officer opened fire on her.
Accounts vary as as to if Pike had a gun when officers entered the apartment.
Local news outlets reported that among the many few details police have released up to now concerning the shooting is that Pike was armed with a knife.
“When we arrived, officers encountered a woman who was ultimately armed with a knife,” said Independence Police Chief Adam Dustman. “As a result of this encounter, two people died, one was an armed woman and the other was a child.”
However, family members say otherwise. Before calling the police, Destinia’s grandmother stated that there have been no weapons in the home. Holder also said he never saw Pike holding a knife in the course of the encounter with police.
“Yes, I was in the room when it all happened,” Holder he said. “From what I saw, I never once saw Maria armed with anything. Honestly, I do not even know where that got here from. I heard crazy things like she held a baby hostage in a closet, that she had a knife, and all this crazy stuff that is not true. I mean, all I can say is that it’s possible she had a knife and I didn’t see it, but all I do know is that I never saw her holding anything – and I used to be there within the room.
Independence police said the investigation has been turned over to the Jackson County Police Involvement Investigative Team (PIIT), a team of detectives that investigates police shootings and use of force incidents.
Chief Dustman said just one officer, a “long-time law enforcement veteran,” fired in the course of the incident. The officer and two other people on the scene were placed on administrative leave.
Capt. Kyle Flowers, who heads the PIIT team investigating the shooting, said last week that investigators had reviewed body camera footage and planned to interview witnesses. According to KMBCthe team will turn over the findings of the investigation to the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office, but Flowers didn’t specify exactly when that will occur.
Family members have called on authorities to release the body camera footage, which is able to hopefully reveal once and for all whether Pike was armed with a knife on the time of the shooting. They also call for punishment of the officers involved within the shooting.
“Why hasn’t the body camera footage been released?” Amber Travis, cousin of the victims, he said at a community vigil for Pike and her daughter. “Give my family a break.”
“It means a lot that the community feels the same way we do,” Holder he said. “It means the world. It won’t bring her back, but no less than we all know now we have loads of support here.
AND GoFundMe page was created to assist pay for Destinia’s funeral. As of Wednesday afternoon, greater than $3,000 had been raised.
On November 22, Destinii would have turned 3 months old.
Politics and Current
Jasmine Crockett blasts Republicans for so-called white “oppression” over anti-DEI bill
On Wednesday, during a passionate speech before the committee, Sen. Jasmine Crockett, R-Texas, chided her Republican colleagues for the content of an anti-DEI bill that calls for eliminating all diversity, equity and inclusion programs and offices within the federal government.
Crockett, a 43-year-old congressional student who has change into a star within the Democratic Party because of her quite a few viral committee appearances, condemned the Dismantle DEI Act of 2024. The bill, H.R. 8706 – first introduced by Republican Vice President-elect J.D. Vance – essentially prohibit all DEI-related activities within the federal government, including all related positions, offices, training, and funding. Strikingly, the bill also prohibits federal employees working in DEI positions from transferring to a different federal position.
During a House Oversight Committee hearing wherein she responded to Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., who repeatedly called DEI policies “oppression” — seemingly aimed toward white people, as many Republicans suggested — Crockett used the committee’s speaking time to criticize the suggestion that white individuals are oppressed in consequence of efforts to shut racial disparities in sectors resembling business, education, and health.
“You don’t understand the definition of oppression… I would ask you to just Google it,” said Crockett, who moments later read the dictionary definition of the word, adding: “Oppression is long-term cruel or unfair treatment or control, that’s the definition of oppression.” The congresswoman emphasized: “There was no oppression of the white man in this country.”
Referring to the history of chattel slavery and racial segregation within the US, the Texas lawmaker said: “Tell me which white men were dragged from their homes. Tell me which one was dragged across the ocean and that you will go to work. We will steal your wives. We will rape your wives. It didn’t happen. This is oppression.”
Attempting to further explain the importance of DEI, Crockett noted that she is barely the fifty fifth Black woman elected to Congress in its 235-year history, unlike the 1000’s of white men who’ve served on Capitol Hill.
“So if you want to talk about history and pretend it was that long ago, it wasn’t,” Crockett said, citing data showing that corporations perform higher and are more profitable after they are more diversified.
The anti-DEI movement, championed exclusively by Republicans, has led to several lawsuits invalidating federal programs, including debt forgiveness for Black farmers and business loans to Black and other disadvantaged businesses. Many states led by Republican governors have indicated that DEI – especially teaching about slavery and racism – is harmful to students, namely white students. In response, they banned such topics from public classrooms.
Jamarr Brown, executive director of Color of Change PAC, the political arm of the civil rights organization, said Congresswoman Crockett’s statements on DEI were “poignant and necessary.”
While the Dismantling DEI Act actually won’t be passed while Democrats control the Senate and President Joe Biden stays in office, it signals what may very well be a priority for Republicans next yr, as outlined within the pro-Trump “Project 2025” political manifesto “.
“According to Project 2025, diversity, equity and inclusion is synonymous with ‘White lives don’t matter,’” Brown noted. “Now more than ever, we at Color Of Change PAC, as well as advocates and activists across the country, must work to protect Black people and other people of color from harm resulting from anti-DEI attacks.”
Brown continued, “Civil rights protections have helped reduce mortgage discrimination, increase the number of Black physicians to counter problems such as Black maternal mortality, and provide financing for Black-owned businesses.”
He added: “Our country thrives and everyone benefits when diversity, equality and inclusion are valued rather than stifled.”
Politics and Current
Why is Trump delaying signing the ethics agreement?
The campaign’s legal department reports that President-elect Donald Trump is stalling the presidential transition process by refusing to sign an ethics pledge that is legally required of each sitting president
Under the Presidential Transition Act, Trump and his transition team must sign a document ensuring he avoids any conflicts of interest once he takes office. Only after the document is signed and sent to the General Services Administration (GSA) can the incoming administration gain access to federal agencies.
The transition, which President Joe Biden has promised will likely be “orderly and peaceful,” sets the tone for the Trump-Vance administration’s approach to transparency, accountability and earning the trust of Americans, all of that are seen as essential to making sure the administration fulfills its responsibilities to the U.S. people mean .
The reasons for withholding Trump’s documents are unknown, but some speculate it has to do along with his latest financial disclosure reports and for one reason particularly. Many of his holdings might be considered conflict of interest red flags, equivalent to his latest cryptocurrency business, a majority stake in his social media platform Truth Social, real estate, books and licensing deals.
It’s not only the GSA that the president-elect is avoiding. According to , Trump also refused to make use of the State Department’s secure phone lines and interpreters and kept away from using the FBI’s security clearance system. That’s why House Democrats issued latest laws on November 19 requiring Executive Office employees to have FBI security clearances. If not, Congress will likely be warned.
Democratic lawmakers and powerful Trump opponents like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are baffled by his transition team’s refusal to sign an ethics agreement.
“Donald Trump and his transition team are already breaking the law. I would know because I wrote the law myself,” Warren wrote in X on November 11. “Future presidents are obliged to prevent conflicts of interest and sign an ethics agreement. This is what illegal corruption looks like.”
Skepticism towards the bill, presented by Representatives Don Beyer (D-VA) and Ted Lieu (D-CA)persists. The upcoming GOP-controlled Congress is seemingly leaning toward Trump. Once back in office, Trump will give you the chance to issue security clearances to anyone he wants, no matter the FBI’s objections or whether the person faces legal charges. This latest situation involves two of Trump’s Cabinet picks – Matt Gaetz as attorney general and Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, each of whom have faced allegations of sexual misconduct.
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