Ousted CNN anchor Don Lemon embarked on a post-arrest press tour of sorts, joining late night host Jimmy Kimmel to complain about President Donald Trump’s administration and the arrest he claimed was proof of a campaign of “intimidation.”
Lemon joined Kimmel on Monday evening, and the ABC host outdid himself in his efforts to help Lemon paint himself as the victim in a grand scheme — orchestrated by President Trump’s Justice Department, of course — designed to “intimidate” Lemon and others like him into silence.
Kimmel opened the segment by first skipping over the video that appears to show Lemon discussing plans with protest organizers prior to entering the church and then repeatedly referring to Lemon as a “journalist” who just happened to be there to record whatever transpired.
Lemon repeated the same as if to reassure the audience that he was, in fact, acting solely as a journalist. “I’m not a protester,” he insisted.
WATCH:
Jimmy Kimmel tries justifying Don Lemon storming a church because he’s a “journalist” and not a protester.
Barging into a church and disrupting service isn’t journalism, Jimmy. It’s a blatant violation of federal law.pic.twitter.com/uUKkUKXGNJ
— MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters) February 3, 2026
The pair followed that by suggesting that the Justice Department had essentially crowd-sourced the decision to arrest Lemon, taking their cues from right-leaning social media accounts rather than the evidence — and complained that Lemon had been arrested without being offered the chance to quietly surrender himself to law enforcement.
They immediately shifted focus to the judges who’d declined to sign off on a warrant to arrest Lemon, but ignored the fact that a grand jury had found probable cause to indict him, and at least one of the judges had agreed with their assessment.
Lemon went on to muddy the waters around the grand jury indictment by suggesting that prosecutors could write “whatever they want” in an indictment and would never face repercussions if it was not true.
WATCH: Jimmy Kimmel and Don Lemon mischaracterize both the appellate process and the grand jury. Not once do you hear an acknowledgement that the grand jury found probable cause. pic.twitter.com/z5uvDEiCWN
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 3, 2026
Lemon said in the days leading up to his arrest, he believed the Trump administration would “go around” a judge or possibly even “retrofit” laws in an effort to get him, declaring afterward that he was not concerned with the possibility that he could land behind bars, and saying that he planned to be even more outspoken in the days to come.
President Donald Trump, who was asked about the situation while aboard Air Force One over the weekend, made it clear that he did not like Lemon, but said that he was unaware of plans to have him arrested before they were carried out.
