President Trump lashed out at CNN anchor Don Lemon overnight, calling him “the dumbest man on television” after the anchor recently led a segment in which he laughed when a panelist called Trump supporters “the credulous boomer rube demo.”
“Don Lemon, the dumbest man on television (with terrible ratings!),” Trump tweeted to his more 70 million followers.
The tweet included a video clip posted by The Daily Caller of Lemon’s panel discussion with staunch Trump critics Rick Wilson, an ex-GOP strategist, and Wajahat Ali, a New York Times columnist and CNN contributor.
Lemon, who is also a frequent critic of the president, led a discussion focused on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s heated exchange with an NPR reporter that included Pompeo challenging the reporter to find Ukraine on a map.
Wilson said he thinks that Pompeo knows that Trump “couldn’t find Ukraine on a map.”
“[Pompeo] also knows deep within his heart that Donald Trump couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter U and a picture of an actual physical crane next to it,” Wilson mocked, causing Lemon to have a laughing fit. “He knows that this is, you know, an administration defined by ignorance of the world. And so that’s partly him playing to the base and playing to their audience. You know, the credulous boomer rube demo that backs Donald Trump.”
” ‘Donald Trump’s the smart one — and y’all elitists are dumb!’ ” Wilson added in a Southern accent, prompting Ali to jump in.
” ‘You elitists with your geography and your maps — and your spelling!’ ” Ali added, also speaking with a Southern accent.
Steve Krakauer, a former CNN senior digital producer, flagged the segment in a tweet and slammed the participants for “the arrogance, the dismissiveness, the smug cackling, the accents,” saying the segment was a “perfect encapsulation” of a media disconnect from many Americans.
The clip was viewed 3.4 million times, and the panel faced significant backlash on social media as the video went viral.
Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter and White House adviser, also chimed in, calling the segment “disgusting.”
CNN promoted the segment on CNN.com in a story titled: “GOP strategist roasts Pompeo’s response to NPR incident.”
The tweet from Trump is not the first time he has lashed out at the CNN anchor, or the first time he has called Lemon the “dumbest man.”
In July, the president lashed out a Lemon over a question during a Democratic primary debate on CNN.
“CNN’s Don Lemon, the dumbest man on television, insinuated last night while asking a debate ‘question’ that I was a racist, when in fact I am ‘the least racist person in the world.’ Perhaps someone should explain to Don that he is supposed to be neutral, unbiased & fair or is he too dumb (stupid} to understand that,” Trump tweeted.
Those comments came after Lemon, who was one of three moderators in the debate, posed a question to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) about Trump voters who “prioritize the economy over the president’s bigotry.”
“CNN Tonight with Don Lemon” finished 36th overall in the cable news show rankings for 2019 as the network’s sixth highest rated program.
–This report was updated at 10:56 a.m.