The Media Front: Don Lemon Presses On
The arrest of journalist Don Lemon lays bare the Trump administration’s law-enforcement priorities, showing how punishment falls on perceived critics while lenience is reserved for supporters.
We’ve seen this before. Donald Trump and his allies speak reverentially about law enforcement even as the president has pardoned Jan. 6 rioters convicted of assaulting police officers. Trump has called that day a “lovefest,” but reserves no such language for anti-ICE protests.
The past few weeks in Minneapolis, where citizens have stood up to the surge of federal agents enforcing Trump’s immigration crackdown, have put in stark relief whose rights the administration considers most important — and whose are treated as disposable.
Lemon reported on an anti-ICE protest at a St. Paul church earlier this month, filming the event and conducting interviews, precisely the work a journalist would be expected to do. Now, Lemon, whom Trump has previously mocked as a “loser,” a “lightweight” and “the dumbest man on television,” is being charged with conspiracy to deprive others of their constitutional rights.
The journalist is also being accused of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which in part prevents one from interfering with someone’s First Amendment right of religious freedom. Trump has previously pardoned anti-abortion activists convicted under the FACE Act.
The Trump White House could have at least feigned respect for press freedom, framing the arrest of a journalist in sober terms. Instead, the White House mocked the former CNN anchor’s arrest on X, writing, “When life gives you lemons,” complete with a chains emoji.
Such a callous message is jarring, though not unexpected, coming from the Trump administration. In Minnesota, federal officials also moved quickly to cast suspicion on Renee Good and Alex Pretti after they were killed by Border Patrol agents, even as video and witness accounts contradicted those early descriptions of events.
Abbe Lowell, Lemon’s attorney, pointed to the administration’s priorities when it comes to justice and accountability.
“Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,” he said. “This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand.”
While the First Amendment is under threat, Trump has spoken less protectively about the Second Amendment.
Trump said Pretti —who was holding a phone when approached by agents and already disarmed when he was shot dead —“shouldn’t have been carrying a gun,” effectively faulting the intensive-care nurse for exercising a right conservatives typically consider sacrosanct. Trump even described Pretti as an “agitator” and possibly an “insurrectionist.”
That depiction stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s treatment of Kyle Rittenhouse, who, at 17, carried an AR-15-style rifle at a racial justice protest and fatally killed two people. Trump congratulated Rittenhouse after a jury acquitted him of homicide.
The message through all this appears less about upholding the law and more about enforcing loyalty.
“I will not be silenced”
When Don Lemon emerged from a Los Angeles federal courthouse on Friday, he vowed to continue reporting the news.
“I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now,” Lemon said. “In fact, there is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable.
“The DOJ sent a team of federal agents to arrest me in the middle of the night, for something that I’ve been doing for the last 30 years — and that is covering the news,” he added. “The First Amendment of the Constitution protects that work for me, and for countless other journalists who do what I do. I stand with all of them. And I will not be silenced.”
Journalists, lawmakers and press freedom advocates widely condemned the arrest Lemon under federal charges of conspiracy and interference with the constitutional right to religious freedom. (Another independent journalist, Georgia Fort, was also charged.)
“The First Amendment is under attack in America!” said former CNN colleague Jim Acosta.
Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said the arrests of Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort amounted to “naked attacks on freedom of the press.”
“These arrests under bogus legal theories for obviously constitutionally protected reporting are clear warning shots aimed at other journalists,” Stern said. “The unmistakable message is that journalists must tread cautiously because the government is looking for any way to target them.
California Governor Gavin Newsom posted on X: “They raided a reporter’s home earlier this month. Today, they arrested journalists. They are coming for you. Speak out.”
Corbin Bolies has more on the Lemon arrest, which follows the Trump administration seizing a Washington Post reporter’s devices at her home earlier this month as part of a leak investigation.
Check out Bolies’ piece: With Don Lemon’s Arrest, Trump Escalates War on the Press
Plus: Don Lemon Thought He Was Being Mugged During Arrest, His Attorney Says | Video
Posties plead with Jeff Bezos
Speaking of the Washington Post, journalists throughout the newsroom are pleading with owner Jeff Bezos not to make steep cuts at the paper amid rumored layoffs targeting the international, sports and metro desk.
The public appeals speak to fears inside the paper that significant cuts are on the horizon — particularly in international coverage — and reflect growing doubts about whether Bezos, the Amazon founder reportedly worth around $250 billion, remains fully invested in supporting the paper.
In conversations with TheWrap, staffers expressed frustration with Bezos’ seeming distance from the paper, as well as with CEO and publisher Will Lewis, whose widely touted “third newsroom” initiative never gained traction amid broader upheaval during his two-year tenure. They also fault management for the loss of hundreds of thousands of subscribers after the paper spiked a 2024 endorsement of Kamala Harris. “If their answer to those losses is to take it out on staff now, what are we doing?” asked a staffer.
“The lack of communication has left folks twisting in the wind,” another staffer told TheWrap.
More in my piece: Inside an Anxious Washington Post, With Eyes on Jeff Bezos
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Advice for Bari Weiss
Bari Weiss, the embattled editor in chief of CBS News, took the opportunity last week to lay out her vision for the network. She vowed to earn the trust of the newsroom, while offering a blunt message to staff “We have to start by looking honestly at ourselves,” she said. “We are not producing a product that enough people want.”
TheWrap Editor-in-Chief Sharon Waxman closely read Weiss’ remarks and offered some advice to the novice TV executive:
“I’ve read the speech a couple of times, seeking to grab hold of a central theme, a clear plan. Weiss is right about framing the problem she needs to solve: CBS News has been busy hanging on to its shrinking, older audience, and failing. Instead, she argues, CBS News needs to be about the business of embracing the 21st century by expanding its core, by finding potential new, young viewers where they are – on YouTube, streaming apps, social media and podcasts.”
Weiss can diagnose the problem, but the real question is can she fix it?
Read Waxman’s full piece: Letter to Bari Weiss: Soaring Words for CBS, but Your Solutions Are Fuzzy
Plus: CBS News Offers Buyouts to Some ‘Evening News’ Staff After Bari Weiss Lays Out Network Vision
Tucker Carlson’s evolution
For years, journalists have privately — and publicly — asked what happened to Tucker Carlson? How did one of the most talented magazine writers morph into a right-wing firebrand, hosting what the New York Times described as “what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news.” The media is flush with deep dives on the matter, from the Columbia Journalism Review (“The Mystery of Tucker Carlson”) to the Atlantic (“What Does Tucker Carlson Believe?”).
Biographer Jason Zengerle, wisely, isn’t promising to solve the riddle, acknowledging in an interview that he doesn’t have “a satisfactory answer” when it comes to Carlson’s psyche. What Zengerle aimed to do, he said, was to explore the “incentive structure in conservative media and in conservative politics over the past 30 years that influenced his decisions and influenced the way he went.”
Read my full interview with Zengerle, author of the new book, “Hated By All the Right People.”
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Kayla Cobb and Corbin Bolies report:
TikTok’s new ownership is off to a rough start. After six years of executive orders and legal battles about whether or not TikTok will be able to exist in the U.S., chaos defined the platform’s first weekend under its new owners as users found themselves unable to post videos and see view counts.
The widespread disruption on Jan. 25 came on the heels of a federal Border Patrol agent in Minnesota killing intensive-care nurse Alex Pretti, sparking the latest political firestorm among creators rallying against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the state. But as users found themselves unable to speak out on the social media platform, the outage led to a wave of public departures and accusations that the app was censoring political content, even as the company blamed a power issue with one of its partner data center sites.
Check out the full piece: TikTok’s Early Outage Heightens Censorship and Monetization Concerns: ‘It’s Terrifying’
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