How CNN miscast Don Lemon as a morning person

Don Lemon started the interview as Morning Don. He leaned back in his chair, legs casually crossed under the glass table on the set of CNN's still-young morning show last week, and waited his turn to question Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

His co-host, Poppy Harlow, signaled that their discussion was about to turn to China. But Lemon wasn't done with the tech entrepreneur's previous topic - an attempt to explain recent comments equating current-day gun-control measures with post-Civil War efforts to ban Black people from owning weapons.

Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post.

As the host pressed Ramaswamy on his logic, suddenly it was Prime Time Don running the show.

"When you are in Black skin, and then you live in this country, then you can disagree with me," Lemon said, now leaning forward and telling Ramaswamy his comments were insulting. "I don't want to sit here and argue with you because it's infuriating for you to put those things together. It's not right. Your telling of history is wrong."

It was the kind of intense, probing debate that would have been at home on his old 10 p.m. show, "Don Lemon Tonight." But it felt jarring in Lemon's latest perch - a morning show marketed as an easy conversation between friends about the news of the day, bolstered by CNN-branded journalism - in what would turn out to be one of his last days on it.

Ramaswamy argued back. Harlow sat silently, shifting in her chair. Lemon snapped at the producers seemingly trying to direct him through an earpiece: "Please. I cannot keep a thought if you guys are talking in my ear." And after Ramaswamy insisted it was "insulting" for Lemon to say that Black Americans still lacked rights after the civil rights movement, Lemon had had enough. "It's insulting that you're sitting here, whatever ethnicity you are, 'splaining to me what it's like to be Black in America."

Lemon, 57, was supposed to be the centerpiece of the new "CNN This Morning," flanked by Harlow, 40, a veteran business reporter, and Kaitlan Collins, 31, a CNN rising star who had broken out as a White House correspondent covering the Trump administration. But Lemon, who made headlines for a series of on-air gaffes and triggered gossip about strained on-set relationships, was fired on Monday after what may have been a flawed casting from the beginning.

"Don is probably the first person to tell you that he is not an ensemble performer," said former CNN U.S. president Jon Klein, who hired Lemon as a reporter back in 2006. "He needs to be the guy in the spotlight."

Lemon came to prominence, after all, in the edgier cable-news realm of prime-time commentary when he was tapped to host "Don Lemon Tonight" in 2014, and became a star during the Trump administration, when impassioned monologues and scathing takedowns were the evening-hours style on CNN and MSNBC.

He channeled the outrage of left-leaning viewers by outright calling the president a racist, generating "Don Lemon DESTROYS Donald Trump" headlines across the internet.

But last fall, new CNN chief executive Chris Licht, a veteran of daytime programming successes like "Morning Joe" and "CBS Mornings," asked Lemon to move to mornings.

On the face of it, it seemed like sound strategy to tap a bankable talent to help launch a new product. Mornings had long been a ratings struggle for CNN - its previous show, "New Day," regularly came behind competitors on MSNBC and Fox News - and Licht had prioritized turning that around.

"I was honestly floored when Chris Licht asked me to do this," Lemon said at the time, "and I'm honored by his belief in me."

Yet pulling a star like Lemon from prime time also reflected a larger shift underway at CNN, whose new chain of command - including Warner Bros. Discovery chief executive David Zaslav and key shareholder John Malone - has expressed a desire to scale back on the politically charged tone that emanated on the airwaves during the Trump years.

The grouping of Lemon, Harlow and Collins, who shared equal billing, was inspired as much by their personal relationships as their journalism skills and on-air presence. All three had worked together and were socially friendly - Lemon and Harlow in particular.

When "CNN This Morning" launched at the beginning of November, though, it was the first time the three had appeared on set together: CNN had not conducted any screen tests of the trio.

From the early days of NBC's hit "Today" show, morning shows have been defined by a certain breeziness, which programmers have come to believe is essential for a time slot when viewers are devouring their cereal or trying to get their kids out the door. Lemon, for all his nighttime gravitas, had showed he could be fun on-air. He was a staple of CNN's boozy New Year's Eve broadcasts. In 2017, he got his ears pierced on live television.

"I can see why people would think Don would work in the morning because he's super charismatic." said one CNN on-air colleague. "But it's a different show, and you do have to change your style a little bit, and you have to produce for that."

A month after its launch, Lemon created a controversy for the fledgling show when he argued that it's not unfair for the U.S. women's national soccer team to earn less than the men's team. "I know everyone's going to hate me, but the men's team makes more money. If they make more money, then they should get more money," Lemon said. "The men's team makes more money because people are more interested in the men."

When Harlow pointed out a similar pay gap between NBA and WNBA players, Lemon countered that "there's also more interest in the NBA." He added, "If the women played the men, they wouldn't be winning the way that they win."

The sometimes tense on-air dynamic between Lemon and Collins became a topic of regular media gossip, marked by one incident in which Lemon upbraided his younger colleague off-set for attempting to speak over him on an episode.

But the biggest spat came in February, after Lemon said that GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, at the age of 51, "isn't in her prime, sorry." His comments were in response to Haley's proposal that candidates over 75 undergo mental competency tests. (Trump is 76; Joe Biden is 80.) "A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s," Lemon added.

Harlow objected heatedly in the moment, a reaction echoed across the media in the hours that followed. Lemon, who was sidelined for three days, said he regretted his "inartful and irrelevant" comment. He returned to the air only after Licht said managers "had a frank and meaningful conversation," with Lemon agreeing to "formal training," as Licht put it, "as well as continuing to listen and learn."

Lemon barely managed to keep his job amid the fallout from the Haley comments, according to a person familiar with network discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships. Licht later explained to employees that he wants CNN to balance accountability with "a culture in which people can own, learn and grow from their mistakes."

Some CNN staffers say they assumed that would have been the right time to make a move, not on Monday, nearly two months after the episode.

But Lemon survived. Still, even as the show's production was still a work in progress - two new executive producers were hired just last month - it became clear to many inside the network that the trio just wasn't working out.

Chemistry is "hard to manufacture. It's either there or it's not," said a longtime morning show anchor for another network. "It's a lot to juggle because you have to feel comfortable with your co-anchors but you also have to be quick on your feet, engaging, prepared, and do a million things at once. It's a lot harder than it looks."

The trio didn't seem to resonate with viewers, either. Lemon, in particular, did not score well with the predominantly female audience that largely consumes morning television shows, according to CNN insiders who have seen the results of viewer surveys. Although research conducted by the network found mixed results for Lemon, viewers seem to like Harlow and Collins.

"It's a time that you've got to get the tone right," a staffer with knowledge of management decision-making said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. "He was just rubbing people the wrong way."

Meanwhile, CNN's new project wasn't making a mark where it mattered the most - the ratings. In February, "CNN This Morning" averaged 360,000 total viewers, compared with 895,000 for "Morning Joe" and 1.2 million for "Fox & Friends" on Fox News, according to Nielsen data. It also was doing more poorly than its predecessor, "New Day."

At least one advertiser pulled back from advertising on the show, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre's office had expressed a preference for Harlow to be the one who interviewed her, not Lemon.

While Lemon's termination was likely in the works before the Ramaswamy interview, it added to a growing internal consensus that he wasn't working in the slot.

"I watched it happened in slow motion in front of me, as he slowly unraveled," Ramaswamy told The Post.

The GOP long-shot candidate insists he wasn't offended by what Lemon said - but he wasn't expecting that sort of vibe so early in the morning. "There is a difference between an evening talk show and a morning show where you're talking policy on one topic, and instead getting into a charged, deeply personal debate about issues relating to post-Civil War history."

Lemon has said little in the wake of the firing, which he said "stunned" him in an announcement on Twitter on Monday. Lemon appeared at an industry gala on Wednesday night and said he is at peace with what happened. "I live my life with no regrets and whatever I did, I did, I owned," he told an interviewer. "I don't look back and don't want to change things in the past."

There are no plans to cancel the show, a spokesperson for the network said. "'CNN This Morning' has been on the air for nearly six months, and we are committed to its success," the network said in a statement.

Harlow sought to reassure viewers on Tuesday that the show will go on. "Kaitlan and I are really proud of this show," she said. "We are so proud of the dedicated team that works around-the-clock to bring you the news every morning, and our priority is you, the viewer."

Related Content

King Charles III built a town from scratch. It embodies his worldview.

They waited decades for D.C. housing aid. Will changes finally bring relief?

The first arrests from DeSantis's election police take extensive toll