CNN’s Don Lemon: ‘White men are the biggest terror threat to the US’
News anchor and host Don Lemon attends the Ellie Awards 2018 on March 13, 2018 in New York City. (Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for The Association of Magazine Media)
CNN news anchor Don Lemon has said that white men pose the “biggest terror threat” to America.
Lemon made the remarks during a segment commenting on a recent shooting in Kentucky, where a white man allegedly shot two black people outside a supermarket.
The incident took place the day before after another white man allegedly killed 11 people during a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27—suspected gunman Robert Bowers has since pleaded not guilty.
“I keep trying to point out to people not to demonise any one group or any one ethnicity. But we keep thinking that the biggest terror threat is something else,” Lemon told his colleague Chris Cuomo, speaking live on-air on Tuesday (October 30).
Lemon has stood by his remarks. (Kimberly White/Getty Images for GLAAD)
He continued: “We have to stop demonising people and realise the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalised to the right, and we have to start doing something about them. There is no travel ban on them. There is no ban on―you know, they had the Muslim ban. There is no white guy ban.”
The openly gay CNN anchor has come under fire from conservatives for his comments, but he stood by his remarks.
“Let’s put emotion aside, and look at the cold, hard facts,” he said on Wednesday (October 31). “The evidence is overwhelming.”
He highlighted a number of studies, including a 2017 report from the Office of Government Accountability.
This report found that, out of all the 85 terrorist attacks that resulted in death between September 12 2001 and December 31 2016, 73 percent were carried out by far right-wing violent extremist groups—and only 27 percent by Islamic extremists.
Lemon added: “We don’t need to worry about people who are thousands of miles away. The biggest threats are home grown.”
“Let’s put emotion aside, and look at the cold, hard facts. The evidence is overwhelming.”@DonLemon presents the facts on domestic terrorism.#DonsTakehttps://t.co/PpH9t4Trvp pic.twitter.com/v3qDglsLaL
— CNN Tonight (@CNNTonight) November 1, 2018
In August, Lemon claimed that Donald Trump once called him racist during an interview he conducted with him in 2011.
“The last time I interviewed Donald Trump, before he ran for office, was the night that Osama Bin Laden was killed,” Lemon explained to CNN’s evening newscast The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.
“It was before he was killed and we had a row about the birther issue.”
“He vowed that he would never do an interview with me because he said I was racist, because I challenged him on an in-factual statement, a lie.”
Lemon continued: “[He said] I was racist because of the way that I challenged him.
“Much in the way that he thought that I can’t be unbiased about an issue concerning race, like Judge Curiel, because I’m African-American. So he accused me of being racist.”
