It’s worse than an attack on journalism
The first time Donald Trump ever disparaged journalist Don Lemon on social media was during the 2016 campaign. At a rally, Trump, then the Republican nominee for president, had warned his audience that the election of his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton would mean Supreme Court justices who would scale back gun rights.
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks,” Trump said. “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know.”
Lemon, then the host of a show on CNN, asked his guests how this could be interpreted in any way other than as a threat against Clinton. One guest rejected the idea, insisting that the language may have been “imprudent” but that Trump was clearly just telling pro-gun voters to turn out on Election Day. (That guest, incidentally, was Dan Bongino, the right-wing podcaster-turned-Trump FBI Deputy Director-turned right-wing podcaster.)
Trump saw a clip of the exchange and praised Bongino. Lemon, he said, “is a lightweight – dumb as a rock.”
This became a refrain: Lemon, whose coverage of Trump was often critical, was described by the president over and over again as unintelligent and biased. The CNN host — even more than other CNN hosts! — had joined an ignominious (or, depending on your politics, illustrious) group: Enemies of Trump.
On Friday morning, an attorney for Lemon reported that the journalist, now working independently, had been arrested in California. Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed this news on social media.
“At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy,” she wrote, “in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.”
This development was striking in part because the administration had already tried to criminally charge Lemon, without success. Earlier this month, Magistrate Judge Doug Micko declined to sign an arrest warrant targeting Lemon and others. An effort to appeal that decision was also rejected.
It is also striking because of what actually occurred at the church in St. Paul. A pastor at the church is also an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, prompting a group of protesters to interrupt a service he was leading. Coverage of the event doesn’t suggest that it was an “attack” in the commonly understood use of the term. But that coverage itself is at the heart of the issue for Lemon: He was there, interviewing participants and the pastor, a presence that would seem clearly to be covered as a constitutionally protected activity. (Georgia Fort, another one of those identified by Bondi, was also there in her capacity as an independent journalist.)
It is tempting to view the targeting of Lemon solely through this lens, as an extension of Trump’s longstanding hostility toward the media — or, more specifically, toward any media outlet or personality that isn’t falling over itself to praise him. Trump has repeatedly used his personal and presidential power to attack reporters and media outlets. The arrest of Lemon is simply another tick on the administration’s anti-First Amendment checklist: religion, speech, assembly and the press.
Yet it is probably wiser to view the Lemon arrest as something broader. It’s not that he’s a journalist. It’s that he’s been identified as an Enemy of Trump, and the president and his base have long been howling for those perceived enemies to be punished.
Again, there’s no public evidence that Lemon was involved in the church protest in any capacity other than as a reporter. But his presence there quickly drew the attention of the pro-Trump right, centering him as a representative not only of the protest but of the broader anti-Trump movement. On social media, Lemon became an avatar for all of the disparate elements of opposition to Trump that have emerged as federal agents have swarmed Minneapolis. Countless demands that he be punished exist within that context, not within any obvious legal one.
Whose arrests did Bondi announce? Two Black journalists and two Black Democrats who’ve sought elected office. In other words, four people who represent an assortment of things that Trump’s base views with some hostility.
To be very clear, it is not better that Trump’s Department of Justice is going after his perceived enemies rather than against journalists for doing journalism. It is far worse, because it reinforces the (already obvious) willingness of the administration to use federal power to impose penalties on critics and opponents. Not necessarily criminal penalties, like jail time, but even simply forcing people into the criminal justice system, spending time and money on attorneys, and so on.
The Trump administration will scoop up a guy in Maryland and send him to El Salvador and then backfill alleged criminal behavior in an effort to get him deported. It will shoot a mother to death in her car and then declare that she was a murderous terrorist.
It’s important that it is filing criminal charges against a reporter who was in the act of reporting. But it’s more important that it is doing so centrally because that reporter was a perceived Enemy. How else to explain the White House celebrating the arrest on social media, seeking accolades and approval from the base?
The Bill of Rights included protections for journalists because the founding fathers understood that people in positions of power would find the press and its accountability systems to be annoying or threatening. What they probably didn’t foresee was a president who wanted to attack a journalist centrally because he wanted to show his supporters how eagerly he was going after their collective perceived opponents.
Photo: Don Lemon smelling cookies my wife made for him and his team back in his CNN days.