Earlier this week, upon news that President Trump would be nominating a judge to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, CNN anchor Don Lemon said that Democrats would have to “blow up the entire system” if Republicans were to get their way.
“We’re going to have to blow up the entire system,” Lemon told fellow anchor Chris Cuomo.
“I don’t know about that,” Cuomo shot back.
“You know what we’re going to have to do?… You’re going to have to get rid of the electoral college,” Lemon argued. “Because the minority in this country get to decide who our judges are and who our president is. Is that fair?”
“You need a constitutional amendment to do that,” Cuomo replied.
“And if Joe Biden wins, Democrats can stack the courts and they can do that amendment and get it passed,” Lemon emphasized.
After enough backlash from conservatives on social media, Lemon then claimed that his critics took his comments out of context and argued that he made them in jest.
“I woke up and I saw all of these headlines, ‘Don Lemon is calling for the abolishing of the electoral college!’ But I was responding to you when you said we need people with integrity!” Lemon told Chris Cuomo on Tuesday night. “I was responding to you when you said we want people with integrity in office and I said, ‘Well, then we’ve got to blow up the whole system, right?’ And I said here’s what Democrats can do and that’s the danger- they can’ stack the court. But all of a sudden, I am calling for the abolishing of the electoral college… and, what else did they say? That I’m a Democrat because I said ‘we.’ I mean the American people!”
Cuomo then lightly suggested that some of the reactions to Lemon’s comments were racially motivated
“But listen, you forgot something very fundamental … A Black guy can’t say that he wants to blow anything up right now,” Cuomo joked as Lemon laughed. “People are waiting for you to come and destroy their houses with people like me, your kooky White friends. So you can’t say you want to blow stuff up because you’re playing into the narrative.”
After saying that people took him unfairly out of context, Lemon then doubled-down on his attack on the Electoral College.
“Run and tell this: I do think that we need to look at the electoral college because I think it disenfranchises voters, both Democrats and Republicans,” Lemon said. “If you’re in a blue state and all of the electoral votes go to the Democratic person, then the Republicans’ votes aren’t counted, the people who voted for the Republican candidate! So I do think it should be looked at because I think it does disenfranchise certain people. Should it be abolished? It’s not for me to say. I’m saying this is what Democrats are saying; stack, the courts, get rid of the electoral college. But there is no nuance and no context anymore so who cares.”
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