It’s rare enough to see the demise of one A-list cable news personality on any given day, let alone two — but the media world witnessed such a unicorn on Monday. Tucker Carlson‘s overwhelming split from Fox News as Twitter began to light up with responses to yet another major departure: Don lemonphotos from CNN. “I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been fired from CNN. I am stunned,” said Lemon, who CNN this morningsaid in a statement on Twitter, which you can read in full below:
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The New York Times, who had a jump in the news pinned Lemon’s shot to the obvious culprit: his disparaging remarks a few months ago about Nikki Haley and women and the age at which they ‘had the best time’. Michelle Joehoe took a none-too-subtle sneer at Lemon in her acceptance speech Time reports, “CNN’s bookers had discovered that some guests did not want to appear on the air with Mr. Lemon, and research into the morning show, reviewed by CNN executives, found that his popularity with audiences had declined.” New York Post reported that the White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre agreed to appear CNN this morning only if Lemon wasn’t the one to interview her (CNN and the White House have both poured a little cold water on the report, but it seems to follow suit.)
Sources who know how it went told me it all took place in the last 48 hours, the time frame in which Lemon’s cohosts, Kaitlan Collins And Poppy Harlow, were notified of the decision. Lemon had the opportunity to speak with network boss Chris Light on Monday morning, but declined, my sources (CNN’s communications team later said tweeted so much.) The sources added that CNN wanted to go public in a joint message, but Lemon preempted that with his tweet.
Lemon — a long-serving CNN figure who broke out in a big way while hosting a fiery prime time show during the Trump presidency — had been transferred to the breakfast crew last year as part of Licht’s revamped programming strategy, whose However, the morning one The show has been slow to build an audience while also being distracted by tabloid dramas, including reports of Lemon clashing behind the scenes with his cohosts.
When I pre-interviewed the trio last October CNN this morning‘s debut, Lemon told me, “I’m looking forward to the non-confrontational nature of this format…. I’m just looking forward to taking the conversation to the next level and making people smarter instead of just to fight.”
Now, as one of my sources put it, “The internal consensus is, forward.“
