Don Lemon Says David Ellison’s Quest for CNN to Win MAGA Voters Is a Losing Battle: ‘Are You Crazy?’

David Ellison might think he can sway MAGA voters to watch CNN, the news network he’s acquiring in his bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, but former anchor Don Lemon isn’t so sure.

“Those folks are never ever going to watch CNN and they’re never going to watch any network that’s a factual news network,” Lemon told Tim Miller at the New Orleans Book Festival on Saturday. (Video can be watched via C-SPAN 2 here.)

Lemon, who worked for CNN from 2006 until he was fired in 2023, told Miller the topic came up while he was speaking to Kevin O’Leary. The “Shark Tank” investor and host said he believes the network will need to “come to the middle” for such voters, and Lemon disagreed.

“You’re out of your mind, that’s never going to happen, are you crazy?” he said on the NOLA Book Fest stage. “Those folks are never ever going to watch CNN and they’re never going to watch any network that’s a factual news network.”

Lemon also insisted it’s a mistake for Ellison to believe “they’re gonna gain an audience by trying to move a network in a certain direction — in these days it’s to the right — because they think that audience is going to come to them.”

Elsewhere in his interview with Miller, Lemon reflected on the perspective his recent arrest in Los Angeles following an anti-ICE church protest in Minnesota gave him.

“It’s crazy,” Lemon said. “What perspective did I gain? Is that they’re maniacal and I believe that they are not patriots, I believe that they don’t believe in the Constitution, they don’t believe in the Bill of Rights, because otherwise they would not be conducting themselves in the way that they are and they would not be going after someone who you consider your political rival.”

Earlier this month, Ellison said he hopes CNN will serve more viewers “in the middle” of the political spectrum.

“It’s maintained at CBS and it will be maintained at CNN,” he said. “Really, who we really want to talk to is the 70% of Americans [and] around the world that identify as center-left and center-right. We want to be in the truth business and we want to be in the trust business, and that’s not going to change.”

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