The CNN anchor Don Lemon spoke directly to Donald Trump on Sunday night, after the president retweeted a conspiracy theory about Barack Obama.
Lemon, a frequent target of the president’s ire and that of his family and supporters, said: “In a time when we need leadership, when we need compassion, this is the crap that you’re peddling? Conspiracy theories?”
The time Lemon was referring to was that of the coronavirus epidemic, which according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University has infected more than 1.1 million Americans and killed more than 67,000.
Trump appeared on Sunday night at a Fox News town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, discussing reopening the American economy but saying “we may have to put out a fire” if the virus returns in the fall. The current White House prediction for the initial death toll remains between 100,000 and 240,000.
The tweet which the president retweeted said: “Evidence has surfaced that indicates Barack Obama was the one running the Russian hoax.” It was written by David J Harris Jr, an African American conservative who, according to his Apple podcasts biography, is “an entrepreneur, founder of … a healthy lifestyle supplement company, and a speaker”.
The piece to which the tweet linked began: “In the new releases it appears to be saying that Operation Hurricane was being run from the Oval Office. This would be huge if true.”
Operation Crossfire Hurricane was the codename for the FBI investigation of Russian election interference which expanded to include links between Trump and Moscow and fed into the work of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Mueller did not establish a criminal conspiracy but did not exonerate the president of potential obstruction of justice.
Damn, Don. pic.twitter.com/7WJXuV8tn4
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) May 4, 2020
Trump’s retweet, Lemon said, was “a new low from a president who goes low all the time”.
He continued: “What is it about President Obama that really gets under your skin? Is it because he’s smarter than you? Better-educated? Made it on his own, didn’t need daddy’s help? Wife is more accomplished? Better looking?”
“I don’t know, what is it, what is it about him? That he’s a black man that’s accomplished being president? That he punked you on the whole birth certificate thing? What is it about him? Just wondering.”
The “birth certificate” thing was a reference to Trump’s championing of the conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the US and should not have been president.
In 2011, Obama famously mocked Trump about it at a White House dinner. In 2016, Trump said Obama was born on US soil – and tried to pin the conspiracy on Hillary Clinton.
Lemon also praised former president George W Bush, who has called for unity in the face of the pandemic. Trump attacked Bush on Sunday, writing with regard to his own impeachment over his approaches to Ukraine: “He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!”
Trump did not immediately respond to Lemon on Monday, instead choosing to attack other TV hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC.