CNN Anchor Lauds Liberal Senator’s Attack on GOP Member: ‘Good For Her’

CNN anchor Don Lemon just couldn’t resist editorializing over liberal Senator Barbara Boxer’s slam against a conservative colleague, James Inhofe. During the 3pm EDT hour of the "CNN Newsroom" program, anchors Lemon and Brianna Keilar played a contentious exchange between Boxer and Inhofe in which the Democratic Senator chastised the Republican for interrupting former Vice President Al Gore’s global warming testimony. After the clip, this exchange followed:

Video clip: Real (1.6 MB) or Windows (1.8 MB) plus MP3 audio (280 KB)

Brianna Keilar: "Wow. All right. That was quite an exchange. And, you know, we were expecting something from Senator James Inhofe. He is a critic of global warming....We thought maybe it might be with him and former Senator, former Vice President Al Gore, but it ended up between him and Senator Barbara Boxer. She really got a stinger in there, I will say."

Don Lemon: [Laughs, then quietly] "Good for her."

A complete transcript of the segment, which aired at 3:38pm on March 21, follows:

Brianna Keilar: "Let’s go now to some new sound coming from the Hill. This is a heated exchange change be between Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat from California , Senator James Inhofe, Republican from Oklahoma. This came during former Vice President Al Gore’s testimony on the Hill about global warming. Apparently this heated exchange started because Senator Inhofe wanted shorter answers from Gore. Let’s listen in."

Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma): "I mentioned this in my opening statement about they’re, they’re criticizing you for some of your, your being too alarmist and hurting your own cause. Now, I’ll ask you to respond in writing for that one because that would be a very long response, I’m afraid. Now, it seems that everybody– Global warming in the media joined the chorus last summer–"

Former Vice President All Gore: "Well, I would like to– May I– May I–"

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California): "Excuse me, Senator Inhofe. We’ll freeze the time for a minute."

Inhofe: "Oh, yes."

Boxer: "I’m just trying to make–"

Inhofe: "Take your time. We’re freezing the time."

Boxer: "No, no. We're freezing the time just for a minute. I want, I want to talk to you a minute, please.[ Laughter ] Would you, would you agree, would you agree to let the Vice President answer your questions? And then if you want an extra few minutes at the end, I'm happy to give it to you. But we're not going to get anywhere."

Inhofe: "Why don’t we do this– Why don’t we do this– At the end, you can have as much time as you want to answer all the questions?"

Boxer: "No, that isn’t the rule. You’re not making the rules, used to when you did this. [Boxer holds up the gavel.] You don’t do this anymore. Elections have consequences."

Brianna Keilar: "Wow. All right. That was quite an exchange. And, you know, we were expecting something from Senator James Inhofe. He is a critic of global warming. In fact, he once said that global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people. So, certainly, we were expecting something from him. We thought maybe it might be with him and former Senator, former Vice President Al Gore, but it ended up between him and Senator Barbara Boxer. She really got a stinger in there, I will say."

Don Lemon: [Laughs, then quietly] "Good for her."