On Wednesday's CNN Tonight, host Don Lemon literally clapped his hands to cheer on Democratic Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence for telling off Republican Congressman Mark Meadows over race in response to him inviting former Donald Trump employee Lynne Patton as evidence that the President does not treat his employees in a racist manner. The CNN host then had the congresswoman on the show to further complain about whites who cite personal relationships with blacks as evidence that they are not racists.
A bit later in the same show, CNN contributor and Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery tagged Trump as a "racist" for promoting the birther conspiracy theory against President Barack Obama as Lowery and never-Trump Republican Tara Setmayer appeared as guests to lambaste Trump and Republicans over the issue of whether the President is a racist.
No one gave any indication of what they would consider to be legitimate evidence of not being racist that one could acceptably use if defending oneself from such accusations.
At 10:39 p.m. Eastern, Lemon played a clip of Congressman Meadows defending Trump on race as Patton stood behind him. After the clip ended, the CNN host shook his head as he had an exasperated look on his face. He then commented: "Democratic Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence was just not having it," and then played a clip of her complaining about Meadows's speech defending the President:
I just want to put on the record, as being a black American and having endured the public comments of racism from the sitting President, as being a black person, I can only imagine what's being said in private. And to prop up one member of our entire race of black people and say that that nullifies that is totally insulting. And in this environment of expecting a President to be inclusive and to look at his administration speaks volumes.
Lemon was then seen again on screen slowly clapping his hands together. As he introduced her as a guest, he exclaimed: "Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence, thank you for that! You were saying what a lot of people of color at home. You were angry -- you were frustrated about what Representative Meadows -- how he used Lynne Patton as a prop. Explain to our viewers what a lot of people of color saw happen there."
After Lawrence's first round of griping about the issue, Lemon thanked her again and, after acknowledging that Patton has been close to the Trump family, he added: "But this action was -- I think -- not a good move, okay. It was insensitive."
Ironically, Congresswoman Lawrence is a member of a group -- the Congressional Black Caucus -- that has a history of engaging in race-based discrimination by rejecting membership requests explicitly because non-blacks are not allowed to join -- even if they represent black majority districts.
Later on the show, as Lowery appeared as a guest, he further complained:
First of all -- and we shouldn't even have to still say this in 2019, right? The theory that President Obama was not born in the Unites States of America is racist. It was peddled by racists. It was racist when Donald Trump did it before he was even a candidate. It was racist when he did it as a candidate. And members of Congress who are elected on that type of rhetoric are engaged in racism -- using racism for political gain.
By contrast, on Thursday morning, Fox and Friends had Patton on as a guest to explain why she approves of President Trump.
