‘Heartbreaking,’ ‘Terrifying’; CNN Suffers Epic MELTDOWN Over Don Lemon’s Arrest

Curtis Houck
January 30th, 2026 4:57 PM

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On Friday morning, CNN’s News Central and The Situation Room were in a state of anger and mourning over the “disturbing,” “heartbreaking,” “stark,” and “terrifying” arrest of their “friend” and former CNN colleague Don Lemon for his role in the January 18 storming of a St. Paul-area church and, according to the Justice Department, violating the First Amendment rights of congregants to worship freely as well as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

Over the course of roughly two hours, numerous CNN faces rallied to Lemon’s defense by citing his work badgering congregants and the pastor as “insightful” to the point that America is “better off for” Lemon having gone along and exercised a “foundational” tenet of “democracy.” More broadly, Lemon’s YouTube page was heralded as having yielded “opinionated” “videos” and “straightforward journalism.”

A longtime friend to the Black Lives Matter movement, News Central co-host Sara Sidner first reacted by calling this “a stunning move” that “cannot be overstated,” leading chief media analyst Brian Stelter to immediately defend Lemon and even praise his actions:

No word on whether Stelter considers lecturing the pastor and congregants about their supposed lack of true Christianity his kind of interview. Of course, he phrased those believing Lemon shouldn’t be absolved of scrutiny as “MAGA loyalists.”

Stelter also lobbed the claim that we’re all “better off for” having had Lemon show up:

Sidner reacted by declaring the whole matter “terrifying” and stunning” because “committing journalism is not a crime...in this country” since all Lemon did was “he went into the church and started interviewing people after the protest entered the church”:

Stelter assured her “journalists will not be deterred” in doing their jobs (i.e. hating Trump and MAGA voters) and laughably insisted Lemon’s work on YouTube contained plenty of “straightforward journalism”:

In the next block, co-host John Berman spoke with Alisyn Camerota, his former partner-in-crime from the now-defunct New Day:

As another friend of Lemon’s, CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson called the arrest “heartbreaking” in “bizarre times” because his innocence should be clear to even “an eighth grader” who “knows something about the First Amendment” and the “freedom” Lemon had to act as he did:

Jackson added this is “particularly alarming” since “we know Don” and he was not “impeding, interfering, physically threatening, et cetera., someone’s worship,” but just “covering” what was happening. https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/2017283393679986909

Sidner found a second liberal legal mind to back up CNN’s full-court press to make this story all about themselves:

She continued at the top of the 9:00 a.m. Eastern hour by cloaking Lemon’s soul in the First Amendment while Stelter made it seem like Lemon was an American hero on January 18:

For good measure, Stelter invoked far-left podcaster Jennifer Welch’s comments from January 19 as well as an X post from a CNN colleague in Kenya:

Since Stelter did it in the last block, Sidner offered her own rallying cry of sorts to continue what’s doing (which is being the unofficial CNN spokesperson for any leftist protest movement she connects with):

Jackson had more insanity in round two, even suggesting the mob that stormed the church might not have violated the FACE Act because no one was physically hurt:

Going to break, Jackson decried “troubling” and “selective enforcement of laws” based on Lemon being arrested, but not the ICE officer who shot Renee Good (click “expand”):

JACKSON: So, understand this. The laws apply to us all. And I think the problem we’re having is the selective enforcement of laws, right? And not to get into this, but you don’t want to protest the actions as to Renee Good. And was there any illegality? Now we’re getting into the, you know, other issues, but you want to deal with this. Wow. But the bottom line is the laws are evenly applied or should be to everyone, but the application, depending upon the nature of what you’re doing, can differ. A protester is there for a specific intent. You’re voicing whatever objections or opinions you have as to whatever issues in this case, right? ICE and the pastor being ICE and whether or not you like their tactics. Many Americans are disgusted with the tactics, me included. However, saying that is different a protester from you going, John Berman, Don Lemon, or anyone else and simply covering the event.

BERMAN: Covering the event.

JACKSON: When you’re covering the event, you’re not engaging or involved in protested activities. You’re simply broadcasting those activities so that the rest of the country and community could know what’s happening and to that extent, to me, we’re in a different world when you’re applying the FACE Act, Freedom of Access to Clinics, to a journalist who’s covering the events of protesters. So, that’s the troubling thing. And then, John, it gets further troubling when a judge says, no, an appellate court says no, but you detain someone anyway, and then you allegedly, we don’t know, go to a grand jury, which, again, can indict a ham sandwich.

The Boston Globe’s Jackie Kucinich and Axios’s Margaret Talev also joined in the 9:00 a.m. Eastern hour to weigh in with Kucinich calling their pal’s arrest “certainly disturbing” to witness “another chapter in” President Trump’s “retribution campaign” that will require “a lot of norms...to be examined.”

For her part, Talev compared Lemon to ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel in that “there is a through line and it involves freedom of speech and what voters told us pretty consistently in a lot of polling and focus groups...that they do not want any president to significantly curb free speech or the rights of the press[.]”

Shifting to The Situation Room, co-host Pamela Brown insisted we all care as much as they do, calling the development “a significant escalation and a moment or a moment for our country.”

Stelter offered a hilarious claim in which he doubts Lemon wants to be the center of attention;

Referring to Lemon having been arrested in Los Angeles because he was slated to interview celebrities on the red carpet of The Grammys, Stelter said that would have been “an example of Lemon just wanting to work, sometimes covering entertainment, sometimes reporting the news in Minnesota” and “[h]e didn’t want to be the story today.”

Stelter made sure to throw some love to Georgia Fort, another so-called journalist arrested, for livestreaming federal law enforcement arriving at her home and demanding she come out, saying it “really speaks and testifies to her journalistic instinct.”

No, Brian, it testifies to how much she’s into herself.

Speaking of being high on their own supply, Stelter and Jackson showed that in their own ways with the former again playing journalism superhero and the latter leveling a baseless claim about the Justice Department:

Wrapping up the Lemon coverage for a few hours, Jackson again defended Lemon and the mob from the congregants: “If we’re in a society...where we’re not arresting people predicated upon lawful violations, but just predicated upon hurt feelings...where we’re just seeing the denigration of law and lawlessness, and it’s just — it’s alarming and shocking[.]”

To see the relevant CNN transcripts from January 30, click here (for CNN News Central) and here (for The Situation Room).

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