A week after he cut the mic of conservative guest Kurt Schlichter for bringing up Bill Clinton’s history of sexual misconduct, CNN's Don Lemon found himself trying to shut down another guest during Monday’s CNN Tonight when conservative radio host and CNN GOP debate co-moderator Hugh Hewitt argued that Donald Trump should use his Twitter account to educate millennials on the former President’s past.
The subject was invoked by Hewitt when the pair were discussing the day in Trump and Hewitt pointed out that Trump has 5.4 million Twitter followers while The New York Times has a print circulation of only about 1,375,000 and thus ensures that each tweet “has four times the impact of a New York Times headline.”
With that in mind, Hewitt proposed:
[S]o, if he chooses to go back and re-equate the American public, especially the millennials who will not know who neither Juanita Broaddrick is or Paula Jones or Kathleen Willey or any of these people. If he chooses to use his Trump account, that's like using the front page of The New York Times and then people re-tweet it.
Lemon tried to steer clear of this topic and instead critique Hewitt on how the liberal paper may have a small print circulation than Trump’s Twitter footprint, but The Times still has more Twitter followers at 22.7 million users.
Trying to keep the subject fixed on Trump’s opportunity to educate millions of voters on what really happened in the ‘90s as Hillary conducts her second presidential bid, Hewitt properly highlighted that fact that CNN recently ran a documentary on campus sexual assaults (entitled The Hunting Ground) plus how millennials have a far higher standard for what consent means than previous generations:
Bill Clinton's history, whether or not contested or acknowledged or hidden away or put under the rug, whatever, is going to be news to the millennials who have a very different view of that behavior than the generation that Bill Clinton grew up[.]
An annoyed Lemon then launched the first of multiple tries to downplay Clinton’s sexual past by ensuring both him and the audience that millennials have been educated on this subject in school:
Well, I think, though, Hugh, that — I think that lots of millennials, including my nieces learned about Hillary Clintons and they are all millennials, they learned about it in history and civics classes, so, they — they already know about that, but let's move on.
Lemon’s attempt to turn the attention toward Ben Carson’s tumble in the polls fell flat as Hewitt blasted the claim:
HEWITT: Do you really think that? I mean —
LEMON: Yes. But my next segment, Hugh, is devoted entirely to this subject. I would like to stick with the Republicans in this one, OK?
HEWITT: Okay. But one last question. Do you really think your nieces know who Juanita Broaddrick is or Kathleen Willey?
Lemon opined that while younger Americans may not know exactly that the names of Clinton’s accusers (like Broaddrick), they “know in general what happened with Bill Clinton in the Oval Office and they already know all of that and they think it's politics, as well and they — look, we're not — they're not actually big supporters of Hillary Clinton either but they understand the history of it.”
Before Hewitt relented and the pair spent the final moments discussing the GOP field, the radio host again brought up the idea of how sexual consent has changed in the last few decades (and in turn would upset potential voters):
HEWITT: That was consensual. It's the other stuff.
LEMON: But anyway, I want to talk more — I want to talk —
HEWITT: My point is the difference consensual versus non-consensual and this generation's view of non-consensual advances is much different than 20 years ago. Go ahead. Where do we want to go on with Republicans.
LEMON: I think that's a different talking point. I think young people are smarter than you think and I think they learn about these things in school.
The relevant portions of the transcript from December 28's CNN Tonight can be found below.
CNN Tonight
December 28, 2015
10:08 p.m. Eastern
HUGH HEWITT: But I want to point out one thing, Don. I looked this up tonight to get ready to talk to you. Donald Trump's Twitter account has 5.4 million followers. The New York Times daily circulation is 1,375,000 circulation. So, every time Donald Trump tweets something out, he has four times the impact of a New York Times headlines and so, if he chooses to go back and re-equate the American public, especially the millennials who will not know who neither Juanita Broaddrick is or Paula Jones or Kathleen Willey or any of these people. If he chooses to use his Trump account, that's like using the front page of The New York Times and then people re-tweet it.
(....)
HEWITT: And so, when Trump decides to bring Clinton and says to Hillary, hey, don't start calling me an abuser of women and I was reminded again by O'Brien today, that CNN ran recently a great documentary called The Hunting Ground about campus sexual predators. Bill Clinton's history, whether or not contested or acknowledged or hidden away or put under the rug, whatever, is going to be news to the millennials who have a very different view of that behavior than the generation that Bill Clinton grew up and that —
DON LEMON: Well, I think, though, Hugh, that — I think that lots of millennials, including my nieces learned about Hillary Clintons and they are all millennials, they learned about it in history and civics classes, so, they — they already know about that, but let's move on. Let's talk now about Dr. Ben Carson.
HEWITT: Do you really think that? I mean —
LEMON: Yes. But my next segment, Hugh, is devoted entirely to this subject. I would like to stick with the Republicans in this one, OK?
HEWITT: Okay. But one last question. Do you really think your nieces know who Juanita Broaddrick is or Kathleen Willey?
LEMON: I don't know if they know who Juanita Broaddrick is but they know in general what happened with Bill Clinton in the Oval Office and they already know all of that and they think it's politics, as well and they — look, we're not — they're not actually big supporters of Hillary Clinton either but they understand the history of it.
HEWITT: That was consensual. It's the other stuff.
LEMON: But anyway, I want to talk more — I want to talk —
HEWITT: My point is the difference consensual versus non-consensual and this generation's view of non-consensual advances is much different than 20 years ago. Go ahead. Where do we want to go on with Republicans.
LEMON: I think that's a different talking point. I think young people are smarter than you think and I think they learn about these things in school.
