Cameron Cawthorne at the Washington Free Beacon reported that Thursday night's CNN Tonight began with host Don Lemon looking annoyed at Chris Cuomo, asking an exasperated "Why?" as in why he would dedicate 39 minutes of his show to squabbling with Kellyanne Conway. Lemon thinks Conway is a complete waste of time.
DON LEMON: And you know I don't want to beat you up, right? Because this is--
CHRIS CUOMO: No, you do.
LEMON: No, I don't.
CUOMO: I know you don't think she should be on TV. I don't believe in silencing the other side.
LEMON: It's not silencing the other side. It is not a right for someone to come on CNN and lie and deflect. This was a defective--
CUOMO: People do it all the time.
LEMON: -- dismissive and histrionic display of non-answers. At a time--
CUOMO: But people do that all the time.
LEMON: Please, please, please. At a time when the American people need to be reassured that we are in good hands, when all of the evidence shows that the president is lying to the American people, what Kellyanne Conway does and what the apologists do, they, how do I say this nicely? I don't want to be rude. They take up your time, our time, on national television, when we could be learning something that's important to us.
Cuomo pushed back by taking a shot at the format of Lemon's show, which often features partisan panelists ripping into Trump. "But Don, come on, let's be honest about what your programming is, you have a bunch of voices on every night – you think people learn from that?"
It's obvious that Lemon thinks porn star Stormy Daniels is a more respectable guest for his show than Kellyanne Conway.
"People think this is about ideology," Lemon said in response. "If Kellyanne Conway wanted to come on and the apologists want to come on and they want to talk to you about policy, I think that is a completely different thing, but what they are coming on to do is to distract you, distract the American people. Chris, I learned nothing from that. She told me nothing."
Lemon seemed most upset that Conway would insult her CNN hosts, as if the CNN hosts never insult guests? Especially Trump-defending guests?
LEMON: And then she comes on, and instead of answers, she wants to hit you which really ticks me off--
CUOMO: I think that shows something too.
LEMON: Because you're allowing -- because you're allowing her to come on, you're giving her a platform which is a privilege, OK? So, and I think that that's great. OK. So, I think you're allowing her to come on, but then she doesn't respect you or the platform. She hits you personally.
CUOMO: But that's on her, Don.
LEMON: And none of it's true. At all.
Lemon doesn't think that respect runs the other way -- that CNN should be nicer to people who take time out of their lives to come talk to them. So Cuomo went back to saying the Left wants to censor people they disagree with, but insulting CNN shows the Trump team have no arguments:
CUOMO: My pushback is, you know, to the left, nobody is acceptable. They don't want anybody from the right on.
LEMON: True. Absolutely.
CUOMO: A senator, congressman, any pundit, anybody. They don't even want the president on. I don't believe any of them, I don't want them on. I don't believe in that. I think you got to keep an open mind, I think you hone your own arguments by hearing the other side.
And I tell you something, if this is the best they had to put out for the president of the United States, it tells you a lot. Insulting me, that is like, to me, that is like ice cream. Because it proves you've run out of insights and arguments. All you got is cheap shots. And I think it reveals something to people.
