The unanimously Trump-bashing PBS pundit present Washington Week with The Atlantic got here dashing to the protection of Don Lemon on their Friday evening pitch-and-catch. Host Jeffrey Goldberg started: “It has been one other semi-hallucinatory week in America. Simply yesterday, the previous CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested for protecting a protest inside a church in Minneapolis.”
“Arrested for protecting a protest” is precisely the DNC speaking level of the week. Jeff and his Biden-boosting panel by no means cared one whit about this idea when Steve Baker of The Blaze was arrested for accompanying January 6 protesters — in March of 2024, greater than three years after the riot. Jeff did not care when the FBI raided right-wing journalist James O’Keefe seeking the stolen diary of the president’s daughter Ashley in 2021. There are different debater factors. No conservative journalist ever seems to supply an precise counterpoint to Workforce Goldberg. The PBS mission is to supply the arguments of just one facet. The unity is simply so….comfortably undemocratic.
Susan Glasser of The New Yorker repeated the DNC line: “One of many issues that they are accusing Don Lemon of doing is peppering the pastor with questions. That is known as doing journalism. They’ve explicitly criminalized the act of journalism of their authorized submitting right here.” PBS eagerly tweeted out the speaking level:
“That is the primary time [President Trump] has ordered the arrest of a journalist,” stated @sbg1.
“One of many issues that they are accusing Don Lemon of doing is peppering the pastor with questions. That is known as doing journalism.” pic.twitter.com/h2jVoGIuRh
— Washington Week with The Atlantic | PBS (@washingtonweek) January 31, 2026
Goldberg’s worker Toluse Olorunnipa try to clarify why the church-invading tactic was someway vital:
OLORUNNIPA: Don Lemon and a few different individuals have been getting into there filming and broadcasting what was taking place. And, sure, you might say that going right into a church is perhaps seen as, you already know, somewhat bit excessive or perhaps uncouth for some individuals, however they wished to indicate that they have been going to go to do issues that have been totally different due to the way in which that this operation with 3,000 individuals going right into a metropolis taking children away from preschools, separating households, that is one thing that is actually disrupted their neighborhood, and they also need to do one thing totally different….Clearly, Don Lemon ended up getting arrested for the act of journalism, and that’s one thing that we’re watching.
GOLDBERG: It does strike me that invading a church throughout a service just isn’t essentially a great way to succeed in the center of the nation. It additionally strikes me that Don Lemon was there recording, taking part in a task as a journalist.
On ‘Washington Week’ on PBS, all of them stated Don Lemon was arrested on “manufactured fees” for “the act of journalism.” They’ve solely a tiny sliver of discomfort for leftists ending the best to Sunday worship. That a part of the First Modification? PBS pundits do not actually care. pic.twitter.com/IYTfHgtb19
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) February 1, 2026
Stephen Hayes of The Dispatch was in full David Brooks Mode, giving PBS precisely the echo it is at all times searching for:
HAYES: I imply, that is what the president does. He did in his first time period. He referred to as journalists the enemy of American individuals. And he promised all through his marketing campaign that he would get retribution. I feel that is what we’re seeing. I do not suppose he is — he is type of guileless about it. It is not likely like he is dressing it up a lot.
He stated he wished to get Don Lemon. Two federal judges stated, there’s not sufficient proof, we’re not going to do that. Apparently a number of the prosecutors who have been to have been concerned, did not need to be concerned, and so they went and received finished restricted anyway on principally manufactured fees.
Trump Haters can by no means discover any “principally manufactured fees” towards Trump over the past ten years, like the complete campaign that Trump had colluded with the Russians to get elected in 2016, to not point out most of the different partisan prosecutions.
