First Daughter Ivanka Trump has accused CNN of elitism as Don Lemon’s show questioned both the intellectual abilities of President Donald Trump and some 63 million Americans.
“You consistently make fun of half the country and then complain that it is divided,” Ivanka tweeted. “The arrogance, mocking accents and smug ridicule of this nation’s ‘Real Elites’ is disgusting.”
Her comments were in response to a clip from Saturday’s edition of CNN Tonight, where host Don Lemon, Trump critic Rick Wilson and New York Times contributor Wajahat Ali discussed Mike Pompeo’s bombastic exchange with an NPR reporter. The reporter, Mary Louise, claimed Pompeo had cursed at her and demanded she identify Ukraine on an unmarked map.
Rick Wilson said of Pompeo on the show: “He also knows, deep in his heart, that Donald Trump couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter ‘U’ and a picture of an actual, physical crane next to it.”
At this moment, Don Lemon started to laugh so hard he couldn’t speak.
Wilson continued, to Lemon’s snorting and Ali’s chuckles: “He knows that this is an administration defined by ignorance of the world. So that’s partly him playing to their base and playing to their audience: the credulous boomer rube demo that backs Donald Trump.”
Wilson went on to parody a Trump supporter with an exaggerated Southern accent: “Y’all elitists are dumb.”
Ali interjected, also with a faux accent: “You elitists, with your geography and your maps and your spelling. Your geography, sipping your latte.”
At one point Lemon appeared to realise that the joke had gone too far, saying through chuckles: “Sorry, hold on, wait. That was good, sorry. That was a good one. I needed that.”
Donald Trump re-tweeted a clip on Monday, calling Lemon (perhaps his least favourite news anchor) as “the dumbest man on television”.
At the start of Tuesday’s episode of CNN Tonight, Don Lemon clarified that he was merely laughing at a joke, and not at Trump’s supporters. “I don’t believe in belittling people,” he said. “Belittling anyone for who they are, for what their belief, or where they’re from.”