The Media Research Center continued to cheer Don Lemon’s arrest on his alleged role in an anti-ICE protest in a Minnesota church. Nicholas Fondacaro wrote in his Feb. 2 hate-watch of “The View”:
ABC’s The View was fully in the corner for disgraced former CNN host Don Lemon on Monday’s show, following his weekend arrest by federal authorities on a grand jury indictment, stemming from his role in storming a Minneapolis church. In addition to downplaying the charges, they seemed to suggest that the indictment wasn’t real and made up by the Trump administration. At no point did they address any of the charges. Instead, they hinted that the all liberals would end up in prison.
[…]Fake Republican Ana Navarro tried to dismiss the legitimacy of the charges and seemed to suggest that the indictment wasn’t real, but something fabricated by the Executive Branch “themselves”:
[…]Of course, she tried to squeeze Lemon’s indictment together with the release of the Epstein files, claiming the indictment was a choreographed distraction. “They released the news at the exact same time that they released the Epstein documents,” she said.
Navarro also tried to cry ‘racism’ by claiming the Trump administration went out of their way to only charged black journalists:
[…]Navarro provided no evidence that any white journalists had joined the rioters at the church, let alone any that escaped prosecution.
Fondacaro provided no evidence that Lemon’s arrest was not a distraction from the Epstein files.
Tim Graham ranted about “media elites” in his Feb. 3 podcast:
Journalists are rarely arrested, in part because the media elites freak out, since they apparently can never commit a crime if they’re trying to interview people. Former CNN host Don Lemon can’t be part of a mob violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, to which they added churches. Now if a journalist was part of a mob invading an abortion clinic, we all know the Left would freak out about that.
MRC external affairs manager Jerris Jackson and MRC Free Speech America staff writer Tom Olohan joined the show to discuss Lemon and ICE and every left-wing vice. Media elites suggested the Lemon arrest was an unprecedented descent into authoritarianism. But in March of 2024, Biden’s FBI arrested journalist Steve Baker of The Blaze for being present with January 6 protesters. None of them objected to that journalist’s arrest.
Are there no right-wingers among the “media elites”? Graham doesn’t explain how that could possibly be. He continued to rant:
Ten years ago, then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris charged pro-life activist David Daleiden with 15 felony counts in California for recording conversations without consent. He interviewed Planned Parenthood staffers who explained how they sold dead baby parts for profit. As usual, the standards are based on whether or not you’re on “the right side of history,” and conservative journalists aren’t considered journalists. Their activists are journalists, and our journalists are propagandists.
In fact, Daleiden is not a “journalist” — he’s a right-wing anti-abortion activist, and the videos he made were deceptively edited to make Planned Parenthood look as bad as possible. His organization, the Center for Medical Progress, is not a media organization — it was a front designed to deceive.
Bill D’Agostino ranted the same day:
When a grand jury on January 29 indicted former CNN host Don Lemon for allegedly participating in the disruption of a Minneapolis-area church service, the corporate media responded with unanimous outrage. But for all of their handwringing, not a single journalist has acknowledged even once on any of the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) that Lemon’s arrest was, in fact, the result of a grand jury indictment.
MRC analysts examined all coverage of Lemon’s arrest on the big three broadcast networks’ flagship morning (Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, and Today) and evening shows (ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News), from the morning of January 30 through the morning of February 3, 2026. Across the seven different reports about the incident, totaling just over 14 minutes, not once was it mentioned that Lemon’s arrest was not a reckless act by an out of control Justice Department, but rather the result of a grand jury indictment.
Funny, we don’t recall the MRC demanding it be reported that Trump’s indictments came from grand juries. Also note that D’Agostino refused to evaluate Fox News’ coverage of Lemon.
Fondacaro returned to hate-watch “The View” some more:
Finally back from a week-long unexplained absence, ABC co-host Joy Behar returned to The View as crazy as ever. Delivering her first public comments about the arrest of disgraced form CNN host Don Lemon, on Tuesday, Behar defended not only Lemon but the rioters who stormed the Cities Church in St. Paul Minnesota. She claimed they had a right to protest in the church and ludicrously equated Lemon being in the church to General Dwight D. Eisenhower bringing in journalists to document concentration camps and the Holocaust.
Behar began her comments by suggesting that Lemon and the mob of leftist extremists somehow had a right to storm a church, disrupt the service, refuse to leave when asked, and obstruct parishioners who tried to leave.
“So, I mean, all I can say is it’s in the Constitution, the right to protest; and he wasn’t even there protesting. He was there as a journalist,” she argued. “And I think they want to use him as some kind of a, you know, an example to intimidate other journalists.”
Steve Malzberg joined the MRC whinefest:
It was a bit surprising to learn from our colleague Jorge Bonilla, that this past weekend’s Sunday news shows weren’t dominated by the arrest of former CNN host Don Lemon over his actions in a church invasion on January 18. But last Saturday on MS NOW, host Ali Velshi, who used to work with Lemon at CNN, brought on another CNN alumnus, Jim Acosta, to discuss poor Lemon’s plight on Velshi.
Velshi teased the segment by calling Lemon’s arrest, “An escalation of Donald Trump’s attack on press freedom that cannot be ignored,” and continued with that narrative.
[…]Velshi did not mention Lemon was charged with violation of the Face Act. He failed to address seemingly incriminating evidence against Lemon, presented on Fox’s Jesse Watters Prime Time. Watters claimed that Lemon, “was in on the crime”, and that he met up with the invaders of the Church ahead of time, “he knew the target and admitted he was in on the operation.”
Malzberg didn’t explain how a right-wing TV host’s assessment of Lemon is definitive.
Geoffrey Dickens rehashed the bleatings of his boss in a Feb. 4 post:
Members of the elitist media are flipping out over the arrest of former CNN anchor and current podcaster Don Lemon calling it “terrifying” and warning that it will have a “chilling effect” on journalists.
However, as NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham pointed out, liberal journalists “never cared one whit” when “Steve Baker of The Blaze was arrested for accompanying January 6 protesters — in March of 2024, more than three years after the riot,” or when the “FBI raided right-wing journalist James O’Keefe.”
As we pointed out, Baker was an actual participant in the Capitol riot — to the point that he pleaded guilty to his participation in it — and O’Keefe is a right-wing activist, not a journalist, who indisputably trafficked in stolen goods when he took custody of Ashley Biden’s stolen diary.
A Feb. 11 article by Luis Cornelio proclaimed:
Former CNN anchor-turned-YouTuber Don Lemon was shielded at nearly every level following his federal indictment tied to the Cities Church riot. Elitist media outlets downplayed the charges, and like clockwork, Apple News, Google News, MSN and Yahoo News hopped in to finish the job.
A Media Research Center review of the Big Four News Apps found that these tech giants collectively insulated Lemon from scrutiny, refusing to surface headlines in their top 20 morning results that clearly noted that he had been indicted by a grand jury, instead presenting it as a simple “arrest” by the Department of Justice.
MRC found eight Big Four News App stories on Lemon that omitted “indictment” and portrayed him as a journalist documenting events rather than a criminal defendant.
Again, we don’t recall Cornelio demanding that media outlets report that Trump’s indictments came from a grand jury.