Don Lemon’s gleeful and profane celebration of the ongoing MAGA squabble over H-1B visas left several Fox News personalities outraged on Tuesday, with one panelist fuming whether the former CNN star thought her Donald Trump-supporting parents were “stupid.”
During a recent broadcast of his YouTube show, Lemon joked that “MAGA-land” was in a “civil war,” noting that “America First” hardliners have been raging against “tech bros” Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy for advocating for more skilled immigrant workers. The president-elect, meanwhile, has recently come out in support of the special visa program, siding with his “first buddy” Musk.
Lemon noted that the MAGA flashpoint started last week with Trump’s appointment of Sriram Krishnan as a senior adviser on artificial intelligence, pointing out that Krishnan’s advocacy for removing caps on green cards for skilled laborers sparked “anti-Indian backlash” among Trump’s far-right base.
“We can’t do the immigration because, you know, the immigration — it triggers some people,” Lemon mocked. “You know what they’re saying about the anti-immigration stuff, right? Who’s to say that one of the jobs you might be seeking won’t be one of those white jobs?”
Laughing hysterically throughout, Lemon quipped that MAGA had been “co-opted” by billionaires Musk and Ramaswamy, who Trump has also tasked with leading a meme-based government efficiency advisory committee.
“And now they’re figuring out that without these people, we cannot do our tech jobs! But guess who knew that? The tech bros knew that. The folks who are supporting Donald Trump. The folks who you want to put in charge of the DOGE already knew that!” Lemon cackled.
“Oh my gosh, I love this. Now you’re finding out, you dumb f***ing idiots. Now you’re just figuring this sh*t out. You’re so f***ing stupid, and you deserve it,” he continued. “Yes. I am gloating over your stupidity and how you were taken. I’m cracking. I’m cackling. I am! You have been co-opted because you’re in a f***ing cult, and you don’t even realize it, because you have stupid MAGA brain and you don’t get it. How stupid and dumb are you?!”
Needless to say, considering Fox News’ reputation of being an “outrage machine,” Lemon’s remarks triggered an on-air meltdown on Tuesday.
Comparing Lemon’s profane mockery to Hillary Clinton’s infamous “deplorables” remarks, something Fox News has done repeatedly with other comments made by liberals, Fox News contributor Joe Concha agreed that it was “bad politics” before going on a tirade against the ex-CNN anchor.
“If you want to go after Donald Trump or any Republican, fine, fair game,” Concha huffed. “But when you start going after their supporters, all 78 million, that may turn people off. You would think people would have learned from what happened to Hillary Clinton.”
Concha added: “Don Lemon talking about how stupid Trump supporters are. That’s what desperation sounds like. The kind of desperation from a guy begging for someone, anyone, to pay attention to him. And, by the way, he let the veil down. We were told he was a serious journalist asking serious questions without fear or favor to party.”
During the midday panel show Outnumbered, anchor Lauren Simonetti groused that it “was an insult after insult, and it ended quite viciously.” She also claimed that Lemon was living in “an echo chamber” and didn’t seem to “get what the country is telling” him after the election.
Heritage Foundation Tech Policy Center Director Kara Frederick, meanwhile, took Lemon’s ridicule of MAGA supporters personally.
“This is the stuff that millions of Americans had in their head that made them crawl over broken glass to vote for Donald Trump,” she exclaimed. “Maybe speaking from personal experience at that time. You know, my dad, who spent 32 years in the Marine Corps — is he stupid? My mom, who devoted her entire life to supporting my dad’s military career and her children, is she stupid?! Does she deserve that? No!”
Like Concha the hour before, Frederick also compared Lemon’s remarks to Clinton’s “deplorables” moment, adding that if liberals “want to keep doing that,” then Democrats “will keep losing elections.”
Fox News contributor Nicole Parker would later agree with Simonetti that this was a “losing strategy” for Democrats, claiming that she had friends who were previously on the “Never Trump list” who came around and voted for the incoming president this past November.
Simonetti added that while liberals “try to understand” why voters gravitated towards Trump this election cycle, “all they do is keep insulting people that voted for” the president-elect. “So it’s like, just take a minute, pause and understand what’s going on around you and stop with the vicious insults,” she concluded.
