WATCH: Don Lemon Throws Down With ‘Frequent Fox News Guest’ Who REALLY Doesn’t Want to Talk About Blockbuster Settlement
CNN anchor Don Lemon refused to move on until GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy talked about the blockbuster Fox News settlement in a contentious exchange.
In a stunning turn of events Tuesday afternoon, Fox News agreed to a settlement that included a $787.5 million payout in the defamation suit that was just about to play out in a weeks-long trial. The settlement also included a tepid and conspicuously non-apologetic “acknowledgment” of “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.”
On Wednesday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, Lemon and co-anchor Poppy Harlow interviewed Ramaswamy, one of the few officially declared candidates in the 2024 GOP field — and teased the interview by introducing him as a “frequent Fox News guest.”
The interview was intense from the start, as Ramaswamy spent several minutes trying to avoid weighing in on the settlement with a variety of deflections that included pleading ignorance of the “details” and claiming it was just “the cost of doing business.”
Lemon was relentless, however, and at one point told his subject-changing guest “we will get there when we’re ready to get there”:
LEMON: What do you make of this decision to settle this case?
RAMASWAMY: I mean, it strikes me as the cost of doing business if you’re going to be a news network. I think it’s happened to CNN and I think it’s happened to a lot of news networks. It’s the cost of doing business.
HARLOW: That has not happened at CNN.
LEMON: It has not happened to CNN. This is the largest —
RAMASWAMY: Never been sued for defamation? Never been — never been actually settled?
LEMON: This is the largest in history.
RAMASWAMY: It’s definitely large and Fox appears to have the largest viewership in the market capitalization. So I’m not familiar with the details of this case. I’m actually more interested in issues relating to this country than disputes with media companies. But I will say that it strikes me that from CNN to Fox News.
LEMON: You’re not familiar honest — you’re not familiar with the case? You’re not familiar with the lies about the 2020 election? About the election being stolen? That Dominion was somehow fixing the votes? I mean, that’s why they — $787.5 million. You’re not familiar with that and you’re running for president?
RAMASWAMY: The details of a private dispute between — a commercial dispute and the details of what the dollar figures are — that’s not where I spend —
LEMON: It’s not private, it’s public. It’s not private, it’s public.
RAMASWAMY: That’s really not where I spend my time. But what I will say is look, there’s defamation cases, people settle businesses — settle business disputes. Fox settled this one. It’s actually not, I think, the pressing issue for the nation of what Fox News’ settlement is with a — with a —
LEMON: Well, I disagree with that because as you just admitted, you said Fox has the largest —
RAMASWAMY: (INAUDIBLE).
LEMON: — viewership — one of the largest viewership among television networks, and especially cable networks. Considering the eyes — the American people who are tuning into Fox News to get their information and to get it accurately, I’m surprised that you would say that you’re not concerned about this and this is not a — something that is hugely pressing for the American people.
RAMASWAMY: Here’s the way I look at it.
LEMON: Freedom of the press is the First Amendment in the Constitution.
RAMASWAMY: Oh, exactly — you nailed it — the freedom of the press. So we have CNN, we have Fox. I’m here with you guys. I go on Fox News. I think that’s great that we have a marketplace of ideas in this country.
What I worry more about, Don, is the trend that we see in this country to controlling what different parties are actually able to say. The American way to bad speech is more speech. And so I think we need to actually embrace that culture in a more diverse marketplace of ideas.
[07:55:10]
LEMON: But (INAUDIBLE) Vivek —
RAMASWAMY: That’s something that we haven’t done well enough in this country.
LEMON: In all honesty, you’re not answering the question. You’re giving us platitudes about —
RAMASWAMY: I’m actually unsure what your question is, Don. Do you want somebody to bash Fox News on CNN? If that’s your favor (PH), then I’d be happy to do that. Actually, I wouldn’t.
LEMON: No, I’m not asking you to bash Fox — I’m not asking you to bash Fox News. I’m asking you —
RAMASWAMY: Yes.
LEMON: — to be honest —
RAMASWAMY: Yes.
LEMON: — about what happened on Fox News about the lies that were told and them having to admit the lies, and paying the largest defamation settlement to a media company in history. And you are a frequent guest on that network. Are you concerned about the credibility? Are you going to continue to go on that network even with those credibility issues?
RAMASWAMY: I have far more concerns with the credibility of what we will call the mainstream media than I do with the credibility of Fox News. But —
LEMON: Fox is the mainstream media.
RAMASWAMY: — at the end of the day, what I say is look, neither you nor I know the details because they settled it before it went to trial. I think the obsession — I think the obsession over this is a little weird.
LEMON: Do you know the — Vivek, Vivek, listen.
RAMASWAMY: It’s a little bizarre.
LEMON: I don’t want to get into that —
RAMASWAMY: There’s real issues to talk about in the country. Why are we talking about Fox News and the settlement?
LEMON: This is a very big and important story and I’m not going to — we have much more that we wanted to talk to you —
RAMASWAMY: I think we should.
LEMON: — about, but we will get there when we’re ready to get there. We have you on to talk about these issues. This is a very important issue and it should not be downplayed. This has to do with American democracy and Americans learning the truth about what happened in the 2020 election. You don’t think that’s important?
RAMASWAMY: You want to know what — yes. I hear this — I hear a lot about —
LEMON: You’re comparing it to CNN is not — it’s apples and oranges. It’s not the same thing.
RAMASWAMY: Well, it’s different networks, yes. Apples aren’t the same as oranges. You get one view through CNN; you get a different through Fox News.
I think it’s good in our marketplace of ideas is that we have media that offers diverse perspectives. And you want to talk about threats to our democracy, one of the threats — and that phrase is an interesting one — threats to our democracy.
I think one of the biggest ones is the chilling effect on speech in our country more broadly, where if somebody says something that a broad segment of the population or certain people in the government disagree with there is an increasing trend in our country to silence that. And the answer to bad speech and alleged misinformation is not less speech. It is more speech in the marketplace of ideas. That’s actually what a free press really means.
LEMON: OK, so let’s — all right, we’re going to move on. But your answer was good but it’s not about what’s actually happened. It’s not relevant to what’s happening.
I think the answer to what happened at Fox News is to tell the truth. Media companies are tasked with telling the truth. That did not happen in this situation and that’s why we’re asking you these questions. But let’s move on.
Watch above via CNN This Morning.
