OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
An emotional CNN host Don Lemon has bid farewell to his audience and he got emotional as the last episode of his primetime show aired.
He showed a video montage of his time in the primetime timeslot over the past eight and a half years as the final segment of his show on Friday.
“I was not always perfect, because no one is perfect,” the host said. “There are immense pressures that come with this job and in particular this time slot at, 10:00 o’clock, when people are going to bed. So sometimes all I could do – I am going to be honest with you – was just smile and just get to the commercial break sometimes.”
“Sometimes, it was exhausting. Because some of the things that we discuss here are so personal and so consuming, all-consuming. So, I hope I made you proud. And I thank you for tuning in all these years. And I hope that you are going to join me in the morning,” he said.
“So I will simply say good night, and I will see you soon.
“All right, so I’m going to leave, and I am going to go upstairs,” the host said as he walked to a flight of stairs and began to sniffle.
“Bye,” he said as he fought tears.
That's a wrap. Thank you for tuning in for over 8 great years. @donlemon will see you in the mornings! pic.twitter.com/WfJlSl8PcO
— Don Lemon Tonight (@DonLemonTonight) October 8, 2022
Last month he spoke on his show “Don Lemon Tonight” and did his best to portray the move, from having his own show named after him in primetime to being part of an ensemble cast in the mornings, as a “promotion.”
They chat occurred during the handoff segment between “CNN Tonight” host Laura Coates and Don Lemon where Coates said, “Hey, Don Lemon – no, should I say good morning, Don Lemon?”
“I am exhausted. I just got back today. What a time to be on the plane when this happened, then I get off the plane and my phone literally was blowing up, it has been heated up all day. Let me just say that it’s bittersweet for me because I work with the best team in this building, one of the best teams in this business, and we built this show out of nothing. This show was not supposed to exist,” he said.
The host thanked his staff and said that the move to mornings was not a directive from management.
“This is not someone saying you must move to the right, Don Lemon, and give so much of your perspective,” the host said. “That is not real. This is fodder for Twitter. This is an opportunity. This is a promotion. This is an opportunity for me to create something around me and I get to work with two great ladies who you know.”
CNN’s @DonLemon on being demoted from primetime to the AM: “I was not demoted” pic.twitter.com/WgatfCzPLT
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 16, 2022
In its most recent earthquake to the network, CNN host Don Lemon has lost his primetime show and will be moved to mornings as part of a host team as the current morning show “New Day” is being canceled, The Wrap reported.
Don Lemon will lose his primetime CNN show on weeknights to co-anchor the network’s reimagined morning show with Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins, the network announced Thursday.
The new morning show will debut later in the year with a new name, format, and set — and signals the end of “Don Lemon Tonight” after an eight-year run. CNN did not announce any plans for how it will fill Lemon’s primetime slot, which has long lagged behind Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” in the ratings.
John Berman and Brianna Keilar, who currently anchor the network’s ratings-challenged “New Day,” will shift to other roles at CNN later in the year.
It has been a time of change with the new ownership at CNN and it has affected more than Don Lemon.
Mere hours after he praised President Joe Biden’s anti-MAGA Republican speech, CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood was gone from the news network.
CNN has been undergoing changes with the idea of getting to a more centrist news style and away from partisan leaning, and that has meant that some CNN personalities have to go.
Neither the network nor Harwood said if he was fired, quit or it was a mutual decision, but the timing had many wondering if his praise of President Biden’s divisive speech was the cause.
Harwood said in a tweet, “personal news: today’s my last day at CNN proud of the work thanks to my colleagues i’ve been lucky to serve the best in American media – St. Petersburg Times, WSJ, NYT, the NBC family, CNN look forward to figuring out what’s next.”
personal news:
today's my last day at CNN
proud of the work
thanks to my colleagues
i've been lucky to serve the best in American media – St. Petersburg Times, WSJ, NYT, the NBC family, CNN
look forward to figuring out what's next
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) September 2, 2022
It came hours after Harwood made his opinion known on President Biden’s speech when he appeared on the CNN show “New Day.”
“The core point he made in that political speech about a threat to democracy is true. Now, that’s something that’s not easy for us, as journalists, to say. We’re brought up to believe there’s two different political parties with different points of view and we don’t take sides in honest disagreements between them. But that’s not what we’re talking about,” he said.
“These are not honest disagreements. The Republican Party right now is led by a dishonest demagogue. Many, many Republicans are rallying behind his lies about the 2020 election and other things as well. And a significant portion—or a sufficient portion—of the constituency that they’re leading attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, violently. By offering pardons or suggesting pardons for those people who violently attacked the Capitol, which you’ve been pointing out numerous times this morning, Donald Trump made Joe Biden’s point for him,” he said.