Former CNN host Don Lemon slammed Barack Obama for “yukking it up” with Donald Trump at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Thursday and urged Democrats not to be too civil to a man they cast as a fascist.
Obama and his successor were seen chatting and chuckling while seated together at the service. The exchange went viral, as did the moment Karen Pence appeared to snub Trump, whose antics on Jan. 6, 2021, saw his supporters calling for her husband, former Vice President Mike Pence, to be hanged.
“People had many, many questions,” Lemon said on his YouTube channel over the weekend. “How could Barack Obama, the man who faced vicious, racist conspiracies for years because of Trump, act so buddy-buddy with him? Does he not remember birtherism?”
He went on:
Perhaps more critically, does he not remember how his entire political party has been calling the man a fascist, an autocrat, a threat to democracy for months, if not years? People could not believe what they were seeing. Had the Democratic Party lied to them? Had Kamala Harris and Joe Biden lied to them? Is this all just a game?
Lemon said he believed that Obama “was just doing his duty” brushing shoulders with Trump as a member of the presidential club attending a state funeral.
“But laughing at Trump’s jokes on camera? It was risky. Kind of cringey. Optics like this are things that Democrats have to consider going forward,” he said, adding that Democratic voters “may feel lied to if they appear to embrace him now.”
“You can’t just memory hole comparing someone to Hitler,” he added.
He called on Democrats to keep that in mind ahead of Trump’s inauguration and over the next four years.
“Your behavior around the man will matter. It does matter. You can’t allow Karen Pence to present as a more steadfast defender of democracy, a more courageous critic of Trump, than yourselves,” he said. “Your outdated impulse to prioritize good relationships with your conservative colleagues at all costs has got to end. Recall, many of these men and women have spent years valorizing a violent mob that sought to kill you. Why does Karen Pence remember that but you don’t?”
Democrats called Trump a fascist in the lead-up to his election, and warned persistently about the threat he posed to democracy. Trump’s own former chief of staff, John Kelly, warned that his onetime boss would govern like a dictator. He said Trump had also made positive comments about Adolf Hitler.
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Obama said in October that a second Trump presidency would be “dangerous” and told supporters, “In politics, a good rule of thumb is: Don’t say you want to do anything like Hitler.”