The Chris Cuomo Project - Don Lemon’s Arrest Is Bigger Than Don Lemon

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Chris Cuomo reacts to and analyzes the arrest of Don Lemon following a protest inside a Minnesota church, arguing that the case raises far bigger questions than Lemon himself. Cuomo explains why personal feelings about Lemon — his style, his choices, or his politics — are clouding a more serious issue: whether the government should be deciding who counts as a journalist and when reporting becomes a crime. Cuomo walks through what the law actually requires, why the FACE Act is being stretched in a way that should concern journalists and non-journalists alike, and why the arrest of Lemon — and fellow journalist Georgia Fort — represents a dangerous precedent even if you strongly dislike how Lemon operates. He also addresses the tension between free speech and freedom of worship, the difference between bad judgment and criminal conduct, and why this case is not a close call in his view. Join The Chris Cuomo Project on YouTube for ad-free episodes, early releases, exclusive access to Chris, and more: https://www.youtube.com/@chriscuomo/join Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Get the right life insurance for you, for less, and save more than fifty percent at https://selectquote.com/chrisc Refresh your wardrobe with Quince—go to https://quince.com/cuomo for free shipping and 365-day returns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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CBC News. Walking up to the room and I pressed the elevator button and these then all of a sudden I feel myself being jostled and And they took people trying to grab me and put me in handcuffs and and I said what are you doing here? And they said We came to arrest you and I said who are you and I said, who are themselves and I said if you are who you are and then where's the warrant? And they didn't have a warrant so they had to wait for the someone from outside an FBI guy to come in to show me a warrant on a cell phone and then they there was a bunch of guys and they took me outside FBI guys were out there I mean, it had to be maybe a dozen people, which is a waste Jimmy of resources,

because I told them weeks before, and maybe once or twice, that we would, you know, I think my attorney tried to contact them once, maybe twice, that I could just go in and it would have to be the folks who were just working there that day, and they wouldn't have to have all these people. Oh, the shit just gets deeper and deeper. I gotta tell you, here's the problem.

I call it the Don Lemma. The Don Lemon dilemma, which is that Don is masking what this is really about, and there are too many of us basing their opinion on what happened at that protest, at that church in Minnesota, on our feelings about Don, and that is allowing something that should matter to the many, is now being reduced to something that's just about the few. And I want to talk about why this has to be defended and why it has to be wrong, not because it's Don Lemon, despite it being Don Lemon.

And I get it. All you guys are coming at me about what you think and why you think I should think about it differently and what it is and what it isn't in the law and how you feel. And I want to talk about it. And there's so much going on that it's too much for just me. So welcome to the threesome here on the Chris Cuomo project with me, of course, Greg, of course, and Amrish. Okay. And here's why.

Everybody's got a different piece on this of what is triggering them or tweaking them about the situation, what matters to them. So I figured we might as well just all discuss it together because we're doing it off camera. We might as well do it on our camera as well. And I'll just be real brief about it, okay? And then we'll get each guy's take. Here's my take. The arrest is wrong all day long, okay? The arrests of these two journalists, okay?

And for me, Don Lemon being arrested is wrong, okay? Georgia Fort being arrested is crazy wrong. Why? As you probably know right now, there was a controversial protest planned to go into a church in Minnesota and protest the fact that the preacher, one of the preachers there, part of the clergy of that church works with ice. And two journalists were told that there was going to be a protest where and what to be determined. And they showed up and were told we're going into this church to protest. And they decided to embed, as we say in my business, and go in with them to report

on what happened. One was Georgia Fort. One was Don Lemon. And they went in. The protest happened. The organizer has her own explanation as if the preacher was asking anybody a question and she decided to answer the question. Whatever you want to believe, it became a protest. And the services were interrupted. And Don Lemon and Georgia Fort reported a live stream in real time on what was happening. And Don Lemon interviewed the preacher. I don't know if Georgia Fort did. I don't remember, but easily discoverable. And he said during the interview, no, these people have a First Amendment right to be here. And the preacher kept saying, yeah, we have a First Amendment right to worship. And this law that exists, I don't know that Don even knew, maybe he did, maybe he didn't.

The Face Act is the freedom of access to clinical entrances. Why? Because. Why? Because because it started with something that happened at a health clinic. But it includes places of worship, okay, that we want to keep safe so that people can exercise their rights within. And then the federal government decided that not only was the protest a violation of the Face Act, which it may be. By the way, it may be. You don't hear me arguing that what they did in there is right. That's what a lot of you were accusing me of. That I'm saying that everything that happened in that church was right.

I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. I'm saying, they say they were invited in, the preacher says, in the case they were not invited in, I'm saying that arresting those two journalists as being part of the protest is wrong. And I think that the government knows it's wrong and they think that they have a loophole, which is this law to catch them as if reporting in there, reporting a part of what's going on, being present is enough. And it's not enough. It's not enough under that statute.

You have to show force or intimidation. And I don't think it's even a close call, but many people do. I don't like some of the choices that Don made. I would not have made those same choices. I don't think most journalists would have made those same choices, which is why one reason we've never seen anything like this before. But what Georgia Fort did was very different. And again, there was pushing some boundaries on her end too.

But whether you look at the indictment or her actual statements and her actual video, it's not even a close call for her. And that's something that should matter to all of us, because if the government is in the business of saying who's a journalist, we got a big problem, especially this administration. So for me, it's not about Don and wanting to protect him. For Don, it's about Don. There's a reason he doesn't talk about Georgia for it much.

He's about himself. He's liking the moment. He's enjoying it. That's what his work is about. He puts himself at the center. Not the way Hunter S. Thompson did. I don't give him that kind of credit for Gonzo, journalism because he's not that deep. It's simple. He wants to be the story. He's about himself.

And that's okay. It's working for him, especially in digital media where it just keeps rewarding you for being provocative. But he's still a journalist. Whether or not you like his journalism, whether or not is good journalism or bad journalism, he's still a journalist. And I think the arrest was wrong. But I get that there's a diversity of opinion on this. Hence, Greg Gott staring at me. Like, you know, my head's got poop on top of it. I would hope not. Oh, my God. I was at the zoo a while ago and a bird shit of me the moment I got there.

It was a terrible experience. You think it's good luck? A bird shitting on you is good luck. When is that good luck? I was walking my daughter to daycare for the first time. And me and my wife were like very emotional. Because you don't want to take care of your own child? No, because it's so expensive to have somebody else be paid to take care of our child.

And a bird's shit on me then. right on my brand new jacket. Well, that's because you're doing the wrong thing. Because they're doing the wrong thing. Well, whatever. She's not there anymore. No. We got, what's his name?

Nick Shirley? He came by and I busted the whole thing. Did he? No, I'm kidding. Good. He knocked on the door. Yeah. You won't let me in?

You guys are daycare? You guys are daycare? You won't let me in as a strange man with the camera to see the children? It's very ironic considering how upset they get over Epstein stuff. Yeah, this guy's hanging out with all these kids. Like, hey, can I see the kids? The kids are all right? It's very strange.

Anyway, it's nothing to do with Don Lemon. Not yet. So Don Lemon, you two are like linked because of for how many years were the two of you handing off on CNN? Just a few. But it had a really big impact. It was the highest rated part of the CN Day. I was the highest rated show. But that section when I would go into Don was very highly rated.

And we became very close. I mean, there was absolutely no pretend going on. The only slight pretend was that the reason that the handoff happened, And I know he says something else, but it's bullshit. Surprise is our boss started it because he wanted me to keep Don in the realm of reasonableness on a regular basis. Because he had a tendency to do what he's doing now, right? And at CNN, it was different. They had standards.

They had practices. You know, they wanted things discussed in a certain way, which I think is responsible. So it was, hey, be on and have this conversation with him and kind of keep it. on the rails. And then it just became what it became, and it was great. And one of the negative fallouts for me in leaving CNN was it wound up changing our relationship because he decided to take my boss's side, part for personal reasons, part for professional reasons, in my opinion. But in either case, he wound up talking a lot of shit that wasn't true. And for me, that changes the relationship. I only want good things for him. I definitely don't want to see him get arrested.

and I wish he'd be more careful about how he's talking about it. I really wish he'd listen to his lawyers. But, you know, I don't think the arrest was right. Well, something that I've heard you talk about extensively is this idea of like standards and practices and having a boss and being able to like, why do you not often see other journalists popping into a church in the middle of a service

to, you know, conduct an interview or whatever? And there's something about that that does bother me because I do think of like when there are these stories about ice going into a church. And then like, I remember the CBS Sunday morning report where this pastor was like, hey, please don't come into church because we don't want you coming here because we don't want ice to come in here. You round you up. But the idea that like, there is a lot of energy of like, okay, let's protect these churches. Let's make sure that like it is not a target. It is not a problem. And yet the way this situation was unfolded is like, oh no,

we're going to go into the church to confront this guy. It puts up those two things back to back. the standards and practices of like, well, is this actually like the, you know, the way in which you should be approaching trying to get this story out there? And two, well, what does it say about then the argument about let's stay out of the churches because this is a safe place we're not going to bother because we want these people to be safe? Like I feel like those are very two conflicting things that this kind of brushes up against, at least in my opinion. And Amrish, what's tripping you out about it? I mean, the biggest thing, a great kind of touched about it. It's the, like, I'm not here to debate if Don is a good or a bad guy. I don't,

I don't think that's, even with the amount of front-facing things he's done, I don't think that's my place to even comment on. What I do want to comment, though, is when you spent your time at CNN, and you talked about kind of raining him in a little bit, it's like the idea of being neutral. I feel like that's the most important thing. Like, it's fine to have your biases because we're all human. But when you're reporting the news on television to a large audience, I feel like the need to be neutral and to come off as professional and to quell your bias as much as possible when you're speaking is really important. And for as long as I've seen Don speak, at least, you know, on the YouTube stuff, I feel like he veers so much off traditional journalism that it's hard to call him a journalist.

But we don't have parameters or rules. Look, I get it. He's not a neutral guy. But that's not what's sells these days? Is Megan Kelly neutral? Is David Pakman? Is he seen as neutral? Brian Tyler Cohen? No, they are demonstrably on the left. That little punk with the ski cap on. Tim Pool. You know, they're coming from the right, these guys, and they let you know it. Don is now part of that ecosphere, and I think he's probably most acclimated to it. And I got to tell you, Amrish, I get your frustration, but, you know, it's like you're a young guy who's got an old guy's view this because as somebody who refuses to pick aside and I want to do right wrong, not right left, this is not a great business model the way I do it. Don is doing better online than I am,

and I totally get why. And it's not just because I'm on TV every night and I'm diluting my reach. But even if you don't like how he does it, we don't have a set standard of what a journalist is because of several reasons. But the most important one, there's no difference between a journalist and Greg, a journalist in Amrish. We all have the right to free speech. Journalists just use it more. There is no extra argument for journalists. We just use the right to free speech. So in going after Don's credential, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter because he has the right to free speech. Support comes from select quote. Look, if you're going to be responsible, you've got to see it all. all the way through. And once you've got responsibilities, once you're in the family way,

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At participating Canadian restaurants for a limited time. Frank's Red Hot is a registered trademark of the French's food company LLC. Now, what's the difference between what Greg was talking about and this situation? If ice goes into a church, that's different. They're acting under color of authority. The FACE Act doesn't apply, okay? Now, you can argue, I don't like ICE going into the church. I don't think it's worth it.

I don't think it's good policy. I don't think it's good practice. Fine. I'm just talking about the law. The FACE Act is really funky because it puts two aspects of the First Amendment into contrast, into conflict, which is what? Free speech and freedom of worship. And what the law does is protect the freedom of worship.

So it's basically a trespass statute plus, meaning you didn't just walk into the church. Like, I come knock on the door, back to Nick Shirley. I knock on the door. Hi, can I come in and talk to you? No, get the fuck out of here. I got to leave as a journalist. I don't have any more right to be on your property than anybody else. So I got to go.

And if I don't, now I'm doing something illegal. The Face Act isn't just that. It's, I go inside, I intimidate you. Force, words. I don't let you in. I don't let you out. I don't let you worship. That's what it's about.

And they're saying that's what Don did. I don't even think it's a close call that he was present, not a participant. Now, do I think he crossed some lines that matter? Maybe. But even if I think that's bad practice as a journalist, I think he was clearly there as a journalist. Why am I wrong? You talked about Hunter S. Thompson and Gonzo journalism earlier. Do you watch Andrew Callahan?

Yeah. I'm a pretty big fan of Andrew Callahan. And I feel like he's the closest person that. that I follow who's in that sphere of like, he will go to like some event and drink and party and hang out. He won't become the story, but he'll involve himself in the world of the story and not just be like an impartial observer

who like parrots in, and what do you think here? It's like, no, no, he's like, he's got the red cup in his hand, you know, he's on the beach with these people. And he has a lot of success online. I think he does a great job. I find that very different than what Don is done or is doing because it does feel like there is this extra, extra film of just playing into the algorithm and wanting to make himself the story.

That clip, I think, was really interesting. It's like, here he is on Kimmel talking about, well, I was getting ready to go to the Grammys or whatever, and then they, they, you know, it could have arrested me. It's like, it's about him. It's about him. It's about him. And, you know, have we even talked about, like, what was the actual circumstance by which he's being targeted for arrest?

Like, why was he at that church? Like, we're not even talking about the actual thing. that happened. We're talking about this just happened to Don. And that to me is like, well, now Don is the story, but Don isn't the story. The story is what was going on in the church. Look, I get, I think Don, it's interesting. I mean, I think he should use the moment, okay? Oh, I'm not saying, yeah, yeah, right? I'm not saying, I'm not surprised at the way he's playing it. I'm not surprised that he's playing up. It does worry me a little bit because I do believe he is provoking these prosecutors. And you can say good.

I'm not afraid of the man. They have so much crazy outsized power. And it is, to me, it's not a close call. To a lot of people, it is, including the grand jury. Okay. Now, that's a low bar. It's probable cause, okay? You know, more likely than not, anyhow, you want to see it.

But, you know, it's nowhere near beyond a reasonable doubt. But Amrish, what I don't get is, how much of the pushback to me defending Don do you think is because people like, I don't like Don, versus, no, they really believe that he was there as part of this protest and did things that weren't just wrong but are illegal. You've adjusted the role of what it means to be like a commentator slash like news journalist in this sense. And what I find is in this new sphere of type of reporting opening up, sure, it gets you more attention. Sure, people pay attention to you. And maybe that's the most important thing. But for me, maybe I'm a little bit of an old soul. I just prefer for me to make

the conclusions rather than it being fed to me. So when I see the way he does things and goes about things, I feel like it's being set up and being catered to a certain viewpoint. And I just think it leads to more confusion, even though the person sees more success. Like the average person, me and everyone else at home that isn't as informed, isn't as involved with the news. We're just getting these one-sided arguments by these pundits instead of journalists. And I don't like it, but I also understand it. Again, yeah, and listen, I'm with it, okay? I get why Don pisses some people off. Listen, and I get, I've been hearing nothing, I've been hearing a lot about this, okay? And obviously for personal reasons, but professionally as well. And people are really pissed

that I'm defending him. And what it comes down to is they're pissed that I'm defending him either for the silly reason, which is he didn't do you right, you shouldn't do him right. That is just not what I'm about as a person, and you shouldn't be either, okay? The greatest revenge is to not be what you oppose. So if you don't like the way somebody treated you, you don't want to be that way back to him. I mean, I think that's unhealthy. For me, that's unhealthy. I lived a lot of my life that way.

It doesn't work for me. So, no. The other reason is you don't like how he does his job. The key point is job. It's his profession. This is what he does. He kept saying inside that church, for all the other clips you want to play me, I'm here as a journalist.

I'm not here as a producer. I'm here as a journalist. I'm not here as a journalist. Why? If he's there as part of the protest, if he's one of the organizers, which is bullshit, but even if he knew we're going in there to do this thing and I'm going to do it, which I would still defend him on because I don't think he knew anything about the FACE Act. I don't think he knew anything.

And I don't know what he's talking about a few weeks ago. his lawyer said, I'll come in and surrender myself a few weeks ago. Didn't this just happen? I don't understand that part. I'm thinking he was just confused. But also, I mean, unless they reached out and contacted him, why would you go in and surrender yourself? See, I'm worried about statements like that being taken out of context because it sounds like,

well, then you knew you did something wrong. Why did you want to come in and surrender yourself? You know, I wouldn't have surrendered myself. So I'm just worried. I just wish he'd shut up and let this move forward. but he doesn't want to waste the moment. And I get that, but even if you don't like it, even if I don't like his choices, again, I think there's a reason we've never seen this before.

Now, part of that is because we don't see a lot of people going to bust up churches, right? And I'm not saying they busted up. They didn't break any property or anything like that. But to protest and create a scene inside of a church, we don't see that that often. And by the way, I get the arguments that this is no ordinary Christian church and not just because of the pastor, but because of some of the affiliations they have. I get all of it. But a church is a church.

You know what I'm saying? Again, maybe a bad church. Maybe a bad preacher. Still a preacher, still a church. This law is still going to apply. And to me, he wasn't there as one of those. He was there with him. But he kissed her.

He said, we. He said he's going to stop the live stream. All right, now that one, I'll defend. The other two, I can't. That one I'll defend. Here's why. I've been around a lot of guys planning to do bad things where I had a deal about what I would reveal

and what I wouldn't. They weren't situations where anybody was going to get hurt by my non-disclosure of it. But often the access is conditioned. Don't show this guy's face. Don't do this. And you have to make a decision. Okay. Now, in this case, okay, if I had called my boss at News Nation and said, they've now told me they're going into the church and they're going to protest and I can go in with them. They'll give me access, even though it's a little weird because they don't control whether you go into the church. Like, I didn't have to be with that group to go inside. They don't control whether I go. They would have said, no. You talk to them now about why they're doing it. Make sure they realize that what they're exposing themselves to. And then you do it afterwards. But you're not going

in there and being part of a situation, a dynamic that interrupts a church service. It's a bad look for us. And again, we've had plenty of arguments over the years of, I got access, these teen kids are living on the run, and they're doing heroin. And I'm going to, and I'm going to to show how they're getting it and cooking it and well don't show this don't show that we don't want to seem like you're enabling okay there's a line standards and practices is a feel feel test on these things you know look I got fired for standards and practices that I was using my journalistic contacts to help my brother that never happened but I understand why they saw that as a standard but I wasn't doing that and my boss was fine with everything that I was doing which was

going to meetings and talking to my brother, you know, here listening and on meetings, and so is he. So the point is, I get the need for standards and practices, and there's a reason you don't see journalists in these kinds of situations. Now, there's another reason also. This is this weird law where the freedom of speech and the freedom of worship are actually in conflict with each other. Support comes from quince. Quince is a fruit, and it's also a pretty cool jelly that sometimes people serve with cheese. But here's what you need to know. Quince is how you get your wardrobe game up. It's all about pieces that work well together, right? Things that are made with quality that hold up over time. That's what Quince does best. Premium materials, thoughtful design, and everyday

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Conditions apply. And here's what pisses me off about you people who are telling me that you're pissed off at me. If it were Megan Kelly who had gone in with a bunch of anti-trans rights people or whatever you want to spin it as a good thing for. And they went into some LGBTQ-friendly church, okay? You would feel totally differently about this. That's why I'm pissed at you too. You're pissed at me.

I'm pissed at you. What's the difference between Megan Kelly and Don Lemon? She's saying he's not a journalist. And she is? She is? Really? What is she ever covered, by the way? You know, look.

Santa Claus's skin color, I think. Yeah, right? But people can come at me about like, oh, Don is doing men on the street interviews. It's so low rent. First of all, you're arrogant. It's like talking to regular people is like beneath you, by the way. Now, are they the most valuable interviews?

No, unless you're talking about I, witness events and, you know, and lived experience in a very specific context. But he's out there, he's doing what he does. This is what he's decided to do, okay? And yeah, he's really provocative with his videos and he says that this administration is corrupt and, you know, and fascist and all those things. And look, there are a lot of people who agree with them. I don't like for the left that they are making Don Lemon the face of resistance to Donald Trump. And I think a lot of the reasons that people are okay with everything that Don did in every way, and nobody's criticizing anything within the left about this is because they hate Trump. And Trump believes that he's got this Christian hook,

that he wants to protect the Christians. You know, again, I think it's a gimmick. But this gave him an opportunity, and he doesn't like Don Lemon. The White House put out an ad, said, when life gives you lemons. So he's enjoying this. He likes, you know, for you people who voted to end lawfare, I got to tell you, I got to tell you, what's that? Hypocrisy. I mean, come on, man. You don't think that this is just payback? And if you don't think this is payback, then why Georgia for it?

You have no idea what she said or did. Oh, yeah, but she went in with them. No, she went in. She went in. Was she not allowed in the church? She was allowed in the church. Oh, yeah, but then she became part of their protest. Says who?

Says who? Show me tape of her shouting slogans. shouting anything. You don't even know what she did. And you read the indictment, you still don't even know what she did. And you talking about the White House's response to this and gloating over getting lemon out there. I thought Dan Fyfer had a really interesting take on this.

Dan Fyfer is one of the Pod Save America guys who used to work for the Obama administration. His point was that Trump has had such success in trying to plow the press from ABC with Kimmel and, you know, all these all these big companies that own so many press outlets. It's like what Fifer's point was is that this is him also trying to demonstrate. No, I can go after independent journalists too. So it's not just the big boys up there. It's that I can show you in two examples. A big example of Don, who's kind of a household name and Georgia, who's not necessarily a household name.

But here's, again, like Georgia doesn't have the resources Don has, but he's still going after both of them. I think that there's something to that. I think it's an article of convenience for Fyfer to just make Trump more of a boogeyman. But I think that there is, and I've had this suggested, to me. I don't know it, but I've had it suggested to me by someone who could know, which is they went after Georgia Fort to make it seem like it's not just Don Lemon so that it wasn't just having a hard on for him. It was the behavior at the moment. But I'll tell you what, and a lot of journalists are saying this to me, but they're not saying it to you. Because

it's unpopular to not defend freedom of the press, okay? But they are not crazy about having to defend what Don did here. Now, again, I see George's... Gers differently. Yes, why? Because I don't know her to be, and I'm looking at her work, and sure, there's a lot of first person and he's stuff in there, and I think I know how she feels about a lot of the issues. I think she's fairly explicit about it, but it's not like Don. And he did things that they wouldn't do. So now you've got to own it. And a lot of them find Don, you know, obvious, performative, you know, there's some jackassery, sometimes he's wrong, about things like him saying to the preacher, no, no, no, they have a First Amendment right to protest.

Not in there. Like, how do you not know that? Because he's not educated on that. He's not a lawyer, and he is not known for killing himself with preparation. You know what I mean? He's got... That sounds like something you would know. He's got great personality. I think he's a great communicator. He knows how to make a moment. I think he's got a lot of strengths as a performer. No question about it. And I think he cares. deeply about a lot of things. I really do. But he made choices here that now all of us have to own and say it's all okay, even though it wasn't okay some of the choices he made and how to do it. And that's why there wasn't more media in there. And we've not seen media getting this close

on these kinds of things. And I know there are some people out there who'll be like, good, good, there's right and there's wrong. And you say it all time, Cuomo, but you don't find. Journalism is a lot more of degree and nuance and subtlety that is satisfying for you guys and is being suggested by a lot of what we're calling journalism online. And now we all got to own it and we got to own Don and we got to fight for him because the idea that is at play here is so much bigger and more important than how we feel about Don, okay, that you got to defend it.

And that's why I keep referring you to Georgia Fort because it's much easier for me to defend her, not just on the basis of her actions, was, again, I don't think Don is a good arrest. I don't think this is a good prosecution, and I hope it ends, but it's really not good with Georgia Fort. So what's the difference?

Don was saying a lot more things that showed an excitement and a willingness to be part of this situation, okay? Why? Because he makes it about him, and it's all first person. That's how I see it. I don't see it as being because he was part of the organizing or part of the effort. He wouldn't have kept saying he's a journalist, okay?

But Georgia was not doing it that way. And I just, you know, and I think that the absence of you knowing anything about her or what she did kind of makes my point. And you're going to have the government decide who's a journalist and who isn't. Who gets to exercise free speech and who doesn't? See, that's the part that's being lost. There is nothing special about being a journalist. It's not a thing. it's someone exercising their right to free speech.

Well, I think it's never been more clear today. Like, in the past 10 minutes, you've said repeatedly, like, oh, a journalist told me, sources told me. Like, you do that all the time. Like, you'll drop a little wink at the camera like, oh, you've talked to somebody who's in the know, and that's why you're able to report in this way. I don't think you can say that about a lot of people

who are Instagram journalists or TikTok journalists who are, you know, I'm guilty of this for a lot of the videos I put out there. It's like me with an Associated Press screenshot, talking about this, and then what's the value add that I have? Well, maybe I find some other articles. I put some context together, so I'm building the context, but I'm not actually doing the on-the-ground reporting or talking to people who have,

you have a very deep source bench. You've been doing this forever. So it's like, you can draw from something, but again, back to the Nick Shirley thing, like this guy can just kind of like, yeah, I'm a journalist now because I've got a camera. It doesn't give me more right to free speech. It doesn't give me more rights.

It doesn't give me a deeper right. It doesn't give me a better right. But I'm talking about trust in media. I'm talking about things that you can, You can believe in. You can trust me. You cannot trust me, right? And that's fine.

And it's something I don't really control, to be honest. And we're dealing with that. That's part of our cultural evolution or devolution, depending on how you want to use it. But it should not play into this. And it is, which is, I don't like this fucking guy, you know? That's why I keep bringing up Georgia Fort. That, okay, fine, feel what you want about Don. Love Don.

There are a lot of people who love them. There are lemon heads out there. Good for him. Good for them. okay and now he's got these people getting celebrated the gramees who was like he acted like he won one right okay fine fine again i don't love him as the face of the resistance to trump uh but that's their choice everybody makes their choice to me i think a lot of people are making the same choice i do which is despite him what happened here is really fucked up and the government shouldn't be in that business

even if you don't like or don't like the choices of the person where you've got to defend this And I keep bringing up Georgia Ford because she doesn't have a lot of that stink on her, in my opinion. So I get why people are frustrated by this, but I'm shocked. I really am by so many people who went at someone on the right, like Nick Shirley, he's a journalist. What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? You want to defend him doing that, but you don't want to defend this. Well, why? Because you don't like this and you do like that. You don't like that he was in a church.

You consider yourself, you know, a Christian or whatever it is. and this was disrespectful and rude, and the way he talked to the preacher was mean, or whatever, whatever you decide to feel. But I just think it's, I don't even think it's a close call, and I can't tell you how many people in this industry do think it's a close call.

And that really, it really shocked me. I gotta be honest, it really shocked me. And I'm hoping this goes away. I mean, my guess is that Don will keep playing it up because, you know, the martyrdom of it, but you got to be careful. Even though I don't think it's a good case, you never know. I wouldn't have thought they would get an indictment, by the way. I wouldn't have. I thought they went felony complaint initially because they knew they wouldn't get an indictment from a grand jury.

So they were going to do it based on their own affidavit and just get a judge to sign off on it. And then when the judge said no, and then they go to the appellate court. And this guy, I see Todd Blanche from the DOJ on with George Stephanopoulos, who I guess, you know, I don't know why, you know, like you can't check everything, right? But the guy says, well, George, you're forgetting. The appellate judge said there was probable cause. Yeah, one, but the panel agreed there wasn't. So, but George didn't check him on that. And I'm not coming at George.

I'm just saying, you know, you can't check everything. This is so much bullshit coming your way. But so my feeling was, okay, this is over. And then I thought I was suspicious. I didn't think they would get a grand jury indictment, even though it's such a low bar, you know, the expression you can indict a ham sandwich. I just felt here they would hear him saying,

I'm a journalist, I'm a journalist. But then I thought to myself, why do I think they heard that? Why do I think they heard that? A grand jury is only shown what the prosecutor wants them to see. There's absolutely no balance. There are almost no rules of evidence. That's why it's such a low standard, right?

And that's why nothing ends with an indictment. You know what I mean? Like, you got to keep going because that's just not enough. So they probably never heard that part, but they would at trial. Here's what the federal indictment against Georgia Fort says she and the others did wrong. Now, first of all, your key thing is, and the others. Because, again, there's very little specificity about her. Conspired to interfere with the rights of worshippers, which means they're saying,

she was part of this. Now remember, one of the organizers, Nekima Armstrong, told me she was not part of it. So just so you know, one of the organizers of the event, and you can say, well, I don't believe her, but why would she lie, is saying that, because Nekima doesn't think she did anything wrong. So why wouldn't she say that Fort was part of it or Don was part of it? She doesn't think anything was wrong with what they did. She's fighting her own case, remember. And she says, Don and Georgia had nothing to do in no prior knowledge. Okay? She is charged with allegedly acting to injure, intimidate, and interfere with how they say nothing.

Now, it's just an indictment. It's just a charging document. They don't have to lay everything out. But there's literally nothing coming from it. And they find nothing because there is nothing in there. And yet they still arrested her. and said, yeah, we don't care what you say. This is how we decide to see it.

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There's another mistake that's being made, and then I'll leave it here. A lot of people who are defending that the journalists were arrested are also saying that the protest was okay. And those are not the same thing, okay? The protest may well have triggered the face act. Now, why wouldn't it? Because I don't know that they used force or intimidation. I do not know that. and I know some people who are in there say that,

but I'm going to have to see the proof of that to know. Do I like what they did? Who cares? I mean, that doesn't really matter, okay? Because just because something I think is wrong doesn't mean it's illegal, right? You may have the right to do something, but I don't think it's right that you did it, right? So Don and Georgia were not part of the protest. They didn't go there to protest.

They went there to watch the protest and report on it. And that's what they did. And even Don Lemon kept saying, I'm here to report on it, not to participate in it. I'm a journalist. Why did he keep saying that if that's what he meant? Do I like how he did it? No. Do I like why he did it?

No. Why? Because I think that he's a grandstander and he was just trying to be provocative and show something that was disruptive. And look, that's his choice. And he has the right to make that. choice. It doesn't matter if I like it or not. It does not remove his right to free speech as a journalist. Now, I'm looking up the charges he could possibly face. Yeah. One of them is conspiracy

to interfere with civil rights, which carries a basic penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison. And the FACE Act charge is up to a year in jail, even an hour in jail, seems pretty over the top here. I think the arrest is over the top. I mean, one of that law, that first law, they refer to as the Clu Klux Klan Act against two black journalists? Are you fucking kidding me? I mean, come on, Amrish. I mean, you know, doesn't it just smack of like, we don't care about these things? You know, these things that are supposed to mean something, we're going to cheapen for political

expedients. We're going to charge two black journalists and a black protest organizer with violations of the Clu Klux Klan Act. What I think really is the crux of all of this is the fact that you have people who do things in a vein. So like to go a little off topic, you have guys like Tucker Carlson where they have like a clear agenda in the way they speak and go about things. And they, they center the story around themselves and their moral compass with the thing. And when people see that, regardless of your opinion, left, right, and the person, you'll get the polarizing side. So if you're left,

either right side, if you're right, either left side. And they'll attack that person not based on the things they say, the job they're doing. They have a hard time. Like, you're just a hard time. Like, You're doing it right now. You're distinguishing the difference between like a pundit and like a news reporter because you're talking about how you don't care about X, Y, and Z, but this is what happened. That's what a journalist does. You removed your personal self from it a bit to analyze. But even if I didn't, even if I'm not being a journalist, I'm just being a pundit. And again, I don't think that's a distinction with the difference. I think a pundit is a journalist. Just because you have an opinion doesn't mean that you're a journalist, not a journalist. And even if I'm wrong and you're right, like Columbia Journalism School or something says, no, no, no, this is, okay, it doesn't matter.

Because the pundit doesn't have any fewer rights or claim to the right of free speech as the journalist. and the journalist doesn't have any more claim to the right of free speech and a free press than you do. No matter what you are, you can be a carpenter. If you went there and said, I'm not here to participate, I'm just here to check it out. I heard this was going to happen. I wanted to see if it was actually going to go down. You're going to get arrested?

Where's your force? Where's your intimidation? Well, I just wanted to come here and I wanted to see it and I wanted to say something about it. Oh, no, you can't. I'm sorry. You don't have that right to free speech. to hear who what you know so that's my concern on one level it doesn't matter if don't if don't let me's a journalist if he's not part of the protest and you don't count him as a

journalist because you think he's all opinion which again i don't think is the test but let's say it is the test he still has a right to free speech he still didn't violate that statute because of what that statute requires in terms of your intent intimidation use of force he didn't do those things and he still has rights, even there, even then, even if you don't like it, especially when you don't like it. That's my point. It's not about Don Lemon. It's despite Don Lemon. You've got to see what matters here because once this is okay, you don't think they're going to do it again? You don't think it could be coming my way? A big thing here. I'd like to just point out real quick. You're doing it still where you're able to do a thing, which I think is actually the main takeaway of this whole conversation, to be honest with you, including what I'm getting at, is there are multiple truths involved in a situation.

And if you don't analyze all of those truths at the same time, so yes, he could be a bit of a more of a pundit. Yes, he could have been just genuinely reporting the situation at the time. Yes, he could have possibly been doing a little bit of both. And I think that again, going to your point, it doesn't change what he did or what he was doing and the fact that he wasn't doing anything like violent. He wasn't doing anything disruptive. He wasn't trying to make a situation happen. He was simply doing his job as he saw he wanted to do. And I think that's fine. And I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Because if there's something wrong with it, then there's something wrong with what a lot of us do. But I think the being able to take in the two truths, people that can't do that are the ones with the most, the word you like to use anima. And towards the whole situation, regardless of who's involved. And I think that's the big problem. Even if he liked the protest, even if he liked what was happening, even if he thinks the people are right,

even if he reported that he thinks this is a good thing that they're doing. He still didn't do what the FACE Act protects from, which is going in there to use force or intimidation to keep people from their right to worship. And look, again, I care about the right to worship. This is weird having these two rights in contradiction to one another or in conflict here in this in this, this particular example. And it is rare and that is a reason that we haven't seen a lot of this. There's an there are other reasons too, though, which is most people don't make that choice.

Um, that Don made Georgia, I think is a little different in my analysis. I don't think the decision to go in is a problem. I really don't. It's what you do in there and how you do it. And I just wish Don would stop grandstanding because. I think he's provoking. And I see that he's getting protection and all that stuff. But, you know, people will also get exhausted.

You do enough dopey shit that, look what we're learning with Trump. The Don Lemma works two different ways. It works for Don Lemon, but it also works for Donald Trump. Is look at how MAGA, they're getting tired of defending obnoxious shit. Now, I'm not comparing the two Dons in that way. I'm just saying the dynamic, the dynamic, is you've got to be careful how much shit you ask people to own for you. And as it is within the media, I mean, look, if we were having a question and answer about best practices in this context, Don would not be the test case of how to do it right, okay? But that doesn't mean he doesn't have the right. That's my point.

Now, why do I do it this way? Because I'm an independent. I am an independent when I'm on my podcast and doing my thing. When I'm on News Nation, I'm not an independent. I'm an independent thinker, but there are standards and practices that I have to observe or I've got to work somewhere else. Sirius XM this morning. I was, you know, I curse.

And they have their own standards about how they want it to be in terms of, like, how salty your language is. Do I agree? No. But if you want the paycheck, then you do what they're, they say and you can say oh they're censoring you no i don't think so sometimes the standards and practices make you better and i think that that's part of the lesson of what we're living right now is that independent doesn't always mean better okay um but i want you to be an independent i want you to be a critical thinker

i want you to think that you are different from these pack animals and lemmings and group think munching mindless mouth breathers that's why i'm selling the swag you can go to the tic-tock store you can look at the link you see all the different subscriptions uh levels that you're you're you can have at YouTube now. We could have had this conversation in a small group or one-on-one. Like, you know, I know you guys wanted access. I agree. I acquiesce.

I submit and I cooperate. So there are different ways to get it. You pay for what you want. And I crowdsource the money, the contributions, so that we can make contributions to people that we'll all feel good about. Thank you for being here with us in the Chris Cuomo Project. Thank you for subscribing and following on YouTube. Thank you for checking me out on News Nation at 8.

8 p and midnight every weekday night, and at SXM, Sirius, IxM Radio, Channel 124, every morning from 7 to 9. I love you, and thank you for the opportunity.