Confronting Don Lemon On Failed Elon Musk Interview

Don Lemon
The president of the United States says CNN's Don Lemon, the dumbest man on television. So you said, if they kill the company, it's them. But doesn't the buck stop with you? Choose your question carefully. There's five minutes left.

That interview speaks for itself. I actually think I did a really good job. Don Lemon says his first guest was supposed to be Musk himself, but after the interview, Musk canceled his show. Yesterday, CNN parted ways with anchor Don Lemon. In a statement, CNN CEO Chris Licht thanked Don for his contributions over the past 17 years.

Heddy
Tucker Carlson happened to be fired on the exact same, which is pretty crazy to you. That was coincidence.

So, Don, thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour. You were a host of CNN for nine years. I'm sure a lot of people recognize your face and definitely your voice, first and foremost. Nine years in prime time, but 17 years. 17 years in total, right.

First and foremost, how do you look 35 when it says you're 58? Are you actually 58? It's a lot of hair and makeup. Is it really? No.

Don Lemon
I don't know. I mean, I feel like I look old. I thought I, like, I always looked like a baby until I was about 40, people thought they would say, oh, that guy. What is he doing on CNN? What's he doing on television?

Like, they hired it's 20 year old kid. And I'm like, I'm not a 20 year old kid. Is there, like, a sunscreen? I do coconut oil right out of the shower. Like, my entire body.

Heddy
Entire body. Yeah. But I do that. There's a pump and I just put, like, coconut oil all over. And then some people can do it.

Don Lemon
Some people can. It may clog your pores, but I do coconut oil. Definitely got to try that out after this. Yeah. Maybe it's a blind to it.

I don't know. But I don't know. Whatever it is, I'm going to start doing it. Okay. So being a part of legacy media, and when I say that, I mean, like, the biggest part of media, do you think that it exists just to divide people and profit, or do you think that it actually exists to provide accurate and honest opinions?

Well, I can speak to where I was, which was at CNN, and I think it was accurate and honest. Really just informing people. It wasn't. It's not really about opinions. It wasn't about opinions.

Although everyone comes to the table with a point of view. Right. You have your own. You have your own, I have mine. But I think for the most part, people have good intentions, and it's to inform people.

And if it's opinion, you know, television or media, I think most people do that. There are some people who are disingenuous about it and some people who go over the top. But, yeah. Do you get to choose what you cover? I did.

Vivek Ramaswamy
I was so curious about that, I guess. Yes. But generally, what's in the zeitgeist, what's being covered is if I was on any cable or any broadcast network today, I'd have to cover the Trump trial for good reason. It's a former president who is in a courtroom facing criminal charges. I mean, who would have thought we would have been at this point, and then in an election year where he's running again.

Heddy
But do you think that it's a smart business move for these huge media companies to try to divide people? Because you know that you can get more attention, you know, fear mongering and creating divisiveness amongst different people than you can just putting out positive news all of the time? Well, I don't know if. I don't know if most of the networks are trying to divide people. I know that there's one, at least, and who, you know, is very divisive and doesn't have to operate on facts.

Don Lemon
But for the most part, I don't think they're trying to divide. I just think that it's sort of the culture. Now, there's been a culture created, whether it's the former president attacking the institution of journalism, whether it's satire, satirical comedy, like the Daily show, making fun of the media. And I think that people are just so divided in their political beliefs and their personal beliefs, it seems divided, where if you watch something and it doesn't confirm what you believe, then you think it's divisive. Most people tune in.

They narrow cast, and they tune into the networks or the podcasts or the streaming shows or whatever it is, that sort of confirm their beliefs, and they just get reconfirmed and reconfirmed and reconfirmed. People live in echo chambers, and if you go outside of that echo chamber, then you feel like you're being attacked. And you would think that that institution is attacking. Do you feel like media could exist in the middle? Cause it seems as though there's, I feel dying.

What is the middle, though? I guess a very neutral perspective. Or someone says, hey, here's what this side is saying. Here's what this side is saying. And here's kind of, I think you.

Heddy
Have to avoid a lot of adjectives, because if you look at media and especially headlines, it's always like the bloodthirst of this person. You know, the vitriol, it's always has some sort of adjective that spins good or spins negatively. I don't know. I don't know about that. I think, like, I see a lot of that in print media, blogs, social media, where, you know, this person owned that person and, you know, such and such destroys or whatever, and blah, blah, blah, ends, you know, that person's career.

Don Lemon
And then you watch it and you're like, well, none of that happened. But I don't really see that happening in mainstream media. I mean, I know there's a lot of criticism of mainstream media. It could be done better, especially cable news. I didn't really see this divisive part of cable news until Fox came along.

And I thought generally that CNN, who was kind of the only game in town, did its best to be that neutral media organization. And then MSNBC came along and there was on the left, they figured out a route on the left, and then Fox came along and they figured out a route on the right. And they pretty much, that's how they program. But I thought in general that CNN tried to do that and I think the networks did. I think ABC, CB's, NBC all tried to do that.

It's just that we live in such divided times. I think it's our politicians who divide us, and it's our politicians who attack media. If the media is not reporting something that's favorable to them, or if the truth is not on their side, then they attack that organization. And then people get into their mind that that organization is biased when they're actually operating on facts. My one experience has been with Fox News, and that was Jesse Waters and his team reached out to me, and this must have been about six months ago.

Vivek Ramaswamy
They reached out because I made a video on real estate and they wanted my opinion on Wall street, buying up homes and raising the prices. I had never really watched Fox News. I had seen headlines. So I read article. I don't watch the news.

Heddy
He's very outside of politics. Yeah. To me, it's so foreign to me. So I've not watched Fox News, but I see the articles come up if it's something finance related. So when they reached out, I thought this would be fantastic.

Vivek Ramaswamy
I'm gonna do a ton of research and they're gonna ask me about Wall street buying homes. And I'm gonna be honest and I did a ton of research and I came up with notes of what I was going to say. And I've never had this before, where they come to your house with, like, a van and they put a little earpiece in so I could hear, like, every single studio. Right, exactly. And so they set everything up, and I could listen to what was going on beforehand.

They were talking about Wall street buying up all these homes and raising the prices. And they had all these millennials on the, you know, being interviewed. I can't afford houses. They're so bad. Wall Street's buying these houses.

So he asked me what's going on? And so I told him, from what I could find, large companies only make up 2.8% of all real estate purchases. Less than 3% of all homes were sold to large investors, and private equity is only responsible for 1.6% of all rental homes. And I said the real issues were low interest rates and the fact that zoning makes it impossible to build. And that's what was keeping housing prices high.

It's not Wall street buying houses. And they ended up cutting the entire segment. And so watching this, and they didn't tell me it was going to be cut. So I sat there for the whole hour and I watched all of Fox News, and I was shocked at how divisive they made it seem. And everything was an enemy.

It was about, this person is bad, and we're on the right side, and this is the end. You're mongering. Yeah. I couldn't believe it. But to be fair, there was breaking news that ended up occupying that slot, which was Vivek's car got into a crash.

Oh, someone rear ended. Someone rear ended Vivek's car and. Yeah. Well, I can see why they cut it then. I mean, we're being sarcastic, but, yeah, in a way, you have to give it to them because they're unapologetic.

Don Lemon
They know who their audience is, and they serve it up all day. They know that fear is going to get people to watch and sit there in front of the television and not change the channel. Do you think the good would be good for business? No. That's what I said.

They know their audience, so it's not good for business. And also, they know their audience is conservative. They are. They. They say, we're a conservative news organization.

They cater to conservatives. The best way to keep people engaged is to make them afraid. I think that the argument against Fox News, though, is a completely different argument against the other legacy media, because the argument against Fox News would be that they, you know, they exist to divide and to only push out a certain agenda. And the argument against the other ones is that it's sort of an echo chamber of. Well, I would say, sure it's an echo chamber, but I think it's really bad when you have networks that purport to be independent or they purport to be right in the middle, but they clearly swing to a certain side.

Heddy
And that's what see with a lot of the other networks, such as like CNN, ABC, NBC, NPR, all of those networks, I feel like if you mapped it all out and you got the general opinion of Americans, they would say, okay, all of those ones are on the left, but they claim to be independent. So you have all these people that go and they think they're getting objective in the middle media when act in actuality, they're just getting into an echo chamber and they completely throw at the other side of the equation. Well, I know that NPR is going through its thing with the guy who quit and the whole Dei thing, that's a whole other subject. I didn't work there, so I don't know. I can only speak for where I worked.

Don Lemon
I did not in, in any editorial at the network, I did not see a liberal bias. There were people who were part of my team who were very conservative, and we got conservative points of view. In the last, I don't know, decade or so, maybe a little bit longer, people have, especially this new MAga wing and the Tea Party attacking the institution of journalism and especially attacking CNN because they know, and I don't even work there anymore, but I have to take up for them. It's not real unless CNN says it. You can hear it on any other channel, any other news network, and unless CNN says it, it's not real.

And so if you don't have the truth on your side and you know that that network has such credibility that people are going to listen to them, what do you do? You undermine them. You try to attack them for their bias, and people start to believe that. And I'm not saying that, you know, there aren't some hosts who are liberal and some who are what? But that's how the world is.

And I think people should bring their points of view to the table. But if you're doing an editorial, if you are giving your opinion, if you're stating your point of view, then you need to make it obvious. And I think that line has been blurred. You don't know the difference between an opinion person, a correspondent, a contributor and an analyst. And I think that in order to fix it, we need media literacy.

Heddy
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Heddy
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Vivek Ramaswamy
Masterclass.com iced thank you so much, Masterclass. For sponsoring this episode and back to the podcast. It's interesting that you say that it's false until it's on CNN. That has not been my experience, especially even growing up in like public schools in Southern California. You even ask people like that if they think CNN would err more on the side of the left or on the right or in the middle.

Heddy
Most people would say that it's on the left. Well, that's an unscientific survey. I think according to the scientific surveys, it's actually opposite of what you say. CNN has huge brand identity and huge, a huge trust factor, not only in America, but in the world. It's the largest news organization.

Don Lemon
I believe it's in our larger. Which surveys? Like who conducted those surveys? I don't know if you look at when folks do surveys about media or brand loyalty, and they do it all the time they do study groups, they do test groups, they do focus groups, and you can look at, like, Rasmussen or do a poll, and I'm not sure if that's a legitimate one or ipsos or any of those folks will do it. Nielsen will do a poll, organizations like that.

But CNN is among the most trusted news organizations. Now, overall, it seems like we looked at a survey that found that trust in mainstream media is declining. Do you have any idea why that is? I just said, I think it's one, because institutions are being attacked. Two, I think because we need media literacy.

Three, I think it's because the news has become formulaic and people know what they're kind of going to get. And you don't really get down into the weeds like you can on this podcast and you can in independent Media. Also, they are relying upon advertisers. It is become anodyne where, you know, if you really want to step out and say something that will, that has a different perspective, people are afraid to do that now because they're afraid of getting fired. They're afraid that, you know, some overlord or boss or some shareholder in the company is not going to like it, and then they're going to have, you know, they're going to have it out for you and you're going to be gone.

I think that's why I think it's just become really anodyne and it's become, what do you think? What do you think? And no one challenges anyone. Part of me thinks that I shouldn't. Say no one, but rarely do people.

Vivek Ramaswamy
Challenge, part of me thinks that there's just more options for news. That's part of it. And I get a lot of my news from Reddit. And it's been, I know, I know. But it's one of those things where you could read different perspectives and if something is posted, you get all these opinions.

Heddy
People on Reddit can be, it's like the extremes of the spectrum. You get really smart people and then. Really, really dumb people on all ends. And so I like to read. I agree.

Don Lemon
I think that you should, but I think you should get your news from a number of different sources and not just one source. You should be on more than just Reddit, right? I am. When you're on Reddit, you're like, reading the do your own research crowd, which is not always, you know, the most accurate. Yeah.

Vivek Ramaswamy
I mean, usually what I see is, like, if it's posted on CNBC, it's also posted on Reddit. It's also posted on Yahoo. And they usually link back to. Right. Those not just kind of unsubstantiated names and stuff.

Don Lemon
I'm on Reddit, so I know I, you know, there's everything on there. But I think you should read the New York Times. I think you should read the Wall Street Journal. Wall Street Journal. I think you should.

Yeah, I think you should read the Financial Times. I think you should read LA Times. You should read as much as possible. I think you should watch CNN. You should watch MSNBC if you can stomach it, I think you can watch Fox.

I used to watch a lot more fox, but then in the, during the MAGA era, I just can't because it's hardly anything that is informative. It doesn't inform me as a viewer, as a citizen. I think if Fox News is one of the strongest arguments for the other sides, at least you can say that via their viewership and the amount of people that are aware of it. I think it's really important to have a really balanced media diet. And I wouldn't say to people that they should only really tune into, I don't know who's a more moderate on the right thing because I feel like they're not very popular.

Heddy
I think it's important to continually, you watch CNN, you watch Fox, you watch this and that. I agree. Do you know why you were fired from CNN? Not really. I don't.

They didn't give you any reason? They don't have to. But again, that's not something that I would like to discuss. But no, I will just tell you how the, let me tell you this, how the contracts work in media. They can let you go whenever you want.

Don Lemon
When you're contracted, they can play you or pay you. And so they can come to you at any point and say, this isn't working for us. We want to take you off the air, but they've got to pay you for the extent of your contract. That's kind of it. If they want to move the network in a different direction or what have you, then they can just let you go.

Heddy
Would CNN ever compel you to cover certain things in a more indirect way? Would you feel pressured to have a certain opinion or to cover certain topics? Never. Never. And also, Tucker Carlson happened to be fired on the exact same day, which is pretty crazy.

Don Lemon
Do you, that was coincidence. There's theories. There's theories online. It's weird. You know, there's 365 days in a year, right.

Heddy
And it just so happens that you and Tucker Carlson fight on the same day what do you think? Go ahead, speak your mind. It's okay. I mean, do you believe in coincidences? Sometimes.

Okay, sometimes. Then good. You don't want to see it. No, listen, I have no idea. I have no.

Don Lemon
I have no idea. Do I think it was a coincidence? I'm not sure about that. I'm not so sure. It does seem fishy.

Vivek Ramaswamy
It does. I do believe in coincidences, though. I do think that's possible. But sometimes it's possible. I look at the likelihood of, like.

Don Lemon
The likelihood the same day. Yeah, but didn't he get fired first? I don't know if. I don't know that. I think maybe the announcement.

It depends on the announcement, but I. Don'T know that, because it would have been interesting if, like, they were like, okay, we want to fire one of these guys. Like, the network wanted to fire them, but they were trying to come up with a reason. They're like, well, if we just do it right here, because the other. This network did it to this person, it's like, okay, we can get away with it.

Heddy
I don't know.

Vivek Ramaswamy
I don't know. Not to get too deep. You could believe that if you want. I mean, I don't know if you're off on that. I can't tell you if you're off on it, but, yeah, it would seem like a good and easy way.

Don Lemon
It's like, it would seem convenient, wouldn't it? Now, it seems like now X is a big source of news for a lot of people. What do you feel like X is doing right in terms of news sources, and what are they doing wrong? Well, I think the one thing that X is doing right that I can speak of is the community notes. But people don't often read the community notes as often as I always do.

Vivek Ramaswamy
It's funny, I look forward to community notes. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna read that tweet then. But, I mean, yeah, me too. But I think people read the tweet more than the community, and not all of the tweets that have conspiracy theories or lies or attacks or whatever, they don't all get community notes. I think, again, it's left up to the community.

Don Lemon
It's not left up to the company. The good thing is they have the reader's added context. So you can have anybody in the entire world as long as you have a big enough. I think it's an amount of people need to say, okay, this needs more context. And then it gets flagged in that way.

Heddy
The other great thing is that it's open source. So you can go and you can actually look at the way that they decide to community. What's kind of open source? You don't know what they're doing with their algorithm. You don't know what their suppressing.

Don Lemon
You don't know what they're amplifying. True. That aspect of Twitter is not. So you have no, I mean, you know, they could be. Who knows?

Can they suppress the community? Notice I have no idea. I don't know. But I'm just saying that is an issue for all social media companies. What they're doing with their algorithms and people are, even if it's open source, you still don't know.

It's still, you still don't know what's happening with their algorithm. So I think that's a one thing that they're doing. But it would be. I think it would be better if the company actually did it, if there was moderation within the company, because then it just wouldn't be people's opinions and it wouldn't be like Wikipedia, where anyone can go in and change your bio and whatever and that sort of thing. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but that's the comparison.

Heddy
Would you say, overall, X is a good or a bad place to get information from? I don't think it's a good place now. I think it has been in the past and it could be in the future. I think it has become a cesspool for conspiracy theories, mostly on the right. Like far right conspiracy theories and far right, you know, sort of enablers or people who just want to.

Don Lemon
And far right misinformation. Why do you think it's more prevalent on X than other platforms? Because I think X was the first to do the sort of, you can sort of post whatever you want. I think that because it is. I thought that Twitter had become too toxic for me, but then X was just like, wow.

I think it's because it's kind of the wild, wild west. You can say whatever you want.

And when you do that, when you don't have moderation, when people can be attacked for who they are, when people can be lied on and en masse, you turn off a lot of people and they go away. They don't want to be on your platform. They come up with other platforms, like, what is the Instagram thing now? Threads, they come up with other platforms. I think a good thing, though, about X is that anyone can contribute to any sort of dialogue, which is a good and a bad thing, right?

Heddy
Because like you just said, you can have extremist people that have a voice, but at the same time you have. I feel like a majority of people are good and they want to contribute to a productive conversation. Whereas in other media platforms, like especially legacy media, there's no like checks and balances, there's no comment section. I've noticed on a lot of articles, I was looking through CNN earlier today and there's no place where, like you can say, oh, you know, I think this is lacking context. I think this is selective journalism.

Like, I think they're. You don't think that's good because that's actually getting rid of the exact thing that you don't like is that, well, I think it divides people. I think comments often divide people. I don't think that a story on legacy media necessarily needs the comments from people. You read the story and then you get out of it.

Don Lemon
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Vivek Ramaswamy
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Heddy
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Vivek Ramaswamy
Zocdoc.com iced. Thank you so much Zocdoc. And back to the episode. Biden recently said that billionaires pay a lower tax than firefighters and teachers. And they cited that billionaires pay 8% in tax.

But the context of that is that that would only be if we tax unrealized capital gains. And if you tax, if you look at the tax on earned income, they do pay a much higher tax rate, but on unrealized capital gains, they pay a much lower. I think citing that sort of context would be helpful. Not know what unrealized capital gains are or what it means. Right.

Don Lemon
So. And maybe there should be education about that. But in general, if you look at what billionaires pay, it is a lower percentage. Obviously, they pay more taxes because they have more money to contribute to, you know, the pool. But for the most part, I think it's like 13 or 15% for most people or something like that for taxes and 8% for billionaires.

I just did this as I was doing my research for x. As a matter of fact, overall, they do pay lower percentage in general than the average person. I mean, my argument would be that gains aren't realized until they are sold. Yeah, and so that's my argument. Look at the same thing.

Vivek Ramaswamy
If a teacher buys a house and that house went up 100 grand in value this year, that they're not taxed on that. And that tax is not taken into consideration. But we don't have to go into. No, listen, I'm not going to go because you know more about this than I do. But I think that once you're a billionaire, you know, come on.

I'm just curious. Do you think people should be billionaires? Do you think that that should exist? Look, it's about capitalism, right? If we're gonna live in a capitalistic society, then we have to be capitalists, right?

Don Lemon
And unfortunately, that means they're gonna be the haves and the have nots. How to fix that, I don't know. I'm not a politician, right? I'm just a journalist and a host. And so I can just sort of tell you how I feel about it.

But I think that once you reach a certain level of success and income, and I'm not a billionaire, I would like to pay lower taxes, far fewer of my dollars I would like to go to out of my pocket. But I happen to live in a country that offers people the opportunity, people like me and others the opportunity to be able to become success, to be able to successful, to be able to become wealthy. If I'm a billionaire, I'm going to spend less of my time worrying about what percentage of taxes I'm paying. And I think that I would spend more of my time being grateful about all the excess money that I have. I 100% agree with that.

Heddy
I think people need to just honestly, every single day, recognize, get over it. Just like, be grateful that we're living here. We are so, so, so lucky. Even if you're just born in the United States, like that is. I mean, I think one of the.

Don Lemon
Biggest privileges to that is one of the. That could be in the definition of patriotism is realizing that, hey, look, I make a lot of money and I pay a lot of taxes, but if I was living somewhere else, I probably wouldn't have this opportunity. That's true. So I may as well help out my fellow man. Would you consider yourself a patriot?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, of course. So one thing I found really interesting. You said, why wouldn't I?

Was that. Why would that be a question? Because a lot of people, I feel like nowadays, are ashamed to be an American. I don't know why I wouldn't be patriotic or be. Why I would be ashamed.

My ancestors helped to build this country, so I'm very proud to be an American. Part of and living in the place of my ancestors. Bill, I think what you said about not having a comment section or a place where context can be added on legacy media, I think I would disagree still with that, because like you said, there are extremists, and I don't like that. But I think overwhelmingly, people are mostly good, and the extremism will be pushed to the side as long as there's open dialogue for every sort of opinion. Well, I think there are places where you can go for that.

I just don't think that you necessarily need everybody commenting on a story about, you know, you know, charcoal or whatever. I'm just saying I just don't think. But I think that's one of the reasons why X is continuing to be successful, whereas it seems as though legacy media is starting to fall. You're right. I'm not saying there shouldn't be comments.

I'm saying there should be common sense with comments. I think that there should also be humanity in everything that you do. I think there should be rules in everything that you do. The platforms that do the best are platforms that have moderation. So I don't think that it should be the wild, Wild West.

I don't think that you should be able to go on x and call me the n word. And I think that that probably gets flagged or make derogatory statements or depict jews as, like, big nose. And I just don't think that that is, I don't think that I feel. Like a lot of people could see through that or ignore those comments. No, a lot of people cannot see through that.

I mean, if you talk to people who have gone in to shoot up supermarkets or synagogues or churches, they'll tell you, I became radicalized through social media. You can't deny when they put it in their own manifestos, if you look at the supermarket shooter in Buffalo, they'll tell you that they were still in roof. Maybe they had something else going on in their mind, and it would have. Like, well, you're making my point, but I think if you have something going on in your mind, you can't see through that. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around that because obviously, I'm not in that sort of position to be pushed in a direction from a comet.

Vivek Ramaswamy
But I feel like if that's what did it to them, there's got to be something else going on in their mind, where it would have been if it wasn't that. It would be something else, and they were predispositioned. I get it. I agree with you on that. But I think we have the wrong idea and wrong definition of what freedom of speech is.

Don Lemon
Freedom of speech is about. Is really about the government. It's not about private institutions are private platforms. It's really about government organizations. And so, you know, a platform like X or a platform like Facebook or whatever, they are mostly owned.

It's a private institution. They're not government institutions, I should say so. There are rules. There are rules that, for you are on what you're on. YouTube.

YouTube. YouTube has rules. You can't do certain things. You'll get flagged. Right or you'll get demonetized.

Those are the rules. When you work for a certain company, you have rules. We have rules in society. You have to get a driver's license or you can't drive. You got to get car insurance or you're not supposed to drive.

There are rules in society, and there should be rules when it comes to platforms as well. I don't think that there should be. We have the wrong definition of what freedom of speech is. It's not the wild, wild west where you can go and yell fire in a crowded theater or whatever. So I think we need to figure out what that definition is.

People need to reassess and read what the actual definition of freedom of speeches, and then you'll have an idea that it's not necessarily meant for social media. So how do you feel like social media has changed the definition of freedom. Of speech because people want to be able to go and insult people. They want to be able to go and spread conspiracy theories. They want, and then they end up with what I call Internet brain, where everything is dunking on somebody or proving that you're right by owning someone.

How has it changed the freedom of speech? I think it's sort of skewed what we think freedom of speech should be or what it is. And when it's really not that, go and look at the definition. I would say, do you guys know who Dan Abrams is? He's on ABC, and Dan has a radio show on Sirius, and he owns Abrams Media.

His dad is one of the most renowned First Amendment attorneys in the country. He can tell you that we are skewed when it comes to what the definition is and the rules are for freedom of speech especially. He's been doing a lot of it, talking about, you know, what's happening on college campuses is that it's gone beyond freedom of speech and freedom of expression. So I will tell you from my experience, in my opinion, the main difference for freedom of speech now is that it's dictated largely by algorithms. And if you say something that's very controversial, it's going to get pushed up by the algorithm because it's going to keep people on platforms longer.

Clicks, clicks, clicks. It's engagement. The more people comment on something, the more people are going to see it, the more outrageous it is, the more someone's going to want to engage with it. And so freedom of speech is somewhat dictated by how controversial an opinion is. And what gets spread the fastest by.

Having a comment removed from a platform is not like violating your right to freedom of speech. Right. You can, you can still say whatever you want. You can run out on the street and say whatever you want. You can write a letter to the.

You can say whatever you want in this society and you're not going to go to jail for it. But you cannot come in here and yell at. In a place of business, you couldn't come in here and call someone like you. They would kick you out. They'd say, get out.

We don't want your money. People have the right to be able to do that. Platforms have the right to be able to do that, and people have the right to not want to participate on that platform. Advertisers can take their ad dollars away. People can go away in droves, and then your company won't do well.

And so I think that, again, we should be more literate about what freedom of speech actually is and what it means. Although, you know what? Before we go into that, there is no better sound than hearing. And if you want to hear a bunch more, then it's time to get started with our sponsor, Shopify. For those unaware, Shopify is a global ecommerce platform that's already helped transform millions of businesses worldwide.

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I think my concern with freedom of speech insofar as, like, the Bill of rights definition of freedom of speech is that once you start controlling speech, then who's controlling it? Like, do they swing a certain way? And I know, like, there's. Moderation is not control, though. People are not controlling speech.

So is moderation deleting a comment, then? Yeah, if it misinforms people, and if. It is, but who's deciding what's misinformation and what's accurate? Whoever owns that platform can decide it because that's their company, because they own it. I think we draw the line differently.

I guess what I'm kind of alluding to is the conversation you had with Elon Musk and him saying that he doesn't want to moderate speech on the platform, and you were saying that he should step up and moderate speech more. And I see that more so as, like, removing from free speech, even if it is something that is aggressive or something that could hurt someone else's feelings or something deemed as misinformation. Because eventually, once enough time passes, I think that it would be corrected and people would have a better. You misunderstand. Okay, maybe.

Don Lemon
Maybe I didn't. I wasn't precise in my language when I was talking to. What I was asking Elon Musk is, why didn't he abide by the rules of his own platform? If you look at their content rules, then it says, hate speech shouldn't be there. This shouldn't be there.

That shouldn't be there, and it's still on the platform. Now, if Elon Musk, with his platform, says, this is the wild, Wild west, we are going to allow every single thing on this platform, barring it's illegal, okay, that's fine. But that's not what the rules of his platform says or say. So that's why I questioned him. And I thought perhaps your business would be in better shape if you look at other platforms who moderate that, maybe more advertisers would come back to the platform.

Vivek Ramaswamy
Does Facebook moderate? Maybe. Yes, certainly. And maybe people could have better dialogue on your platform. And as someone of consequence, considering the huge power that he has, he's consequential to society and the huge platform that Twitter is, don't you think it would be better, and it would serve the greater good if there was some content moderation so that more people could actually be involved and take advantage of your platform rather than being turned off by it?

Heddy
That's really interesting. So I was under the impression that he said hate speech would not get promoted, not that it would be removed from the platform entirely. And his definition of being promoted was like, okay, it'll end up getting views rather than being something that's shadow banned. Because I know that something like YouTube, you can say some pretty controversial things on YouTube, but it gets Shadow banned where it doesn't effectively get a lot of views. For example, saying, Covid, back a few years ago, a lot of the times that would get shadowbased and it would suppress views of the video because they didn't want any Covid misinformation out there.

Don Lemon
Well, I think you're, again, you're proving my point. They're doing well because they are doing that. I don't. But then you have to think about their algorithm for all the platforms. What are they suppressing and what are they amplifying?

Vivek Ramaswamy
So you think that should be public? I think that should be public information. And I think that, yeah, it's probably. I agree to get to that point. And it shouldn't just be them saying, oh, it's open source.

Don Lemon
Because what does that mean? What is that there should be someone who understands. Well, that was one of the things. That I think the argument against that, though, is that if it's public knowledge, what's gonna get promoted and what's gonna get shadow banned, bad actors could easily utilize that to take advantage of it and then get all of their, well. That part doesn't have to be public information.

Vivek Ramaswamy
Just what shadow banned or just what doesn't get promoted. If it's open source, then it should be open source, and there should be folks who can understand how your algorithm works. I don't believe that these algorithms are open source and that people understand them. Social media platforms control them in ways that they want to. I don't believe the owners or the managers of these platforms that they're not playing with their algorithms.

Heddy
Do you think it is a good. In favor of what their own beliefs. Do you think it would be a good or a bad thing for Twitter or x to continue to be something like the Wild, Wild West? I think from Elon's perspective, he came in, analyzed Twitter, realized that a vast majority of the employees had donated to democratic candidates, and he also realized the Hunter Biden laptop story was, like, completely subdued. It wouldn't get any views.

And then I think the New York Post was actually suspended or something from releasing stuff about that, and it was deemed as misinformation at the time. But then as time continued, people were like, okay, well, maybe there actually is a little bit of merit to this. His probably argument not to put words into his mouth would be that as soon as there's a governing body to speech, it has the opportunity to corrupt. Well, I think that just because you donate to a certain political party, it doesn't mean that you're gonna operate in business that way. Doesn't take away your brain or your objectivity in a vacuum.

Don Lemon
I would agree, because it doesn't. I work for a company that supported a lot of conservatives. I also worked for a company that supported a lot of liberals. So I don't think that that really has to do anything. I think that argument is moot.

I think that people, if they are professionals, they can work in a business and understand the rules of engagement and understand what is offensive and what is true and what is false. So I don't buy that whole thing about, you know, it was left leaning company because Twitter had a conservative bend, and I would get attacked on Twitter as a crazy whatever, even when it was Twitter. So I don't agree with that. What was the rest of your question? You said the rest of the question was, as soon as there's a governing body to free speech in general, that that governing body can corrupt, it has the capacity to.

Heddy
Now, you said just because it's a left leaning company doesn't mean they can't be objected. Well, I don't know if it was a left leaning company. I don't agree that was a left leaning company. Okay. Well, just because a left leaning company exists doesn't mean that they can't see what is like objective versus what is false versus what is hate speech versus what is not hate speech.

I agree with you in a vacuum, but at the same time, if you look at the incentive structure for a certain company with employees that have a certain opinion, the incentive of the opinion, if they hold it true and they think that they should be heard by more people, then don't you think that they would feel compelled to a certain direction? Yeah, you can say the same thing. I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. I think that people are professional and they can, you know, they know how to conduct themselves.

Don Lemon
But you can also say that now, as it relates to X, which formerly. Twitter, why should people listen to the news? Because it does seem like a main source of pain for a lot of people, a main source of panic. And I think largely to a certain degree, people can't do much about the day to day aspects of the news. Do you think it's good for people?

Well, listen, I think my media diet has changed since I stopped working in cable news. I think that you can be informed without being inundated. But I do think that people need to be informed and they need to read, and they need to know what's going on in the world. So ultimately, I think that the media is a place for good. Again, I keep going back to media literacy.

You just have to know what is right, what is wrong, and you have to know what you're reading and who's supplying the information. Why do you think people don't take the time to see the nuance in what you were just saying? I think it has to do with this. I think it has to do with that. You can get your news in as many places as you want.

You can narrowcast and you get to decide, and then the algorithm kicks in and it puts you further into an echo chamber. And so I think it's just the proliferation of other places to read and now to read and to get information. You know, what I found really fascinating was when I was watching that interview that you did with Elon Musk. I look at the comments, and I look at the comments on YouTube, and they're all just, like, extremely pro elon. And this is posted on your account and same as x.

Heddy
I realized the same response on x, and then I went to your interview with Brian Tyler Cohen. Is that. And all of the comments in there were, like, don really, like, owned Elon. And it's really surprising to me how two people can watch the exact same thing, no spins on it whatsoever, and draft up two completely different opinions on it. Well, I think that's, you know, I did not see.

Don Lemon
I don't really read the comments that much on x, but the ones that I did Read were very positive. I've only gotten positive feedback. The only people that I've gotten negative feedback from are sort of. I call them the business bros or, like, the Elon sycophants or people who are conservative and who are pretending not to be conservative because, you know, I guess, you know, I'm a product of traditional media, and so they, you know, they have it out. They have it out for me in a certain sense.

But for anyone to watch that interview and to ask someone about public statements that they made just to get a sense of what they meant, I don't see how anybody can say that that was a gotcha interview or a biased interview. It was simply. You said this about Dei. What did you mean by it? I meant this.

Okay. There's no data. Information or data or whatever. Nothing to back it up. Why do you say it?

Well, I don't know. I just kind of want to say it, or I don't want it to happen. It would be awful if it did happen. But that doesn't make sense because I could say, well, you know, man, it would be terrible if your hair turned purple, and you'd say, why are you saying that? I'm just saying because it would be terrible.

I'm not saying it's gonna happen, but it would just be terrible. Why say it? There's a reason that you're saying it, and if you're gonna put it out there, then it should at least be true. In your defense, what I loved was the fact that you asked very, very, very hard questions. I think that's great.

You thought those questions were hard? I thought they were hard. You asked him about his. You asked him about, like, does he think he could not get government clearance because of his, like, you know, prescribed? How is that hard?

Heddy
I feel like that's a. That's a. I mean, that's a very personal question. He's the one who talked about his ketamine use. I didn't talk.

No, agree. I wouldn't have brought it up if he discussed it. True. And so he's. So he has sat, he has starlink, he's got Tesla, he's got X.

Don Lemon
He's got. There's a. There's another company that he has. That's a natural, easy question. Do you think that you should have gone harder in that interview?

No, I don't think I should have gone harder because I didn't want it. I didn't want it to be. Gotcha. I just wanted to understand why he said these things. That's it.

If you admit that you are doing ketamine and you have government contracts and you have security clearances, did you ever think about that? That's not a hard question. I think for most people, they think of ketamine, and I think of some, like, Duden and Ali Oding on it versus. Well, no one. No one is in an alley over oding on ketamine.

Vivek Ramaswamy
People, I don't know. People are not ketamine. We're not very. We're not ketamine. No, people are, like, at part.

Don Lemon
It's a club drug, like most people think. As a club drug? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Vivek Ramaswamy
I sound like an idiot. No, you know, but he explained it how, why he uses it, and I thought that was a great answer. And so. But that's what I was kind of looking for. Like, why do you use ketamine?

Don Lemon
Why did you say that? And I knew that he talked about depression, but he did not get to that until the last part of the question. And I said, well, I've suffered from depression as well. I've had guided drug therapy. So that's great.

That was, like, a point where we met on. But you didn't hear that. But I don't think that's a hard. Question from my perspective as a viewer. I thought you asked hard questions, but I think that's good.

Like, it's so weird that you think that, because most people are like, whoa, that was softball. Like, the people I hear from were like, that was such easy questions. Like, I've seen you interview people, Heddy. Never. I love that.

Heddy
So do you think we should turn it up on here and ask harder questions? Of course. I mean, you're asking me hard questions now. You don't think the questions you're asking me are hard? You ask me, why did I get fired?

Don Lemon
I answered you. I think they're somewhat hard. I feel like that's kind of the obvious question. You know what I mean? Same.

If you had a government contract and a government clearance. Right? And you did drugs, I would say to you, hey, did you ever think about that? I think that's great. You know, it's funny.

Heddy
We were, before this interview, we were talking, we're like, you know, he can either respond one of two ways. One way is that because we thought these were pretty hard questions, and we still have some more. But one way is he hears these questions, and he, as a journalist himself, would be like, I appreciate these guys asking the hard questions. The other way is he sees us, like, poking and maybe pushing him into a certain corner, and then he doesn't like it. Yeah.

Don Lemon
And then I get up and leave, or I get mad and I cancel your contract. True. Yeah. Speaking of canceling the contract, I'm so curious, what led up to the initial offer of, you know, potentially getting a. Deal with how conversation go.

Vivek Ramaswamy
He asked you personally? No, he put it on. Yeah, well, when we spoke personally, but he also asked me, he tweeted a couple of times, Don Lemon should join this platform. Rachel Maddow should join this platform. Don Lemon should be doing what Tucker's doing on this platform.

Don Lemon
It would be great if you can come on this platform. And so, okay, I had conversation with him. He hired me. Not hired me, because it was just a content deal, but he signed it, did a deal with me because of the work that I did on CNN. That's what I've been known for the last 17 years.

I do hard interviews. I ask Democrats hard questions. I ask Republicans hard questions. I asked the, you know, the White House press secretary about Biden's age before anybody did. You know, I.

You know, I called. I I asked Donald Trump if he was a racist. Like, it's. You're supposed to hold people's feet to the fire. You're supposed to hold truth to power without fear or favor to everyone.

That's from the president of the United States to Elon Musk to, you know, the city councilmen or to a. A convict. You sit there and you ask questions. And just because you ask a question, just because I ask a question about something that you said about Dei or something that you said about anything, it doesn't mean that I agree or disagree with what you said. I'm asking a question.

That's what journalists do. There are things about Dei that I don't agree with, but I'm not the subject of the interview. And so. But people think, oh, my God, you're biased. You must be for everything, for Dei because you're black, because you're gay.

No, I'm a journalist, so I'm asking you questions. Do you think it would have gone a different way had you had 3 hours to interview him and could have shared some of your own experiences? I would have loved to have seen that. 2 hours long. 3 hours long.

Vivek Ramaswamy
Where it's more of a dialogue of you saying, like, here's what I disagree with about Dei, and here's what I think and more of, like, a discussion like this, where, like, sometimes we found that when we have short interviews, we have to be so quick and we can't share. Like, there's a lot of nuance and context to everything, but it's an out. We had an hour. They wanted a minimum of an hour. I would have gone two or 3 hours.

Don Lemon
I would've gone out afterwards and had a beer with him, but we never got to that point because he became upset. Now, as you said in this interview, I could either get upset or I can answer your questions. And so I choose to answer your questions and not become upset. And if I can't answer it, that's on me, not on the, not on the interviewer. I would like to say, in Elon's defense, also, like, coming from the viewer's perspective and someone that's done this for a while now, what I noticed was it seems as though he was trying to answer your questions.

Heddy
And I thought, honestly, I thought he did so in a decent way, but there was some weird miscommunication. I actually thought he did well, but I don't think he was hearing. I think we were talking past each other. I agree. And I thought I was like, wow, that was a perfectly good answer.

But it didn't seem that way because also, it seemed like he was repeating himself several times, and it seems like he was saying, no, if we have Dei, then we're hiring based off of something other than pure merit and ability and skills, which is the only thing that you should be judging a person off of. And it seemed like that was something where you're like, okay, well, no data is showing that Dei is doing that. And he says, yeah, but I don't want it to. I want to prevent this from happening. And it doesn't seem like there was a full understanding.

I thought he had great answers, and I thought you had good questions. Well, I also think it's how you feel about Elon, and I think it's also your perspective on life. And I think that if you are a person who is part of the underserved community in this country. You will read Elon's tweets about Dei, and they will probably be offensive to you. Ultimately, what you're saying is that women and people of color are less skilled.

Don Lemon
And if they are and they should not have these jobs, that's insulting to a huge portion of this country. Should it be on merit? Absolutely. Are people of color, do they have merit to be able to have those jobs? Absolutely.

I would say that they have to be better and smarter than the white guys. Basically, pilots are all white men. I think they have to be better and smarter. I think that you have a different perspective because you're a white guy in this country. So, you know, pretty much you can go through life and go through America or whatever, live your life in America and pretty much do whatever you want.

That's just how the system works. The system is built for you. The system is not built for women. The system was not built for. Built for people of color.

You have a different perspective on it. Like, yeah, of course it should be merit, but it's not all merit. It's people who have privilege who are getting jobs before people who don't have privilege. It's people who are allowed to get into college, into colleges, because they're legacies. And who's that?

That's mostly white people. Okay. You're upset because black people are now getting into Ivy League schools. Well, woo hoo. It's about time.

Heddy
In fairness, I don't think that. I mean, I hope nobody's upset that black people are getting into Ivy League school. I'm sure that there are people out there that hold that opinion, and they. Blame it on Dei. But there are studies that have shown that there are different requirements in merit to get into these colleges.

Don Lemon
No, there aren't. There aren't studies that show, like, difference. In SAT scores for the average. I don't think people are changing standards. If you look at Duke, Duke released a statement saying, elon is wrong, Ben Shapiro is wrong.

We're not changing our standards or lowering our standards for medical students based on diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think people may reassess what they think their values are or what they think they should be doing, but what you're gonna learn as an undergraduate or a medical student is going to be the same and the requirements are going to be the same. But there are no studies that show that. And that's all great. I think everyone should obviously be learning and everyone should have the same opportunity.

But I have to be honest with you. It's easier for you to say that because of who you are. And that's exactly what I'm trying to understand. Yeah. What is it like for you?

Vivek Ramaswamy
I mean, if we're trying to understand your perspective, how. Here's the thing. I know that I'm talented. I know that I'm a smart person. I know that I've worked really hard.

Don Lemon
But if you read the comments on Twitter or if you listen to the podcasters, I'm a de hire. I'm an affirmative action hire. I don't deserve to be where I am. I completely deserve to be where I am. I'm 58 years old.

Everyone thought I was 30 years old. It took me a long time to get to where I am now. But no one, most people in these particular groups will believe that automatically. They think that. Not all people, but the critics and the people who are saying that, well, I don't understand.

It should be all merit. Yeah, of course it should be merit. And if it was all merit, that would be a lot of people, especially a lot of white guys, who would not have jobs if it was all merit, because their daddy got them a job, their uncle got them a job. It's been in the family. They've been able to create wealth, accumulate wealth, generational wealth.

Over time, they've been able to go to institutions. They've been able to live in certain neighborhoods. They've been able to go to certain clubs. All of that has happened. That's America.

The idea that someone, a person of color or women who have not been able to vote their entire time in America, that they're getting special treatment now is absurd. And I think that when the playing field is being leveled, if you're used to being the preeminent voice and getting your way, it's going to feel like it's discrimination, because why am I. I'm supposed to. That's what. What is a pilot?

If I say a pilot, what is a pilot supposed to look like? I would. I think of, like, the hat and the outfit. Yeah, you would think of, like, a 40, 50 year old guy, like a white guy with a hat on and a white shirt. That's what you would think.

If you're being honest. That's what you think. If you think, what does a doctor look like? Same thing.

Vivek Ramaswamy
Now, could that be that there? No, no. It could be because of what we were taught. What America. It's because of what America is.

A plain devil's advocate. Could you argue that there are fewer African Americans in the United States than caucasian. And because of the statistics, if it's, like 80% caucasian in the United States, and I'm just throwing out a number, statistically, that's what most people would think, because that's just based on the numbers rather than. I have a bias towards one race or another. No.

Don Lemon
Well, you're proving my point. That's what people think it should look like, because that's America. But far fewer the percentage of African Americans are the percentage of women in society. And all of these fields that they're talking about, pilots or medicine or whatever, it's a lower percentage than the people who are in the actual population. So to say that planes are falling out of the sky because women can't fly them, that's.

The planes that are falling out of the sky are falling out of the sky. Who's flying the planes now? Mostly. Mainly white guys. Who's, you know, who's mostly doctors, mainly white guys.

So you're saying that it should be the exact opposite of what people are saying, but they don't understand that.

Vivek Ramaswamy
Have you ever felt like you've been discriminated against based on the color of your skin or that you've been passed up? Of course, yeah. And how do you. It's not felt like it. I knew it.

How do you overcome that? Is it by working harder or. Yeah, just keep moving. You have to work hard, and you keep moving. I mean, I, you know, I know the history of this country.

Don Lemon
Now, listen, by saying that I'm, you know, black or whatever, or african american, it didn't mean that my parents didn't. Didn't tell me that I could be anything I wanted, but I had to be realistic about it. When I grew up, there were very few role models of people of color, even on television, very little representation. And so, you know, things have changed. Yes.

Are we moving in the right direction? Absolutely. Do I think that everything is about race? No. But do I think that there's a big part of our society and culture that has, you know, that are affected because of the legacy of race and racism in this country?

100%. Now, this is gonna be another, harder question, but I'm just coming from a perspective of genuinely trying to understand. And guys in the comments. Go ahead, light me up for it. Totally fine.

Heddy
I'm giving you permission. Now, I have no idea what you're. About to ask, Jack, I feel like I have seen a lot of different studies that show that there are different SAT scores for people of different ethnicities to get into colleges. Like, I've heard that Asian people, for example, are somewhat handicapped in entering colleges because on average their SAts happen to be higher. Does that data, is that false or is that.

Don Lemon
Well, I don't know about that. But then whose fault is that? That's a great question. Well, my understanding a lot of that has to do with resources, having money to hire SAT tutors and the importance placed on exams. That's my understanding, is that it's more.

Of an who's getting into the colleges? The majority of people getting into the colleges or what? Well, the majority is, I mean, would be different because there's more white people in America than there are black people. So then who's holding most of the positions or most of the seats in the classroom? And so then what I'm saying is that you can't blame that on another ethnicity, that people, I'm not saying you are, but the people in the comments are.

Then you cannot say, well, asian people aren't getting in because they're allowing black people in. Well, okay, well, I don't think that's, see, the way that I see it is like I'm literally looking at the difference in ethnicities as letters on a piece of paper. I'm not even attaching it to a certain person. I'm just seeing it as letters. And you're saying, okay, well, for these letters, let's just swap out Asians for x and like white people for y and then black people for c or something like that.

Heddy
If these letters all have different requirements, I mean, do you think that looking at that through that lens is a good or a negative way? You mean looking at what just as letters and rather not. Like, if you're just, let's just say for the sake of the argument, yeah, like, I'm not attaching that to a certain person. I'm just looking at it based off of the outcome, the merit. Well, I think it's perfectly okay to try to rectify an ill in society, and I think it's perfectly okay to try, especially a legacy.

Don Lemon
Right. Ill in society. I think thats okay. And I dont think, again, I dont think anything is perfect. I think were going to make mistakes as it relates to diversity.

I think were going to make mistakes as it relates to anything. So I dont think theres anything wrong with correcting an ill from the past to try to fix it because when are you going to fix it? You cant fix the past. What do you think about instead of that, alternatively, looking at more so a socioeconomic status in evaluations rather than just strictly ethnicity, because you can take, let's say, a black person. Well, that's part of what they do.

When they say, change standards. They're talking about socioeconomic things as well. They're not talking about standards. As far as you don't have to pass a, I don't know, cadaver 101 class. They're saying, well, we're looking at socioeconomics, we're looking at ethnicity, we're looking at gender.

We're looking at all of these things to try to level the playing field. We're not looking at the actual standards of people who can't pass a test. When you're researching everything that you do for something like the Elon Musk interview, how much time went into that? How much prep did you do in advance? God, I can't.

I don't know how many hours. But we did a lot of press, a lot of prep. And I have to tell you, part of our strategy was, you know, we didn't want it to be a gotcha interview because we knew people would think, and it would just be very simple questions. Let's ask him about his public statements. Let's ask him about his companies.

So we asked about his public statements. And when I'm sitting there and I'm interviewing him, and he starts to get upset about things that he said publicly, I'm like, I don't understand why you're getting upset by it. And then I think the one thing that I didn't ask him about, that I asked him about, that wasn't maybe something that he had spoken about publicly. I think it was discrimination at one of his, you know, the Tesla plants. And I don't know if he had spoken about it, but that's public knowledge.

But everything else is, you know, about his father, his childhood ketamine, you know, his tweets, dei, everything that he talks about, about advertisers. He was at dealbook, and he told, you know, advertisers go themselves. Why wouldn't I ask him about that? That's not a hard question. In hindsight, is there anything you would have done differently or improved on?

No, because I think the. I think that interview speaks for itself. I actually think I did a really good job when I watched that interview. I'm very proud of it. I think that interview.

I know it is. People tell me it's being. I show this interview to my students about patience. A guy just told me on Saturday night, I show this interview to my students because journalists have to be patient, because when you're patient, then you get an answer. So there were lots of awkward pauses.

I don't feel the need to fill the silence with sound. And often you get answers and sort of that, you know, weird discomfort of silence that you wouldn't otherwise get. So I just think that, you know, on his platform, he wanted someone who had a different perspective, and that's what he said he wanted, but that's not actually what he wanted. Would you still want to deal with Elon Musk? No.

At this point? No. Okay. Cause I don't. I don't think he doesn't believe what he's.

He's not honest in what he says he wants. Do you think if he apologized and came back and said, hey, I had a bad day, let's see if we can make something work? No. No. So what's interesting is, from your perspective, it seems as though now, correct me if I'm wrong, you see Elon as someone who's a bad faith actor.

Heddy
And when I say that, he's saying one thing, but actually he's feeling another thing, and it seems, again, I want. People to know I don't have anything. I didn't have anything against Elon Musk. I was going into business with the man. So obviously, there was no gotcha agenda.

Don Lemon
But go on. What he's saying. And as a viewer of this interview, it seems as though he felt similarly towards you because he would explain something and he would answer your question, and then you would ask the question again or ask for clarification on something that I think, in his brain, he saw it already as clear a journalist is. Supposed to do, get clarity. That's the point.

Heddy
I really like what you just said, also about the beauty and the silences and kind of just letting things play out, because I think viewers, especially viewers that are fans of something, a viewer that's a fan of you, a viewer that's a fan of us, they go to try to hear how the interviewee responds to the interviewer, whereas if you just look at it and observe the conversation and a lot of the stuff, you could just tell by the face of facial features of, like, the person that's being interviewed a lot more like that tells the story in and of itself. I just. I think that the responses and the criticism that you are talking about, I think that is very telling about where a person's mindset is. I think that people watched that interview, and they were like, ooh, he could have answered that better. And then they came to his defense because they feel like they have to sort of their hero was.

Don Lemon
Someone was telling their hero that the emperor wasn't wearing clothes. I will openly say, I mean, I love Elon Musk. I think what he's doing for the electric car industry is great. I like the idea that he bought Twitter. I like the idea of it being a wild, wild west.

Heddy
I think it's needed. I like the dialogue between you and him about being free speed absolutist. Would you consider yourself a free speech absolutist? I. Yes, 100%.

Don Lemon
I mean, I'm here, and I go, you know, I'll go into the lion's den and talk to people. I don't think, again, you have to go back to what the definition of free speech actually is, and I think that many, everyone should go and read it and then study what the constitution says about it. Right. But, yeah, I'm a free speech absolutist. I would not have feeling the way I felt about Twitter and then how subsequently I felt about X.

One would have to be a free speech absolutist to go into. Go back into that toxicity and try to move it in a different direction. But you do not see. But to get people to understand a. Different perspective, but you do not see Elon as a free speech absolutist.

I don't see him as a free speech absolutist. I see him as someone who's very consequential to the world. I see him as someone who has been very innovative when it comes to, you know, the electric car industry, space and whatever. I think that he's an important person, and I think that with that. With that comes responsibility.

Heddy
You were saying during the interview that you think certain things should be removed. From x. Yeah, of course. So wouldn't that be, like, juxtapose that with the belief of free speech absolutism, which people should be able to say whatever they want? I just think that, listen, there should be moderation.

Don Lemon
It's good. I would not want people attacking you or insulting you. I don't know what your background is or who you are, but I wouldn't want people attacking and insulting your family. And so you can say those things, but it doesn't mean that you have to be part of a platform or an organization. I understand now.

Heddy
So you're saying, as an owner of the platform, he should owe the users of the platform the responsibility of having content moderation. And I think his argument would be that his policy for his platform should be reflective of free speech absolutism. And if somebody has a problem with it, then. That's. It depends on what your definition of free speech.

Don Lemon
Absolutism. Again, within the bounds of the law. But that's not what freedom of speech is. Freedom of speech is not within the bounds of the law. That's not what it is.

Again, go read the definition of freedom of speech. We will put the definition of freedom. Of speech and what it's meant for. It's not just like the Webster definition, but look at what. And there are consequences.

Vivek Ramaswamy
I'm curious, would you interview anybody, whether that be Putin, Tate, Netanyahu? Is there a limit to who you would either platform or have a conversation with? I don't know who Tate is. Andrew Tate. What's that?

Don Lemon
Who's that? Andrew Tate. Oh, is that the guy who's. Holy moly. I have no idea.

Wow. He's like, really? You? No, you're the first person. He's not.

Is he like a wrestler guy or. He did kickboxing. It's funny. I brought Andrew Tate up to my dad. He had no idea.

Vivek Ramaswamy
My dad. My dad is on Twitter all the time. He had no clue. And I had to explain who Andrew Tate was. There's different, but there's a subcategory, I guess, for young.

Yeah. Is that the guy? There's a guy, he was in Romania. And the house arrest or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don Lemon
Vaguely. I don't really. Okay. Wow, that's. That's incredible.

Heddy
Wow. Well, see, that's the thing about. About echo chambers. Yeah. Is that people think they want to hear a different perspective.

Don Lemon
And like. Like, I know you think you want to hear a different perspective, but there's part of you that wants to. That wants your perspective to be reconfirmed or confirmed by me, and I don't have your perspective. I understand that. That's natural.

But also that comes with being in echo chambers. When people say, I wanna hear the other side, I wanna hear another perspective, instead of saying, okay, that's your perspective, and we disagree, or what have you. People continue to try to get you to understand their perspective. Well, hold on 1 second. I don't feel like I've.

Heddy
I'm similar to you and Elon. Like, I feel like I was just asking questions. Like, I'm trying to understand. It's fine. Yeah, it's totally fine.

Don Lemon
But I think that the reason you're having a hard time understanding is because many of us, especially in the social media and Internet age, we are, all of us, we get so involved and we go down the rabbit hole and it becomes an echo chamber, and you get used to that echo chamber. As to when you hear a different perspective, it seems like an insult to you or foreign, because you're not used to hearing a different perspective. As a journalist, I hear different perspectives all day last week, I was on the full sin podcast, and I got the very similar questions. You were on full sin? Yeah.

And very similar questions about the vaccine. And it's like, okay, we have a different perspective on the vaccine, but that's over. Like, you know, okay, look, can we move on? We have a different perspective on the interview with Elon. Elon Musk.

All right, it's fine. It's over. You want to understand? I'm telling you how I feel. That is how I feel.

And I think it would be disingenuous, and I don't think people respect me if all of a sudden I came in here and I sort of acquiesced and said, oh, maybe I could. No, sure. I love standing. Yeah. In terms of the interview question, though, do you?

One thing I want to say. I call it Internet brain. And we have to get out of Internet brain or social media brain or whatever, where you're in these echo chambers and you're in these groups that are maybe just. You're a podcaster or whatever, and you're so used to people coming on or just listening. You're on X or you're on whatever, and you just hear the same all the time.

And so it becomes your reality. And then all of a sudden, someone says, no, I disagree with that. Let me tell you why. You're like, stop attacking me. Oh, my God, I'm going to run away.

You're a lib. You're whatever. And it becomes like dunking on people or owning people. It's like, okay, we have a different perspective. I'm sharing mine, you're sharing yours.

Maybe we'll go away from this and we will agree to disagree, but that's it. It's over. You don't have to continue attacking someone because of it. We don't have to not communicate with each other. We don't have to live in separate neighborhoods or because of it.

It's a product of the Internet, and it's a product of echo change. You know, it's funny. The happiest I was in a very long time was going to Japan for a week, completely disconnecting from social media. I didn't look at my phone. I wasn't on YouTube.

Vivek Ramaswamy
None of it. You're just in the moment. And I have not been happier than that. One week, I'm just completely disconnecting from the Internet, not paying attention to a. Single thing I did when I left CNN.

Don Lemon
And at times I would, especially during the Trump era, I did not go on, mainly I didn't go on Twitter and Facebook. I did, like, Instagram or whatever, because it's all about pictures and blah, blah, blah, blah. But I had to get off because it was so toxic. And I've been, you know, it's the happiest that I've been because you're not, you don't go down the rabbit hole. And, you know, if you see something over and over and over and over again, repetition somehow becomes belief.

And just because it's repeated and you're reading it on a, on, you're scrolling through it, I don't know what you got on your feed. It doesn't make it true. If just because you hear it a million times and just because you, you know, a million people say, oh, my God, I can't stand that Don Lemons interview doesn't mean it's right. Doesn't mean that they're right, doesn't mean that the interview was bad. It just, most of the time, you're reconfirming your own bias.

Heddy
And I think that's what's beautiful. And we've been so blessed, honestly, to have this platform because we've out on so many different people. We've added people that are like, hardcore on the left. Hardcore on the right. And it's great.

Although it's funny because a lot of the viewers, they get horribly upset no. Matter who we have on someone's. People get mad when I'm on, you know, if I'm on a conservative, what if people get mad? Why'd you have that on? I'm not watching.

Don Lemon
Or why did Elon do a deal with Elon Musk do a deal with Don Lemon? I f him. Why is he on the platform? And that's like, that's the reason I was on the platform is because of people like you. Dumbit.

Sorry. I think it's good to not look at it through, like, an ideological lens. And to try to just, I'm not a political person. I don't belong to a political party. Would you interview anybody, though?

Vivek Ramaswamy
Like, let's say Putin? Sure. Of course I would. Oh, you were asking me Netanyahu. I was asking me Putin.

I said, would you interview anybody? Or is there a limit to who you would have on anybody? I mean, it depends. Mostly, yes, but it would depend if they're worthy of the platform and worthy of actually, you know, elevating them or my time. But for the most part, yes.

Heddy
Do you think it's a good thing that Tucker Carlson interviewed Putin? Sure. Why not? I mean, you know, I would have done things differently, but that's me. Tucker did it the way he did it.

Don Lemon
But, yeah. And ultimately, it is what it is. It didn't get a lot of play, not in mainstream media. It was hard. It was because it was just a history lesson, essentially.

Heddy
So it's not, it wasn't like the most attractive piece of content. I thought a lot of it was. He let him speak uninterrupted for a very long period of time. But you have to understand. I agree.

I think he didn't. Most people criticize him after the interview. Yeah, I think he said, like, oh, those were like softball questions. But it's kind of like, from Tucker's perspective, I mean, I'm sure I'd probably. Bar, could you push any horrified, you.

Don Lemon
Know, what do you mean? How far could you push? Yeah. Like, how hardball questions can you ask? How much can you try to break through?

That's what you're supposed to do. But in a foreign country with some Putin. Yeah, of course. I think there's an element to danger where Tucker might feel like if he pushed too hard, Tucker might be, don't. Do the interview if you're going to do that.

Heddy
But I also think in the same way that, like, Tucker can be asking questions and people are looking for Putin's answers, they can also learn a lot by just watching and listening to Putin talk. You know, I mean, even Putin deflecting a question is him giving a different answer. Yeah, but remember, Putin is waging a war on Ukraine and deserves to be held to account for that and many other things and for, you know, the possible interfering in elections and spying on. There are a lot of things that Putin need to be asked. If you're not going to ask him, I don't think you should do the interview.

What do you think is a positive thing about yourself that is overlooked that people don't acknowledge? Well, generally, I don't know if it's a positive thing, but I think people don't really understand who I am. They don't really know me. Most of the criticism of me, of what people know have been through, especially on these platforms like podcasts and conservative media, it's been through. I've been a character on Fox News or a character on some social media platform or character on a podcast that has created a caricature of me, of someone who you think I am, and I'm not that person.

Don Lemon
And I think it's mostly from conservatives, and a lot of it is from the MAGA folks, because Donald Trump didn't have facts or truth on his side. So what did he do? He banged the table. If you don't have the truth, if you're not winning, you bang the table. So when I would point out lies or inconsistencies or anything that he did wrong during his administration or his run up to becoming president, then people would criticize me and think that I was this ultra left person because I was simply pointing out truth and facts.

Truth and facts don't have a political party and they don't have an ideology. And I think that by, I think it was easy to sort of paint me as someone who's out to get Donald Trump or out to get Elon Musk because of a previous bias that people have about me or just because of who I am. You think that I'm a gay black man. I'm going to feel a certain way about Dei on and on. So I think that's, you know, maybe it's a little bit of unconscious bias by people.

Some of it may be warranted. I'm not perfect, but I think for the most part, people don't really know me. Although you may deem those as invalid criticisms of yourself. What do you think? It's just criticism.

I mean, it's valid or invalid. I'm just telling you my perspective on it. Sure, but it seems as though you kind of insinuated that it was invalid, those criticisms. I said it's not who I am. They don't know me.

Heddy
So what do you think is a valid criticism of yourself? I think a valid criticism is that I'll ask any question, but that's a good thing. That's a constructive criticism. You said valid. I say constructive.

Don Lemon
That's a good criticism. I'll ask. I'm not afraid to ask anybody anything. I don't care who you are. What do you think would be a valid shortcoming of yourself?

A valid shortcoming? I don't really. I think sometimes I can become a little emotional when people. I shouldn't say I can. Sometimes I don't diffuse a situation and people become upset, I will say, because I don't suffer fools.

Vivek Ramaswamy
In terms of getting to know you, one of the things that I've noticed in doing research on you is very difficult to find information about you in terms of your personal experiences. And I think if you were to. If you were to open up about more, like, personal topics and stories and experiences, I don't know, maybe I'm just. Like, I love that. I mean, he also did this cool CNN video of him where you, like, went back to where you, like, went to the south and you saw, like, the city that your ancestors grew up in.

Don Lemon
I went to Africa. And you went to Africa. Yeah, that was facing my route. That was. I mean, that was a cool video.

Yeah. But I also agree personal experiences would humanize you. I have shared more about myself than I think any other journalists on television. Really. I came out very early.

I talk about my family. See, I guess we're getting different. Yes, because people. You don't watch the news. People didn't watch my show, but they had an idea of what they thought my show was, because they either saw Tucker calling me Don Lamon or people on Twitter criticizing something they saw on Fox News or on a conservative blog or on a podcast.

And so they didn't actually sit down and to take the time to actually watch my show or listen with a clear ear about what I was saying. So I think that's the issue. I shared more about myself than I think anyone, probably any journalist on television. Well, I think it's great that you're doing podcasts like this, because then hopefully, it can break that echo chamber so people can get an idea to something that they haven't been exposed to. But also, I mean, criticism, I don't know if it's criticism, but I don't mind that people don't like me, that maybe that's bad.

I don't mind that people. No, I think that, I mean, for your own mental health, I think that's a good thing. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm sure you're aware of this because this was going very viral, unless if we're in, I guess this is going viral. This was going viral, I would say, like, a month or two ago.

Heddy
So this, I mean, it's kind of an obnoxious twitter handle, but it's end wokeness if we did something that said the biggest threat to America is white men. And you said this was a long time ago. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then they put that right next to you. My husband with your husband, who happens to be a white man walking down some stairs.

And then it said, like, don Lemon, back in whatever year it was, 2008. Is this a last question? But it doesn't have to be. But I'm glad that you asked me that question, because it. No opportunity to address it.

Don Lemon
No it's not the opportunity to address it. It's. Well, yes, but it proves what I said about Internet brain and dunking on people and people wanting to sort of, you know, have their own biases, reconfirmed what I said. We were talking in the context of. I think it was around the time that Christopher Wray was testifying in front of Congress around that time, and we were talking about terrorism.

And the biggest threat was not foreign terrorism, it was domestic terrorism. And that domestic terrorism is done by radicalized right wing males. Well, you said white men. I said white men usually. And I said mostly radicalized.

Vivek Ramaswamy
Radicalized to the right. And then the FBI director said the exact same thing. So I don't understand why you don't. Why people don't understand that. I don't get it.

Don Lemon
I didn't say all white men were the biggest terror threat, I suppose, to. A lot of people. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, would say that if you flipped that the other way around, that that would be like. Like hate speech. That would be this.

Heddy
That would be that. What do you say to. Well, I don't know. I think if. You mean if there were black men.

Don Lemon
If black men were creating the biggest purveyors of domestic terrorism, then, okay, that would be the facts. Those are facts. I don't understand why, especially. I didn't hear. Well, I do a little, but not as much.

I don't hear white women getting upset about that. I don't hear black women or black men. They all go, yeah, well, that's true. White guys get mad, but it's the truth. I thought that tweet was a little bit kind of just like, clearly trying to slam down.

Yeah, but it's also like, again, it's gotcha. But that one was a gotcha. I would agree that one was a gotcha. But again, it's, you know, hey, I married a white guy because that's who I fell in love with. I did not say all white men were terrorists.

But that's what that tweet is trying to get you to believe. That's what the criticism is. That's what happens in conservative media, because they are what. They want to gin up fear and they want to demonize. They want to demonize me.

One, cause they think I'm on the left. Two, cause I was on CNN, and three, because it's easy to say, look at what this black guy is doing. Obviously, the racism is there because they're saying he married a white guy, and, you know, they wanna do it. Because it's easy. I'm black, I'm gay, they think I'm liberal.

And I was on CNN. Boom. More than a trifecta. So we have one last topic and then a couple rapid fire questions, and I'll try to be very quick about this one thing. It was an exchange that you had with Elon during the interview that I found very interesting.

Heddy
Elon said, CNN is generally considered left. You said, why do you say that? If you look at any media survey, they usually say, for example, Fox is on the right, CNN is on the left. And then you said the whole thing about the caricatures. They see you through the lens of Fox.

And then you said, I'm independent in my thinking and don't make decisions due to political leaning. Do you still consider yourself to be independent or mostly on the left? When is the last time you voted republican? Oof, I don't remember. It was probably, I can't remember.

Don Lemon
It was probably an election. I'm in Suffolk county and it's basically a conservative district. But I don't know the last time I voted for someone on the right because I don't look at political leanings when I go in. I don't really look at whether it says r or D or. But as a journalist, don't you think that you'd be aware of these?

Certainly, yeah, but I can't remember the last time I voted for someone on the right. But I think it would probably be in Suffolk county. But I don't know. I'm not sure in a presidential election, I have not voted for anyone on the right. It's been Democrats.

It's been probably Reagan or something. You voted for Reagan? I think I did, yeah. And what is a republican policy that you like?

I like Republicans idea of being fiscally conservative, but often they are not. So I like the idea of it, but it doesn't happen because usually under democratic administrations the economy is better. I know that's shocking to a lot of people. Any certain? I like the idea of fixing the border from Republicans, but I don't necessarily like the approach of how they do it by ginning up fear, and that's generally about it.

I like the idea that people really stand on the second amendment, but I don't like the idea that the second amendment is absolutely, because it's not. Has there been any policy that's been put forth by the republican party that you can say you agree with? Not in the last administration, no. If people listen to somebody on the right, who should they be listening to? You mean like Tucker Carlson?

Heddy
Just a right wing commentator. I like. Who do I like on the right? I can tell you who I used to like on the right. Sure.

Don Lemon
I used to like Bill O'Reilly. I used to watch him every night because I thought that he was a good performer. So I liked him. I think people should listen to George Will. I like George Will.

I think he is, I think in his approach is very careful and moderate. So I like those two guys. Do I like, it's interesting because now I think the folks on the right have become so magnized that it's hard to look at the republican party now and find something you like because they're all propping up someone who is very dangerous, I believe. I think we should just move on to the rapid fire questions. Do you want me to ask?

No, seriously, I really do have to go. I'm sorry. It's 412. What's your favorite book of all time? 05:00 live show.

Oh, my favorite book of all time is probably to kill a mockingbird. Really? Yeah. Cool. That's a good one.

Vivek Ramaswamy
Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm done. Yes, you got to go. I want to be respectful.

Heddy
We really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you. Thank you so much. Don't.

Don Lemon
Don't.

Heddy
Don't.

Confronting Don Lemon On Failed Elon Musk Interview

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1: Introduction

2: Media Integrity and Bias

3: Challenges in Journalism

4: Public Perception and Media Consumption

5: The Future of Media

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