Don Lemon Returns

0:00Speaker 1:Hi, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome back to Work in Progress, friends. We have one of our favorite Whipsmarties back on the show. I cannot believe it has been a year since we last talked. Independent journalist, absolute truth-telling superstar, newsroom-running, freedom-of-the-press championing, Don Lemon is back with us on the show today. Since we last spoke, Lemon Media Network has surpassed 10 million followers across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Substack, Facebook, Twitch, Threads, and Blue Sky.

0:50Speaker 2:Whew!

0:51Speaker 1:With more than 50% growth just in the preceding year. And as they approach 11 million followers, I want to ask Don how he's feeling a year into this process as he's expanded his newsroom to include a Washington correspondent, a director of operations and production leadership. He's got a phenomenal Substack newsletter that publishes daily. In the last year, he's won a Webby Award and a People's Voice Award for Best Video Podcast Host. And what I want to talk to him about is how different this feels from his work at CNN, because now he controls the show, the priorities, and doesn't have to self-edit around anybody but himself.

1:34Speaker 1:We'll also touch on Don's arrest in January of 2026, which clearly seemed intended by the government to intimidate a free press. The incident became central to his argument about independent journalism and why First Amendment protections matter so much. Thankfully, on the outside of corporate media, Don is also able to clue all of us in about what media consolidation means and warns us that a concentration of ownership can threaten editorial independence and representation that actually keeps all of us informed. So today we're going to sit down and talk about what it's like to interview governors, to cover LGBTQ representation, to discuss what on earth we need to be doing to prepare for the midterms and how we can all stay engaged without completely overloading, especially when part of our mission is to shine a light on both the chaos and the beauty around us. Let's dive in with our friend Don Lemon. Well, hello, my dear. I'm so glad you're back. What a year it's been. It's crazy to think we last did this together in person a year ago. And I'm like, in the last 10 months, really a lot of things have happened.

2:56Speaker 2:What are you talking about, Sophia Bush? Good to see you, though, by the way. I don't know what you're talking about.

3:00Speaker 1:What on earth do you mean? You know, I was really thinking about it. And I'd love to start here just because of what you've been building. Because last year, you told me that you were so much happier. You know, you didn't have to self-edit for a corporation. You didn't have to work around a conglomerate's rules. And now you've built this, you know, over 10 million followers media company that is your own. Has this exceeded what you've imagined it would feel like?

3:31Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Um, you know, sometimes you're too close to it. Like, I don't know when to hear that. Like you have with 10 million followers across all platforms, it's almost 11 million. Uh, that's huge. Um, but it feels like we still feel like this little company and we still are in many ways, but I still feel like this little startup, you know, company that, um, you know, the little engine that could, but, um, uh, look, I, for wherever we are, I'm extremely grateful for it. And I hope that we continue to grow either. I was at a place to be honest with you, Sophia, where I either had to grow or stay the same. And, um, I didn't think, I don't think staying the same as in the cars, if it, if it continues to be successful, but as you know, though, you do this scale is everything.

4:14Speaker 2:You got to keep the cost low and the output high.

4:18Speaker 1:Yeah. Is that, does it feel like a lot of pressure? I mean, given what you know now, would you have advice for Don who was on the show in 2025?

4:28Speaker 2:Yes, I would.

4:29Speaker 1:I would have advice.

4:30Speaker 2:Um, whether I don't know if I said it or not, if I articulated it at that point, but I think I would have said, you know, in some way kind of enjoy it a bit more. And then I would, again, sort of the same advice, don't judge it. And I probably would have made a couple of different decisions business-wise and the people I hired or the way I conducted business Because you really need people who are like hungry. You need people who are multitaskers, like people who can do 14 things at once. And whether people have those skills or not is like, you have to in this environment.

5:12Speaker 2:You know, we're not in the, this is not network television anymore, where this is your one job that you do all day. Like everybody pitches in and that's how it is. And I learned that from young people. So I would probably tell the Don of 2025 is to, learn a lot more from the young people lean in because they're going to, they're going to make you, um, more relevant and they'll tell you how to, how to pivot.

5:36Speaker 1:That's really cool. Yeah. I get what you mean, because when you first get started in a career, especially when you work in any facet of media, you know, you're, you're doing what you're doing with news and coverage, you're making your first television series, whatever you have to be so scrappy. And I think when the scrappiness lasts, when you keep your youthful scrappiness, but then you have your adult experience and perspective, like those are the only kinds of people I want to work with. Because when I see people be like, well, that's not my department. And then just stand there and watch something not get fixed.

6:12Speaker 1:I'm like, oh, we're no, we're not going to be able to do this. And it sounds like you're really figuring out how to sort of straddle both of those worlds. While you build this thing, because you're building this plane while you're flying it, right?

6:24Speaker 2:While we're flying it, we're building it. You articulated that way better than I could. Youthful scrappiness with network or whatever experience, right? With institutional experience. And that, you know, do you experience that? Because I find that that happens a lot more. Either you have sort of young, you know, folks who are not used to, I'm Jen Beck's The sort of work ethic. And then you have like older folks who are like, that's not my job. And so it's a little weird.

6:56Speaker 1:Yeah.

6:57Speaker 2:Everything is everybody's job.

6:58Speaker 1:And I fully feel that way always. Like I'm going to lend a hand to the grips on set. You know, I was, I was at a shoot that wasn't even mine. Like I just happened to be there, you know, working behind the scenes. And as we were moving the photographers trying to manage stuff. So I grab a Pelican case, I grab a reflector and people are like, Oh my God, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm like, I'm helping.

7:21Speaker 2:Yes. I remember when I first started, um, not first, when I went to primetime, um, And for some reason, like the stars at the time, some of them couldn't even get in a rundown. They couldn't write. And when I got in and I started writing in the rundown, they're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm helping. Or like what you said, sometimes I'll arrive on people's set and I'll say, you know, your key light is too high. And they go, what is that? And I think because of that, I've been able to pivot and do different things. Because you know who Kara Swisher is, right? Yeah.

7:53Speaker 2:So Kara, when I first started either, you know, contemplating doing this, she said, I think you can be successful. And here's why she said, you don't strike me as a type that is, has gotten too used to going to work in a town car. And I said, Kara, nobody uses a town car anymore. They're, they're obsolete. And she goes, okay. In the back of a black SUV. And I said, yes, although I was used to that, but that was never who I was. And so I liked that term that you say scrappy. Cause I used to tell, you know, Chris Cuomo used to say all the time, you could kick my ass. And I would say, you don't know how scrappy I am and all the rage in these. Yeah. Like, pent up inside of me, you better look out because I'll be all over your behind.

8:29Speaker 1:You're like, don't let the buttoned up three-piece suit fool you, my friend.

8:33Speaker 2:But you got to be scrappy. You got to be scrappy.

8:36Speaker 1:You really do. There's a scrappiness required, I think, to any independent endeavor. And when I think about what you're doing, how you're building, how you're expanding your team, then you also... have the sort of storied, I don't want to call it appearance because it's a real thing. But, you know, I watch you sit down with Gavin Newsom, for example, and it's Don Lemon and the governor. It feels like a network moment. But I'm curious what you think guests like the governor, you know, other folks who come on your show, what do you think that they get now when they sit with you that they didn't get to have or don't get to have when they sit across from traditional network anchors?

9:20Speaker 2:Easy answer to that. They get more of a human experience, more of a grounded experience, more grassroot experience. When you're sitting there on network television, you're talking to people, that's all well and good. I'm not diminishing or dismissing, I should say, the power of network and traditional or corporate TV. But if you look at cable news, their average viewer is 60, 70 years old. So they get youth, they get the coveted demographic, they get people who are where the zeitgeist is right now. And they get where the audience is. And so I always said when I started, I want to go where the audience is. The audience is on TikTok. Okay, fine. I'll go to TikTok. If the audience is on YouTube, I'll go to YouTube. If the audience is is on instagram i'll go to instagram and so um as you see the numbers the ratings you know diminishing day by day by day in in corporate media one wonders like why are people writing about them or relying or talking about them so much because it's a model that is you know out Right. Somewhat.

10:21Speaker 2:Not that they're ever going away. So I think what they get from me is different authenticity. I don't interview people. I have conversations with them. I know how to ask people questions without being insulting or sounding like I'm in an interrogation room. I'm not a police officer. I'm having a conversation. I'm asking questions. And I'm not you know, sometimes you get people to change. It's very rarely change their opinion or their minds. Usually you don't. So then you are just inquisitive about why curious about why they feel that way. And you can question them so much.

10:51Speaker 2:And then after a while, it's like, I'm not going to change them. I'm not going to insult the audience to keep asking the same questions over and over again. So they get a human experience, which they don't get. They don't get us sitting around in suits or cocktail dresses and a bunch of makeup and hair talking about what's going on, right?

11:08Speaker 1:Well, and I think that more human approach, it's what people are craving. And don't get me wrong. I will always respect the news. And I kind of wish... we as a society had more respect for it. But I also think, as you said, you've got to meet people where they are. You've also got to meet the moment. And even watching you, you know, get out in the field, show up to cover what's happening. I mean, we all saw what happened, right? You know, you were covering ICE and then you got arrested covering an anti-ICE protest, which was so insane because I was like, wait, but that's your job. And then they tried to say you were like leading the protest. And I'm going, No, it's his job to be there and to be telling people what's happening.

11:51Speaker 1:How did you kind of make sense of that? You know, you want to be in the field. You don't want to wind up locked up. Did it feel like just a sort of byproduct of this really intense moment of, you know, friction in the culture? Or did it feel like they were targeting you specifically to try to keep independent journalists out? maybe afraid of telling independent stories?

12:18Speaker 2:I think it's the latter. And I'm glad you recognize the ridiculousness of that. It was that I started, I was there doing my job, right? Doing what I am supposed to do. I believe in the job and that is go where the news is. And so it's so weird that not everybody gets that or they see what they want to see. I'm like, can you just watch the video? And then you'll see. They said, I'm not a protester. I'm here just asking questions. I'm here chronicling.

12:45Speaker 2:But somehow they don't understand that, as if I was leading this group that I didn't really know anything about.

12:50Speaker 1:Right.

12:52Speaker 2:And you know, some people, it's intentional. But basically, that's it. It's the First Amendment. Let me just say this before. The moment that our government starts dictating, like, hey, you can cover this. You can't cover that. You can cover them. You can't cover them. This is how you should do it. Like, who, what, when, where, and how you report on something. Mm-hmm. That's not First Amendment. That's not freedom of the press. We're in a dictatorship then.

13:15Speaker 1:And in many ways, we are. It's crazy. The same people who will purposefully obfuscate why you were there in the first place are the folks that are like, no, that's not what's happening here. We're not falling to fascism. And I'm going, is anybody paying attention to just the sort of numerical list of the stages of the undoing of democracy? Like, why not? Why is it so hard to talk about the facts? And by the way, to add insult to injury of what happened to you, the attempt at punishing you for doing your job as a journalist, then the government tried to get all the names and personal information about your YouTube subscribers.

13:58Speaker 2:You saw that, right?

13:59Speaker 1:Yeah. That is some, and you know what, this is why I love that we're not on a news network, because I can say that is some freaky shit. Like, that's terrifying.

14:07Speaker 2:That's some fucked up shit. Yes.

14:09Speaker 1:But like, the fact that an administration is trying to be a surveillance state against people that are showing up for their neighbors, and as you said, for their rights under the Constitution, including free speech, right to assemble, freedom of the press, all of it. What does that tell you? And what do you think that should tell your audience? anyone who values a free press. Cause yes, a judge refused the request, but the administration still tried.

14:38Speaker 2:Three times. And they went to a grand jury. And finally, and you know, that's such a secretive process. You don't know what is happening inside of the grand jury. What does that say? Um, well, I would tell people, you know, um, or Orwell's, uh, 19, what is it? 1984. Um, It's upon us. I think that the people who say that they believe in the constitution or lying about the constitution, they believe in themselves. They believe in their power. Now imagine the government just going and fishing for information. What it appears to me is that they're fishing, they're looking for information rather than establishing something, getting the evidence and then presenting a case or having people arrested. But you have people arrested when you don't have the goods and then you do whatever you can to try to get the goods, whether that is using unusual or unscrupulous means to get it, or trying to fit laws into certain places that, okay, well, I'm going to use this law here, even though this customs law, even though it's not supposed to be used for this, or we're going to use this particular law to arrest this person, even though it's

15:49Speaker 2:not supposed to be used for that. And then Delaying and delaying and delaying because you don't have the personnel and you don't have the goods. Yeah. And if they can do it to me, imagine what they can do to people. If they can do it to people like us with means and platforms, imagine what they can do to people who don't have platforms, who don't have power, who don't have agency or don't have the resources to be able to fight it. It's un-American and it's unpatriotic.

16:13Speaker 1:It is indeed. And that's part of what I think is so important to talk about. You know, when you consider what Stephen Miller and Marco Rubio have been up to for the last, you know, six months plus, designating certain quote unquote organizations as foreign terrorist groups. Now they're saying members of foreign terrorist organizations can be denaturalized. They can take your citizenship. But what's a foreign terrorist group? They're like Antifa. Antifa is not a group.

16:40Speaker 2:It's not a thing.

16:41Speaker 1:It's a slogan for being anti-fascist. We as Americans were the ultimate anti-fascists. In World War II, we defeated Adolf Hitler and the fascists by being, quote unquote, Antifa, the literal American military. So they're making up, as you're saying, they're making up a, quote, crime to then carry out policy that is actually illegal and un-American and undemocratic so that they can punish their enemies. But they don't follow the laws even as they're written, let alone as they're warping them. And so what frightens me, you know, if it hadn't gone your way with a grand jury, would your viewers find out they were supposedly foreign terrorists for watching independent news? Would your viewers find out they were classified as something they've never heard of because they subscribe to a YouTube channel? Because that might sound crazy, but it's clearly the goal. It's to punish us with what they create rather than with who any of us are, only because we don't agree with them. And we actually say, hey, has anyone read the Constitution? We think it might matter.

17:55Speaker 2:Well, let me tell you this. That part is unsettled when you talk about if a judge didn't say no. The judge said no, but they still tried to use something else, which is this, when I said using laws that weren't that were obscure laws that weren't meant for what they're doing. They use a customs law after that to try to gain information for subscribers and members and all of those things. It is unclear whether they got it or not. So they will stop at nothing. It's just like they went to a magistrate judge and then I think a district judge and then whatever, I forget the second judge and then the eighth circuit or circuit court judge and then to the grand jury. They will just continue to do it because they think that they can just do it. The government never runs out of money.

18:46Speaker 2:And sometimes it's hard for people to tell them no. However, again, the grand jury process is so secretive that you can present anything to a grand jury. So they will do whatever they can. They're like, okay, the judge stopped this. What other thing can we use? This customs law allows us to blah, blah, blah. We'll say we can use it for that. And then that has to go through the courts. And then they're just presenting other things on top for the judge to Other things that have to be ruled on and they just keep extending it and delaying it and delaying. In the meantime, the money, the totals are racking up. People's lives are being destroyed. Their livelihoods are being destroyed. Only because, as I said from the very beginning, the process is the punishment here. Yes.

19:29Speaker 1:Well, you saw that with the reflecting pool. I mean, they went after an Olympian, someone who represented our country and accused him of being a vandal, accused him of destroying us. government property, and only because the fight has gone on so long have we gotten all the final information that it was literally a botched job Two materials that chemically cannot interact were used on that reflecting pool and the whole thing bubbled up. We saw it in front of our own eyes. But to your earlier point about Orwell, they're saying, don't believe your eyes and don't believe your ears. Only believe what we tell you. And they were going to send an Olympian to prison rather than admit that they had done something wrong. And that, whether it's, you know, them trying to grab your audience or what they were going to do to him and the other people they charged with supposed vandalism, it's disturbing to realize they'll stop at nothing to punish people. to keep their story going. I'm curious, you know, what you think.

20:31Speaker 2:To keep their lie going. Let's be honest about this.

20:34Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

20:34Speaker 2:But say no, I like to say your whole name. I'll take it. Like people call me Don Lemon. But Sophia, they want to keep the lie going. They have to keep that, the lie and the myth going. Oh, the election was stolen. Everybody's out to get Donald Trump. Donald Trump is right about the reflecting pool. Donald Trump is right about Don Lemon. They have to keep the lie going. The facade, the fakery. the hypocrisy going in order for the myth of the man that's supposed to be the best businessman that has all of these, you know, bankruptcies, who is a convicted felon, who has, you know, been adjudicated for liable for sexual assault, you know, all of these things, but they have to keep it going somehow.

21:12Speaker 2:They've got to keep the lie up. Otherwise it shatters their entire world and it shatters Donald Trump's world because it all really is built on one lie on top of the other. Yeah.

21:22Speaker 1:And it's like, if one gets destabilized, the house of cards falls down. Which is crazy, you know, the fact that he had to put that $ 5 million in E. Jean Carroll's bank account, finally, for what he did to her, finally, it's like it didn't even make a dent to those people. And it's so strange to me.

21:40Speaker 2:It's a rounding error.

21:41Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, my hope is that the more we can continue to speak truth to power, the better. And I think about it on so many issues, right? Like, personal issue for me and you last year we sat here and we talked about LGBTQ rights you know you you talked about what it was like to shift from thinking that you would never be able to be married to being married and in the in the time between that conversation and this one we saw that challenge to Oberfell's be brought you know we saw Kim Davis try to get back into the press I'm like lady just go home like if you don't like gay marriage you don't have to you don't have to marry someone who's the same sex as you like move it along but you know she might have lost that challenge but we've heard even Clarence Thomas say that it might need to be revisited you know I I wonder what you think about you know this is the first subject I'll have others to ask you about but but why do you think they're so desperate to be the administration that continues to remove rights from people that makes us less free you know do you Do you think that's something we

22:51Speaker 1:can feel better about because the Supreme Court refused to hear it? Or do you think they're coming for it in the lower courts first?

22:58Speaker 2:Can I just say a couple of things? The Supreme Court should be ashamed of themselves. Agreed. But they're allowing to happen, especially someone like Clarence Thomas, right?

23:05Speaker 1:Agreed.

23:06Speaker 2:Even a woman who's on the Supreme Court. And you know what women go through with their bodies, right? And you don't think that a woman should have access to her body and her health care in a way that she deems possible. The other thing is, is that Religious nationalism and white supremacy. So it's all combined. The lie that the Supreme Court is going to hold it up and because they maybe they feel beholden to him because he gave him their positions or maybe they feel that he's a Trojan horse to get all of the horrible things that they wanted, that they knew were unconstitutional or didn't have a chance in hell that they're being allowed.

23:43Speaker 2:It's being allowed to happen now. And it's because you are wanting your particular religion to be the religious test for the country. And the constitution says there's no religious test for this country. So there's religious nationalism that's happening. And then just plain old white supremacy, just plain old racism. People will do anything they can to hang on to power. And especially think about it. If you are a white person struggling in this society. And by all accounts, right?

24:12Speaker 2:And I'm generalizing here that everything is kind of open for you to have. I'm not saying that white people don't struggle. People of all different backgrounds struggle. But for the most part, they haven't had to deal with Jim Crow laws, racism, slavery, those kinds of things. And if you are not doing as well as you see an immigrant, even a woman, if you're a guy, right? Or a black person, if someone comes along and tells you, oh, you know what? It's not your fault. You're not responsible for any of this. It's the other person's fault. It's the immigrant's fault. It's the black person's fault. A man is supposed to be the head of the household. Why are they letting women do all of these things? If someone comes along and it gives you a reason to be able to feel those things, then you're going to attach yourself to them. You go, yeah, that's right. That person speaks for me rather than saying, maybe I don't have the skills. Maybe I couldn't pivot. Maybe I should realize that sadly, coal is not ever going to be the thing that it once was. Not unless they start making these things, cell phones out of coal. Right. Right.

25:14Speaker 2:And because we move on, people need to retrain. We, you know, we lived in, there were horse and buggy sometimes. And people were, you know, they say, oh, well, I'm in the horse industry and the horse industry is doing poorly. It's that person's fault. It's like, no. Then there were combustion engines. Then cars came about. Then trains, whatever, or trains and then cars. And then there were airplanes. We evolve and we move on. But if you are fighting for your last breath at being the preeminent voice, you're going to do anything to hang on to it because it's been a good ride. No one wants to give up that power and that ease.

25:46Speaker 1:We'll be back in just a minute, but here's a word from our sponsors. Something that I think we don't follow or take the next step to talk about is this is actually part of the reason that a lot of us that you would call progressives argue for good policy. Because folks who say, oh, smaller government, smaller government, I'm like, that just means they want to take your money and not have to spend it on you. Good government would be a an institution that would be able to step in, for example, in a coal mining town in Kentucky and say, hey.

26:23Speaker 2:You know what good government does? As you were saying, I know this is.

26:26Speaker 1:Where you're going. It retrains you.

26:27Speaker 2:That's where I'm going. It retrains you. Yes. Good government is responsible for roads and highways and infrastructure that we can use, right? Yes. Good government also provides you with the opportunity for people who live in rural areas, for people like us who live in in metropolitan areas to be able to help you to afford your own infrastructure.

26:45Speaker 1:Yes, to help support you, to help transition you into a new job, a new economy.

26:50Speaker 2:Good government gives good schools, right? Good government gives good transportation for people to be able to fly, public transportation, all kinds of things, safety nets. That's what good government does. And so why do we want to make that smaller, especially if you are a person who says you're a Christian and you're supposed to be looking out for the least of these, why are you leaving some people in a lurch and you're trying to shrink the role of government.

27:10Speaker 2:I'm not saying government should be out of control, but we need good government. So I thank you for raising that point, Sophia.

27:16Speaker 1:Well, because the way I think about it, Don, is like, listen, people forget, you know, you look around, like I'm looking out my window at the neighborhood. This doesn't exist without generations of investment. The roads, the schools, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the fact that it comes out of our taps at all, the fact that you can flush a toilet, like that's the result of policy and of investment. And when I consider the fact that everybody, whether you live in a metropolitan city like you and I do or you live in a rural community where I also spend half my time, like your investment as a taxpayer, you are investing in essentially the company that is America. You are supposed to get a return on that investment. Your tax dollars are supposed to go into that pool that makes everybody's life better. And they've bamboozled people by making you think your neighbor is your enemy so you don't realize the people taking all of our money, and I mean ours, every single one of us, our tax dollars, and spending it on themselves instead of on us. Like, we're not the problem. Your neighbor's not the problem. The

28:22Speaker 1:immigrant down the street's not the problem. The problem is that the current squatter in the Oval Office wants to be a Putin and not a Carter. And we're not investing in our countrymen. Our country is being fleeced for the wealthy. And that is the sort of thing, it's like, they have to keep us involved in culture wars because if we really start paying attention to the economics, everybody's going to go crazy. You know, I think something that's waking people up on that subject is the war in Iran.

28:52Speaker 1:Because people are going, what do you mean they've spent... a hundred and fifty billion dollars doing that. But they say we can't go to the doctor. Like they say our kids can't have after school programs. What do you mean?

29:05Speaker 2:We can't have affordable health care when actually you're talking about Iran. You're talking about the war and the U.S. is in it with Israel. You know, it was affordable health care in Israel.

29:15Speaker 1:And every other peer nation on Earth, by the way. Yeah. You know, all of them. You go to Europe. The health care is incredible. And we've been sort of fed this PR campaign that it just couldn't happen here. But it can. We just have to invest in our own country. And I'm curious, you know, for you, because obviously you've covered so many conflicts. You know, you've been on the inside of news reports. for things that well predate, you know, the war that we launched in Iran. What, how do you make sense of this? Because for me, I look at the news every day. We've supposedly won 10 times.

29:54Speaker 1:we've supposedly destroyed their nuclear capabilities, but they're supposedly going to give us a better nuclear deal than they gave to us with Obama. The, the straight used to be open for free. And now I guess we're going to have to give them $ 300 billion a year or something. I don't know. That might be a misquote. I remember the number 300 and there's so much information that at this point, my brain feels like a jumbled box of puzzle pieces, but there's clearly no clear exit strategy. So like, As a person who's been an insider in the space, what do you think is the objective? Like, how does this ever end? Are we going to just have to wait until we get a new president? Like, what's happening?

30:35Speaker 2:That is a very good question. I think we are going to have to wait till we get a new president, because if you look, you know, Donald Trump is in bed with Benjamin Netanyahu. I mean, Netanyahu is a terrible leader. Netanyahu has been saying they were there 30 minutes away. I'm paraphrasing here from a nuclear weapon. He's been saying that for decades now.

30:55Speaker 1:Yeah.

30:56Speaker 2:Donald Trump likes strong men and he likes authoritarians. He likes fascists and dictators. So I think we're going to have to wait because Donald Trump is not going to, you know, change at the ripe young age of 80. He's never going to change. If anything, it's going to become worse. So I don't know. Here's the thing. I don't know if we'll have to wait for a new president. I think we'll have to wait for a new Congress and possibly a new Senate. And they know it. And that's why they tried to restrict voting, mail-in balloting, and changing the voting lines in the U.S. so that it restricts poor people and Black people from being able to vote.

31:34Speaker 2:Less access to the voting box, the ballot box. then more when we should be out there really advocating for more access. People should have more access. And so I think we're going to have to wait. What is going on? Again, it is the last gasp of the old system. And I think really young people, young people are really going to have to come out in this next election, the next two elections, big elections, and make their voices heard because you've got this old guard and you have You know, the MAGA folks who want things to stay the exact same way that they're staying, they will fight tooth and nail.

32:15Speaker 2:That's their motivation. We have to be motivated by change. And I think that energy is in the young folks who realize like, man, it's costing a lot more to do a lot less. You know, why are my dinners a hundred bucks?

32:30Speaker 1:It's crazy.

32:31Speaker 2:It's right. But, you know, older folks, I'm going to be honest with you. The older folks, the boomers- The Gen Xers, like, you know, pretty much, I'm generalizing, doing okay. Maybe they got mommy and daddy's retirement, right? Because they're boomers and whatever. All of the things. But young people don't have that. The prices are going up for everything. And everything isn't going up to match it. The resources that they have aren't going up to match it. And we have to do something about it. But the thing is, as a small business owner, I don't know about you, it ain't easy.

33:05Speaker 1:No, it's really hard.

33:06Speaker 2:For the taxes that we have to pay and the amount for health care that we have to put into the system. It's really restrictive. And someone needs to come in and change that to make the American dream possible for everyone.

33:19Speaker 1:Yeah, because again, the country is supposed to work for us and our investment in it is supposed to have a return. I just I'm going to hammer at home every single day, you know, not just till the election, but forever, because I think we have to remember what it is we're doing here. And that when you are a citizen, it really is a it's a membership ticket to a community project, you know, and you brought it up with voting. Their attempts to restrict the voting process, their attempts, you know, they're saying they're going to unleash ice on the polling places to scare people. Despite the fact that, you know, in over 10 years, I mean, the Heritage Foundation itself has analyzed something like 19, you.

33:59Speaker 2:Know, 19.

33:59Speaker 1:What was it? It's hundreds of millions of ballots cast, essentially, and they found like 400 examples of voter fraud. It's such a small number that it doesn't even have a number. It's mathematically insignificant.

34:13Speaker 2:And many of those are unintentional.

34:16Speaker 1:Right. Yes. Yeah. Like someone who moves and didn't realize that they filled out their old ballot, but then they filled out their new ballot. And that was against the rules.

34:25Speaker 2:It wasn't like a group of immigrants that were coming together and they were like, OK, we're going to go out and vote because we know we can't. It was like, oh, some people are like, I thought I could. But if you look at the actual instances of voter fraud that get prosecuted, it's Republican.

34:39Speaker 1:I know every time.

34:41Speaker 2:Mainly Republicans.

34:42Speaker 1:It's so crazy, Don. But I'm curious about this, you know, because from DeJoy's attempts to take over the USPS and, you know, they're they're purging people from the voter rolls. They don't want you to be able to vote at all. Courts are fighting over the mail ballot rules and ballots are already going out. So as someone who understands that, you know, with an administration like this, the confusion is the point, but also we understand that confusion can have real consequences for people. In a moment like this, you know, what do you think is our best practice as a citizenry to ensure that we actually get our votes counted?

35:28Speaker 2:What should we do? Yeah. Well, look, I'll give you a story. When I first started doing this, I lost your screen. Oh, there's your picture. Okay. You can edit that out. So I was like looking for where is your picture? You know, sometimes it's Zoom. Yeah. Where'd you go? I could hear you. Okay. So I'll give you an example of when I first started doing this. And so I came from, this is the thing, I came from an old school system. And if you look at many of the old school systems like that, it's going away.

35:56Speaker 2:Even like big corporations, people who work for a certain place for years. My mom and dad worked for Exxon for 30 some odd years. Retired and got a great thing. That does not happen very often now, if at all. It's happening less and less. And think about it. Those big organizations that are making billions of dollars are cutting back. Now, think about small businesses, how tough that is. Yes. When I started doing this, I was part of the old system where I relied on my agent. Hey, this is what I want. Okay. Give me a day or five minutes or whatever. I'll be back to you. Okay. Hey, Don, you're up in six months. They're coming to you early.

36:36Speaker 2:They want to offer you this, blah, blah, blah. It's a ratings bonus. Here's what it is. And then it's like, oh, you know, you got this speaking engagement and that and whatever. And then all of that is going. So that went away. It's going away. And my friend who was part of a traditional system, who was an agent, she goes, it's time for you to take your career into your own hands. You can't rely on these people because they don't know what to do. And so I took my instincts from that and I said, I'm going to take what I learned in traditional media and then I'm going to not judge what's happening in this new medium that I'm in.

37:05Speaker 2:And then I'm just going to go and see what happens. And so I started saying, okay, I'm open. Let's see what happens. So we are going to have to take our voting rights seriously. our ability to be able to vote, our ability to show up. We have to take all of that into our own hands because guess what, Americans? Your agents aren't looking out for you. They don't know what to do. Your representatives don't know what to do. The folks who are fighting for democracy are the Democrats, but they're not doing such a great job of it, I believe. And I'm on their side now because I think they're fighting for democracy. The other side is not.

37:41Speaker 2:But we're going to have to take it into our own hands. And I believe the people who are going to do that especially I am all with my old heads, my old school, my OGs, right? Who have made a way for the Nancy Pelosi's of the world and all those folks. I am for the James Clyburn. I am with them, but also I'm with the young people who they need to make room for because the young people are going to take things into their own hands, I believe. If you draw them in and give them a reason to do so, to let them know, to make sure that change is possible and they need to create the world that they want to live in moving forward. That's what we have to do.

38:17Speaker 1:Well, and listen, I mean, you said it yourself. There's one side that's actually fighting for democracy, and there's another side that's living in this crazy fantasy land. I mean, the latest insane promise, oh, I'm going to give everybody $ 5, 000 if Republicans win the midterms. No, you're not. You didn't give us a tariff check.

38:35Speaker 2:You didn't give anybody the reliefs.

38:37Speaker 1:There were no doze checks. You've stolen all the money and we're not stupid.

38:42Speaker 2:Can I raise my hand here? Yeah. When you said did not give us, we should know better. And I tried to say this during the 2024 election when people would tell me, hey, Donald Trump gave me a STEMI. A stimulus check. Nope.

38:57Speaker 1:No, he didn't.

38:57Speaker 2:And I said, no, that was Nancy Pelosi, you dumbass. Like Donald Trump as president can't just give you a stimulus check. That is Congress. Nancy Pelosi worked that out to give you that stimulus check. But yet you are handing the credit to someone who didn't do it just because he says so. So we're going to have to do our own homework, too, as well. I'm sorry to cut you off.

39:19Speaker 1:No, but I agree with you. I mean, listen, we all know that that check is as likely to hit anybody's mailbox as a unicorn is to show up in your backyard because neither are real. But I'm curious. because you said it, you know, I believe a lot in a lot of the principles of the Democratic Party because I believe in democracy itself and I believe in progress and I believe in being inclusive rather than exclusionary. That's sort of the whole point of this country.

39:46Speaker 2:And yet....

39:48Speaker 1:A lot of it feels pretty toothless. In the best case scenario, the Dems are going to win in an indisputable landslide. But then what? Do you think they're going to get it together to actually fight this guy?

40:00Speaker 2:I go back to my previous answer. We can't rely on them to do so. I don't think so. We need people who are not scared, people who are unafraid and unbothered. We need leaders who are not going to allow their enemies to define them or to shape their message. They're going to do it themselves. We need people who are not afraid of Donald Trump, not afraid of Republicans, not afraid of saying the wrong thing, because that's just, people aren't always perfect. We need people who are going to say, we need to get rid of the electoral college because we're being, it's minority rule in this country.

40:36Speaker 2:If you look at the majority of the people, they don't want to be under these restrictive laws that have been, some of them have been implemented since MAGA. We're going to have to, someone is going to have to say, hey, look, With the Supreme Court, perhaps we need to expand it, or maybe not perhaps, we need to expand it. They're going to have to make tough calls, tough decisions, and make decisions and say things that everybody's not going to agree with. Because right now, everyone is too safe. Too safe.

41:02Speaker 2:Not everyone. A lot of people in leadership positions are too safe. And Americans don't want that. They want a fighter. Yeah.

41:09Speaker 1:Well, and it's time. I mean, we need to be defended economically. We need someone to stand up for our healthcare. We need people to stand up for our neighbors. And when you see the kind of double standard about what's expected from a lot of us and then what gets a pass on their side, I mean, where in God's name is Mitch McConnell? I don't wanna see one more AI generated photo of him. I don't wanna hear that he's doing great. I don't accept that a man who will not allow mothers who serve our country, who've just given birth to cast their congressional votes from home, but expects to be able to legislate from some supposed hospital facility where he is, and they're lying to us about it.

41:55Speaker 1:It's like the rules, the whole rules for me, but, you know, free for me, but rules for the thing. It just makes me crazy. And I, I don't know. We're entering into this time where it's hard to even tell what's real in the first place. And as AI gets better, we might not know that the photo that he released was AI. Somebody might not be able to match where it actually came from and do the breakdown like they did so well online. And I just can't believe we don't have any rules about, you know, basic truth or operating procedures at the highest levels of our government anymore.

42:35Speaker 2:We don't. But guess what? Guess what? I think I think there's an opportunity there. I think there's an opportunity because.

42:40Speaker 1:Give me an opportunity. I love that.

42:42Speaker 2:No, but I think there's an opportunity. There's an opportunity for people like you and me who have these platforms to speak out loudly about what what we just talked about today, about taking it into your own hands. And I think if someone comes with that message, whether they're running for Congress or Senate or president, I think that they'll be very successful in their efforts. And here's what I think young people need to know, okay? And I like to give people advice when they ask me. I tell young people, you know, you mentioned AI. When I was growing, back in my day, I know I sound like an old man, but back in my day, we had other people were our competitions, other network, other journalists, other people who worked with us as our competition. And so we had to fight really, really hard for what we wanted. We had to work hard, right? Like, you know, for years, I didn't take vacations. And then, you know, I think for 10 years when I was at CNN, I didn't take a vacation. And they were like, OK, you need to take some fucking time off. I'm like, OK, I will. And I'm not saying that everyone has to

43:38Speaker 2:do that. That was kind of, you know, me being crazy and an overachiever. But not only do you have other people as competition, you've got artificial intelligence who works 24 hours a day. And whether you like it or not, whether that's fair or not, that is, that's the moment that we're in right now where your competition is greater than any, I think at any other time in history that you have to, in order to be successful in whatever it is that you want to do, you not only have to outperform your fellow coworkers or people who are in your sphere, you've got to outperform in many ways, a computer, a person, something that can regenerate and become smarter by the moment. And that's a scary prospect, I believe, for young folks. And I don't know, that would keep me up at night if I was just starting my career.

44:28Speaker 1:Yeah. Where do you find hope with all that right now?

44:32Speaker 2:I do have hope in humanity, although for the last 10 years I haven't. But I have been around long enough to believe in physics and that the pendulum always swings, right? One way you get the little, it swings a little bit and then it starts moving. going really far and if it swings really far to the right, I think what happens next is that it's going to swing really far to the left. I'm not saying that's great that we should be that far to the left, but at least it's taking us back into a direction that is more manageable and that the arc of, what is it?

45:06Speaker 2:Moral justice bends, the arc of moral.

45:09Speaker 1:The arc of the universe bends toward justice. Yeah.

45:11Speaker 2:Towards justice or something like that. Yeah. So I just hope that we are bending towards, I don't want to be, give the wrong quote, I just hope that we're bending towards that justice, that we're moving into the right direction at least. And so I feel that at this point, if we swing left, that is more manageable than swinging right, because the left is usually more open to rights for everyone, right? Rights for women, men, trans, LGBTQ. They want to treat people with more humanity. And then on the right- They want to restrict the rights for folks and demonize people who are part of the underserved community. So I think moving in this left direction will take us in a better direction than we're in now.

45:53Speaker 1:Yeah, I certainly hope so.

45:55Speaker 2:So that's where my hope lies.

45:57Speaker 1:And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. I like to go a little deep on the sort of emotional and inspirational. Last year, you told me that your work in progress, you know, with all the wonderful things you have going on in your life was actually to be more present with your husband, your family, your dogs, like to make sure you were leading your life and not just building your work. How's it coming? How's the progress going?

46:34Speaker 2:Yeah. It's coming. I look, I can be better at that. I'm going to be honest. I could be better at being more present and being a, we can always work better at being better partners.

46:44Speaker 1:Right.

46:45Speaker 2:I mean, you know that, right. Totally. And so I can't, I try, I'm not, I'm not as good as I should be. And it's really because we're in a, we're in a scrappy, this is a scrappy time right there, right now. It won't always be scrappy. Like I'd like to get to a point where it doesn't have to be so much scrappiness, but when you're building, You got to hustle, right? When you're young and you're starting out, if you're doing a career change, you got to hustle.

47:11Speaker 2:It's all about the hustle. So I could be better at that. I try. The thing is, though, is that I travel a lot. And so I try to bring him with me. I try to bring the entire family. This weekend, I had shows with D.O. Hughley. We're doing a tour around America. And so we brought the whole family. We brought the dogs and Tim. And so I realized maybe we can't bring the dogs just for like a two-day thing. Like maybe they should be with a dog sitter. So I try to make sure the family is incorporated in as much as possible. And I'm lucky enough to have a husband who allows that to happen, unselfishly allows that to happen.

47:50Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great.

47:52Speaker 2:One day he's going to go, all right, I'm sick of this.

47:56Speaker 1:But I think it's really good. You know, you figure out ways to show up for each other and to support each other. And sometimes you build your personal moments around being on the road for your professional life. And that's just what it is. I think for any of us who is an independent contractor in any fashion, it requires creativity. But, you know, my partner and I talk about this a lot. It also enables us to have experiences together that a lot of other people don't get to have. And I feel really lucky for that. So I try to remember that so that I don't just feel stressed by the schedule, you know, all the time.

48:35Speaker 2:Yeah.

48:37Speaker 1:But it's good.

48:38Speaker 2:I think, though, I have, like, I've gone through some really tough spots, right? And everybody has, right? It's not unique to me. But then you look back on them. Maybe we just romanticized the past and you're looking, ah, that wasn't so bad. I survived that. Or in the moment, I didn't realize how much fun that was or what a great moment. cocktail party story that would, you know, that it would be, or, you know, every, when I, when I was on the weekends at CNN and I'm like, why am I on the weekends for such a long time that all of a sudden, well, we got a new boss and he's like, why the are you on the weekends? Like you should, you need to be at the center. And I'm like, yes. And so I never gave up. And so I think that I look at these moments as well, even when it's difficult as, and when there's growing people, like we're going to look back at this and go, oh my gosh, remember when this happened?

49:23Speaker 1:And remember when we did this and we.

49:25Speaker 2:Survived this and look at us now, you always have the look at us now moments. Just like, I believe the folks who got into this part of the business before us, like the Joe Rogans of the world or any of the folks like that, like they'll come a day when you go, oh, look at what we've built. Look at the employees that we're able to do for the people who helped us to build this. It's going to take a while to get there. But once it does, I think it's going to be really, really, really great.

49:51Speaker 2:So I don't look at these as hardships. I think it's challenges that let's see, let's figure out how we overcome these challenges and make the best of them.

50:01Speaker 1:I love that. Well, we're just all so happy to To have you back. You know, I adore you and we love the Don Lemon Show. And I love that it's on every single platform now for all of us because we need it.

50:13Speaker 2:Thank you, Sophia Bush.