Former CNN anchor Don Lemon called the MAGA movement "the closest thing to the modern version of the Nazi Party" during a podcast interview, then revealed he has quietly explored a 2028 presidential bid.
Lemon made the remarks on the July 15 episode of the "Can't Be Censored" podcast, hosted by Travis Dhanraj and Karman Wong. Asked to define MAGA and to consider what happens to the Republican Party after President Trump leaves the political stage, Lemon offered a comparison that drew a sharp rebuke from the White House within hours.
The former cable news host told the podcast hosts that MAGA supporters are not motivated by kitchen-table economics. They are motivated, he claimed, by racial grievance. Fox News Digital reported on the interview the following day.
Lemon put it this way:
"MAGA is the closest thing to the modern version of the Nazi Party. This is America's version. It's the closest thing, without the Holocaust and all that stuff."
He went further, dismissing the idea that Trump voters cast ballots over grocery prices or pocketbook concerns:
"No matter how many facts and how much information you give them about this presidency, about the policies, they don't change their minds because they're really not voting for the price of eggs. They're voting for White supremacy. They're voting for power."
He also called President Trump a fascist. "We've careened" into fascism, Lemon said. "The president is a fascist."
The response from the administration was blunt. White House spokesman Davis Ingle issued a statement to Fox News Digital:
"Don Lemon is a low ratings loser that no one takes seriously. He should immediately seek psychiatric help to treat his severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome."
Ingle's statement did not engage with the substance of Lemon's claims. It treated them as unworthy of a policy-level reply.
Lemon's remarks follow a pattern familiar to anyone who has watched the former anchor since he left CNN in April 2023. Freed from the constraints of a network teleprompter, he has leaned harder into partisan commentary, and now, apparently, into partisan ambition.
During the same podcast appearance, Lemon revealed he has taken preliminary steps toward a potential 2028 presidential campaign. He said he has spoken with "people who have been in politics before" about what a run would look like.
"I don't know, I might. I'm serious. I don't know. I might because people keep asking me to do it."
He described his level of engagement as exploratory but real.
"I've stuck my toe into it, if you want to put it that way, or I've dabbled. I've talked to people about it, people who have been in politics before."
Lemon said he envisions a grassroots, small-dollar effort rather than a campaign bankrolled by major donors. He told the hosts he would prefer "a voter-driven, citizen-driven campaign" and suggested supporters could chip in five or ten dollars, amounts, he said, that would not "break the bank" given a tough economy. He acknowledged he might eventually need to accept larger donations.
He did not identify a party affiliation for the hypothetical run, name any advisers, or describe any formal organizational steps beyond conversations.
Lemon also revisited his exit from CNN, where he spent nearly two decades. He alleged the network pushed him out because of his identity.
"They wanted to get rid of me as the gay Black guy. One hundred percent, that's what it was."
CNN pushed back. A network spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Lemon "was an important member of the CNN family for nearly 20 years" but disputed his version of events.
"The decision regarding Don's departure was based on factors unrelated to his race or sexual orientation. Although we disagree with his recollection of events, we are grateful for his contributions and wish him nothing but success in the future."
CNN did not specify what factors led to the split. Lemon departed the network in April 2023 after the two sides said they had "parted ways."
Lemon's qualifier, "without the Holocaust and all that stuff", is doing an enormous amount of work in that sentence. Strip away the industrialized murder of six million Jews, the conquest of Europe, the systematic destruction of democratic institutions by a totalitarian regime, and what remains of the comparison? A political movement the speaker disagrees with.
Tens of millions of Americans voted for the policies Lemon dismisses. They did so through free elections, under a constitutional system, with peaceful transfers of power on the calendar. Calling those voters foot soldiers of a Nazi-style movement, while conceding that the defining horror of Nazism does not apply, is not analysis. It is the kind of reckless overreach that has sent trust in media to historic lows.
And now the man making that comparison says he might run for president himself, funded by five-dollar bills from the same public he just accused of voting for White supremacy. That is not a campaign platform. It is a contradiction looking for a microphone.
When you have to subtract the Holocaust to make your Nazi analogy work, you do not have a Nazi analogy, you have a slur dressed up as commentary.
