Don Lemon Arrest: "First Step Towards Mass Repression”

The more Donald Trump gets away with, if he is allowed to pardon people, and there's not enough uproar about it, and nothing happens, then he's gonna, um, uh, pick- he's gonna arrest people without due process on the streets or detain them, uh, even if they're American citizens. [upbeat music]

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

Uh, again, Scott, we have to do an emergency episode. This is getting kind of ridiculous. Uh, we had to jump in here to talk, uh, to our audience about what's happening right now with journalist and our friend Don Lemon. Right now, he was recently on the show, uh, as a guest host while you were away. Um, but he was arrested by authorities in Los Angeles Thursday night, where he was covering the Grammy Awards, um, accused of violating federal law tied to a protest he covered as a journalist at a Minnesota church earlier this month. Lemon and three other journalists were arrested in connection with the, with this, uh, this event at the City's church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she ordered the arrest of Don and three others, uh, citing a connection to a coordinated attack on the church. Don has repeatedly said he was there as a journalist, not a protester, and if you watch what he did there, that's what he was doing, including interviewing the pastor and others. A magistrate judge rejected an earlier attempt by the DOJ to bring charges against Don, uh, and other protesters, and the DOJ petitioned a federal appeals court to force the judge to issue an additional warrant, only to be denied, but the DOJ went ahead anyway, even though courts and prosecutors within those offices in Los Angeles and Minnesota are resisting this. Lemon's lawyers called the attack... uh, the arrest, an attack on the First Amendment, obviously, and says Lemon will fight the case in court. He's supposed to be, uh, arraigned, uh, today in Los Angeles. Obviously, Don's a friend of ours, a friend of mine. Um, he's been, uh, been reaching, uh, reaching out. At Pat- when he, when he was fired from CNN, he and I got to know each other 'cause I helped him sort of mount what he was doing, which was independent journalism, and I've been very proud of him, what he's been doing. He's doing a lot of street journalism, taking his, his, uh, microphone to people, asking them questions. He's built a big following on YouTube. I think he crossed a million subscribers recently. But what's- what he's doing is really amazing. He's doing these things, and what he does, he's a man on the street, essentially. And so he went into this church while this event was taking place and, um, and was doing reporting, and which a lot [chuckles] of reporters should do, you know? I think he's found a new life in doing it as an independent journalist, and it's pretty, um, pretty amazing, all the stuff he's been doing. Very varied and talking to all kinds of people, not just, uh, liberals or but conservatives. He goes in places other journalists don't go. Um, and I think it's a real value, what he's doing. And so he was doing this here. Um, he was... Then it was the Grammys. I mean, it's very varied where he goes. Uh, he was in New Orleans for New Year's and stuff, and so what he was doing here was journalism. And because, you know, he's had a target on him by the Trump administration, who never liked him when he was at CNN, and, uh, and so this is what they're doing, and they're getting- what they were getting is a lot of pressure from church groups for this group going into a church, and you can debate whether they should have gone in that church, but a journalist certainly could follow a group of people in there. He did not coordinate the attacks. They're gonna try to allege he did, that he was part of it. Um, but it's really, again, part of this, uh, what I said, uh, on, in today's episode that just aired, was they're gonna keep escalating 'cause they're desperate, and they're losing the public case. Um, and so part of their, their, their, uh, handbook here, the fascist handbook, is to attack journalists. It's happened in Turkey. It's happened in all manner of the aut- uh, authoritarian countries, and this is what you do. And, uh, and so doing these high-profile cases, even though judges and lawyers do not want to do this and say it's full of shit, which it is, um, is really frightening. Um, and it's meant to frighten, and what we have to do is push back. We have to fight it, but the fact is, they will keep doing this, and they will not back out. They will not de-escalate. This is part of the, the... This is part of the problem, is you all think you can work with these people, and you cannot. Uh, any thoughts you have? I, I'm, uh, it makes me nervous. I have a lot of people who have, have been threatening to me, and, uh, it makes every journalist-