The internet never forgets…
Former CNN host Don Lemon suggested last October that Black and Brown Americans “of all stripes” should legally arm themselves in the event Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up at their doors.
Lemon made the comments on The Left Hook with Wajahat Ali, saying he was not “condoning or promoting violence,” but arguing he was done with “the niceties” as ICE agents were “rounding [people] up off the street without due process” and “sending them off to a gulag.”
“If you believe in the Second Amendment, if you believe in the Constitution, Black people, Brown people of all stripes, whether you’re an Indian American or a Mexican American or whoever you are, go out in your place where you live and get a gun legally. Get a license to carry legally,” Lemon said. “Because when you have people knocking on your door and taking you away without due process as a citizen, isn’t that what the Second Amendment was written for?”
Lemon said he hoped the message would “knock some sense” into people within the Trump administration.
“Nobody is illegal,” Lemon argued, calling unlawful border crossing a misdemeanor and adding that repeat offenses can become more serious. He then leveled a broader political charge at Trump: “what Donald Trump did is at the highest level of criminality, except for taking someone’s life, and someone who is crossing the border is nowhere near that.”
Watch the clip below:
Lemon tells non-whites to get armed to fight ICE: "Get a gun for when they go knockin on your door" CC: @FBI pic.twitter.com/7wvJPJ7Bsb
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 16, 2025
In a statement to Fox News Digital at the time, Ali defended Lemon’s remarks and said Republicans should be open to the idea of more armed citizens.
“I only speak for myself, but Don Lemon has a right to express his views in the United States of America thanks to the First Amendment which is allegedly championed by the Trump administration,” Ali said. “If anything, I’d assume Republicans would agree with him that Americans have the right to legally bear arms thanks to the 2nd Amendment. Unless, of course, they only believe that right exists for [W]hite Trump supporters? If so, they should admit that publicly.”