CNN’s Don Lemon went off of former White House aid turned tell-all author Cliff Sims Saturday night, during a discussion over President Donald Trump’s controversial rhetoric after the deadly Charlottesville riots from 2017.

The discussion took place during a panel originally assembled to discuss the merits and unfolding narratives from last weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, but the topic of discussion to a gravely serious turn after a deadly hate crime incident occurred in a San Diego-area Synagogue. The apparent rise in hate crimes – and ties to Trump’s “fine people on both sides” language was what sparked this particular brouhaha.

Sims, who wrote a best selling tell-all Team of Vipers that was based on his first year or so in the White House, took a defensive posture towards Trump’s language, saying that he felt like he was “watching the same movie yet somehow we’re seeing dramatically different things play out on screen.”

Sims continued and addressed Lemon saying “I don’t know Don, but when I hear don talk about the way he felt about Charlottesville and what the president said, it’s diametrically opposed to what a lot of people, I would say myself included, watched happen.”

Lemon sharply interrupted with “then you’re delusional,” and it sort of went downhill from there.

What followed was a contentious discussion about Trump’s rhetoric and the apparent rise in hate crimes and whether that is causal, correlative or non-existent relationship.

Good stuff.

Watch above via CNN.

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