CNN host Don Lemon on Tuesday night addressed a controversial on-air segment that caught the attention of President Trump, in which the CNN host laughed along as his guests categorized the president’s supporters as ignorant hicks.

“One final note that I have for you, because this is personally important to me to address this,” Mr. Lemon told his audience during his opening monologue Tuesday. “Anyone — ask anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you, I don’t believe in belittling people, belittling anyone for who they are, for what they believe, or where they’re from.”

Mr. Lemon sparked a widespread backlash this week after he laughed hysterically as Republican political strategist Rick Wilson ripped the president’s base as the “credulous boomer rube demo,” among other insults.

In response, Mr. Trump revived his nickname for Mr. Lemon, calling him the “dumbest man on television,” and the president’s children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and countless conservatives blasted the CNN host as tone deaf and elitist. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham demanded that CNN apologize for Mr. Lemon’s “arrogant” and “divisive” behavior.

Mr. Lemon declined to apologize Tuesday, explaining that he was simply laughing at a joke and not a group of people.

“During an interview on Saturday night, one of my guests said something that made me laugh,” he said. “And while in the moment I found that joke humorous, and I didn’t catch everything that was said. Just to make this perfectly clear, I was laughing at the joke and not at any group of people.”

The explanation didn’t satisfy many conservatives on Twitter, who argued that Mr. Lemon was indeed laughing at a “joke” about a “group of people.”

Don Lemon, CNN & the rest of the leftwing elites aren’t even hiding the hatred they have for Trump supporters anymore. They smear us, mock us & belittle us because they still can’t accept that Crooked H lost in 2016.



Lets send the liberal elites a LOUD message in Nov! #Trump2020 pic.twitter.com/cpQH9EFZ68 — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 29, 2020

No apology. Bc he’s not sorry. https://t.co/sPVP1y6S5V — Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) January 29, 2020

CNN’s Don Lemon responds to outrage over his segment where he and others mocked Trump supporters as rednecks



Lemon: “I didn’t catch everything that was said. … I was laughing at the joke and not at any group of people”



The joke was mocking a group of people: Trump supporters pic.twitter.com/21NOtCjTPT — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) January 29, 2020

Don Lemon repeatedly laughed to the point where his head was on the desk while his two hosts ridiculed Trump voters. He knew EXACTLY what was going on and this is complete garbage, even for CNN. https://t.co/XdOO8JU44T — Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) January 29, 2020

Fascinating non-apology.



“I was laughing at the joke, not at any group of people.”



The joke— that went on for nearly 2 minutes— was that half the country are dumb rednecks. Not sure how you laugh at that and pretend it’s detached from a group of peoplepic.twitter.com/3ukjCeRL4l — Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) January 29, 2020

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