CNN’s Don Lemon abruptly ended a panel segment late last night on CNN Tonight after one of the panelists continued to express his objections to “fake news” coverage.

Lemon led a discussion about the costs of protecting the First Family, between Melania Trump currently residing in New York and President Trump‘s weekend visits to Mar-a-Lago. Maria Cardona and Karine Jean-Pierre said this is hypocritical because of Trump’s past criticisms of Barack Obama.

Lemon then went to Paris Dennard for his take. Dennard, it should be noted, received words of praise from the president at the White House earlier this month where Trump said he’s done “an amazing job in a very hostile CNN community.” (Trump also called out Lemon and his show specifically during his press conference this week.)

Dennard told Lemon, “I think this is fake news. This is not a news story.”

Lemon got teed off and jumped in to ask, “Do you actually know what the definition of fake news is?” Dennard responded, “What we’re doing right now.”

Lemon said that fake news is about intentionally deceiving people, and while there are a lot of mistakes in the press, he knows of no one who would put out a story to intentionally deceive the public.

He defended them covering this particular issue and said, “There’s nothing fake about that. Please stop it with that stupid talking point that it is a fake news story. If you don’t want to participate in the news stories on this network, then don’t come on and participate. But don’t call them fake because you don’t agree with them.”

Dennard reiterated his belief this is a “fake news story” and Lemon immediately cut him off, abruptly ending the show.

Watch above, via CNN.

UPDATE – 8:11 p.m.: We received the following from a CNN spokesperson:

Don said prior to getting to Paris Denard ‘this is short and I want to get everyone in.’ He was running up against time to end the show and the conversation went long. That is the reason the show ended as it did.

— —

Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]