(CNN) CNN anchor Don Lemon responded with shock to President Donald Trump's defiant speech at a rally in Phoenix Tuesday night.

"Well, what do you say to that?" the CNN anchor asked, stunned, moments after the President concluded. "I am just going to speak from the heart here. What we have witnessed was a total eclipse of the facts."

On Tuesday, Trump "came out on stage and lied directly to the American people, and left things out that he said in an attempt to rewrite history, especially when it comes to Charlottesville," Lemon said.

Lemon honed in on the part of Trump's speech where the President reread remarks he made immediately after a car drove into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month, killing one and injuring 19. Trump omitted that he blamed the violence on "many sides."

The President was widely criticized for failing to denounce white supremacists until two days after the rally. He reversed course the next day and once again blamed "both sides," appearing to equate neo-Nazis with the people protesting against them in Charlottesville.

Read More