Former CNN anchor Don Lemon sparked outrage on the right after likening the United States to the Islamic Republic of Iran on issues of free speech and the treatment of protesters, during a Friday episode of This is Gavin Newsom.
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According to WND, Lemons remarks came in a discussion about press freedom and federal law enforcement, after California Gov. Gavin Newsom asked him about the January FBI raid on Washington Post reporter Hannah Natansons home and electronic devices. While Irans security forces have been widely condemned for shooting and jailing anti-regime protesters, Lemon suggested that America has forfeited any moral authority to criticize Tehran, despite the United States operating under a constitutional framework that explicitly protects free speech and a free press.
Reporters have privilege. Its like an attorney. And so you have to be very careful about those things. And we cannot lose those things, Lemon said, invoking the traditional protections afforded to journalists and their confidential sources. Otherwise we are going to lose the First Amendment. Were going to lose the freedom of the press because part of that is having sources and being able to be trusted by those sources that youre not going to give any information away that they give you.
Lemon then escalated his rhetoric, drawing a direct moral equivalence between the United States and Iran, a regime notorious for executing dissidents and crushing protests with lethal force. So we cannot lose those norms and those traditions because otherwise were no better than a country that were at war with right now. And we are saying that Iran shoots protesters. Well, so do we, he added. And were over there because Iran jails reporters or doesnt have free speech. And that makes us no better than them if we are acting and doing the very same things that theyre doing, then what sort of moral authority do we have to be able to be there and in a war and quite frankly killing people?
Federal agents on Jan. 29 arrested Lemon in connection with a Jan. 18 incident in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he filmed himself inside a church alongside anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protesters who disrupted a worship service. He said he was held in a federal courthouse holding room for around 12 hours, a detention he has framed as part of a broader crackdown on dissent, even as critics note that disrupting religious services and intimidating congregants crosses a clear legal and moral line.
The indictment against Lemon alleges he conspired with others to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate multiple persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of the rights and privileges secured to them under U.S. law. That charge underscores a key conservative concern: that left-wing activists increasingly claim the mantle of free speech while trampling the constitutional rights of others, including the right to worship without harassment.
The raid of Natanson was part of a probe into a Pentagon contractor accused of leaking government secrets, according to multiple reports, raising complex questions about how to balance national security with press protections. Yet equating a lawful investigation into classified leaks with Irans systemic jailing and torture of journalists ignores both scale and intent, and risks trivializing the suffering of those living under genuine totalitarian rule.
Moreover, former MSNBC host Joy Reid has made similar comparisons between the U.S. and Iran, but focused on womens issues and religion during a March 11 episode of One 54Africa. [W]ere marginally better and were doing it for Christianity, theyre doing it for Islam, Reid claimed, a framing that paints traditional Christian beliefs as morally equivalent to Islamist theocracy and reflects a broader progressive hostility toward Americas religious heritage.
However, the World Economic Forum ranked Iran 143rd out of 146 countries in its 2024 Global Gender Gap Report, far below the U.S., highlighting the vast gulf between a Western constitutional republic and an Islamist regime that systematically subjugates women. Against that backdrop, efforts by liberal media figures to blur the distinction between America under President Trumps leadership and the Iranian dictatorship appear less like sober analysis and more like ideological posturing that undermines the very freedoms they claim to defend.
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