CNN paid Don Lemon nearly $25 million to go away in 2023.
He went away – and now he's back on YouTube to explain jealousy.
Trump posted a troll about Obama, Lemon completely lost it on camera, and every conservative in America already knew this was coming.
The Man Who Nobody Watches Lectures the Man Who Won Twice
Trump posted a doctored image of Barack and Michelle Obama boarding Air Force One – the plane spray-painted with "Yes We Can," "BLM," and Arabic script.
It was a troll.
A deliberate, effective, rent-free-living troll. And Don Lemon walked straight into it.
"He is so jealous of Barack Obama, he cannot stand it," Lemon said on his YouTube channel. "He will never have the class, the grace, the good looks, the education, the beautiful family, the beautiful wife. One wife, not three or four baby's mamas."
Lemon kept going.
https://twitter.com/MarcoFoster_/status/2074526515534893092?s=20
He brought up Stormy Daniels.
He brought up the NDA.
He dropped multiple expletives.
He worked himself into a full meltdown – on a platform where the average political video gets fewer views than a golden retriever learning to skateboard.
Here's what Don Lemon doesn't understand about Donald Trump: the troll worked perfectly. Not on Trump. On Lemon.
CNN Paid $24.5 Million to Make This Man Go Away
Trump has been trolling Obama since 2011 – the birther controversy, the Correspondents' Dinner, years of Truth Social posts.
Every time, liberals melt down exactly like Lemon just did.
Every time, the story becomes about their reaction instead of Trump's original post.
That's not jealousy. That's strategy.
Don Lemon's career trajectory tells a different story than the one he's selling.
CNN fired him in April 2023 after his ratings collapsed and colleagues raised complaints about his conduct.
https://twitter.com/uspolitics1111/status/2074351392727117835?s=20
He was so thoroughly dismissed that CNN didn't bother telling him directly – he found out through his agent.
The settlement that followed cost CNN somewhere around $24.5 million.
He spent the next two-plus years under a non-compete clause, largely invisible.
He admitted to interviewers as recently as August 2025 that "you haven't really seen me in many other places" because CNN was still paying him to stay off the air.
Now that the checks stopped, he's back – on YouTube – lecturing the sitting president of the United States about class and grace.
The Joy Behar Pattern and Why It Always Backfires
This is not the first time the liberal media has run this play.
Joy Behar made the same argument on The View nearly a year ago.
"Trump is jealous of Obama because Obama is everything he is not," she said – then ticked off the list: "Trim, smart, handsome, happily married."
The View got its segment. MSNBC ran the clip.
Liberal Twitter cheered.
Nothing happened – because Trump kept winning elections while the monologue crowd kept talking to itself.
Lemon added profanity and explicit content that Behar left out, but the formula is identical.
Call Trump jealous.
List Obama's qualities.
https://twitter.com/MarcoFoster_/status/2074232845175054403?s=20
Imply Trump is morally inferior.
Collect the applause from people who already agreed with you.
The irony writes itself.
The man lecturing America about class and grace just delivered a profanity-laced tirade about porn stars and NDAs on a YouTube channel.
The man warning about jealousy is the same man who watched Trump win the White House twice while Lemon himself got terminated and paid to disappear.
Trump posted a meme.
Lemon posted a meltdown.
One of those men is president.
The other is auditioning for relevance on a platform that doesn't require a building or a crew.
Sources:
- Chiara Fiorillo, "Don Lemon hits out at Donald Trump saying president is 'so jealous of Barack Obama,'" Irish Star, July 7, 2026.
- Associated Press, "Trump posts a doctored photo portraying Obamas boarding Air Force One spray-painted with graffiti," PBS NewsHour, July 6, 2026.
- Mary Roeloffs, "CNN Settles With Ex-Anchor Don Lemon, His Representative Confirms," Forbes, February 29, 2024.
- BNM Staff, "Don Lemon: I'm Still Under Contract at CNN Until 2026," Barrett Media, August 26, 2025.
