Don Lemon is continuing to speak out about the importance of a free press and the threats faced by the First Amendment, a little over a week after the former CNN journalist was arrested for covering an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota.
Saturday night, Lemon made a surprise appearance at the 2026 Human Rights Campaign‘s Greater New York dinner in Manhattan, where he reflected on how his arrest affected his view of Constitutional rights.
“This past week reminded me of something I thought I understood,” he said. “The First Amendment is not just a legal guarantee. It is breath in the lungs of a democracy. And when that breath is threatened, you feel it before you can explain it. … Last week, I felt it. … I saw how quickly a voice can be targeted. How easily truth can be distorted. Don’t pay attention to the noise, people. Do not. How fast a story can be turned into a warning. But I am not an activist. I am not a protester. I am a journalist. My calling is not to shout, but my calling is to witness .. to tell the truth as clearly as I can, even with clarity comes with consequences.”
He went on to warn, “And right now, the cost of truth is rising.”
He criticized the Trump administration for its seemingly dismissive approach to the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and laws in general.
“We are watching an administration right now that treats the Constitution not as a covenant, but as an inconvenience that they don’t have to abide by,” Lemon said. “It’s authoritarianism. And we need to be careful because the very little that’s left of our democracy can be gone in a second if it’s not too late already. We are watching leaders who speak of law and order while trampling the very laws that restrain power. … We are watching the Bill of Rights praised in speeches and ignored in practice. The First Amendment, especially, has become a target to this administration.”
He pushed for a free press that continues to tell the truth about the U.S. and highlighted instances beyond his own where reporters and journalists were targeted, attacked and threatened.
“America loves the idea of a free press. … It recites it like a hymn. Celebrates it like a tradition. Invokes it like a slogan,” Lemon said. “But the press is only welcomed when it does not disturb comfort. … When it does not expose what power would rather conceal. The free press does not exist to reassure the nation. It exists to reveal it to itself. … We have seen what happens when that revelation is punished. We have seen journalists arrested while covering protests. We have seen reporters threatened for investigating corruption. … We have seen books removed from schools because they told inconvenient truths about race, gender and sexuality. … And we have seen journalists singled out, smeared and targeted simply for doing their jobs.”
And he urged diligence to keep the First Amendment alive.
“When reporters are silenced, citizens are blinded. When truth is criminalized, freedom becomes fragile. When the First Amendment becomes optional, democracy becomes hollow,” he said. “There is an old spiritual that says, ‘Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me round.’ And that’s what we’re doing. That song was never loud for the sake of noise. It was steady. It was stubborn. It was unyielding. That is what a free press must be in this time. You don’t have to be theatrical. You don’t have to be reckless — but unwilling to be turned around, unwilling to give false equivalency, unwilling to give people a platform who want to lie and obfuscate and demean people who are not in power.
Despite his “difficult week,” Lemon is still hopeful.
“Freedom is fragile, but it is not finished, yet,” he said. “Truth is contested, but it is not defeated, yet. Democracy is strained, but it is not silent, yet. … As long as there are people willing to speak, as long as there are journalists willing to observe and tell a story, as long as there are communities willing to defend dignity, the light is still on. It has not gone out yet. And if the light is still on, the darkness has not won. Thank you for carrying that light. Thank you for your courage. And thank you for letting me bear witness with you tonight.”
During his remarks, Lemon also expressed his appreciation for the support he received from fellow journalists.
“I felt the quiet courage of colleagues who refused to be intimidated,” he said. “I felt the solidarity of people who understood that this moment was bigger than one story, one journalist, one controversy. Because when a society punishes journalists, it is not punishing a profession. What it’s punishing is reality.”
Lemon was arrested on Jan. 29, 11 days after he livestreamed video coverage of the Jan. 18 protest that began outside a church in St. Paul. He followed protesters as they went inside, alleging that a church official also worked at a local ICE office. He interviewed protesters, congregants and a pastor during the protest.
He was charged with violating federal laws by allegedly crossing a line from activity protected by the First Amendment to impeding others’ rights to practice their religious beliefs. He was released from custody after a hearing in Los Angeles on Friday, Jan. 30.
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