Former CNN anchor Don Lemon says freedom from corporate media has finally allowed him to speak without the internal restraints he developed during years on cable television.

Appearing Thursday on The Bakari Sellers Show, Lemon portrayed his departure from CNN as liberation from newsroom caution.

He said the transition required him to break habits that made him repeatedly reconsider his words before going public.

“I had to untrain myself from the things that I had learned in corporate media about thinking 85 times before I said something. I didn’t have to do that. I could say whatever the f**k I want,” Lemon said.

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Apparently, losing a corporate anchor desk has not encouraged quiet reflection.

Instead, Lemon says it has given him permission to deliver the sort of commentary that even CNN executives might have considered excessive.

Lemon invoked Malcolm X while discussing remarks he had delivered earlier that day.

“I could never do what I did today in corporate media by saying, ‘Look, I’m going to tell you I feel the spirit of Malcolm X coming over me when we talk about the ballot and the bullet. And Plymouth Rock, we didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us,'” Lemon said.

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The former anchor then turned his attention to President Donald Trump and the millions of Americans who supported him.

Rather than seriously considering their concerns about inflation, immigration, crime, cultural upheaval, or distrust of Washington, Lemon reduced their political choices to race.

“I could not tell people that this issue is a white people problem right now. This is not just rich against poor, because most people who voted for Donald Trump are not rich. These are white people, co-opted, poor, and working class white people who put this man in office,” Lemon claimed.

That argument treats a vast and diverse political coalition as little more than a racial problem requiring correction.

It also conveniently dismisses the economic and public safety concerns that drove working Americans away from Democrats and their media allies.

Lemon said such remarks would have brought accusations of race baiting during his CNN years.

“And if I had said that on corporate media, oh my gosh, you’re a race baiter, anchors shouldn’t be saying that. No, I say whatever I want and I tell the truth,” Lemon said. “And that’s how we got here and that’s why the Lemon Media Network, I believe, is growing.”

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His version of unfiltered truth did not stop with racial attacks on Trump voters. Later in the interview, Lemon urged Democrats to use the courts against Republicans if the party retakes the White House in 2028.

“Go after them, sue them, tie them up in lawsuits, make sure that they’re held accountable,” he said. “I want my president to offend people, especially those people who believe in the wrong things.”

The remarks offer a revealing glimpse of the political warfare Lemon apparently wants from the next Democratic administration.

After years of liberals warning that Trump supposedly weaponized government, Lemon openly endorsed burying political opponents in litigation and praised deliberate presidential offensiveness.

Lemon has repeatedly relied on race centered attacks since CNN fired him in 2023.

During an appearance with Bill Maher on Club Random, he used a profane description to accuse Trump supporters of racism and argued that a person cannot be “Black and be a rational MAGA person.”

In October, Lemon also urged black and brown Americans to arm themselves against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

That rhetoric came as federal officers faced intense hostility while carrying out immigration laws that Congress placed on the books.

Lemon now faces his own legal battle.

The Department of Justice charged him in January with conspiracy against the right of religious freedom and interfering with that right, allegations connected to a January 18 protest at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

His attorney, Abbe Lowell, defended Lemon by saying his work in Minneapolis “was no different than what he has always done.”

Given Lemon’s increasingly inflammatory record, that defense may not provide the reassurance his team intended.

Freedom from CNN has certainly revealed more of what Lemon thinks, although perhaps not in the flattering way he imagines.

The corporate filter is gone, and what remains is racial grievance, political vengeance, and a demand that Democrats use government power against people Lemon believes are wrong.

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