Don Lemon is reportedly in danger of being canned from his co-host spot on CNN This Morning after making the ignorant, misogynistic claim on yesterday’s show that Nikki Haley, age 51, is not in her “prime.”
A New York Post story today reports that co-host Poppy Harlow walked off the set after Lemon’s inane outburst, and that “a CNN insider said the latest high-profile incident may finally lead to [head CNN honcho Chris] Licht squeezing out Lemon from the morning gig.”
And the New York Times quotes Licht as telling CNN staffers that he was “disappointed” by Lemon’s remarks, and that they “were upsetting, unacceptable and unfair to his co-hosts, and ultimately a huge distraction to the great work of this organization.”
So, if Lemon saying Haley is not in her prime has put him on the hot seat at CNN, will there be any repercussions at MSNBC for Elise Jordan, who has suggested that Donald Trump could be a . . . prime candidate for dementia?
In a shameless pro-Biden defense on Friday’s Morning Joe, ”MSNBC Republican” Jordan tried to drag the fact that Donald Trump’s father had “really bad dementia” at the end of his life into a discussion of the relative health of Trump and Joe Biden.
The segment began with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski cheerfully boosting Biden for getting a “clean bill of health” from his doctor after his annual health exam yesterday. Joe and Mika then mocked Trump’s White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, for having said that Trump’s good health, despite his questionable eating and exercise habits, is explained by “genetics.”
MSNBC’s John Heilemann is a confirmed Trump antagonist. So it was surprising that he actually defended Jackson’s claim about Trump’s good genes. Heilemann said with the stress of the presidency, “the fact that the guy made it out of four years of the presidency alive is an amazing thing. Like, with that — if I had that diet, that lack of exercise and those sleeping habits, I’d be dead now, you know?”
Heilemann bolstered his case about Trump inheriting “extraordinary” genes by pointing out that “it is true that Trump men lived to ripe old ages.” That was apparently too much for Jordan, who interjected to snipe:
“Didn’t Fred Trump [Donald’s father, who lived to age 94] have really bad dementia at the end, though?”
Jonathan Lemire seemed to want to move on from Jordan’s desperate attempt to suggest Trump could get dementia any day now. Rather than responding to her, Lemire, instead, immediately seconded Heilemann’s notions, observing that “both of Trump’s parents lived into their 90s.”
On Morning Joe, the debate over Trump longevity and dementia was sponsored in part by E*Trade and Vrbo.
Here’s the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
2/17/23
6:31 am ETMIKA BRZEZINSKI: President Biden received a clean bill of health yesterday, following a routine physical exam at Walter Reid national military medical center in Maryland. In a memo, Biden’s personal physician wrote that he, quote, remains a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency. The medical assessment noted that Biden had a small lesion removed from his chest during a dermatology consultation. It was sent off for a biopsy, and the results are still pending.
We tell you all of this so the we can, I don’t know, take a trip down memory lane.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Oh, this will be fun.
MIKA: Yeah! Why not, right? It’s always good.
SCARBOROUGH: Mm-hmm.
MIKA: Here’s Dr. Ronny Jackson after Donald Trump’s physical, if that’s what you want to call it, when he was president in 2018.
REPORTER: Explain how a guy who eat McDonald’s and all the Diet Cokes and never exercises is in as good a shape as you say he is in.
RONNY JACKSON: It’s called genetics. I don’t know.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, called genetics. He went on to say, John Heilemann, that Trump had such great genes, that if he didn’t eat badly, he’d live until he was 200 years of age.
MIKA: Did he mean “dad jeans?”
SCARBOROUGH: I guess, I guess the shock of it is that, that, actually, people in the Obama administration actually vouched for this guy for 15 minutes before he started doing this. But again, just, the lies started rolling off of his tongue. And I guess they’ve continued over the past couple years.
JOHN HEILEMANN: I mean, look, I would say, just to stand up for, for the good doctor here, on one point. I mean, you know, if you think about Trump’s diet over the course of his life, you think about Trump’s — the way he’s taken care of his body, if you can use those words, “taking care” and “his body” in the same sentence.
You think about the stress of the presidency, you think about his sleeping patterns, you think about all the things we know. I mean, the fact that the guy made it out of four years of the presidency alive is an amazing thing. Like, with that — if I had that diet, that lack of exercise and those sleeping habits, I’d be dead now, you know?
There is, there is something to the notion that he does have some kind of extraordinary genes. It is the case that the Trump men, historically, in his family, have, have lived to be, have lived to ripe old ages in general. So, I don’t want to give too much credit to Dr. Jackson. Obviously, you know, the dude is a whack job on a lot of levels, but there is something kind of amazing about Donald Trump, that he’s still out there. That he’s still erect. That he’s still upright. It’s like an incredible thing.
ELISE JORDAN: Didn’t Fred Trump have really bad dementia at the end, though?
MIKA: Uhh.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: Yeah, both of his parents lived to be in their 90s.
HEILEMANN: Yes.
MIKA: Okay.