Special Episode - Don Lemon’s Arrest By Trump’s DOJ Is CHILLING For Journalism
The Chuck ToddCast
iHeartPodcasts
4.0 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chuck Todd reacts to the news of independent journalist and former CNN host Don Lemon being arrested and charged by Trump’s Department of Justice over the Minnesota church protest and calls it chilling. He argues this is a direct assault on the First Amendment right to freedom of the press, but believes Lemon will beat the charges. He believes the arrest is Trump’s way of trying to distract from a terrible month for the president.
Timeline:
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00:00 Don Lemon’s arrest is pretty chilling
01:00 The 1st amendment is meant to protect speech you do & don’t like
02:15 This is a chilling moment for independent media
03:00 This feels like a desperate distraction from the administration
04:00 Journalists working for corporate media get some legal protection
05:15 One person’s journalist is another person’s activist
05:45 There’s a reason free speech and press is the FIRST amendment
06:45 If Lemon is somehow convicted, it’s an erosion of what America is
08:00 Trump had a terrible month & Republicans starting to break with him
09:45 Constitutional rights are for people we don’t like or agree with too
10:30 We’re going to find out who the “free speech” hypocrites are
11:45 White House is celebrating the government violating 1st amendment
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:02.3 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:07.4 | Just popping on because this is a huge moment for those of us in independent media. |
| 0:14.1 | The arrest of Don Lemon is pretty chilling. |
| 0:19.0 | The former CNN anchor, to get some context, was reporting on the protests in Minneapolis. |
| 0:27.2 | There was this high profile incident where some protesters went into a church service. |
| 0:32.7 | Don Lemon followed them in in his capacity as a journalist. |
| 0:38.0 | Even the videos have been out there. |
| 0:40.3 | His reports have been out there. |
| 0:41.6 | Even interviewed the pastor. |
| 0:44.8 | There's no doubt there were people very upset with how that incident went down at the church. |
| 0:53.0 | And certainly because of previous instances where the president and his |
| 1:01.0 | supporters have not been big fans of Don Lemon, of course, everything gets quickly politicized and |
| 1:06.6 | everything is seen through this prism of politics rather than the prism of the First Amendment. |
| 1:14.2 | And that's what I want to get at here. |
| 1:16.2 | Look, the First Amendment is there to protect speech we don't like and speech we like. |
| 1:21.4 | It's there to protect the speech you agree with and the speech you don't agree with. |
| 1:25.2 | Freedom of the press is also the same way. |
| 1:29.9 | And you don't have to like Don Lemon to defend his right to do what he did. You can love |
| 1:38.5 | Don Lemon and also defend his right to do what he did. Look, one person's journalist is another person's activist. |
| 1:49.2 | We've always had this fight and dispute about because those that are political actors |
| 1:55.0 | don't like press that they, that questions what they're doing. |
... |
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