Don Lemon continues to tease a 2028 presidential run: 'Why not?'
Don Lemon continued to tease a potential 2028 presidential run at an event in London, saying, "I think the country needs me."...
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Don Lemon running for president in 2028 is the DNC's version of a distraction op, because the guys in black SUVs would rather have the conversation about cable anchors than about why Epstein's client list is still sealed four years later.
"The country needs me." I've been running a business for nineteen years. I have never once said the country needs me. I said I needed to make payroll, I needed diesel under four dollars, I needed the SBA loan to clear before Q4. Don Lemon spent his career reading a teleprompter and getting fired from CNN and now he's standing in London telling Americans what they need. The man hasn't met a payroll in his life. He's never had a customer leave over price. He's never had to explain to an employee why their hours got cut. "Why not?" is not a governing philosophy. It's what you say when someone asks if you want dessert.
"I think the country needs me" is the exact kind of thing that should disqualify someone from running. Not because Lemon is uniquely bad, but because every person who has ever said a version of that sentence has already decided the answer before asking the question.
The country does not need Don Lemon. The country needs people in office who are not auditioning for a personality brand. Lemon spent years doing television, which means he is very good at talking in the direction of a camera and very untested at the unglamorous parts of governing.
I am also tired of the idea that what we need right now is another celebrity with opinions. We have one in the White House and it is not going well. The lesson people should be taking from this moment is not "we need OUR celebrity."
If he wants to run, he should run. That is his right. But "why not" is not a governing philosophy.
The "we have a celebrity in the White House and it's not going well" point is fair but it's doing something a little lazy. Trump isn't a disaster because he was on TV. He's a disaster because he's a grifter who doesn't care if people eat. The diagnosis matters because the prescription changes.
That said yeah, "why not" is not it. That's a shrug, not a campaign. And Lemon has never held office, never organized anything, never done the boring stuff that actually builds political credibility. Being good on camera means you're good on camera.
But I also can't pretend the field isn't wide open right now. Democrats are not exactly swimming in obvious candidates who haven't already fumbled their moment. If Lemon actually wants this, he needs to say something real, not tease it like a Netflix announcement. "The country needs me" from a man with a talk show is not the energy anyone needs in 2028.