Female staffers at CNN are reportedly threatening to quit if CNN’s Don Lemon is not fired by the company for his sexist attacks on 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley last Thursday, when he said she wasn’t in her “prime” as a 51-year-old woman.
“If Don doesn’t go, others have threatened to quit,” an insider told The Daily Mail. “People are hurt by his actions and are not going to let this go. It is like every woman over 50 in America has taken this as a personal insult. The female staffers at CNN definitely have. He needs to make his vacation a permanent one.”
Another CNN insider confirmed the claims, saying, “the women of CNN are angry. He’s made it impossible to do their jobs. He’s an embarrassment to the network and needs to go.”
When asked if Don Lemon is actually being pushed to leave the company after his latest scandal, another spokesperson for CNN told The Daily Mail, “it is patently false to say Don is being pushed to resign.”
“CNN has been literally, flooded like a tidal wave with extremely angry and offended loyal viewers,” another CNN insider said. “There is not one person at CNN who that thinks that he should remain on air. He knows how badly he screwed up and he also knows that he cannot talk his way out of this one. His apology meant nothing.”
During a segment of CNN This Morning last Thursday, Lemon said that “Nikki Haley is not in her prime, sorry, when a woman is considered to be in her prime is her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.”
Co-host Poppy Harlow interjected.
“Wait,” Harlow said. “Prime for what?”
Lemon responded: “I’m just saying what the facts are. Google it. Everybody at home, when is a woman in her prime, it says 20s, 30s and 40s. And I’m just saying Nikki Haley should be careful about saying that politicians are not in their prime, and they need to be in their prime when they serve. Because she wouldn’t be in her prime according to Google or whatever it is.”
Shortly afterwards, Lemon apologized for the comment but didn’t mention Haley by name.
“The reference I made to a woman’s ‘prime’ this morning was inartful and irrelevant, as colleagues and loved ones have pointed out, and I regret it. A woman’s age doesn’t define her either personally or professionally. I have countless women in my life who prove that every day,” Lemon wrote on Twitter.
