Don Lemon disagrees with Carville on ‘wokeness,’ calls defund the police a ‘stupid slogan’

CNN anchor Don Lemon said on Friday that he disagreed with Democratic political strategist James Carville’s assessment that Democrats’ weak performance and losses in state elections this week was due to “stupid wokeness.”

However, Lemon said he agreed with Carville that Democrats’ use of “defund the police” was unproductive.

“Look, I have a lot of respect for James Carville and I understand the sentiment of what he’s saying. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it,” Lemon said during an appearance on CNN’s “New Day” on Friday. 

“Defund the police, I agree more than 100 percent with him. Defund the police was a stupid slogan and should never have been brought under the political spotlight, into the political realm. It was an activists’ term,” Lemon added. “But as far as being woke and wanting equality for people who are in underserved communities or for minorities or for women, I don’t necessarily agree with that.”

Lemon acknowledged that Democrats had a tendency to be “preachy” and assume that others were on the same political spectrums and ideologies as them, but noted that “I do understand the frustration of progressives when it comes to equality.”

Earlier this week, Carville blamed Democrats’ surprisingly weak performance and losses in states like Virginia and New Jersey on “stupid wokeness” during an interview on “PBS NewsHour.”

“What went wrong is just stupid wokeness. Don’t just look at Virginia and New Jersey. Look at Long Island, look at Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Wash. I mean, this ‘defund the police’ lunacy, this ‘take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools.’ I mean that — people see that,” Carville said.

“It’s just really — has a suppressive effect all across the country on Democrats. Some of these people need to go to a ‘woke’ detox center or something,” he added. “They’re expressing a language that people just don’t use, and there’s backlash and a frustration at that.”

Democratic candidate and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe lost the Virginia gubernatorial race to Republican Glenn Youngkin despite multiple campaign events with high-profile Democrats like President Biden.

In New Jersey, Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy barely won reelection against the Republican candidate, another worrying sign that Democratic support is waning. Democrats did suffer from legislative losses in the Garden State.

“We got to change this and not be about changing dictionaries and change laws,” Carville said. “These faculty lounge people that sit around mulling about I don’t know what. … They’re not working.”