'A total eclipse of the facts': Don Lemon unloads on Trump's 'unhinged,' 'embarrassing' speech

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don lemon

Screenshot via CNN

Don Lemon.

CNN news anchor Don Lemon ripped into Donald Trump on Tuesday night after the president offered a modified version of his remarks on the deadly white nationalist rally that rocked Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month.

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"What we have witnessed was a total eclipse of the facts," Lemon said of Trump's wild rally in Arizona.

Trump "came out on stage and lied directly to the American people," Lemon said, accusing the president of trying to rewrite history. Trump left out multiple key details about his highly criticized response to Charlottesville, including:

  • His initial failure to call out white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups by name.
  • His initial blaming of the violent rally - in which a man is accused of killing a counterprotester by - on "many sides."
  • His omission of the fact he said there were some "very fine people" among the participants who marched with white supremacists in Charlottesville.

The omissions were not lost on Lemon.

"He's unhinged. It's embarrassing ... for the country," Lemon said.

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"His speech was without thought, it was without reason. It was devoid of facts, it was devoid of wisdom. There was no gravitas. There was no sanity there," he added.

Lemon said Trump's airing of grievances against the media on Tuesday night "was like a child blaming a sibling" in a "petty" argument. He called Trump "a man clearly wounded by the rational people who are abandoning him in droves," referring to the multitude of executives who have walked away from his business councils in recent weeks and Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington who are increasingly questioning his fitness for office.