Lemon insists he had no idea anti-ICE protesters planned to disrupt a church service.
Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks. This week, we look at another Don Lemon controversy and we cover more media misses.
Don Lemon Stumbles on a Protest
Don Lemon insists that he was acting purely in a journalistic capacity when he, alongside a group of anti-ICE protesters, stormed into a church in Minneapolis over the weekend.
But a review of the former CNN anchor’s “coverage” of the event suggests he was acting more like the group’s spokesman.
Lemon informed his viewers ahead of the protest that he had conducted “reconnaissance” with the activists before they stormed into Cities Church, which they targeted because they believe one of the church’s assistant pastors works for ICE.
“These are resistance protesters; they’re planning an operation we’re going to follow them on. I can’t tell you exactly what they’re doing, but it’s called Operation Pull-Up,” Lemon said during a live-stream.
“It’s Nekima Armstrong, she’s been doing this since George Floyd, Daunte Wright and others, where they surprise people, catch them off-guard and hold them to account,” he continued.
Looking to titillate his viewers, Lemon teased an impending secret “operation.”
“So that’s what we’re doing here, and after we do this operation, you’ll see it live, these operations are surprise operations, again I can’t tell you where they’re going,” he said.
INTENT: The opening to Don Lemon’s insane livestream is an admission of foreknowledge that the group he was in contact with was going to storm a church, based on his prior communications with its leader. pic.twitter.com/g0GVHB4871
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) January 19, 2026
Facing legal threats from the Trump administration, Lemon now insists he had “no affiliation” with the activists responsible for disrupting the church service in what Deputy Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon claims may have been a violation of federal law.
“I had no affiliations with that organization. I didn’t even know they were going to this church until we followed them. We were there chronicling protests,” Lemon said, contradicting the statement he made on his live stream. “Once the protest started in the church, we did an act of journalism, which was report on it and talk to the people who were involved, which included the pastor, members of the church, and members of the organization. That’s it.”
Lemon has worked as an independent journalist since he was fired by CNN in 2023 after a Variety exposé detailed a mountain of harassment allegations from co-workers who said he repeatedly threatened female colleagues and often made provocative and erratic comments.
During the protest, Lemon spoke to members of both the anti-ICE group and members of the church.
“This is unacceptable, it’s shameful. It’s shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship,” a man identified by Fox News as lead pastor Jonathan Parnell told Lemon. “I have to take care of my flock.”
Lemon fired back that there is a constitutional right to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest.
DOJ officials are now looking into whether the protesters violated the FACE Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act. The former makes it a federal crime to use, or threaten to use, force to “injure, intimidate, or interfere” with a person seeking reproductive health services, or with a person lawfully trying to exercise his right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. It further prohibits intentional property damage to a facility providing reproductive health services or a place of religious worship. Meanwhile, the latter act makes it a federal crime for individuals to deny citizens their civil rights.
And, to no one’s surprise, Lemon has failed to take any accountability for his involvement in the protest, including doubling and even tripling down, by calling the congregants “privileged” and suggesting that they only feel entitled to worship in peace because they are white.
“It’s notable that I’ve been cast as the face of a protest I was covering as a journalist — especially since I wasn’t the only reporter there. That framing is telling,” Lemon said in an initial statement as the backlash unfolded. “What’s even more telling is the barrage of violent threats, along with homophobic and racist slurs, directed at me online by MAGA supporters and amplified by parts of the right-wing press.”
“If this much time and energy is going to be spent manufacturing outrage, it would be far better used investigating the tragic death of Renee Nicole Good — the very issue that brought people into the streets in the first place,” Lemon added. “I stand by my reporting.”
Lemon insists that he only committed an “act of journalism” and that his actions are protected under the First Amendment.
He further claimed the backlash against him is being used to intimidate him as an “independent, gay, black, happy, successful man.”
“The whole point of it is they’re detaining people on the streets because of accents and the color of their skin,” Lemon said. “And they’re also targeting people of color and black people, as well as Brown people, so there is a certain degree of racism there.”
“I think people who are, you know, in the religious groups like that, it’s not the type of Christianity that I practice, but I think that they’re entitled, and that entitlement comes from a supremacy, a white supremacy,” he added.
However, despite Lemon’s protestations, Dhillon has suggested that Lemon’s involvement was illegal.
“A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest!” Dhillon wrote on X. “It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service.”
“You are on notice,” she added.
Meanwhile, while Lemon suggested that the crowd was “grassroots” during his coverage of the protest, reporting after the fact has revealed the prominent identities of several protesters, including Jamael Lundy, who works for the Hennepin County attorney’s office.
While Lemon seemingly interviewed Lundy in the crowd at random, Lundy is in fact the intergovernmental affairs coordinator for the county attorney, meaning he handles the prosecutor’s communications with federal officials, according to the Daily Wire. Lundy is also married to a St. Paul councilwoman and is running for state senate himself.
And another member of the crowd has been accused of also harassing congregants at Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s church in Washington, D.C. That man, William Kelly, has more than 66,000 followers on TikTok, and was arrested by the Secret Service last month after he called a man a “Nazi” and asked whom he voted for.
Headline Fail of the Week
The Department of Homeland Security took the New York Times to task last week after it posted a misleading headline about an agent-involved shooting that occurred after the agent was ambushed by three illegal immigrants during an arrest: “Federal Agent Shoots Immigrant in Minneapolis, Homeland Security Says.”
Worse yet, a breaking news update from the outlet on X read: “A federal agent shot an immigrant in the leg in Minneapolis, federal officials said, one week after an ICE officer killed Renee Good in the city.”
“This despicably misleading headline is exactly why the American people have completely lost faith in the mainstream media,” DHS responded on X. “This journalist knows the facts, was given the truth, and adamantly REFUSES to report it.”
The agency goes on to explain that agents were conducting a targeted traffic stop in Minneapolis of an illegal immigrant from Venezuela when the suspect attempted to evade arrest, fleeing the scene in his vehicle and crashing into a parked car before fleeing on foot.
“The law enforcement officer caught up to the subject on foot and attempted to apprehend him when the subject began to resist and violently assault the officer,” DHS said.
While the pair struggled, two subjects came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the agent with a snow shovel and broom handle, at which point the suspect broke free and also began hitting the agent with a shovel or broom stick.
“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” DHS said. “The initial subject was hit in the leg. All three subjects ran back into the apartment and barricaded themselves inside. The attacked officer and subject are both in the hospital. Both attackers are in custody.”
The Times, nonetheless, stood by its reporting, saying the article “reflects what we can independently verify at the time of publication. We publish statements provided by government agencies and officials, but only report these details as facts once we’ve been able to independently verify the claims.”
Media Misses
• The Minnesota Star Tribune editorial board is demanding that ICE leave Minneapolis.
“Heavily armed and masked government agents are prone to confront any American they encounter in the street but especially people of certain colors, accents or styles of dress,” the editorial board wrote. “The encounters are often violent. The federal agents operating under the insignia of Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security, functioning largely anonymously, have disrupted the life of large swaths of a state.”
“The occupation of Minnesota by ICE cannot stand,” the board added.
• Columnist M. Gessen writes in a New York Times opinion piece that Renee Good was “summarily executed” by ICE agents for “protesting” a “paramilitary force.”
“After an ICE agent killed Renee Good by shooting her three times at point-blank range in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, President Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other federal officials said the shooting was justified as an act of self-defense (the video shows otherwise) and pointed to Good’s ostensible affiliation with left-wing groups — apparently affirming that protest is now punishable by death in America,” Gessen wrote, later referring to Good’s death as an “execution.” However, Gessen fails to tell readers of the of the shooting: Good was driving her SUV in the direction of ICE officers after ignoring multiple demands to exit her vehicle.
• Buzzfeed — remember Buzzfeed? — is offering readers advice on how to spot “MAGA-Coded Outfits” that “Scream ‘I’m a Republican.’” Those clothing items, apparently, include tweed, Tuckernuck brand clothing, “loud luxury handbags,” pointed-toe nude heels, large cross necklaces, puffy sleeves, and prairie dresses.