Don Lemon to Prominent Muslim Human Rights Lawyer: “Do You Support ISIS?”


After Arsalan Iftikhar, a prominent human rights lawyer and editor, explained at length to CNN’s perpetually clueless Don Lemon why it’s dangerous “to conflate the actions of a very few to a population of 1.7 billion people” when discussing the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Lemon followed up with a stat claiming 16 percent of French citizens support ISIS.

“They obviously have sympathies for that ideology,” Iftikhar said. “I don’t think that would mean they would justify the killing of innocent civilians or murdering people on the streets.”

Unsatisfied with Iftikhar’s response, Lemon says, “I just want to get more specific. Do you support ISIS?”

“…Did you just ask me if I support ISIS?” Iftikhar asked in apparent disbelief. 

“Mmm hmm,” Lemon nodded in confirmation, yet again blinded by the sheer offensiveness of his question.

“I just answered your question. I said that obviously these 16% of people support the ideology, but I don’t think that would necessarily extrapolate to supporting of killing of innocent people. You can have sympathy for an ideology and not support the mass murdering of people.”

Watch below:

(h/t Mediaite)

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate