Don Lemon Makes Gabby Petito Case About Race

CLAY: Another story that has just exploded everywhere — I mean, everybody’s been talking about it. We haven’t discussed it. I don’t think we even mentioned it, Buck, on the show at all, is all of the stories surrounding Gabby Petito and what exactly happened to her. Unfortunately, they have found her body and they are looking for her boyfriend.

And they can’t find the boyfriend now. This has been going on for several weeks. It’s a murder mystery drama that has been covered aggressively by the media. Well, Don Lemon decided to weigh in and say: Hey, the reason why the boyfriend was not getting questioned aggressively by police is because he’s white.

LEMON: It seems unusual that someone who was possibly the last person to see Gabby — definitely before she disappeared and possibly or probably before she perished — is somehow allowed to go scot-free, roam scot-free and get away with it. Look, he’s not a suspect. I get that. But just not even talk to police through an attorney? Nobody watched to see his whereabouts and, all of a sudden, he’s gone? No one knows where he is? That just seems odd to me and it seems like this isn’t… Look. Not about race, but it’s about something that people not of privilege, it doesn’t seem like they have the opportunity to do that.

BUCK: Wait. First of all —

CLAY: I do not understand that.

BUCK: He said it’s not about race? The chances are the next thing he talks about is going to be some analysis of the situation through a racial prism of some kind.

CLAY: I’m not even sure… I know this guy has his own television show, Buck.

BUCK: I used to do his television show when I worked at CNN for years, so I know how Don Lemon… (laughing) I know the Don Lemon analysis well, for better or for worse.

CLAY: I don’t even understand what he’s saying there. Look, my understanding is, again, they wanted to talk to him. He retained lawyers. Lawyers are always going to tell you, if you want to be talked to in conjunction with a crime, don’t do it.

BUCK: Clay, your first mistake here is thinking that Don Lemon legal analysis is rooted in any understanding whatsoever of the law. Clay, this is —

CLAY: What is the “privilege” that he’s even arguing for?

BUCK: Is the boyfriend rich? The only privilege he could be talking about would be the boyfriend’s white, right? I haven’t been following the case very closely.

CLAY: A white guy and a white girl.

BUCK: So the only privilege that he could seem to be talking about would be that I’m aware of, would be white privilege. And so therefore it is in fact some kind of a analysis of this through a race prism.

CLAY: Is he discussing it from the wealth privilege perspective? OJ had pretty good attorneys, right? The more wealthy you are, the better attorneys you have.

BUCK: Asking Don Lemon to do legal analysis is like asking Nancy Pelosi to do astrophysics or something. This is just not gonna work. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

CLAY: Isn’t it just such an incompetent level? What is CNN doing that this is the guy that they’ve got out there as their expert on the way the world works today? And I was just listening to that, and I’m thinking, “There’s no logical basis or reality to it.”