Former CNN newscaster Don Lemon is apparently giving more serious consideration to running for president than he previously admitted.
In fact, he’s more than halfway sure he’s running, according to an interview he gave on the Uncloseted Media podcast earlier this week.
After host Spencer Macnaughton asked him about comments he made earlier this year that he was “totally serious” about running for higher office in 2028, Lemon admitted that the odds are 65 to 70% that he will throw his hat in the ring.
Lemon said he’s thinking about applying for the job after noticing similarities with other candidates running for office who are “great with the people.”
He says he often finds that “when I’m out there with [these political candidates], the people are also talking to me in similar ways as they’re talking to them.”
As a result, Lemon is debating whether the “best way” for him to operate in society is “through journalism or if it is through becoming the president of the United States.”
But there might be a caveat: Lemon wants to be wanted.
“If the people want me, I’ll do it,” he said, while admitting that it’s “a daunting undertaking to run for president in this country because you’d have to be devoted to it full-time. And I would like to devote much of my time to journalism.”
You can see the complete interview below.
No word on when Lemon might officially throw his hat in the ring, and it’s unclear which political party he’d run under. Some people might assume he’d run as a Democrat, but last month, he told an interviewer that while people may think he’s liberal, he insisted, “I’m an independent.”
Lemon first floated the idea of running for higher office during a July interview on the “Can’t Be Censored” podcast.
Although he insisted he had no personal political ambitions, he also admitted he thinks he “would be a really good president of the United States,” as long as he could campaign “without having to beg for money.”