Frederick Douglass statue torn down in Upstate New York
Rochester police say a statue of the abolitionist was ripped from its base in a park and found by a nearby river.
CNN anchor Don Lemon weighed in on the recent wave of toppled statues and suggested that Americans were taught "propaganda" about the nation's history.
During Monday's nightly handoff with colleague Chris Cuomo, Lemon accused the president of "putting himself in a position" where he is "defending racist, treasonous people" over his support of Confederate statues and his recent tweet suggesting NASCAR made a mistake by banning Confederate flags.
Lemon then defended the recent onslaught of statues that have destroyed by rioters of non-Confederates like Ulysses S. Grant and George Washington, saying "movements are often messy" and how young people "have asked for decades" for the removal of certain statues and now "the chickens are coming home to roost."
"Nobody is erasing history," Lemon told Cuomo. "What people are trying to do is put it in context and these are conversations that we should be having. And yes, they are messy. And sometimes people aren't smart about which statues they should taken down. Fine. If the people on the other side would think, 'Well maybe we should get involved in the conversation about which statues should be taken down, where they should be put, we should meet these people in the middle and discuss these things.' These are the right conversations to be had. We're contextualizing it the wrong way. We're Looking at it the wrong way. And I think that's the issue."
The CNN anchor then asserted to viewers that much of what they learned about American history is "propaganda" and that "some things you have to un-learn so that you can become a better citizen."
"Why not have the mindset of 'Well, maybe we should be taking down some of these statues?'" Lemon asked.
After Cuomo told Lemon that "fear" was driving the discourse and dismissing the notion from President Trump that the rioters were "coming for everything," Lemon noted that "very well-meaning liberals" have similarly expressed opposition towards the removal of statues along with Trump supporters.
The "CNN Tonight" host then why the Founding Fathers are being "deified" like Jesus Christ since they were "not perfect."
"Yes, they did some great things and the created the Constitution and a blueprint for us... but they weren't perfect either," Lemon said. "No one is perfect. Nothing is perfect, not even the Founding Fathers."
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He then took aim at those who support Trump and suggested they're not moving on with the times.
"I think people of color realize that if you're supporting him, you're supporting a racist and you're putting racism on the backburner and people are just not cool with it," Lemon told Cuomo. "