-Have you ever been in any moment like this in your career,
and would you compare this to anything?
-I mean, I went through Ferguson.
I went through Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
I've been in, you know, in the middle of it.
As we're talking about people who are protesting
and that sort of thing. -Yeah.
-But I have not been in anything that is this surreal
and where we're really -- we're at a precipice right now.
We're at a moment where people need to understand
that, if you believe in law and order,
then you need to believe
in equal treatment by the law, right?
If you care about keeping law and order,
then you need to care about lives
as much as you care about property.
And so, if you're concerned and upset
about property being lost and things being burned,
which is -- which is -- it should not be happening.
I'm not condoning that --
but you should care equally
about the lives that have been lost.
And if you -- -Yeah.
-And when someone says,
"I don't -- I don't condone the action,
I don't agree with the action, but I understand the anger,"
right?
And then the --
the answer to that or the response to that is,
"Well, then, yes, you are --
then you are telling people to go out there and riot."
No, I'm not telling people to go out there and riot.
But tell me what the proportional response
to mass murder over the years is.
What is a proportional response to that?
-Yeah. -When you -- When you --
When people have --
Dr. King wanted peaceful nonviolence.
They killed him.
Things got marginally better. We got --
Well, things got better, but not perfect.
We never reached the Dr. King dream.
And then let's just move forward to Colin Kaepernick,
who got -- who sought the advice of a war veteran,
took a knee, peacefully protested
during the national anthem. -Totally peaceful.
-Totally peaceful.
Knee, right?
The metaphor -- I mean, it writes itself,
and then you have the knee now. -Yeah.
-So if you don't want people to protest peacefully,
if you don't get anything -- he got fired.
He lost his job in the NFL, was castigated.
The president called him son -- a son -- sons of bitches --
right? -- with --
and all the other people in the NFL.
And then, when people are upset because it happens --
the very thing that he was fighting for
happens in front of our very eyes
and people become upset and they take to the streets
and they start to protest,
and then you say,
"Well, why aren't you protesting peacefully?"
Well, we -- they -- you tried.
So what would -- what do you have people do...
-Yeah. -...who are trying to have
their issues looked at?
What do you -- What would you have them do?
The government's not doing it. -Yeah.
-So what do you do?
You can't -- You're gonna --
You want to tell people how to protest,
but you can't accept either doing it peacefully or not.
And so, if there is no avenue
to protest peacefully or to protest not peacefully,
then that means that you have made a calculation in your head
that black people in this country
have no means -- or to have rights,
the same rights that you have,
especially when it comes to the police department --
or just at all --
'cause you can't protest peacefully,
and you can't get radical, as you would call it.
So, then, what's -- what -- what's the means?
What do you do?
-Is there anything you've seen from the past week
that maybe is a silver lining or anything positive or...?
-Yes, that this country is broken,
or maybe it needs to be broken in order to fix it.
And maybe that's what we're doing right now.
I don't like seeing all the violence,
I don't like seeing the rioting, but I do --
I am heartened by all the young people who are out there,
fighting for their rights,
and who are saying enough is enough
and the time has come,
and by the diversity of people who are out there.
It's not just black kids, it's not just kids of color --
it's white kids out there, too --
young people and older people, and they've had enough.
And I think that maybe it has to break all the way down
so that we can fix it and put it back together.
And I know some people may think that sounds ominous,
but, for me, that's positive -- that's a glass half-full,
'cause we cannot go back to the way it was.
We can't.
-Don Lemon, keep crushing it.
And I really -- I watch you every single night.
Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for all of this.
And I can't wait to talk to you, hopefully in person, soon.
-Yes, absolutely.
Thank you, my brother. -Bye, bud.