(New York Post) Don Lemon was conspicuously absent from “CNN This Morning” on Friday just 24 hours after he put his foot in his mouth with a sexist comment about 51-year-old Nikki Haley being “not in her prime” — prompting his co-host, Poppy Harlow, to walk off the set.
Friday morning’s awkward broadcast started with a short clip featuring Harlow, who is on location in Salt Lake City where she is covering NBA All-Star weekend festivities, interviewing TNT’s star basketball commentators Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith.
The camera then panned to co-host Kaitlan Collins, who was seated next to Audie Cornish, the former National Public Radio journalist who was sitting in for the 56-year-old Lemon.
“Don has the day off,” Collins said at the top of the broadcast, failing to elaborate on Lemon’s absence — much less mentioning Thursday’s disastrous blowup — as she introduced Cornish.
“Poppy, as you can see, is in Utah for the NBA All-Star Game, so we’ll get to that and much more in a moment,” Collins tells viewers before she and Cornish tackled the top news stories of the morning.
“CNN This Morning” co-host Don Lemon was conspicuously absent from the set on Friday.
.@AudieCornish is co-anchoring CNN This Morning with @kaitlancollins! pic.twitter.com/Z9vWYgzQ0N
— Joanna Preston (@JoPrestonTV) February 17, 2023
Lemon’s rant on Thursday has ratcheted up the pressure on CNN boss Chris Licht to fire the former prime time star, The Post has learned.
Lemon on Thursday posted a tweet which read: “The reference I made to a woman’s ‘prime’ this morning was inartful and irrelevant, as colleagues and loved ones have pointed out, and I regret it.”
Co-host Kaitlan Collins was seated next to Audie Cornish, who filled in for Lemon.CNN
“A woman’s age doesn’t define her either personally or professionally. I have countless women in my life who prove that every day,” Lemon tweeted.
