CNN's Don Lemon abruptly ended a segment about Donald Trump's recent comments towards Hillary Clinton after a guest steered the conversation into an attack on Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
Conservative pundit Kurt Schlichter was one of two guests who appeared on Lemon's show on Tuesday. Their topic was Trump's remarks at a campaign rally that Hillary Clinton's delayed return to a televised debate last week was "disgusting" because she'd used a restroom during a commercial break. Trump also said that Clinton had "got schlonged" when she lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama in 2008.
Schlichter's appearance started affably, with Lemon laughing after his guest said, "This is why I hate the media, Don, because you make me defend Donald Trump. This is ridiculous."
But the tone got frosty as Schlichter justified Trump's comments when he crassly compared them to former President Clinton's affair with Lewinsky.
“Don, it’s gonna take a lot more for me to get upset at a woman who enabled a guy who turned the Oval Office into a frat house and his intern into a humidor," Schlichter said. "[Trump's]'s running against a sexual harasser and abuser's enabler. So again, I don't know why we're not talking about that."
In his response, Lemon sounded irritated.
"We're not talking about that because it has nothing to do with what happened. She's not her husband. Her husband has been impeached for that," Lemon said.
"We're talking about his [Trump's] own action and his own individual merit. If you're talking about Hillary Clinton, then bring Hillary Clinton's actions into it."
Schlichter took one last jab before Lemon pulled the plug on the interview. "When she was given the choice of standing with a serial sexual abuser," he said. But at this point, Lemon talks over him, repeatedly telling him to stop.
"This is the lowest of the low and it has nothing to do with Hillary ClintonI. It is just a cheap shot," Lemon said. "Can we end this? Thank you. We're done."
Today, Schlichter continued joking on Twitter about his unexpectedly short appearance on CNN.
HuffPost Pollster, which averages all publicly available polling data, places Clinton as the top Democratic candidate at 57.2 percent, while Trump leads the Republican contenders at 38 percent.
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