CNN host Don Lemon is reportedly going to return to “CNN This Morning” on Wednesday after being absent for nearly a week following his sexist attacks on 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley last Thursday, when he said she wasn’t in her “prime” as a 51-year-old woman.
According to The Wall Street Journal, CNN Chairman and Chief Executive Chris Licht said in a memo to staff on Monday night that he had a “frank and meaningful conversation” with Lemon, who will “participate in formal training.”
Licht added that it was important to him that CNN balanced accountability with a culture “in which people can own, learn and grow from their mistakes.”
During a segment of CNN This Morning last Thursday, Lemon said that “Nikki Haley is not in her prime, sorry, when a woman is considered to be in her prime is her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.”
Co-host Poppy Harlow then stopped him.
“Wait,” Harlow said. “Prime for what?”
Lemon, who is 5 years older than Haley at 56, responded: “I’m just saying what the facts are. Google it. Everybody at home, when is a woman in her prime, it says 20s, 30s and 40s. And I’m just saying Nikki Haley should be careful about saying that politicians are not in their prime, and they need to be in their prime when they serve. Because she wouldn’t be in her prime according to Google or whatever it is.“
Lemon’s comment sparked backlash online, and Haley responded by saying, “It’s always the liberals who are the most sexist.”
Lemon later apologized for the comment but didn’t mention Haley by name.
“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. 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 wrote on Twitter.