Don Lemon Seems to Diss Jon Stewart on Hot Mic and Then Backpedals

CNN anchor Don Lemon seemingly attempted to make a quick on-air recovery on Monday when a hot mic caught him suggesting Jon Stewart “gets a lot of leeway” as a comedian following the ex-Daily Show host’s tense exchange with a Pentagon official.

Last week, Stewart interviewed Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks at the War Horse Symposium in Chicago. In an exchange that went viral on social media, Stewart confronted Hicks on the military’s inability to take care of all of its service members despite its bloated budget.

“I can’t figure out how $850 billion to a department means that the rank and file still have to be on food stamps,” he told the second-ranking defense official. “To me, that’s fucking corruption.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.