CNN host Don Lemon on Tuesday night berated House Judiciary Committee Democrats for being unprepared for the testimony of Corey Lewandowski, the first campaign manager of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.
Lemon was speaking with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) when he unleashed on the House Democrats participating in the hearing.
"They make you look bad, they make Democrats, or maybe Democrats are making themselves look bad. It was bad. You guys had — this was bad. This was bad," Lemon said.
Raskin, who serves on the committee, attempted to defend his colleagues by saying he didn't know whether Lemon saw the end of the hearing. Lemon said he did, and knew Raskin was referring to Barry Berke, Judiciary Committee Democrats' consultant attorney, grilling Lewandowski during a cross-examination.
"Why didn't you let him ask the questions first?" Lemon asked.
"Well, we had to torture out of the Republicans the agreement to even allow lawyers to go for 30 minutes," Raskin said. "It is the rules of the House of Representatives that the members get five minutes of questioning, but we said given the fact that we're in impeachment investigation and this is a matter of the highest priority, that we want to have extended questioning by our lawyer, so that was a big fight."
Raskin said the Democrats are the "party of the Constitution and the rule of law now" and said the Republicans are the "chaos party." He also said Republicans are "blowing everything up" and are acting like "drunken adolescents."
"I think that you're too close to the forest. You don't see it. Just as an observer, you're getting played big time," Lemon replied. "When you're getting played, you got to readjust, right? If you're going to be a player, you got to play, right?"
Lemon was not alone in criticizing how Democrats handled the hearing. MSNBC contributor Joyce Vance called the hearing a "disaster" and said, "I don't think that this is going the way Democrats intended for it to go." Lewandowski sparred with several of the House Democrats, including chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (N.Y.) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), whom he jokingly called "President Swalwell," referring to the representative's failed presidential campaign.