CNN’s Don Lemon and FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly may not go head to head on television – O’Reilly hits cable airwaves at 8 p.m., Lemon’s show begins at 10 – but it takes more than a two-hour primetime discrepancy to keep two TV titans from squaring off on social media.
On Tuesday afternoon, Lemon responded to an O’Reilly Twitter post by saying, among other things, “False.”
Lemon’s social message was in response to an earlier tweet from the rival cable news host, one in which O’Reilly claimed Monday’s edition of “CNN Tonight” failed to cover a recent story surrounding Susan Rice and alleged improper handling of national intelligence.
The O’Reilly post pushed audiences to a short snippet of a Lemon segment from the previous evening, a clip featuring the anchor’s pledge to not “aid and abet” those trying to misinform the American people through claims that Donald Trump or his team had been surveilled, or spied upon.
Though the video was paired with a description suggesting Lemon had “declared his show a Rice-free zone,” content from the program suggests otherwise.
As promised off the top, Lemon and an assortment of expert guests devoted a wide swath of television time to Rice and the day’s claims that President Obama’s former national security adviser had used government secrets to push a political agenda.
Rice has since vehemently denied the Trump administrations accusations.