President Donald Trump thinks CNN's Don Lemon is "perhaps the dumbest person in broadcasting," Time reports.
During a wide-ranging interview with Time Monday night and posted Thursday, the president also lashed out at CNN's Chris Cuomo – saying he looked like a "chained lunatic" – CBS's "The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert – whom Trump discounted as a "no-talent guy" who talks "filthy" – and MSNBC's "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough, whom Trump thinks has "some problems."
"I don't watch CNN. I don't watch MSNBC," the president told Time. "Scarborough used to treat me great. But because I don't do interviews and stuff and want to.... He went the other way. Which is fine. He's got some problems. But I don't watch the show anymore. It drives him crazy...."
"CNN in the morning, Chris Cuomo, he's sitting there like a chained lunatic," Trump added. "He's like a boiler ready to explode, the level of hatred. And the entire, you know the entire CNN platform is that way."
"This Don Lemon who's perhaps the dumbest person in broadcasting, Don Lemon at night it's like – sometimes they'll have a guest who by mistake will say something good. And they'll start screaming, 'we're going to commercial.' They cut him off. Remember?" he asked.
Independent Journal Review noted Lemon has ended at least two shows abruptly, both at about 4 minutes before the top of the hour.
In one case, Time reported, Lemon closed the show when a guest kept calling CNN "fake news," while another was as a response to GOP strategist Jeffrey Lord repeatedly comparing Trump to Martin Luther King Jr.
The president also brought up "The Late Show" host's caustic May 1 monologue, in which he delivered an oral sex joke about Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin, Time reported.
"You see a no-talent guy like Colbert," Trump said. "There's nothing funny about what he says. And what he says is filthy. And you have kids watching. And it only builds up my base. It only helps me, people like him."
"The guy was dying," he continued. "By the way they were going to take him off television, then he started attacking me and he started doing better. But his show was dying. I've done his show. … But when I did his show, which by the way was very highly rated. It was high—highest rating. The highest rating he's ever had."
The September 2015 episode Trump referenced did generate an above-average rating, Variety reported, though IJR rerouted it isn't clear if it's the show's all-time record. Colbert had debuted as David Letterman's replacement just a few weeks earlier.