Don Lemon: Trump needs to go back to school for an 'elementary education'

A heated Don Lemon rebuked President Trump's comments Tuesday on the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, saying that by defending the violent white supremacists, "you saw the real Donald Trump, proving all of his critics right in that moment."

The jaw-dropping press conference at Trump Tower was a "sad moment for the country," the CNN anchor said, and Trump's remarks on removing Confederate statues and his inability to distinguish between the so-called "alt-left" and white supremacist groups showed that he is "ignorant of history. He does not know context. He should be ashamed of himself. He should go back to school and get an elementary education on how this country started and about protest groups and how this country works."

Slavery is a major part of the United States' history, and Lemon reminded the CNN panel that "people who look like me did not come over on the Niña, the Pinta, or the Santa Maria. Those people there want to keep people like me enslaved." Lemon then asked the audience to imagine "having to go to a school that has the name of your oppressor on it, or walking into a building and seeing a Confederate flag or a Confederate flag hanging on a government building. Imagine you're a Jewish person in Germany and you have to go to Hitler High School…that would be completely offensive to you on the deepest level and that's how people of color feel when we have to deal with figure likes Robert E. Lee and Confederate flags. It's no different than flying a swastika." Watch the video below. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.