Don Lemon makes post-arrest appearance on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!': 'They want to instill fear'

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Making his first major post-arrest television interview Monday on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Don Lemon detailed the moments surrounding his incarceration and his experience as a journalist becoming the center of a news story.“There’s a lot that I cannot say,” Lemon told Kimmel.

“But what I will say is that I’m not a protester.I went there to be a journalist.

I went there to chronicle and document and record what was happening ...I do think that there is a difference between a protester and a journalist.”The appearance arrived less than a week after the former CNN anchor — now an independent journalist who hosts a YouTube show — was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles following his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church earlier this month.

Lemon, 59, was released without bond Friday and is expected to plead not guilty, according to his attorneys.California Lemon was taken into custody early Friday in Los Angeles while covering the upcoming Grammy Awards.

His arrest is related to an anti-ICE protest in Minnesota last week.On Monday’s show, Kimmel began the conversation by asking Lemon how he was feeling: “I don’t know — that’s an honest answer,” Lemon said.“I’m OK.

I’m not going to let them steal my joy, but this is very serious.These are federal criminal charges.”Lemon was arrested — along with three others in attendance at the protest — at the direction of Atty.

Gen.Pam Bondi, who said on X that it was in connection to what she described as a “coordinated attack” on the church, located in St.

Paul.Lemon is charged with conspiracy to deprive the church congregants of their rights and interfering by force with someone’s First Amendment rights.

Lemon has denied participating in the protest at the church — assembled to decry that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field officer apparently serves as a past...