Don Lemon Gives First Sit-Down Interview Post CNN Firing: 'I Don't Believe In Platforming Liars And Bigots'

In his first sit-down interview since being fired by CNN, veteran journalist Don Lemon is speaking out against his former boss' mission to take the cable news network in a more centrist direction.

CNN parted ways with Lemon on April 24. Six weeks later, Chris Licht stepped down as Chairman and CEO of CNN Global following a less-than-flattering profile in The Atlantic that painted him as an exec obsessed with following Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav's marching orders to better platform Republican views.

"I don't believe in platforming liars and bigots, insurrectionists and election deniers and putting them on the same footing as people who are telling the truth — people who are fighting for what's right, people who are abiding by the Constitution," Lemon tells ABC News' local Memphis affiliate. "I think that would be a dereliction of journalistic duty to do those sorts of things.

"That is what has gotten me to this point, and that is what is going to carry me forward," Lemon maintains. "To know that I am doing the right thing, to know that I am standing up and abiding by the Constitution, which my profession demands that I do because we are listed in the First Amendment of the Constitution — 'freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press.'"

Lemon's CNN termination came three weeks after our sister site Variety published an exposé in which more than a dozen of Lemon's former and current colleagues outlined a pattern of allegedly misogynistic, inappropriate and "diva-like" behavior at the cable news network, and more than two months after he received backlash for a sexist statement he made on CNN This Morning in February.

He previously told Extra that he had "no regrets" about his 17-year stint at CNN. "I live my life with no regrets, and whatever I did, I did, and I owned," he said. "I don't look back and don't want to change things in the past... Onward."

Watch Lemon's full sit-down with ABC Memphis above, then hit the comments with your reactions.