CNN host Don Lemon’s fashion choices infuriated Tucker Carlson on Friday evening—so much so that the Fox News host likened Lemon’s style to self-harm.
To help drive home his oddly specific fashion frustrations about Lemon, Carlson patched in longtime Republican operative and self-described fashion guru Roger Stone.
“He showed up at work the other day dressed like John Fetterman. Kind of a homeless vibe, he was wearing a hoodie with a suit coat,” the Fox News host said to open the segment while concluding that Lemon’s outfit must be a “cry for help.”
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Carlson then welcomed Stone—who has a storied history of publishing a best and worst dressed list each year—to opine about Lemon’s wardrobe.
“I have produced an international best and dressed worst list,” Stone said. The provocateur further declared that the CNN host should now be prepared to find himself in Stone’s “worst” dressed list.
“You are right. This is sartorially wrong from every point of view unless, of course, you’re running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania,” Stone quipped.
Stone then floated the theory that Lemon—who recently donned a white blazer and white t-shirt—is angling for an acting role in a Miami Vice remake.
But then Carlson had to take it a step further.
“There is bad taste, but then if you continue along the spectrum, you get to self-harm, and that is where he is. He is hurting himself,” the Fox News host said before comparing Lemon’s fashion decisions to “cutting” oneself. (A CNN spokesperson didn’t immediately return The Daily Beast’s request for comment on Friday evening.)
Stone responded by calling the world of high fashion a “slippery slope” and then took issue with another one of Lemon’s outfits missing a “formal bowtie.”
“Nobody would wear shorts and a jacket unless, of course, you were in Bermuda. So either it is a reach out for a new constituency, or it is a senatorial cry for help,” Stone added.
Stone has long billed himself as a go-to fashion expert, but his critics argue he has no idea what he’s talking about.
Men’s fashion editor Derek Guy—who appears from time to time in The Washington Post and writes for the fashion blog Put This On—has been far from impressed with Stone’s fashion choices over the years. Guy has joked that a Stone pocket square looked like a “hotel napkin,” one of his dress shirt collars was “giving birth to a tie,” and the dirty trickster should be “found guilty of tampering but innocent of tapering.”
Guy once summarized his thoughts on Stone’s self-proclaimed fashion expertise.
“Roger Stone’s attire comes off as clownish. He claims to like classic menswear, but his actual style is festooned with too many gimmicky elements,” Guy wrote. “Cutaway collar, exploding pocket squares, lapel chain, goofy glasses, etc.”
