Nikki Haley ‘isn’t in her prime’? CNN’s Don Lemon sounded like Donald Trump | Opinion

What do the progressive CNN host Don Lemon and the regressive one-term president Donald Trump have in common?

As of Thursday morning, both seemed to ascribe to the ancient wisdom that says a woman over 40 might as well be dead, or if in Hollywood, playing her male contemporary’s grandmother.

As a woman, newly announced GOP presidential candidate “Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime, sorry,” Lemon declared on “CNN This Morning.” And at age 51, he said, Haley is in no position to question the mental acuity of politicians over 75. Hold up and come again? “When a woman is in their prime,” he said authoritatively, is in her “20s and 30s and maybe 40s.” Maybe.

One of his two female co-anchors, Poppy Harlow, responded with astonishment — “Wait!” — while the other, Kaitlan Collins, whom Lemon has in the past accused of interrupting him on air, did no such thing on Thursday. Instead, she let him just keep on digging. (“Enjoy China!” the look on her face said.)

“That’s not according to me,” that a woman’s “prime” is so brief, Lemon answered Harlow.

“Prime for what?” she asked.

“It depends. It’s just like, prime. If you look it up, if you Google, ‘When is a woman in her prime?’ it’ll say 20s, 30s, 40s … I’m not saying I agree with that.” But at 51, he repeated, Haley “has to be careful about saying that, you know, politicians are in their prime” since she herself isn’t, either.

Whether you support her or not, that’s absurd. Haley has served as the governor of South Carolina and under Trump, as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She has more relevant experience than anyone in her 20s or 30s could.

“Are you talking about prime for, like, childbearing?” Harlow wondered. “Or are you talking about prime for being president?”

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Lemon told her. “I’m just saying what the facts are. Google it. Everybody at home, when is a woman in her prime? It says 20s, 30s and 40s. I’m just saying Nikki Haley should [be] careful about saying that [politicians] are not in their prime, and they need to be in their prime when they serve. She would not be in her prime according to Google or whatever it is.”

Lemon citing “Google or whatever” as his rock-solid source hopefully has CNN CEO Chris Licht wondering whether this is really the kind of “refreshing conversation” the show claims to be going for.

Since you can’t even run for president until you’re 35, was Lemon saying that women have “maybe” only a five-year window in which to do that?

If he was trying to call out the ageism in Haley’s idea that all pols over 75 should submit to cognitive testing, answering ageism with more of the same, along with some sexism, wasn’t the way to go about it.

But at Mar-a-Lago, the Don who makes news instead of dissecting it must have heard these appalling comments and nodded. He’s made plenty of creepy comments about extremely young women, even admiringly saying years ago that Jeffrey Epstein is “a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Trump’s actual interest in women of any age always seemed performative, and limited by his perpetual immaturity to the grabbiness and trophy collecting he’s bragged about.

But it’s more surprising that Lemon, who is engaged to Tim Malone, didn’t let his race or politics or sexual orientation or age, which is 56, keep him from sounding like Hugh Hefner circa 1960.

By Thursday afternoon, Lemon had tweeted the predictable apology: “The reference I made to a woman’s ‘prime’ this morning was inartful and irrelevant, as colleagues and loved ones have pointed out, and I regret it. A woman’s age doesn’t define her either personally or professionally. I have countless women in my life who prove that every day.”

His reference wasn’t inartful, but antediluvian. And the women in his life should not have had to tell him so.

Melinda Henneberger: @MelindaSacBee