By Russell Clark of the Capital Flows and Asset Markets substack

A large number of economic thinkers that I respect are calling for peak inflation, and that interest rates increases have topped out. With oil prices down from USD 120 a barrel to USD 77 today, this would be a strong indication of reduced inflation pressure. For “peak inflationistas” the cherry on the top would be this week’s cover of the Economist, warning that inflation will be harder to contain than people think. The Economist has a long and illustrious career as a “contra” (a contra is somewhere who gets market calls consistently wrong). Peak inflationistas even have the benefit of financial markets agreeing with them, with US 2/10 year yield curve as inverted as it gets. Inversion really is the markets way of saying that they don’t believe central banks will raise interest rates any further.

Is the Economist wrong again? Just looking at US CPI YoY, it already peaked out and started falling, and with the bond market in inversion, it does like the Economist leader writers have proven why they are writers and not hedge fund managers.

But, these days I place politics as more important than economics in doing financial analysis. From this perspective, I do not see central banks, and particularly the Fed going dovish until they get food inflation under control. Rising food prices are political dynamite. So lets us look at the most recent US CPI data from a food inflation perspective. On a year over year basis it is still rising at 10%, and even though it is slowing a little, it still doing 10% on high comps from a year ago.

What I really like about food inflation is that it is universal and easily understandable. A Birkin bag or a Panerai costing 30% more is not inflation that matters to most people. But the price of bread and meat? That matters to everyone. What is really great about the US CPI data is that it breaks down white bread and meat CPI back to pre World War II. White bread CPI is still rising at nearly 20% year on year, while meat CPI is back to 2% year on year.

For CPI calculations, food CPI is given a total weight of 13.5%, with bread having a weight of 0.2% and meat having 1% weight. This means that soaring bread prices should not really be that important to Federal Reserve and other western central banks. But soaring bread prices are very important to politicians – certainly more than the CPI weightings given above. For me the question comes down to whether the meat index is right, or the bread index is right. Or in other words, will bread prices fall back, or will meat prices spike? One of the best things about free market capitalism, is that incentives are transparent. For US pork farmers are currently disincentivised to farm pigs. The price of hogs relative to corn are at close to 40 year lows, meaning that hog prices are not covering the cost of feed (which is mainly corn).

With hog farmers disincentivized to farm hogs, then one of two things must happen – corn prices must fall, or hog prices will rise. When we look at the corn market, we see that China has become a major buyer of US corn.

This is despite the Chinese placing tariffs on corn imports that have meant that Chinese corn prices are much higher than US prices.

In other words, geo-politics has driven China to have high food prices, which it now exporting back to the rest of the world. Just as we have seen with Covid, it is possible for the Chinese to change policies, but self sufficiency in food production seems to be a key policy for China. With Chinese activity picking up, my guess is that corn prices globally will remain high, which means feed prices will stay high, and meat inflation will catch up to bread inflation. In my view food inflation is still ongoing, and hence central banks will keep raising rates.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

In the wake of CNN’s last remaining woke host being sidelined for making a ‘sexist’ and ‘ageist’ remark about Nikki Haley, a video of Don Lemon from 2013 in which he surprisingly speaks sense has gone viral.

The video shows Lemon talking about what the black community should do to fix its problems, including stop littering, and encouraging kids to try harder in school.

The host also extols the virtues of marriage, and warns about the problem of absent fathers, asserting “just because you can have a baby doesn’t mean you should.”

Lemon even tells young black men to stop using the N word and to pull up their pants and stop walking around with their asses hanging out looking like prison bitches.

Imagine the meltdown that would occur if Lemon spoke like this today, just 10 years later:

2023 Don Lemon would call 2013 Don Lemon a white supremacist https://t.co/fFhbgSGw1M

— The Woke Antidote Podcast (@TheWokeAntidote) February 19, 2023

.@donlemon in 2013 talking about how black people can make their communities better before he got infected by the Woke virus pic.twitter.com/T3ahnHh1c4

— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) February 19, 2023

Some pointed out how frightening it is that things changed so monumentally because of the woke mid virus:

It’s terrifying how fast society fell off the cliff

10 years ago Obama, Hillary, and Biden were defining marriage as “a man and a woman”

10 years ago Don Lemon was telling black people “pull your pants up”

10 years ago Dems only supported “safe, legal, and rare” abortions

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 19, 2023

What happened to that guy?

Video: CNN’s Lemon Blames Anti-Mask Conservatives For Rise in TRAFFIC ACCIDENT DEATHS

Video: CNN’s Lemon Says Unvaccinated “Idiots” Like Novak Djokovic Shouldn’t Be Part Of “Polite Society”

CNN’s Don Lemon Claims Black on Black Violence Has Nothing to do With Black Lives Matter

After Pro-Mask, Anti-Florida Rants, Don Lemon Takes a Maskless Vacation in Florida

Video: CNN’s Lemon Says Trump Supporters Are Like Drug Addicts

Photos, Maskless Fauci Hangs Out With Leftist Media Puppets At Crowded Dinner Party

Video: Pathetic CNN Scrambles To Sweep Rogan/Gupta Exchange Under The Carpet

*  *  *

Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

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By Michael Every of Rabobank

Politico managed to achieve the most click-worthy title this weekend – ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it – and Munich feels nervous.’ I will return to the Munich Security Conference in a moment, but first let’s look at a snapshot of recent economic trends:

• US core PCE inflation on Friday is expected 0.4% m-o-m and 4.3% y-o-y, more than double the rate of the Fed’s 2% CPI mandate.
• Between Q4 2019 and Q1 2021, as services spending collapsed and pandemic assistance programs flowed, total US credit card debt fell from $930bn to $770bn. In Q3 2021, it started to rise, and in Q4 2022 leaped $61bn, the largest increase since 1999, to hit a record $986bn. Whether people are borrowing and spending because of the economy, or because they have no choice because of the economy, it is happening.
• @GuyDealership says: “Used car prices are *skyrocketing* at a concerning pace. Prices have increased 4.1% so far this month: The LARGEST February increase since 2009. Buckle up.” However, delinquencies on car loans are also soaring.
• Labor hoarding continues in construction due to the backlog of work that wasn’t done during Covid and as state spending picks up.
• The Washington Post says ‘Biden’s ‘Buy America’ bid runs into manufacturing woes it aims to fix: Infrastructure officials complain they can’t find US suppliers for items they need to buy American by law.’ That sounds inflationary.
• As we focus on US wage growth, Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits for approximately 70m Americans will increase 8.7% in 2023. That flows through to those with the highest marginal propensity to consume: pensioners who have done their life-time saving, and those at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid.
• Recent liquidity expansion by the BOJ and PBOC, as well as the use of the US Treasury General Account balance, is arguably countering the effects of Fed QT. (And on QE, the late Shinzo Abe’s memoir notes: “Issuing JGBs for COVID stimulus checks does not mean that debt is being passed onto our grandchildren. The Bank of Japan purchases all government bonds. The Bank of Japan is like a subsidiary of the government so there is no problem.”)
• Outside the US, rate hikes are hurting. Australia’s Westpac has warned that almost half of its A$471bn in home loans were written using interest rate buffers that are set to be exceeded.

The key question is this: do the Fed keep going until they break things; or do they stop and admit 3-4% CPI is good enough?

Both of those outcomes imply the end of the world as we have long known it in markets. The first is an argument for bear flattening in bonds, a collapse in everything except bonds, and of everything against the dollar. The second implies bear steepening in bonds, a rally in everything else as an inflation hedge, and a collapse of the dollar against everything else.

So, back to Munich. This key security conference was covered by Bloomberg, but desperation to believe the world they represent is not ending saw its headline writers spin that the US and China were “talking”. Yes – except the US accused Beijing of unacceptable behaviour over spy-balloons, and claimed China is considering providing “lethal support” to aid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. China effectively called the US a warmonger while trying to woo Europe, and on Sunday warned the US it would “bear all the consequences” if it escalated the balloon further.

Moreover, US talk about Russia was equally confrontational. Vice-President Harris accused Moscow of crimes against humanity, climbing a ladder that will be very hard to come down from. UK Prime Minister Sunak is lobbying to send Ukraine the most advanced NATO weapons. China will release its peace plan on the first anniversary of the war on Friday: the West is sceptical.   

This matters as the geopolitical is now the geoeconomic. NATO chief Stoltenberg directly stated Europe’s dependency on Russian gas was dismissed as being economic, not security-related before February 2022 and that the EU should not make the same mistake with China, or others, by depending on their raw materials or exporting key technologies to them. Of course, such talk is cheap. Indeed, geopolitical thinker Michta noted in a sombre analysis:  

“Was this what 1938 felt like before the German Nazi rape of Czechoslovakia? Satiated countries in the West issuing solemn assurances to Prague and others, but knowing deep in their bones that those checks would not be cashed?  Because it was somebody else’s business, not ours?…

Rhetoric is not policy. I’ve sat through too many discussions where everything has been said but not by everyone, so we droned on… It’s not rocket science. It’s about spending the money to produce weapons and munitions so we can send them to Ukraine. It’s about agreeing what the end state should look like not for Ukraine, but for all of us. It’s about imagination, leadership and courage.”

It is also about supply chains, on/friend-shoring, massive defence spending, capital controls – and then inflation and interest rates. One can no longer look at the latter in isolation.

Relatedly, Senator Hawley just gave a speech ‘China and Ukraine: A Time for Truth’ hammering home that the US cannot do what is it doing in Ukraine and step up in the Pacific, and arguing Europe must defend itself –and Ukraine– now. Neither Europe nor markets grasp the tail risk of what this shift in US stance would entail, just as they ignored Trump in early 2016, and didn’t read Marx ahead of China’s Common Prosperity. Even for the US, Hawley claims:

“Suppose China invades and seizes Taiwan. We try to stop it, but our forces are defeated and the island is lost. What would that mean?… Americans will confront a new, terrifying reality. Every American will feel it. The price hikes and disruptions we’ve seen in recent years will pale in comparison. Product shortages will be commonplace – shortages of everything from basic medicine to consumer electronics. According to some estimates, a war over Taiwan would send us into a deep recession with no clear way out, since huge swaths of our economy run on Taiwanese semiconductors. But the economic consequences are just the start. 

If China takes Taiwan, it will be able to station its own military forces there. It can then use its position as a springboard for further conquest and intimidation – against Japan, the Philippines, and other Pacific islands, like Guam and the Northern Marianas… As Asia’s new reigning power, China could restrict US trade in the region – perhaps block it altogether. Maybe we’ll be allowed in, but only on terms favourable to China. China exploited the trade system once before. They can do it again…

Imagine a world where Chinese warships patrol Hawaiian waters, and Chinese submarines stalk the California coastline. A world where the PLA has military bases in Central and South America. A world where Chinese forces operate freely in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.” Hawley’s proposed solution to prevent this “dark future” is “a nationalist foreign policy. A foreign policy in the spirit of Alexander Hamilton and Theodore Roosevelt. A nationalist foreign policy places America’s interests first. And deterring China from seizing Taiwan should be America’s top priority.”

Meanwhile, today’s headlines are also that inspectors say Iran’s uranium processing has almost reached nuclear weapons-grade purity (as they stand next to Russia and China); and North Korea just tested both short-range missiles and an ICBM that might soon be capable of holding a nuke. Both developments make urgent US, and European, action more likely. I don’t mean rate cuts.

One does not have to worry about the end of the world per se, but the world we knew is ending: in geopolitics; in geoeconomics; in monetary policy; and, with a lag, in markets

mRNA vaccine maker Moderna has backpedaled on a January plan to charge $110 to $130 per dose of Covid-19 vaccine (up from $26 per dose for booster shots), and is now promising that people won’t have to pay for the jab once the US Government stops buying shots.

“Moderna remains committed to ensuring that people in the United States will have access to our COVID-19 vaccines regardless of ability to pay,” the company said in a statement, adding that the vaccine “will continue to be available at no cost for insured people whether they receive them at their doctors’ offices or local pharmacies.”

Those without insurance – or whose insurance is inadequate, will be able to get jabbed “at no cost” via a Moderna assistance program.

As The Epoch Times notes,

Because the COVID-19 vaccines were added to the child immunization schedule, children whose families cannot pay for the vaccine will be eligible to receive them for free, with taxpayers covering the cost.

That would happen through a program called Vaccines for Children.

Advisers to the government, who recommended the addition to the schedule, said it was because the vaccines can prevent severe illness. The new vaccines, poised to replace the original shots, are not backed by any clinical trial data yet.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that the only reason the vaccines were placed on the schedule was so they could be covered by the Vaccines for Children program.

“It was the only way that our uninsured children would be able to have access to the vaccines,” Walensky said during a congressional hearing on Feb. 8. “That was the reason to put it on the schedule.”

*  *  *

The announcement comes amid a collapse in demand for Covid-19 vaccines.

According to analyst estimates, Pfizer, Moderna, Gilead Sciences, AstraZeneca and Merck could suffer a drop in sales of nearly two-thirds, Reuters reports.

“We remain skeptical that COVID revenues will grow in 2024 and beyond,” said JPMorgan analyst Chris Schott in a recent research note, adding that vaccination rates could drop even further than the significant decline already seen in booster shots last year.

Moderna also expects 2023 revenue to drop sharply.

The company’s only product – its messenger RNA COVID vaccine – pulled in around $18.4 billion in 2022. Analysts expect that to drop to around $7 billion in 2023. The company is due to report earnings later this month.

Oppenheimer & Co analyst Hartaj Singh said investors are “frustrated Moderna hasn’t used their firepower more effectively to prepare for revenues and earnings going down in 2023 or 2024.” -Reuters

What changed?

Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Three undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers joined the march of protesters up the northwest side of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—including one who climbed over a barricade and pushed others toward the Capitol, and another who walked behind Ashli Babbitt and predicted that “someone will get shot,” according to newly disclosed court documents.

New court motions filed by Jan. 6 defendant William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, also show MPD bicycle officers stopping four armed men in plainclothes on Jan. 6. The men turned out to be federal agents. Video included with Pope’s filings also shows uniformed MPD officers saying, “we were set up” to fail on Jan. 6.

Information in the court papers will rekindle the debate about the role that undercover officers and agents played in the riots of Jan. 6 and why the U.S. Department of Justice and federal judges have kept the evidence under seal and away from public view.

“This video clearly evidences undercover law enforcement officers urging the crowds to advance up the stairs and scaffolding towards the Capitol on January 6,” Pope wrote in one motion. “The government may claim that incidents like this did not happen, but the facts show they did.

“Since the government cannot be trusted to disclose these facts,” Pope wrote, “it becomes even more important that defense teams, including Pro Se defendants, be able to directly examine the evidence.”

The three undercover MPD officers approached the northwest corner of the Capitol grounds at about 1:40 p.m. on Jan. 6, one of the motions states. Officer 1, who was filming their journey, joined the crowd chanting, “Drain the swamp!”

When a group of men ran past them toward the Capitol, Officer 2—wearing a Trump beanie—remarked, “Those guys are getting shot,” the motion said.

At the base of the scaffold stairs, Officer 1 joined the crowd in a chant, “Whose house? Our house!”

“Officer 1 began yelling at people in front of him to ‘Go, go, go!’ As they climbed bicycle racks, Officer 1 yelled for the crowd to ‘help him up, help him up!” followed by ‘push him up, push him up!’” the motion reads of Pope describing how Officer 1 climbed over a barricade.

“Needing help to get up, Officer 1 asked a nearby man to give him a boost,” the motion says. “The man gives Officer 1 a lift up, and Officer 1 says ‘Thanks, bro.’”

Officer 1 pushed protesters in front of him to advance on the Capitol, shouting, “c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, let’s go!,” the motion said. People around him climbed over bike-rack-style barricades and scaffolding that had been set up for the presidential inauguration.

Right Behind Ashli Babbitt

At one point, Officers 2 and 3 were almost directly behind Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt on the exterior stairs, about an hour before Babbitt was gunned down at the entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby, Pope said in a Twitter post on Feb. 18.

“Why hasn’t the government informed the public that undercover MPD officers were chanting, ‘Our house!’ and repeatedly urging protesters to advance up the northwest steps of the Capitol on January 6?” Pope wrote on Twitter under his handle @FreeStateWill. “Officer 2 said someone would get shot and went up right behind Ashli Babbitt.”

Video shot by the undercover officers is under court seal.

Pope argued in his motions that the DOJ is trying to prevent him from accessing the full Jan. 6 evidence databases. He is defending himself against seven criminal counts brought by federal prosecutors in February 2021. He asked U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras to compel the DOJ to give him full access to discovery materials.

Read more here…

Not surprisingly, Sen. Lindsey Graham is leading the “stand up to Russia” charge among GOP Congressional hawks, saying in an interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that China has been put on notice regarding any potential military support to Russia amid its Ukraine war. 

“If you jump on the Putin train, you’re dumber than dirt,” the South Carolina Republican said in response to reports of China mulling lethal aid to Ukraine. He stressed it will unleash huge international blowback on Beijing if they follow through, and will prove a losing proposition from the start. “It would be like buying a ticket on the Titanic after you saw the movie,” he continued in the interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.”

On Monday afternoon, a large explosion rocked a metal manufacturing plant just east of Cleveland, Ohio, sparking a fire and sending a massive column of black smoke into the sky. 

Fox News said the explosion occurred at I Schumann & Co. metal plant in Bedford. The company produces metal alloys. 

The black smoke billowing into the sky is reminiscent of the East Palestine controlled burn of toxic chemicals earlier this month. Law enforcement in Bedford has yet to say if the smoke is toxic to surrounding communities. 

🚨 JUST IN: Eye witness video of the massive metal facility explosion in Bedford, Ohio — mass casualty incident declared:

“Wow, that’s f-cking insane!” pic.twitter.com/cAlou0aDHi

— Upward News (@UpwardNewsHQ) February 20, 2023

Multiple victims burned after massive explosion at a metal manufacturing plant in Bedford, Ohio

pic.twitter.com/uOsHqNAQ8b

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 20, 2023

⚠️ @IntelPointAlert || ‘Mass Casualty Incident’ reported following explosion at metal manufacturing plant in Bedford, Ohio; massive response underway pic.twitter.com/ibbHfHkhhm

— PiQ (@PriapusIQ) February 20, 2023

Large explosion at metals making plant in Bedford, Ohio. Reports of multiple victims pic.twitter.com/B2DJRwiHaZ

— BNO News Live (@BNODesk) February 20, 2023

Here’s another video of the fire. 

⚠️ HAPPENING NOW: Huge fire breaks out following mass casualty explosion at a metal facility in Bedford, Ohio. pic.twitter.com/FhyUT60L5z

— Upward News (@UpwardNewsHQ) February 20, 2023

Emergency services have requested several medical helicopters. There are reports this could be a ‘mass casualty incident.’ 

DEVELOPING: ‘Mass Casualty Incident’ reported following explosion at metal manufacturing plant in Bedford, Ohio; massive response underway pic.twitter.com/J7DOcqBf9F

— Intel Point Alert (@IntelPointAlert) February 20, 2023

The cause of the blast is unknown at this time. 

Three years after the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) pulled GSK Plc’s heartburn drug Zantac off the market due to suspected links to cancer, and just two weeks before the trial begins of a man who alleges he developed bladder cancer after taking the drug, Bloomberg Businessweek revealed in a new report the pharmaceutical company’s scientists have long knew about the drug’s risks. 

Bloomberg’s lengthy report highlighted GSK scientists and independent researchers understood that ranitidine had a cancer-causing carcinogen known as N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). The drug was approved in 1983 as “Zantac” to treat acute duodenal ulcers and later as a remedy for heartburn. 

By the late 1980s, Zantac was worth a whopping $2 billion, making it one of the most profitable drugs ever. It accounted for about half of Glaxo’s sales and 53% of the market for prescription ulcer medications. 

Then use of Zantac soared further by the mid-1990s when the FDA approved it as an over-the-counter medication. GSK eventually controlled the heartburn remedy market for decades. 

Bloomberg said GSK “backed flawed research designed to minimize concerns and chose not to routinely transport and store the medication in ways that could have eased the problem.” 

“Glaxo sold a drug that might harm people, tried to discount evidence of that and never gave anyone the slightest warning,” Bloomberg continued, adding its team of journalists reviewed “thousands of pages,” including court filings and studies. 

Four decades of dominating the heartburn market and building a pharmaceutical empire around it — abruptly stopped several years ago for GSK. In September 2019, the FDA received a report that made claims about ranitidine containing high levels NDMA. Shortly after that, in April 2020, the FDA pulled all ranitidine products from the market over the cancer-causing risks surrounding NDMA. 

Trust the science https://t.co/wH5fsKPqkv

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 20, 2023

The FDA stated concerns about the storage methods of the drug, indicating:

“NDMA levels increase in ranitidine even under normal storage conditions … And NDMA has been found to increase significantly in samples stored at higher temperatures, including temperatures the product may be exposed to during distribution and handling by consumers.”

According to Bloomberg, the FDA found 357ng of NDMA in Zantac, a level four times higher than what’s acceptable in any FDA-approved drug. And what’s frightening is that NDMA levels soared to 931ng in the same product five months later. 

And just how many people are suing manufacturers of Zantac or generic versions? 

More than 70,000 people who took Zantac or generic versions of it are suing the company in US state courts for selling a potentially contaminated and dangerous drug. –Bloomberg 

The first trial of a man who alleges he developed bladder cancer after taking Zantac will begin Feb. 27 before Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo. This will be the first test to see how cancer-causing Zantac claims holds up in state courts. 

Project Veritas founder and CEO James O’Keefe is exiting the organization.

O’Keefe announced to his staff Monday that he was leaving over a conflict in vision between himself and the board in an poignant 15-minute video.

“Throughout my 13 years doing this my mission has evolved,” O’Keefe said in his announcement.

“Over the last few weeks I have felt a lot of despair and seen a lot of evil and felt overcome with various emotions.”

A clearly emotional O’Keefe expressed gratitude for his employees, but noted that:

“The external threats and pressure inflicted upon myself has been unimaginable,” O’Keefe continued.

Employees had been dissatisfied by O’Keefe’s management and alleged he wasted money and was “outright cruel” to his staff, according to the The Daily Beast.

Speculation has been rampant about the timing of this debacle as O’Keefe points out:

“A few days after the Pfizer story, I was informed by an officer of Project Veritas that he would resign unless I step down as CEO. We’ve been having a conflict of vision over fundraising, there were tactical disagreements about the boldness of approach soliciting donations.”

As The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports, O’Keefe said he confronted one executive at a meeting on Feb. 2 and said that if the person would not follow his lead, he would have to exit the group.

O’Keefe then fired the man.

Later that same day, a different officer informed O’Keefe he was going to the Project Veritas board to restructure the company.

O’Keefe said he received an agenda for the board meeting as he was set to depart on a flight, and that the meeting was scheduled for the moment he was due to land.

“It became clear to me in that moment [that] I would be removed from my position at Project Veritas,” O’Keefe said.

Project Veritas did not pick up the phone or respond to requests for comment.

O’Keefe, who started Project Veritas in 2010, said he’s not finished.

He said that “the mission continues” but will “perhaps take on a new name.”

“I’ll make sure you know how to find me,” he told Project Veritas employees. “I hope to see some of you soon.”

R.C. Maxwell, a Project Veritas employee and an O’Keefe ally, wrote on Twitter that O’Keefe “was removed from his position as CEO by the Project Veritas board.”

“They are in charge now,” Maxwell said.

O’Keefe said he has been suspended “indefinitely without compensation,” citing a board memo.

“I don’t know why this has happened or specifically why this has happened suddenly,” O’Keefe continued, adding he has “documentation” of everything.

The board has not yet issued a new statement.

If you were tuned into CNN this morning (we’ll pause for laughter), you may have noticed that for the second straight business day, anchor Don Lemon was missing from the set of “CNN This Morning”.

Lemon was conveniently given another day off Monday, bringing his “missed show” total since his sexist remarks about Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley up to 2. 

Sources are now saying that “a new schedule is in place per CNN management”, absent Lemon, and that “Poppy Harlow will be accompanied by Sara Sidner and Kaitlan Collins”. 

The source told the Post Millennial this weekend: “There are ongoing conversations about Don’s future. He is a constant distraction.”

“His remarks were upsetting, unacceptable, and unfair to his co-hosts, and ultimately a huge distraction to the great work of this organization,” CNN boss Chris Licht said late last week. 

Recall we reported last week that Lemon’s co-hosts had “stormed off the set” after his brilliant commentary about Nikki Haley, wherein the 57 year old Lemon accused the 51 year old Haley of being “past her prime”. 

Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins reportedly both took a “well timed bathroom break” after Lemon’s comments, before coming back to finish the show. 

The Mail wrote that “the comments were the last straw in an already deteriorating relationship between the news professionals, with Collins and Harlow increasingly fed up with Lemon’s behavior since coming on board.”

“Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime, sorry. A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s,” Lemon said in a broadcast early last week. When his morning show co-host, Poppy Harlow, pushed back on the claim, Lemon told her and the CNN audience to “Google it”. 

The comments sparked outrage from sources across the political spectrum, including the likes NPR, who referred to the comments as “sexist”. 

As we noted then, the incident appears to us to be the final swirl of Don Lemon’s TV career down the toilet, following the likes of Chris Cuomo and Brian Stelter. 

Recall, back in September 2022 we wrote about Lemon’s obvious demotion from primetime to mornings on CNN. At the time, he said: “For all those who are out there saying, ‘Oh, he moved me and without my —,’ he asked me and I said yes. I could have said no. This is my show, I have a contract for this show, I decided I would take him up on that and take this journey with him. This is not someone moving me.”