CNN's Don Lemon goes to bat for Fetterman after interview on new show: 'I was expecting worse' at debate

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Don Lemon admits he was ‘expecting worse’ from Fetterman’s debate performance

The CNN host said that he believes people will be more empathetic to Fetterman than the media might be letting on.

CNN host Don Lemon admitted that he was "expecting worse" from Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman's debate performance last week against Dr. Mehmet Oz. 

On Tuesday, Lemon conducted a pre-recorded interview with Fetterman, which was subsequently played on the network's new show, "CNN This Morning." The left-wing host, recently taken off primetime to anchor the replacement for "New Day," claimed that people he had spoken with thought that Fetterman’s recent health problems are not a "big deal," but admitted that it doesn’t necessarily mean people are going to vote for him. 

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"I always say that my mother is my one-woman focus group," Lemon said. "She said I was expecting worse having dealt with people who have strokes. I did not think he did badly at all as the press has been putting out."

Lemon also said that his mother thought Fetterman did "fine" given the circumstances, before revealing his own thoughts on the debate.

"I have to be quite honest—I didn’t have the same reaction as most people," he said. "Most people are like ‘oh my gosh I can’t believe it, you know Oz is doing such a great job’—Dr. Oz, of course, is a smart man and did a great job, but I actually thought—I was expecting worse from Fetterman. I was and I think people will be more empathetic than we in the media may be letting on because they have people who have dealt with these issues—again that doesn’t mean they would vote for him."

During the interview with Lemon, Fetterman would not commit to having his doctor answer questions from the press on the state of his health before Election Day. 

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While hosting a rally in Philadelphia on Saturday, Fetterman said his debate against Oz "wasn’t easy" and pinned his struggles on his continuing stroke recovery. 

"On a serious note, the debate wasn't easy, you know," Fetterman said to a crowd of his supporters. "It wasn't area [sic] five months after a stroke… After that stroke, I got knocked down, but I got back up because I had to. And that's really the core value of our campaign. We are running for anyone that ever got knocked down that had to get back up, too. Any forgotten communities or community's towns that got left behind, that got knocked down, because they have to get back up."

Pointing to his health, Fetterman, Pennsylvania's current lieutenant governor, said he would be better in January and claimed that Oz "will still be a fraud, though."

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Fetterman and Oz will go head-to-head in the state's November 8 Senate election.

Fox News’ Kyle Morris contributed to this report.