Former CNN host Don Lemon dug into MAGA ally Nicki Minaj after she attacked him over his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota, amplifying right-wing calls for his arrest.

“I’m so glad that I had never been a Nicki Minaj fan. I don’t know her music,” Lemon told left-leaning podcaster Jennifer Welch Monday. “There is nothing on my playlist that’s ever Nicki Minaj and there isn’t going to be because she is an ignorant ‘pick me,’ and I choose not to pick her.”

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon put Lemon “on notice” in a post announcing that the DOJ will pursue charges against anti-ICE protesters who disrupted a service Sunday at Cities Church in St. Paul, over speculation that a pastor at the church has connections to ICE.

Dhillon accused Lemon, who had reported on the protest, of “being a part, an embedded part, of a criminal conspiracy,” in an interview with right-wing influencer Benny Johnson Monday, threatening to invoke the Enforcement Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, to charge the journalist.

BREAKING: DOJ Announces Intention to Charge Don Lemon under the Ku Klux Klan Act.

The KKK Act makes it illegal to threaten, hurt, or intimidate people to prevent them from exercising their God-given rights.

HARMEET DHILLON: “The Klan Act is one of the most important federal… pic.twitter.com/GWnXAMtWc9

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 19, 2026

The law prohibits groups of people from gathering with the intention of violating citizens’ constitutional rights. Lemon disputed Dhillon’s accusations on Welch’s show.

“None of what she says there applies to me,” he said. “There’s no evidence.”

Lemon’s reporting garnered backlash from the right, including a “barrage of violent threats, along with homophobic and racist slurs,” he told NBC News.

Among his attackers is Minaj, who in recent weeks has lost some fans over her outspoken alignment with President Donald Trump and his MAGA base.

“DON ‘COCK SUCKIN’ LEMON IS DISGUSTING,” the rapper wrote in an all-caps X post on Monday that included an image of a Chucky doll. “HOW DARE YOU? I WANT THAT THUG IN JAIL!!!!! HE WOULD NEVER DO THAT TO ANY OTHER RELIGION. LOCK HIM UP!!!!!”

DON ‘COCK SUCKIN’ LEMON IS DISGUSTING.

HOW DARE YOU?

I WANT THAT THUG IN JAIL!!!!!

HE WOULD NEVER DO THAT TO ANY OTHER RELIGION.

LOCK HIM UP!!!!! pic.twitter.com/xoQBl9KDJY

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) January 19, 2026

“I’m not surprised Nicki Minaj does not understand journalism and is weighing in on matters that are above her capacity,” Lemon fired back in a statement to TMZ. “However, the more appropriate image for her post is a ‘Pick Me’ Doll.”

He also released his own video in response to the artist, telling her to “stop talking about shit for which you know nothing about.”

“This is out of your depth, by the way, and you are a homophobic bigot,” Lemon said.

In his interview with Welch, the journalist called Minaj a “grifter,” citing her recent cozying up to Erika Kirk, whose late husband, Charlie Kirk, made several controversial remarks about Black people before his killing.

“He talked shit about Black people a lot,” Lemon said. “He said racist, bigoted things a lot, and she’s cozying up to his wife and to his organization and to all of the other bigots in the MAGA movement, and now she is calling a gay man a cock sucker. That’s homophobia.”

Minaj defended her use of the derogatory term in a follow-up post, telling followers, “I’m glad they’re angry. They’re about to get angrier.”

Lemon told Welch, “Nicki Minaj doesn’t care about Black people. d She doesn’t care about gay people. Those are two of her biggest supporters and the people who make her rich and … as a Black and gay person, I’m not supporting her.”