Former CNN anchor Don Lemon gave a defiant statement after he was released from custody over his participation in a church takeover to protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Lemon was released on his own recognizance without bond and spoke to reporters in front of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Courthouse in Los Angeles.

‘The First Amendment of the Constitution protects that work for me and for countless … other journalists who do what I do. I stand with all of them and I will not be silenced.’

“I want to thank everybody for their support. It truly means the world to me. I have no idea what’s going on because obviously I haven’t seen anything,” Lemon said.

“I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now,” he added to cheers from some in the crowd. “In fact, there is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable.”

Lemon added, “Again, I will not stop now. I will not stop ever!”

He went on to make the same defense he made before his arrest that he was merely present at the protest as a journalist documenting the demonstration.

“Last night, the DOJ sent a team of federal agents to arrest me in the middle of the night for something that I’ve been doing for the last 30 years, and that is covering the news,” he continued. “The First Amendment of the Constitution protects that work for me and for countless … other journalists who do what I do.”

The unsealed court documents outlined the actions Lemon took that infringed upon the churchgoers’ right to religious expression, according to the Justice Dept.

“I stand with all of them, and I will not be silenced. I look forward to my day in court. Thank you all!” he added.

RELATED: Don Lemon stuns co-hosts when he rejects feminist narrative on soccer athletes’ earnings

The indictment was unsealed earlier in the day and included statements Lemon made on his channel as he livestreamed the activist protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul.

“After the service commenced, a group of approximately 20-40 agitators, including all of the defendants named in this Indictment, entered the Church in a coordinated takeover-style attack and engaged in acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference, and physical obstruction alleged herein,” prosecutors said in the indictment.

Critics of Lemon say journalists are not above the law, while his supporters claim that his arrest was a totalitarian assault on the press and the administration’s political opponents.

Video of his comments was posted to social media.

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Feminist glossy “Cosmopolitian” could use a reminder: No means no.

When it comes to the media’s attempts to use Sydney Sweeney as a political pawn, the star has made it clear that she does not consent.

‘I’ve never been here to talk about politics.’

From claims that a jeans ad is a product of white supremacy to outrage over her use of a firearm, the 28-year-old is asked by reporters to reveal her politics nearly every time she is put in front of a camera.

And every time, she refuses.

Private parts

That didn’t stop a pushy writer from Cosmopolitan — single gal lifestyle mag turned leftist propaganda organ — from doing her best to wear Sweeney down.

After discussing body image and Sweeney’s new lingerie line, writer Alexandra Whittaker took an abrupt turn toward politics by bringing up what she called the star’s “charged nickname”: MAGA Barbie.

“I see it in Instagram comments constantly. How do you understand this label, given that you’ve been private about your politics?” Whittaker asked.

“I’ve never been here to talk about politics,” Sweeney plainly replied. “I’ve always been here to make art, so this is just not a conversation I want to be at the forefront of. And I think because of that, people want to take it even further and use me as their own pawn. But it’s somebody else assigning something to me, and I can’t control that.”

RELATED: Sydney Sweeney is rebuilding Americana — one Bronco at a time

Party lines

The reporter then asked why Sweeney would not want to correct any untrue labels.

“Where is the line for you?”

“I haven’t figured it out. I’m not a hateful person. If I say, ‘That’s not true,’ they’ll come at me like, ‘You’re just saying that to look better.’ There’s no winning. There’s never any winning. I just have to continue being who I am, because I know who I am. I can’t make everyone love me. I know what I stand for.”

Trying a different angle, Whittaker — executive director of Cosmopolitan’s website — asked Sweeney to define some of her values, “not party affiliations,” that she wants people to understand.

Sweeney simply described leading with “love” and being “kind to whoever you meet.”

American ogle

Despite Sweeney’s clear lack of interest, the reporter kept on pressing, asking Sweeney about not talking about politics and if she ever will.

“You don’t speak to your fans directly about your political beliefs. … Is there a future in which people will get to see what you believe, politically?”

The Spokane, Washington, native completely shut the idea down.

“No. I’m not a political person. I’m in the arts. I’m not here to speak on politics. That’s not an area I’ve ever even imagined getting into. It’s not why I became who I am.”

RELATED: Liberals tried to cancel American Eagle over ‘fascist’ Sydney Sweeney ad — here’s who came out the clear winner

Readers will have to check out the full interview to see other attempts to discuss the “culture war” and separate online narratives that Sweeney is asked to answer to.

The actress was consistent in saying she does not have any control over what others print, say, or claim about her for their own gain.

“It’s been a weird thing having to navigate and digest, because it’s not me. None of it is me. And I’m having to watch it happen. I’m online and I see things, but I’m slowly pulling myself away,” she explained.

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In the aftermath of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement shooting that resulted in the passing of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, MSNBC — which now is called MS NOW — pulled an incredibly strange move.

“I don’t know why, but they decided to use this clearly doctored picture of Alex Pretti,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey says on “Relatable,” pointing out that in the doctored photo, he is tanner, more muscular, has a smaller, straighter nose, smaller chin, and wider face.

“Why would they do this? And I pointed this out on Instagram. People got very upset with me. People on the left, all the she/hers on Instagram got very upset,” Stuckey says, noting that the real photo of Pretti makes him look much more like a “left-wing agitator,” while the doctored photo makes him look like a “strong, brave veteran.”

“Now for some reason, the she/hers got really angry and the they/thems got really upset when I said that as if I am the one who manipulated the image. As if I am the one subliminally making the argument that you can only have compassion for a person when they’re tan and when they’re more handsome,” she continues.

“Like why else do you think that they’re doing this? They’re using this manipulated image because they know, human nature, as superficial as it may be, is to feel more deeply for a child who is cute or a man who is handsome or a woman who is beautiful,” she adds.

Stuckey believes that this photo is evidence that they’re specifically trying to target women with propaganda.

“We so often operate on our feelings, operate on those base instincts … are very moved by an image, more so than we are moved by an argument. I mean, that’s what effective propaganda is,” she explains.

“It is meant to paralyze your critical thinking abilities and just make you feel,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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President Donald Trump gave a hilarious response to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s attempt to compare the conflicts in Minnesota to the Civil War.

Blaze News asked Trump to address Walz’s remarks likening the hostilities at Fort Sumter that sparked the Civil War to the heightened tensions seen on the ground in Minneapolis in recent weeks. When asked if he agreed with the characterization, Trump gave Blaze News a viral response.

‘I was elected to do a job.’

“Does he know what Fort Sumter was, or do you think somebody wrote it out for him?”

“I was elected on law and order,” Trump told Blaze News. “I was elected on a strong border. We had a border that allowed 25 million people to come in. Many were murderers. … We had open borders.”

RELATED: Trump’s unusual Cabinet meeting may reveal which officials are on thin ice

Trump brushed off Walz’s remarks, differentiating his tough-on-crime track record from the Democrat governor’s state that is rampant with fraud and violent crime.

“I was elected on a lot of reasons, because when I took over we inherited a mess,” Trump told Blaze News.

“When I was elected, I was elected to do a job, and one of the big things I was elected to do is law and order.”

RELATED: ‘Horrifying situation’: Some Republicans retreat following Minneapolis shooting of anti-ICE agitator

Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Trump criticized Democrats’ refusal to embrace law enforcement, pondering if they really want criminals to remain in their cities.

“If you look at Minnesota, Minneapolis, we have crime down there because we took out thousands of people, despite all the mess and everything else,” Trump told Blaze News.

“But do these people really want to have rapists? Do they really want to have drug dealers and people from prisons and murderers?”

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Failed presidential candidate and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote an op-ed in the Atlantic on Thursday, claiming to be a devout follower of Jesus Christ and accusing BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey of promoting a distorted version of Christianity that, Clinton asserted, has led to violence in Minneapolis.

The desperate op-ed demonstrated that Stuckey’s warnings about “toxic empathy” are pushing through left-wing efforts to guilt-trip Christians — which Stuckey made a point of in a special episode of her “Relatable” podcast. The reason Hillary Clinton attacked her, Stuckey said, “is so incredibly clear to me, and that is that we are over the target. We have gotten to the heart of progressive manipulation.”

‘When Hillary Clinton is writing 6,000 word op-eds in the Atlantic attacking warnings against toxic empathy, you know you’re over the target. Keep. Going.’

Clinton claimed that “hard-right ‘Christian influencers’” have waged a “war on empathy” and rejected bedrock values, including “dignity, mercy, and compassion.” She appeared to depict true Christian faith as nothing more than “love thy neighbor.”

The former secretary of state contended that President Donald Trump and his allies have altogether abandoned empathy, instead aiming to “spread fear,” particularly among “undocumented immigrants,” through “inhumane” treatment.

Clinton called out recent events in Minneapolis, claiming that Trump’s federal agents killed Alex Pretti while he was trying “help a woman they had thrown to the ground and pepper-sprayed.”

“Christian nationalism” is threatening to “replace democracy with theocracy in America,” according to Clinton.

She criticized Stuckey for calling a sermon by Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, “toxic empathy that is in complete opposition to God’s Word and in support of the most satanic, destructive ideas ever conjured up.”

RELATED: Anti-ICE influencers explained: How women get radicalized

Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Clinton mentioned Stuckey’s book, “Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion,” and mocked the concept that empathy could ever be “toxic,” calling it an “oxymoron.”

“I don’t know if the phrase reflects moral blindness or moral bankruptcy, but either way it’s appalling,” she wrote.

Clinton argued that the “mainstream Christian view” of welcoming illegal immigrants “enrages” Stuckey.

“The author of Toxic Empathy, who styles herself a voice for Christian women, has more than a million followers on social media. In between lifestyle pitter-patter and her demonization of IVF treatments, she warns women not to listen to their soft hearts,” Clinton continued. “This commissar of MAGA morality targets other evangelicals whose empathy, she warns, has left them open to manipulation. Maybe they recognize the humanity of an undocumented immigrant family and decide that mass deportation has gone too far. Or they make space in their heart for a young rape survivor forced to carry a pregnancy to term and start questioning the wisdom and morality of total abortion bans. It’s all toxic to Stuckey.”

RELATED: ‘Conflicts of interest’: Democrat-led federal agencies allegedly blocked efforts to investigate Clinton Foundation

Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

Clinton’s call to action to her Christian supporters was to “follow the example of courageous faith leaders standing up to the Trump administration’s abuses.” She urged Democrats to fill the gaps of “compassion and community” that conservatives “give up.”

“I hope grassroots faith leaders across the country who are appalled by what they see from an immoral administration and an extremist political right also find their voice. It is understandable that some stay silent out of fear. Influencers like Stuckey are zealously policing any deviation from the party line. But speaking truth to power has been part of the Christian tradition since the very beginning. The Christian community — and the country — would be stronger and healthier if we heard these voices,” Clinton said.

Stuckey responded to the hit piece in a post on X, writing, “When Hillary Clinton is writing 6,000 word op-eds in the Atlantic attacking warnings against toxic empathy, you know you’re over the target. Keep. Going.”

“I’m not being sarcastic when I say I’m glad to hear that Hillary Clinton identifies as a Christian,” Stuckey stated on her podcast. “I did not know that we had that in common, sincerely, but for her to position herself as someone who is an authority on faith, when she admits here that she’s never been public about her faith, that’s a problem. That’s actually not something that’s an option within Christianity.”

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