‘I wasn’t in the cards’

Lemon’s got a zest for news

Don Lemon. CNN’s former world-class news anchor.

“Today’s audience is maybe 500,000. Younger people are streaming. The industry’s shrinking. People are into digital. It’s online influences rather than network TV. There’s no there there anymore.

“Network no longer has clout. Resources now go digital. YouTube. Once three channels — now it’s as many channels as people. Everyone has his own YouTube thing.”

So why’s he not there anymore? “I wasn’t in the cards. Not the direction the network wanted. Dependent on advertiser money they’re averse to controversy.

“Worried they’ll lose their dwindling audience. I don’t have a big ego. Do I have a big mouth? Yes. Have I a viewpoint that I think important to tell? Yes. But . . . then . . . so do you.

“The old days we had conversationalists. Larry King, Charlie Rose, Johnny Carson. We’ve lost the art of conversation. People haven’t that skill anymore. Too afraid of making a mistake. Afraid of getting fired.

“A teleprompter was once just to remember certain things to hit on — not to read every single word, which is what it is now.

“Look what’s trending today. 2016, it was Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels. What’s trending now? Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels. Like we’ve gone back in a time machine. It’s like ‘Back to the Future.’

“Listen, all of us get knocked down and go through things at one point or another. And sometimes it’s fair and sometimes it’s not.

“So have I heard from old friends at CNN? Yes. I have lifelong friends there who I love and miss.

“I now have a production company, the Don Lemon Show. It’s on YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio and Apple. So I’m trying to grow a business now which will take me into the future.”

Rarefied air will cost you

Travelers worrying about security are more anxious than before. It’s freshly elevated State Department advisories, increased crime, riots in France, Germany, Ecuador, Ukraine, Israel. Geopolitical tensions are rising.

Medjet is newly sending out word that 50% of its memberships also work domestically — anytime 150 miles or more from home. Like: Orlando, Fla., to Tarzana, Calif. — $42,899 transport, $0 cost to member.

San Francisco to Seattle — $37,997 transport, $0 cost to member. Still prefer a covered wagon — that’s up to you.

Who’s this guy?

Maher Bitar, a former general counsel for House Dems, is now special assistant to the president. He was Security Council director of whatever’s our defense programs.

Appointed by Obama — as has every person, menu, pencil, pussycat, thought, idea, brand of diaper preferred in the White House. This is in case you didn’t even know.

Everyone’s hustling. Selling their photos, paintings, signatures, clothes, homes and — if their agent’s price is right — behinds.

Now it’s theater memorabilia. Maybe you can grab Ethel Barrymore’s old bra.

Or, if you’re lucky — Hunter’s abacus. If you’re unlucky — Hunter.

Suddenly there’s a raft of charity auctions. Everyone’s told to bring something they have no use for. Three women brought their husbands.

Only in New York, kids, Only in New York.