On Wednesday night, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell began his show by cheering President Obama’s news conference performance and declared he “demonstrated more confidence at the podium than any president in the history of televised presidential press conferences, more even than Kennedy.”
The Last Word
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 23, 2015 | 9:25 AM EDT
During a panel discussion on racism in America on MSNBC’s Last Word w/ Lawrence O’Donnell Monday night, Mark Thompson, a host on SIRIUS XM, argued that “voter suppression” is a new and “more sophisticated form of lynching” taking place in America today.
By Curtis Houck | May 29, 2015 | 10:44 AM EDT
Appearing on the Thursday edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word, The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel suggested that money in politics is discriminatory toward African-Americans: “Fifty years ago, African-Americans were discriminated against by poll taxes, literacy tests. Today, the skyrocketing costs of campaigns, including the super PACs you mentioned, these billionaires, have made everyday Americans rightful vote mean not a enough, mean too little.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | April 2, 2015 | 8:15 AM EDT
Appearing on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday night, Nina Burleigh of Newsweek crudely joked that Republicans who defended Pence and Indiana’s Religious Freedom Act were experiencing “premature intolerance ejaculation.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | February 24, 2015 | 11:13 AM EST
On Monday night, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell devoted his nightly “rewrite” segment to challenging former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s claim that he loves America. During his lengthy diatribe, the MSNBC host not only suggested that “when Rudy Giuliani talks about love, he has, and we have, no idea what he’s talking about” and “love of country isn’t easily defined and might not even be necessary.”
By Curtis Houck | February 20, 2015 | 4:01 PM EST
As part of the left’s bashing of Rudy Giuliani for stating his belief that President Obama doesn’t love America, MSNBC’s The Last Word convened a panel on Thursday night to berate Giuliani. Liberal radio show host Stephanie Miller went as far as to compare what the former New York City Mayor told a gathering of Republican donors to using derogatory language toward African-Americans, gays, and women: “[W]henever someone starts a sentence with, this is going to be horrible, it's like when someone says I'm not a racist, but n-word for a black person. I'm not a homophobe, but f-word for gay person, I’m not a sexist, but c-word for a woman. That's what this is.”
O’Donnell Skips Inaccuracies in Obama’s Memoir, But Was Obsessed With Discrediting Chris Kyle’s Book
By Curtis Houck | February 5, 2015 | 12:30 AM EST On Tuesday night, Lawrence O’Donnell devoted nearly four minutes of MSNBC show The Last Word to reading from and professing his complete admiration for President Barack Obama’s memoir Dreams From My Father as the “most honest,” “open,” “artful,” and “finest literary work ever authored by a President of the United States.” He spent no additional time on the book’s many inconsistencies, which stands in stark contrast to O’Donnell spending 32 minutes and 22 seconds of his program on January 27 and 28 obsessing over the late Chris Kyle’s book (turned hit movie) American Sniper and bringing on multiple guests to discredit Kyle and his story.
By Curtis Houck | February 4, 2015 | 1:28 AM EST
While discussing answers by former and likely future presidential candidates on whether they have ever used drugs, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell invoked President Barack Obama’s book Dreams From My Father on Tuesday to provide Obama’s answer to the question in what became a gushing tribute that included a nearly three minute reading from the book. O’Donnell proclaimed that the memoir was the “most honest,” “open,” “artful,” and “finest literary work ever authored by a President of the United States” despite the book not containing “the whole truth of Barack Obama's life.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | December 17, 2014 | 10:51 AM EST
On Tuesday, former Republican Governor of Florida Jeb Bush announced that he is considering running for president in 2016 and that night liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne predictably had a field day with the announcement. Appearing on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday night, Dionne proclaimed “the irony here is, it`s almost a delicious irony, is that Jeb Bush, if he runs, maybe a change agent in the Republican Party.”
Lawrence O’Donnell Falsely Claims Republicans Want to Repeal Immigration Law Protecting Children From Sex Trafficking
By Connor Williams | July 24, 2014 | 1:15 PM EDT
On the July 23 edition of The Last Word, in an apparent effort to demonize conservatives as being uninterested in protecting children who were victims of sex trafficking, Lawrence O’Donnell deliberately misinterpreted the Republican position on the 2008 immigration law signed by President Bush.
O’Donnell played a clip of Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) expressing his support for sending illegal immigrant children back to their home countries. Brooks elaborated further by saying, “Now, if in fact some are, for example, being trafficked for slavery or sex purposes, that's a different issue.” Despite this clear statement, the host of The Last Word claimed that “one of the positions that these Republicans are holding is that they want to repeal the law that President Bush signed, which is about protecting children from sex trafficking. So they want to be on record as not wanting to protect children from this kind of sex trafficking.” [MP3 audio here; video below]
MSNBC Panelist In Response to ObamaCare Rulings: ‘Judicial Activism Ain't On the Side of the Liberals Anymore'
By Connor Williams | July 23, 2014 | 1:30 PM EDT
The MSNBC freak-out continued following the surprising split rulings regarding the federal ObamaCare health insurance exchanges. The 2-1 DC circuit court decision determined that, consistent with the text in the law, subsidies must come from state insurance exchanges as opposed to federal ones. The panel was appalled that the court could possibly come to such a conclusion, while at the same time they diminished the long-term impacts of the decision.
Towards the end of the segment on the July 22 edition of The Last Word, the Washington Post’s EJ Dionne insinuated – solely based on his negative opinion of the ruling – that it was actually conservatives who are the judicial activists: “If you wonder which side of politics judicial activism is on, it ain't on the side of the liberals anymore.” [MP3 audio here; video below]
By Laura Flint | June 4, 2014 | 2:30 PM EDT
It did not take long for MSNBC to begin blaming the right-wing “anti-Obama machine” for the backlash against the Bergdahl prisoner swap. Intent on ignoring their own poll in which 65% of respondents didn’t support Obama’s decision to make the exchange, the June 3 edition of The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell went above and beyond in criticizing Republicans for “swiftboating” Bergdahl.
After airing multiple clips from Fox News, host Ari Melber, filling in for O’Donnell, went so far as to claim that “many of the loudest voices here on the Right today remain utterly uninterested in any of the questions, and are instead obsessed with hurling any accusation that might, just might, stick to this particular president.” He accused Republican strategists of manipulating Bergdahl’s platoon members for testimony discrediting Bergdahl, an outrageous claim considering these veterans came forward of their own accord and even created a Facebook group labeling the Bergdahl as a deserter. [See video below. Click here for audio]