In his usual unhinged opening monologue on Monday night’s The Last Word, MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell compared President Trump's threats to destroy Iranian infrastructure in Truth Social posts to actual alleged war crimes committed in a Vietnamese village during the Vietnam War by William Calley.
O’Donnell’s comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis have been prevalent ever since the start of the Iran war, as O’Donnell and his media colleagues set their sights on trying to tie Trump and war crimes.
After the host introduced a Trump post that assessed “I’m winning a war by a lot,” O’Donnell went straight to war crimes:
And as always, false was only yesterday that Donald Trump once again publicly threatened to commit war crimes in Iran, which is in and of itself a war crime, the public threatening of war crimes.
Monday Night, MS NOW's Lawrence O'Donnell compared President Trump to alleged Vietnam War Criminal William Calley, who O'Donnell said murdered many Vietnamese villagers. He then implied Calley was not as bad as Trump since he did not say it was his "honor" to commit war crimes. pic.twitter.com/6W39jYQa7F
— Nick (@nspin310) April 21, 2026
The new line was, essentially, that words were now war crimes.
Here’s Trump’s post, as read by O’Donnell, “We're offering a very fair and responsible deal, and I hope they take it, because if they don't, the United States is going to knock out every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran. No more Mr. Nice guy, exclamation point. It will be my honor to do what has to be done.”
Then, in O’Donnell fashion, he compared Trump to alleged war criminal Lt. William Calley who was deemed responsible for the deaths of hundreds in a Vietnamese village. The comparison essentially said Calley was not as bad as Trump:
Couple things: It will be my honor to commit war crimes is something that the worst American war criminals never said. Lieutenant William J. Calley, who murdered more than 340 Vietnamese villagers at close range, gunpoint, execution style. Men, women, children, babies, grandparents. Never said it will be my honor to murder Vietnamese babies. It's only Donald Trump who thinks threatening war crimes and committing war crimes will be my honor.
This was reminiscent of when, earlier this month, O’Donnell commended Hitler for not being a cruel as Trump.
According to O’Donnell, a Vietnam War criminal was better than Trump because he did not say it was his honor to commit war crimes, even if he actually did them, unlike Trump. Maybe O’Donnell had started to run out of comparisons to Trump to Hitler and Nazis, so much so that he needed something new.
At the end of his monologue, O’Donnell went on to praise former President Obama’s Iran negotiations, turning into straight pro-Obama state TV:
President Obama did not threaten to commit war crimes in Iran. To achieve that agreement, President Obama sent the most experienced and expert negotiating team ever sent on a diplomatic mission for the United States of America.
As MS NOW and other media had tried not to portray themselves as pro-Iran, O’Donnell ended his monologue as he read a tweet from the Iranian Parliament Speaker that threatened to “reveal new cards on the battlefield.”
O’Donnell’s comparison of Trump to an alleged Vietnam War criminal continued his trend of war crime derangement. Did he have any comment on Obama's 542 drone strikes during his presidency?
The transcript is below. Click "expand":
MS NOW’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
April 20, 2026
10:16:31 PM Eastern
(...)
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: And it also seems apparent that Donald Trump is running this war himself, mostly by tweet. At 2:11 p.m. today, Donald Trump announced, “I'm winning a war by a lot! Things are going very well!” That is Donald Trump's latest assessment of his war, “I'm winning a war.
But as we know, that assessment is subject to change at any moment. And as always, false. It was only yesterday that Donald Trump once again publicly threatened to commit war crimes in Iran, which is in and of itself a war crime, the public threatening of war crimes. Donald Trump said, “We're offering a very fair and responsible deal, and I hope they take it, because if they don't, the United States is going to knock out every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran. No more Mr. Nice guy, exclamation point. It will be my honor to do what has to be done.”
Couple things: It will be my honor to commit war crimes is something that the worst American war criminals never said. Lieutenant William J. Calley, who murdered more than 340 Vietnamese villagers at close range, gunpoint, execution style. Men, women, children, babies, grandparents. Never said it will be my honor to murder Vietnamese babies. It's only Donald Trump who thinks threatening war crimes and committing war crimes will be my honor.
And Donald Trump threatening “No More. Mr. Nice guy” in capital letters with an exclamation point, really has no meaning for a person who has not spent one day of his life as a nice guy.
Donald Trump has gone from saying two weeks ago, there was no need to negotiate anything with Iran because he had already won his war, to now publicly and repeatedly sending his completely inexperienced negotiators who have never negotiated with Iran to come up with a peace deal.
(...)
10:20:15 PM Eastern
O’DONNELL: President Obama did not threaten to commit war crimes in Iran. To achieve that agreement, President Obama sent the most experienced and expert negotiating team ever sent on a diplomatic mission for the United States of America. The negotiating team included Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a nuclear physicist, and other nuclear experts.
There is not a single nuclear expert in Donald Trump's negotiating team. Just a couple of real estate guys. Donald Trump's negotiating team includes his son-in-law, a real estate operator, and JD Vance. And they are up against this. At 5:12 p.m. Today, the speaker of the Iranian parliament tweeted, quote, “Trump, by imposing a siege and violating the ceasefire, seeks to turn this negotiating table in his own imagination into a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering. We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats, and in the past two weeks we have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield.”
(...)
