Amid a repetitive droning refrain about President Trump’s purported “madness,” The Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell madly proclaimed (without evidence or explanation) that “Trump was trying to restrict the use of the French language in Canada.” Wipe away the Trump Derangement Syndrome and the desire to whip the MS NOW audience into a mouth-foaming rage; the issue was about making American businesses reprint their materials in two languages to sell them in Canada.
O’Donnell led into the segment by asserting Trump “seethes with jealousy when he has to listen to foreign leaders effortlessly switch from their native language to English and other languages.” And claimed Trump “flies into a rage when Canada's prime minister does it in his own country.” No evidence was provided.
His source? Far-left Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney:
We seemed to be on the verge of having a comprehensive and fair agreement with the Americans. But they changed their mind. Including threats to the French language and culture - the Quebec culture and the Canadian culture. [Transition] Therefore, this is the end of this phase of negotiations.
“That was Mark Carney explaining in a bilingual press conference that trade negotiations with the United States broke down for many reasons, including the fact that Donald Trump was trying to restrict the use of the French language in Canada,” O’Donnell said, without presenting any facts.
Calling it "a level of madness that we could never have guessed at," MS NOW's Lawrence O'Donnell claimed Trump "was trying to restrict the use of the French language in Canada."
In reality, Trump didn't want American producers selling in Canada to have to add the extra cost of… pic.twitter.com/12UGCbfwnu— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) August 26, 2026
O’Donnell continued to release a lot of hot gas about how Trump was supposedly trying to dictate what language was spoken in Canada:
Donald Trump or Natalie Harp posted on social media today, “I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French. Exclamation point.” And in the same post, he told this lie, “I love French Canadians. Exclamation point.”
So, whose idea was it to interfere with the French language in Canada? And who are you going to believe on this one? By the way, Donald Trump saying, “I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French,” or Mark Carney, who you just heard, tell you that Donald Trump was indeed trying to interfere with the French language in Canada?
Was that Howard Lutnick’s idea? Was that Nathalie Harp's idea? It is by far the single stupidest thing ever raised in negotiations with Canada by anyone.
It would be “the single stupidest thing ever raised in negotiations with Canada” if it was true. Do you notice anything missing from O’Donnell’s ranting? An explanation about what was actually demanded: exemptions to Canada’s rules about duel-language labeling.
As TIME magazine noted, the disagreement was about “French-language labeling rules, as trade irritants.”
Even CNN was able to be more honest that O’Donnell and MS NOW. In an online article, they even noted the contention over the labeling rules have been present for a long time:
Canada is a bilingual country and has laws protecting both of its official languages (…) Among the laws, product labels must be displayed in both English and French (…) Canada’s language requirements have long been viewed by the US as a trade barrier but are generally a red line for Ottawa…
The Trump administration’s demands were meant to help shield American businesses from the added cost of printing multiple sets of labels for packages and the like.
The only “madness” on display was O’Donnell’s.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MS NOW’s The Last Word
August 25, 2026
10:48:26 p.m. EasternLAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Because Trump cannot speak a single sentence in a foreign language, imagine how he seethes with jealousy when he has to listen to foreign leaders effortlessly switch from their native language to English and other languages. And now we know Donald Trump apparently flies into a rage when Canada's prime minister does it in his own country.
[Cuts to video]
MARK CARNEY (Canadian PM, in French): We seemed to be on the verge of having a comprehensive and fair agreement with the Americans. But they changed their mind. Including threats to the French language and culture - the Quebec culture and the Canadian culture. [Transition] Therefore, this is the end of this phase of negotiations.
[Cuts back to live]
O’DONNELL: That was Mark Carney explaining in a bilingual press conference that trade negotiations with the United States broke down for many reasons, including the fact that Donald Trump was trying to restrict the use of the French language in Canada.
Donald Trump or Natalie Harp posted on social media today, “I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French. Exclamation point.” And in the same post, he told this lie, “I love French Canadians. Exclamation point.”
So, whose idea was it to interfere with the French language in Canada? And who are you going to believe on this one? By the way, Donald Trump saying, “I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French,” or Mark Carney, who you just heard, tell you that Donald Trump was indeed trying to interfere with the French language in Canada?
Was that Howard Lutnick’s idea? Was that Nathalie Harp's idea? It is by far the single stupidest thing ever raised in negotiations with Canada by anyone.
Today, Canada announced how they plan to fight back in Donald Trump's trade war against them, which - the - which The Wall Street Journal is calling, quote, “the dumbest trade war in history.”
[Cuts to video]
FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE (Canadian finance minister): Today, I'm announcing that Canada will match the United States’ tariffs dollar for dollar, rate for rate. Effective September 8, Canada will impose counter tariffs of up to 15, 25, or 50 percent, on 27.6 billion in imports from the United States of America. For each product, our tariff would match the American tariff on the same type of Canadian good.
[Cuts back to live]
Joining us now is Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania. He's the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee and is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which actually has jurisdiction, constitutional jurisdiction over tariffs.
Congressman Boyle, there are so many things to - to go after here. But let's begin with this attempt by Donald Trump to actually interfere with the use of the French language in Canada. This is a level of madness that we could never have guessed at.
REP. BRENDAN BOYLE (D-PA): Well, if the president is watching your program tonight, I have good news for him. I will only be speaking English as I do not - uh - speak French. Um. So he will - he won't be - uh - triggered by anything -uh - Well, he'll probably be triggered by the rest of what I say. Only he'll be understanding it in - uh - our American dialect of English.
(…)
