MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday delivered a damning monologue on President Donald Trump and his increasing lack of control, highlighting breaking news that only bolstered his argument, which initially centered on the U.S. Congress and the war in Iran.
“Donald Trump has lost control, and he knows he has lost control,” O’Donnell said. “Donald Trump has lost control of everything he thought he could control. He lost control of his war in Iran as soon as he started it.”
The “Last Word” host continued, “He’s lost control of the Republican legislative process in Congress and is unable to get his bill through the Republican-controlled Senate. The bill that would allow Donald Trump to interfere in our elections.”
O’Donnell argued that Trump’s loss of control led him to spout “lies” Saturday in touting his “Great Poll Numbers,” explaining that a recent Marquette University Law School poll shows 70% of “American Republicans” disapprove of how Trump is handling the U.S. economy.
“Donald Trump knows there is absolutely nothing he can do to control his poll numbers,” said O’Donnell, adding that the MAGA leader also knows “that he has no control over the events swirling around him, which are the result of his own ignorance and incompetence.”
The host then pivoted to breaking news from The Washington Post, which reported Trump was secretly shuttled off Air Force One last month and onto a smaller plane while departing Turkey following the NATO summit there.
The report appeared to support O’Donnell’s underlying argument that Trump has lost fundamental “control,” as the reason for his secretive escape was an Iranian assassination threat, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter who spoke to the Post.
The exact moment Trump snuck off Air Force One appeared to have been caught on video.
The official who spoke to the Post said this had turned Air Force One into a “decoy” with press members and White House staffers aboard, and that the “operation” came one night after the U.S. renewed strikes on Iran “following a breakdown of negotiations” to end the war.
O’Donnell noted the “many ways” Trump has been experiencing a lack of control.
He added, “And imagine, just imagine tonight what a loss of control Donald Trump must have been feeling in Turkey, when he was told that he not only could not fly on the Qatari jet that he illegally accepted as a gift from a dictator, but he could not fly on Air Force One.”
O’Donnell was referring to the $400 million luxury jet Trump received from Qatar last year before quietly granting the oil-rich theocracy a U.S. defense guarantee, and cited the Post in noting “numerous people participated in the deception” to sneak him off Air Force One.
“Donald Trump had no control at all of how he traveled away from that NATO summit,” said O’Donnell. “No control in a plane he never wanted to fly in, moving on a catering truck from one plane to another to do that, because Donald Trump was not in control of that situation.”
He then cemented his point by adding that Trump was over 100 days into a war he started, “and cannot control.”