MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday torched President Donald Trump over his $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which would aim to finance MAGA allies who feel they were unfairly targeted by the Department of Justice — and has made even top Republicans wary.
“But it’s already too late for Donald Trump to easily kill the $1.776 billion political monster that he created,” said O’Donnell. “It’s too late. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) was not satisfied today with unnamed White House staffers saying, ‘It’s dead for now.’”
The “Last Word” host went on to play a recording of Thune saying, “The ideal outcome” would be the Trump administration confirming that the fund is being permanently abandoned, after an anonymous White House source caused speculation by stating it is “dead for now.”
“‘Dead for now’ are the words of an unnamed White House source who told Mark Caputo at Axios, ‘It’s dead for now,’” said O’Donnell. “But for the Democrats in Congress opposing the Trump slush fund, it is not dead enough, and very much to Donald Trump’s surprise, I’m sure.”
He noted, “It’s still alive enough to cause Trump serious legal problems now of his own.”
Trump last month settled a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for a $1.776 billion fund — and a vow from the Justice Department for the IRS to never investigate any tax crimes he or his family may have committed — in exchange for dropping the lawsuit.
O’Donnell on Monday skewered the “incompetent buffoons” and lawyers around Trump who “outsmarted themselves” with this addendum and unwittingly put Trump in “serious legal trouble,” noting both House and Senate Republicans have “turned against him” over the fund.
He went on to note that Thune “said all along” how bad of an idea it was, and said even Trump loyalist and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reportedly told the MAGA leader on Monday that the Republican-led House would vote against Trump’s fund if it came to it.
O’Donnell argued Trump couldn’t reverse course on the fund if he tried, however, noting one federal judge already halted its creation — while another is pushing for an investigation into Trump’s personal attorneys, his Justice Department lawyers and Trump himself.
Nearly three dozen federal judges last week asked U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams to reverse her decision to dismiss the lawsuit, noting in their motion that the settlement was not disclosed when the case was dismissed and suggesting that the court was “deceived.”
Williams has since ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond to that motion, writing in a document published Friday that a court is “empowered to investigate serious misconduct” to determine “whether an attorney has abused the judicial process” in the attempt to create the fund.
O’Donnell noted Wednesday that House and Senate Republicans “know that their worst enemy” in the upcoming midterm elections is Trump, and that Democrats strongly believe “the enormity of Donald Trump’s corruption … could be a decisive issue in November.”