Lawrence O’Donnell Steps Away From MSNBC Due To ‘Exhaustion’ Of Trump’s First 50 Days
MSNBC’s The Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell announced on Wednesday night that he would be stepping away from his show for a week, overwhelmed by the reality of President Donald Trump’s successful first 50 days in office. A longtime critic of Trump, O’Donnell has built his career on attacking the president, but it seems even he needed a break from the constant outrage.
During a conversation with The Rachel Maddow Show host Rachel Maddow, O’Donnell admitted that while Maddow had committed to covering all 100 days of Trump’s presidency, he simply couldn’t keep up.
“This is day 52, I thought it was day 92,” O’Donnell said. “So I’m going to take next week off. And I’m telling you that now because I know you don’t like it when I just drift away. Just taking next week off. Then I’m going to come back and go with you all the way to the 800 days. I can’t. I know.”
Maddow, clearly disappointed, tried to put on a supportive face. “We all tell each other you have to take care of yourself, you have to pace yourself, you have to be in this for the long haul,” she said. “So I can’t hold it against you, but I’m very sad.”
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O’Donnell, perhaps realizing just how much winning was left to cover, added with a smirk, “Can you hold this against me? Can you hold this against me? I’m going to get a head start by taking tomorrow off.”
While Trump pushed forward with his agenda, delivering on promises and reshaping Washington, O’Donnell’s admission confirmed what many already suspected—liberal media figures simply weren’t built to handle the Trump era.
At 52 days into President Trump’s administration, MSNBC’s O’Donnell is still struggling to cope. The liberal host again went off the rails this week, claiming Trump’s brain was “broken” and “badly damaged” simply because the president criticized Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
LOS ANGELES – SEP 24: Lawrence O’Donnell arrives for the LGBT Center’s Vanguard Awards 2017 on September 24, 2017 in Beverly Hills, CA
“So America is at this hour completing the 52nd day of having a President of the United States whose brain does not work. Donald Trump’s brain is broken, badly damaged, as he exhibits every day. And once again, today, Donald Trump said something that would have gotten any other president rushed to the hospital for a neurological examination and an evaluation for dementia, for starters,” O’Donnell ranted.
“That’s where they would have begun.”
Of course, O’Donnell had a very different tone when he sat down with former President Joe Biden just before he left office. Rather than raising any concerns about Biden’s well-documented mental slip-ups, O’Donnell used the interview to praise Biden and his policies.
Before his TV career, he worked as a legislative aide to Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and was a staff director for the Senate Finance Committee. O’Donnell has also been a producer and writer for the TV show The West Wing.