On Thursday, MS NOW’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell played host to the idea that President Trump was moments away from complete destruction of the United States Constitution, even leaning into Tucker Carlson adding in his two cents about the impending implosion.
With the Iran War the heat of discussion, O’Donnell began his misguided soliloquy by stating the obvious responsibilities that come with being the president, one of those being Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces. O’Donnell must have been confused on how wars were fought when he targeted Trump’s age in reference to him sending troops into the Middle East:
And today, we learned why the oldest American president in history to send the American military off to war was not worried at all by the foreseeable, disastrous consequences of that war, some of which were outlined to him by a friend in the Oval Office two days before the war. A friend who has since turned against him.
Just because Trump was 80 didn’t mean he lost the power of commanding the military, a concern O’Donnell didn’t have with President Biden.
O’Donnell exploited a long clip from NPR’s Newsmakers podcast where Steve Inskeep interviewed Tucker Carlson for almost an hour. The MS NOW host plucked out the part where Carlson commented on his personal break with the President and their purported conversations prior to the start of the Iran War.
Carlson even made the claim that Trump said, “But in the end, we all die anyway,” in response to his claim that Israel has pushed the war with three things in mind:
One, its own regional hegemony– take Iran off the map. You can't– they don't have freedom of movement as long as Iran is a regional power. Two, diminishing the power of the GCC– the six gulf states, which are a rival to Israel and are becoming this kind of Switzerland of the Middle East. And that's bad for Israeli interests. And three, getting the U.S. out of the Middle East because we constrain their ambitions. Getting our bases out, destroying our bases. Israel wants our bases out of the Middle East.
O’Donnell and Inskeep’s newfound respect for Carlson obviously stems from his convenient disillusionment.
Carlson swore that Trump’s comment was based in truth. He even interpreted the President’s comment to be that he has made decisions, “with the knowledge that blackness awaits,” which Carlson accepted as an unhealthy worldview.
O’Donnell backed Carlson’s comment by ensuring that Chinese officials would want President Xi to know, “all the latest information possible about how Donald Trump's mind, what's left of his mind, actually works.”
Inskeep continued his fabrication of Trump’s inability to make sound decisions, in which he, “betrayed the country,” which should have be enough to remove him from office (Click “expand”):
CARLSON: He should be removed. He should have been removed from office immediately when he threatened nuclear war. Threatening the offensive use of nuclear weapons, which is to say, threatening the destruction of humanity?
INSKEEP: Okay, what about the war in Iran, then?
CARLSON: It's enough for me to say he should be removed from office. He should have been removed from office by his own cabinet secretaries the moment he threatened a nuclear attack–
INSKEEP: You're talking now about the 25th Amendment where a majority of the cabinet–
CARLSON: That’s correct.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
CARLSON: He should have been bundled up and taken out. That's a crime. There's no greater crime than that. You think of all the people you know who go to jail for violating FARA or cheating on their taxes. Here you have a guy threatening to eliminate the human race, and that's not considered a crime? It tells you how deranged our moral scale has become. So he should be removed from office for threatening first use nuclear strike.
It’s no surprise that O’Donnell was so passionate about Trump’s presidential duty, with him having flipped out over a Trump family picture with the President in his high school military uniform when American troops were on deployment. Or the time he described Trump as, “a deeply cowardly man” when he didn’t hunt down his would-be assassins like the president’s hijackers in Air Force One.
O’Donnell likes to gossip, and it doesn't look like his hobby will end any time soon.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MS NOW The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
September 24, 2026
10:03:06 p.m. Eastern(...)
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Republican candidates are now running away from Donald Trump and his war in Iran. We will be joined later in this hour by the Democratic candidate for governor in Florida, where the Republican candidate, a close ally of Donald Trump and the House of Representatives, is now pretending he has no association with Donald Trump at all. That is how toxic Donald Trump is now, even for Florida voters.
Republican senators running for reelection have been trying to separate themselves from Donald Trump's war, some of them claiming Donald Trump's war should end immediately. But Chuck Schumer trapped them again today in another vote to stop Donald Trump's war. And once again, Republican senators who have just this week called for Donald Trump to end his war, voted today to support his war.
Republican Senator Jon Husted, running for re-election in Ohio, said Tuesday Donald Trump's war needs to end, “as quickly as possible.” And today, as quickly as possible, he voted to continue Donald Trump's war in a vote presented to him by Chuck Schumer in a parliamentary move on the Senate floor.
And today, we learned why the oldest American president in history to send the American military off to war was not worried at all by the foreseeable, disastrous consequences of that war, some of which were outlined to him by a friend in the Oval Office two days before the war. A friend who has since turned against him.
[CUT TO VIDEO]
TUCKER CARLSON: I said, this war is not about Iran's nuclear program, which you told me and the world that you eliminated back in last summer, in June–
STEVE INSKEEP, NPR CO-HOST OF MORNING EDITION AND UP FIRST: Yeah.
CARLSON: This war is being pushed by Israel with three aims. One, its own regional hegemony– take Iran off the map. You can't– they don't have freedom of movement as long as Iran is a regional power. Two, diminishing the power of the GCC– the six gulf states, which are a rival to Israel and are becoming this kind of Switzerland of the Middle East. And that's bad for Israeli interests. And three, getting the U.S. out of the Middle East because we constrain their ambitions. Getting our bases out, destroying our bases. Israel wants our bases out of the Middle East.
I said this to Trump, to his face in the Oval Office days before the war began. And he looked at me and said, “yes, you're right. But in the end, we all die anyway, so it doesn't matter.” That's exactly what he said. “In the end, we all die anyway.” And I said to him, shocked, “But what about our kids and our grandkids and like our country?” And he goes, “ugh.”
INSKEEP: What does that mean?
CARLSON: That's a verb– I don't know. He didn't respond. That's a verbatim exchange. And I said, and I'm, you know, as God watches, I said that.
INSKEEP: Okay.
CARLSON: And I think it was, I thought it was true then. And I think it's been proven true now. The goal was to get the U.S. out, to diminish the GCC, and obviously, to take Iran off the map and sink it into permanent internal strife, into civil war, sectarian strife. Um, and he said it doesn't matter, because in the end, we're all dead anyway.
And I was shocked by that, because that's nihilism, and that's the last thing any leader should display or any person should display. It does matter. Who lives or dies does matter. The future does matter. I believe it, I have four children.
[TRANSITION]
CARLSON: But when he said to me, “it doesn't matter because in the end we're all dead,” um, that suggested to me someone who's like made decisions about what happens next. Like, I just don't care at this point. Like I'm, I'm just proceeding with the knowledge that blackness awaits. Boy, that is not a healthy worldview. And it's an unacceptable worldview for a man with decision making power.
[END VIDEO CLIP]
O’DONNELL: President Xi was surely shown that NPR interview of Tucker Carlson that was released today about the man that he is now meeting with. Chinese officials would surely want President Xi to have all the information possible, all the latest information possible about how Donald Trump's mind, what's left of his mind, actually works.
And that is the latest publicly available look into Donald Trump's mind from someone who has been close to him. Tucker Carlson said, of course, Donald Trump should be removed from office.
[CUT TO VIDEO]
INSKEEP: Should he be removed from office– if you believe, as you've said, that he effectively betrayed the country?
CARLSON: He should be removed. He should have been removed from office immediately when he threatened nuclear war. Threatening the offensive use of nuclear weapons, which is to say, threatening the destruction of humanity?
INSKEEP: Okay, what about the war in Iran, then?
CARLSON: It's enough for me to say he should be removed from office. He should have been removed from office by his own cabinet secretaries the moment he threatened a nuclear attack–
INSKEEP: You're talking now about the 25th Amendment where a majority of the cabinet–
CARLSON: That’s correct.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
CARLSON: He should have been bundled up and taken out. That's a crime. There's no greater crime than that. You think of all the people you know who go to jail for violating FARA or cheating on their taxes. Here you have a guy threatening to eliminate the human race, and that's not considered a crime? It tells you how deranged our moral scale has become. So he should be removed from office for threatening first use nuclear strike.
[END VIDEO CLIP]
O’DONNELL: There was once no more prominent supporter of Donald Trump than Tucker Carlson. And that is what's happening to Trump support across our electorate and across the Republican party. All of that was said about Donald Trump publicly today. While Donald Trump was trying desperately to impress China's dictator, who surely heard every word Tucker Carlson had to tell him about Donald Trump today.
(...)
