The Last Word

On Tuesday, former Republican Governor of Florida Jeb Bush announced that he is considering running for president in 2016 and that night liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne predictably had a field day with the announcement. Appearing on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday night, Dionne proclaimed “the irony here is, it`s almost a delicious irony, is that Jeb Bush,…

It would seem that not everyone on the left side of the political spectrum has a tolerant attitude towards Hispanics, if a segment on Wednesday's The Last Word on MSNBC is any indication. Hours before President Obama is expected to take executive action to legalize millions of Latin American illegal immigrants, guest Anita Freeman blamed the "very high Latino population" for California's failure…

At MSNBC, many are rallying behind Barack Obama’s foreign policy, despite his seemingly aimless goals. On the August 12 edition of The Last Word,  host Lawrence O'Donnell mentioned Hillary Clinton's comments about the President's foreign policy, in which she claimed that ‘don't do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle. O’Donnell couldn’t help but defend Mr. Obama, even if it meant…

In a discussion about Rand Paul’s presidential chances on MSNBC’s The Last Word, a panel featuring Josh Barro and Richard Wolffe managed to hit Republicans for being anti-immigrant while also accusing Paul and conservatives – not the Obama administration – of misleading on Benghazi. Paul has received media criticism for supposedly fleeing a dinner with Rep. Steve King when the Iowa Republican…

On the July 23 edition of The Last Word, in an apparent effort to demonize conservatives as being uninterested in protecting children who were victims of sex trafficking, Lawrence O’Donnell deliberately misinterpreted the Republican position on the 2008 immigration law signed by President Bush. O’Donnell played a clip of Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) expressing his support for sending…

The MSNBC freak-out continued following the surprising split rulings regarding the federal ObamaCare health insurance exchanges. The 2-1 DC circuit court decision determined that, consistent with the text in the law, subsidies must come from state insurance exchanges as opposed to federal ones. The panel was appalled that the court could possibly come to such a conclusion, while at the same…

It did not take long for MSNBC to begin blaming the right-wing “anti-Obama machine” for the backlash against the Bergdahl prisoner swap. Intent on ignoring their own poll in which 65%  of respondents didn’t support Obama’s decision to make the exchange, the June 3 edition of The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell went above and beyond in criticizing Republicans for “swiftboating” Bergdahl…

MSNBC seized on Pope Francis’s tweet yesterday that “Inequality is the root of social evil” to once again flog conservatives for their economic views. On Monday’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, fill-in host Ari Melber began a segment on the pontiff by gloating, “[S]ome Republicans are caught between a rock and a hard place. Specifically, between the pope's teachings and Rush Limbaugh's…

Actor and gay rights activist George Takei is known for his outspokenness when talking about gay marriage. As a result, the former "Star Trek" cast member felt the need to jump into the debate surrounding Arizona’s new religious freedom bill. Appearing as a guest on The Last Word w/ Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday night, Takei expressed his outrage with the Arizona bill and proclaimed that not…

At 4:57 on Monday afternoon, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner hyped “Breaking news from the Treasury Department. The White House has announced a second delay to part of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate. Details on that are next.”  But the next “details” did not come for 12 and a half hours at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday morning during MSNBC’s Way Too Early broadcast. In between, MSNBC ran 9 full stories…

During Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's weeknight program “The Last Word,” host Lawrence O'Donnell responded to a statement made earlier in the day by President Obama about the Internal Revenue Service's discrimination against conservative groups seeking non-profit status: “Across the board, everybody believes” what was revealed in the report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax…