While claiming “I don’t do alarmism,” MS Now’s Lawrence O’Donnell opened up Tuesday’s The Last Word, with what felt like an unskippable advertisement instead of a “news show,” for a new book titled The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy by Gil Durán. He kicked off the show with the new version of the climate change scare, that same old idea that we were going to die in a decade because of whatever that trending reason in that period, and then it never happens. This time, it’s A.I.
O’Donnell began the show with fear mongering his audience, going as far as hinting that nuclear weapons were just as deadly as A.I. stating:
And this is about the people who are controlling A.I. in this country. And it is so important because nuclear weapons have always been controlled by governments and by and developed an atomic bomb by our government and controlled by our government.
These guys, these people are the people who control A.I., a technology at least as dangerous as nuclear weapons.
Not even two seconds later, he states “I don’t do alarmism on this show. I’ve never done it. And this is not alarmism.”
What exactly can we call this then? If not alarmism, what’s it called when you scare your audience into believing that A.I. has the same capabilities as a weapon designed to decimate?
After so clearly performing alarmism, he went into sound another alarm about President Trump’s mouth, claiming “Donald Trump is the first publicly profane president” and that “It is no longer safe for kids in first grade to listen to the president of the United States speak.”
He seemed to be forgetting that President Joe Biden cursed at Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy on live television. Approximately nine minutes later he calls President Trump an “ignorant clown,” something that does not seem to align with the PG friendly behavior he seems so “concerned” with.
Towards the end of the show, he went from A.I. is going to end the world to once again an advertisement for this new book, speaking with the author about how the people who control A.I. were Nazis. “So these crazy ideas that I write about were well known to Silicon Valley insiders, and they considered them Fascists and had named them The Nerd Reich,” Duran said.
In addition, he must not remember that just a few months ago, in July, he twisted a statement put out by the President, amid escalating tensions with Iran. Ringing the alarm, claiming that President Trump wanted Vice President JD Vance to ‘Kill everyone in Iran if they assassinate Him’. Once again another example of him clearly ringing the alarm bell or a few weeks ago when he claimed that President Trump was trying to restrict the French language in Canada, with no evidence shown at all.
Sound the hypocrisy alarm!
The transcript is below. [Expand to read]
MS Now The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell
September 16, 2026
10:00:26 p.m. Eastern TimeJEN PSAKI: Hey Lawrence.
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Hey, Jen. I know some of us are catching up on our reading about A.I.. I've been doing that with this great new book. It's called The Nerd Reich by Gil Durán.
And this is about the people who are controlling A.I. in this country. And it is so important because nuclear weapons have always been controlled by governments and by and developed an atomic bomb by our government and controlled by our government.
These guys, these people are the people who control A.I., a technology at least as dangerous as nuclear weapons. And it is you know, I don't do alarmism on this show.
I've never done it. And this is not alarmism. When I say these people in this book are now the scariest people in the world, the people who are controlling right now anyway, the future of A.I., we're going to get to that later in this hour.
PSAKI: I first of all, I always tell you, you need a book club and everybody would buy the books that are in your book club.
And now I'm going to– hold up the book again because I need to go buy this book.
O’DONNELL: The The Nerd Reich, Gil Durán–
PSAKI: The Nerd Reich, okay.
O’DONNELL: This is, it is, it's worse than you think, I guess is what we have to say about the situation. And this book will make that very clear to you.
PSAKI: All right. I'm going to put it on my reading list as the Lawrence O’Donnell –
We need a good name for it. But, but t I'm going to put it on my Lawrence O'Donnell reading list–
O’DONNELL: Okay.
PSAKI: – I'll look forward to watching the interview too.
O’DONNELL: Thanks, Jen.
PSAKI: Thanks, Lawrence
O’DONNELL: Thank you.
Well, the deranged depravity of Donald Trump has delivered more degradation to this country than any other person in our history has come close to delivering. Donald Trump is the champion of American degradation, and there is no other single individual in our history who we can point to, who has visited such overwhelming degradation on this country. Not even close. There isn't a close second.
[ON-SCREEN QUOTE: “an incompetent lackey”]
Degrading our society, degrading our culture relentlessly every single day of his presidency.
Donald Trump is the first publicly profane president, proudly profane president. It is no longer safe for kids in first grade to listen to the president of the United States speak. That's no longer a profanity free zone, where we can be sure that our kids are not being exposed to the kind of language we don't want them to hear yet in their lives.
Elementary school students live in a country where they are now, many of them smarter than the president of the United States who drowns children in stupidity almost whenever he speaks. He is the only president who never gives a thought that children might be listening when he is speaking.
It's as if he had never been a father of young children. Donald Trump speaks with the constant delusion that everyone listening to him, everyone loves him and voted for him and thinks it's really cool that he swears into microphones on a regular basis.
[ … ]
10:50:50 p.m. Eastern
O’DONNELL: Back with us is Gil Durán. He's the author of The Nerd Reich Silicon Valley Fascism And The War On Democracy.
Gil, let's begin with the title of your book. I know that phrase, The Nerd Reich does not originate with you.
GIL DURÁN: When I started writing about this stuff for The New Republic in 2024, someone from the Crypto World reached out to me, a well-known figure, and said, you know, we've been calling these guys The Nerd Reich for years.
So these crazy ideas that I write about were well known to Silicon Valley insiders, and they considered them Fascists and had named them The Nerd Reich. And I think it's important to know that I didn't come up with that name. It comes from their own peers, people who largely agree with them on matters of technology, but consider them too extreme.
(…)
