Lawrence O’Donnell Shreds Trump For Talking About Drapes As Death Toll Rises In Iran
MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday laid into President Donald Trump for bragging about the drapes at the White House and telling reporters just how “beautiful” his new ballroom will be, while staying silent on the rising U.S. death toll of his war on Iran.
“When Donald Trump was speaking lovingly about drapes this afternoon, the publicly announced death toll of American military personnel in Donald Trump’s war was four,” O’Donnell said Monday during his opening monologue on “The Last Word.”
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“And later today, after Donald Trump was talking about his love of his drapes, that number was raised to six,” he continued. “And Donald Trump has not said a word about those lost lives since that number moved up to six today.”
Critics have widely mocked Trump over his digression on Monday, where he stated during a White House ceremony for Medal of Honor recipients that he has “always liked gold,” gestured to the curtains in the East Room, and bragged, “I picked those drapes in my first term.”
O’Donnell claimed that Trump was likely the “only president in history” who, amid conflict, “is talking to the world about drapes that he chose.”
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The “Last Word” host went on to play a clip of Trump stating Saturday while announcing U.S. strikes on Iran that America “may have casualties” in the war, and a clip of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth admitting there are “no stupid rules of engagement” in the conflict.
“And that means the American military under Donald Trump will be operating under the same no rules of engagement used by Adolf Hitler’s forces in World War II against Americans,” O’Donnell said after the clips concluded.
“Donald Trump and his secretary of defense have both repeatedly referred to what they are doing in Iran as a war, which neither of them seem to understand as a way of emphasizing just how unconstitutional and illegal it is,” he added.
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O’Donnell cited former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori in claiming that the conflict in Iran is illegal in both domestic and international terms, noting first that the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war and does not authorize a president to unilaterally do so.
He also argued that the Trump administration can’t simply invoke the War Powers Resolution of 1973, as it only allows the president to initiate hostilities if war has already been declared or authorized by a specific statute, or if the U.S. itself has been attacked.
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The MS NOW host then went on to note that Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat in the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggested after a closed-door briefing Monday with Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, that the strikes primarily benefitted Israel.
“There was no imminent threat to the United States of America by the Iranians,” said Warner at the time. “There was a threat to Israel. And if we equate a threat to Israel as the equivalent of an imminent threat to the United States, then we are in uncharted territory.”
O’Donnell argued that the buck in this case nonetheless stops with the U.S. president, adding that Trump “did not even attempt” to argue that any of the conditions to declare war were met before launching U.S. strikes. The news host then claimed that the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini was illegal, as international law “generally prohibits killing heads of state.”
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