“This is day 52. I thought it was day 92. It’s day 52. And I’m exhausted,” he said on Wednesday, taking a short breath. “And so I’m gonna take next week off.”
Maddow, who is covering the first 100 days of Trump’s second term on an every-weekday basis instead of her usual once a week, said she understood the need to pace oneself. She said she wouldn’t hold it against him.
“Can you hold this against me? I’m gonna get a head start by taking tomorrow off,” he replied as both erupted in laughter.
At the beginning of their handoff, O’Donnell noted that Maddow was committed to the first 100 days but he was not. That appeared to spark genuine concern by Maddow that O’Donnell was perhaps departing for a much longer period ― even permanently.
But it was a false alarm.
O’Donnell’s aggravation, however, appeared to be an issue that a week off won’t cure.
The host went scorched earth on Trump during “The Last Word”:
“And 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.”