Lawrence O’Donnell devoted his program to what he characterized as an unprecedented moment in American political history: a sitting president openly stating that he doesn’t “care about the midterms” while cameras rolled during a Cabinet meeting. The MS NOW host’s blistering monologue on “The Last Word” framed President Trump’s remark as historic political self-sabotage that no prior occupant of the Oval Office would have dared to utter, even in private.
The confession came as Trump fielded questions about his ongoing war on Iran and negotiations aimed at ending the conflict. “They thought they were going to outwait me, you know?” Trump said. “‘We’ll outwait him. He’s got the midterms.’ I don’t care about the midterms.”
A Cabinet Meeting Turned Reality Show
Trump turned his Cabinet Room into a television studio, opening up to the White House press corps and bragging about inviting reporters inside — a flourish O’Donnell described as emblematic of the spectacle that has replaced substantive governance. The host argued that Cabinet meetings, traditionally treated as sensitive deliberative sessions, have been transformed under Trump into something resembling “the kind of cheap reality TV” the former “The Apprentice” host built his celebrity brand around.
The result, the host said, is that officials are prevented from “speaking freely to Donald Trump,” reduced instead to taking turns offering praise. Cameras captured exactly that pattern, with Cabinet members fawning over the president in a now-familiar ritual that has played out repeatedly over the past year.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was among the most effusive, praising Trump for what he called a “smart” war on Iran. The president responded by literally patting Hegseth on the back and laughingly stating, “He loves war.”
“The Cabinet room has never reeked of such stupidity and inhumanity before, and it never will again after the Trump presidency,” O’Donnell said.
The Iran War Looming Over Everything
The conflict has now entered its 88th day of what Trump has branded his “smart war,” claiming at least 13 U.S. military service members and thousands of Iranians while fueling fears of a global energy crisis and driving skyrocketing costs for gasoline and diesel fuel at home. U.S. and Iranian negotiators had reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire for 60 days and open nuclear talks, but Trump had yet to formally approve the deal, making a series of new demands after a Situation Room meeting in which he had promised a “final determination” — even as Secretary of State Marco Rubio had predicted “good news” within hours, according to NBC News and CNN.
Polling shared by O’Donnell indicated that 83 percent of voters say gas prices are going up, with not a single respondent saying prices are dropping significantly — except, the host noted dryly, Trump himself, who made that very claim during the session.
O’Donnell also flagged that the president spent nearly nine minutes of the meeting expounding on his plans to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., a fixation that exists alongside his obsession with the controversial White House ballroom project.
Republicans Quietly Breaking Away
While the president may have dismissed the political calendar, his party has not. O’Donnell noted that Republican lawmakers in both chambers are increasingly distancing themselves from Trump as midterm elections approach — contests that even right-wing pundits expect to be disastrous for the GOP.
Republicans in the Senate and in the House care about the midterm elections, and they know Trump is not helping them. They know that nothing is hurting them more than Trump’s war in Iran and the inflation it has caused.
Evidence of GOP fractures continues to mount. In Texas, Ken Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary runoff, scrambling the map further. House Speaker Mike Johnson is struggling to hold his caucus together, and FBI Director Kash Patel has been forced to fire a far-right agent over a bigoted attack. In Florida, Representative Byron Donalds is grappling with MAGA infighting during his gubernatorial primary. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has criticized the Trump Department of Justice’s $1.776 billion fund as a “cop beaters’ slush fund,” and a majority of GOP voters now oppose it.
Democrats, meanwhile, are seizing the opening. Sen. Cory Booker has hammered Trump-era ICE detention practices, former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper is mounting a Senate bid focused on voters “hit hard” by Trump’s economy, and Texas State Representative James Talarico is running against what he calls the nation’s “most corrupt political system.” Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms recently captured the Democratic nomination for Georgia governor, and Representative Terri Sewell has been rallying voters against new GOP-led voting restrictions.
For O’Donnell, the through line was unmistakable: a president performing for the cameras while his own party scrambles to outrun the consequences of his choices. The host devoted his monologue to dissecting what he framed as a historic moment of political self-sabotage. As reaction continued to spread, fellow MS NOW personalities, including Nicolle Wallace, weighed in on the moment, while critics from Stephen Miller’s orbit to podcaster Joe Rogan have spent the past weeks dissecting Trump’s ever-more-theatrical style of governance.