Lawrence O’Donnell ripped CNN and anchor Jake Tapper for promoting an interview with President Donald Trump over the weekend that was conducted via text, declaring, “The art of the Sunday morning interview reached a new dark low yesterday.”
“Donald Trump has become harder to get on Sunday morning, but the desperation [to book him] remains and, I guess, deepens,” the “Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” host remarked Monday night. “Yesterday morning, CNN presented a so-called interview with [Trump] that they can’t even prove was [done by] Donald Trump.” O’Donnell was then left visibly outraged and baffled by a clip of Tapper teasing his text interview with Trump.
“What? You gave him the questions in writing? So now instead of letting Trump hide in a phone call where we can at least know that it’s him talking, Donald Trump gets to hide behind the black screen of texting,” O’Donnell said. “We actually have no idea who texted the replies in that so-called interview. CNN is unable to prove that Donald Trump was actually doing that texting. CNN has not revealed how long it took to get a reply to each of the five written questions that apparently got replies.”
You can watch the full “Last Word” segment yourself in the video below.
O’Donnell was taken even more aback by Tapper’s note that there were additional texts he sent Trump that the president did not reply to. “What were those questions?” O’Donnell asked. “Exactly which questions did Donald Trump refuse to answer? What could be more relevant in reporting an exchange that is supposed to be with the President of the United States than including the questions he refused to answer?”
“We have no idea what the other questions were,” the MSNBC host observed. “When the history of Donald Trump’s mental decline is written, it will no doubt include that so-called interview yesterday as a turning point in Donald Trump’s White House dealing with the challenge of Donald Trump trying to answer questions during this period of obvious mental decline.” Before moving on, O’Donnell made sure to get a few more shots in on CNN and Trump.
“They won’t tell us how long it takes Donald Trump, or his stand-in, to deliver those answers, and they won’t tell us what questions Donald Trump, or his stand-in, refuses to answer,” the “Last Word” anchor somberly said. “The deviancy of Donald Trump only moves in one direction: down.”
