MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell used his monologue on Monday’s “The Last Word” to show viewers the photo he said perfectly captures Donald Trump’s rapidly diminishing strength.
“There is no more vivid image of the decline and fall of Donald Trump than the image that was created on Friday with Donald Trump slumped in the Oval Office at the desk in defeat, offering a political surrender to the man who stood beside him,” O’Donnell said, referencing Trump’s meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Before Friday’s Oval Office meeting, many expected the democratic socialist and the Republican president to clash. However, following a private conversation, the president heaped praise on the incoming mayor, telling reporters he was “very confident” that Mamdani would do a “very good job.”
As O’Donnell pointed out, before the mayoral election, Trump had threatened to withhold federal funds from New York City if Mamdani was elected. But on Friday, Trump backtracked on that threat.
The MS NOW host called Trump’s flip-flop “a complete surrender” and described it as “the kind of reversal a politician offers only in defeat.”
O’Donnell said the reason behind Mamdani’s warm reception at the White House wasn’t because Trump was “charmed by his smile,” arguing it was instead a political calculation by the president.
“Donald Trump is losing, and Donald Trump knows it,” he said. O’Donnell suggested Trump was using Mamdani as a “political sign” to show the American people that he understands the issue that was at the center of the mayor-elect’s campaign: affordability.
However, according to O’Donnell, the president’s play did not pay off. “It was pure, pathetic, losing political calculation by a loser — by a president who presided over a party that just had its worst Election Day imaginable.”
O’Donnell said the optics of Trump’s Oval Office display showed his supporters that he is losing his political “superpowers” — and not only that, but “losing in a confrontation with a 34-year-old politician running in his first important election.”
“The young man beat the old man, and the old man formally surrendered to the young man — and did it on TV,” O’Donnell said. “That image captures the decline and fall of Donald Trump as no other image has yet captured.”
You can watch O’Donnell’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.