MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell skewered President Donald Trump on Wednesday over his handling of the unpopular war on Iran and for telling reporters Tuesday, “I don’t really have enough time to explain it to people, I’m too busy getting it done.”
“Yesterday, Donald Trump said, quote, ‘I don’t really have enough time to explain,’” O’Donnell said Wednesday. “That’s what he said about his war, doesn’t have enough time to explain.”
The “Last Word” host continued, “Someone else did explain the current status of Donald Trump’s war yesterday, when Donald Trump didn’t have the time to explain it, and it took exactly five minutes to fully assess the current status of Donald Trump’s war.”
O’Donnell went on to praise Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) for speaking bluntly about the war on Tuesday at a congressional hearing, recalling former Secretary of State John Kerry testifying similarly in 1971 as then-head of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
“Like John Kerry, Seth Moulton is a combat veteran, a former United States Marine,” said O’Donnell, adding: “Congressman Moulton used every second of his five minutes yesterday questioning Admiral Brad Cooper in a way that left the admiral repeatedly close to speechless.”
The war has cost the lives of at least 13 U.S. military service members and more than 3,000 Iranians. Moulton appeared to have the death toll firmly in mind on Tuesday when he asked Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, “Admiral, are you familiar with General Westmoreland?”
“Moulton was referring to the American military commander in Vietnam who told a long string of lies about the Vietnam War and how well it was going when the United States of America was, in fact, losing that war every single day of that war,” O’Donnell explained.
He continued, “It was Seth Moulton’s way of saying, ‘Be careful, do not step into the model of lying that the American military commanders fell into during a war in Vietnam that they could not defend or explain and could never win.’”
On Tuesday, Moulton noted that the Trump administration claimed to have “obliterated” and “significantly degraded” Iran’s nuclear program, only to launch a full-scale conflict months later. He asked Cooper, “So if this was true back then, five months ago, then why did we start this war? Was he lying to us then?”
Moulton also challenged Cooper’s claims that “everything’s going according to plan,” asking, “Admiral, where was closing the strait [of Hormuz] in the plan?”
“For 250 years, the Navy has kept sea lanes open and free. Under every previous president, the Strait of Hormuz has been open. So why is it closed under your watch?” he asked.
Moulton additionally questioned how “begging China for help” figured into the plan, and grilled Cooper about replacing Iran’s late Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with “a more hard-line guy” before wondering “how many more Americans we have to ask to die for this mistake.”
“I think it’s an entirely inappropriate statement from you, sir,” Cooper countered.
Moulton fired back: “With all due respect, it’s not a statement — it’s a question.”