The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell 5/18/2026 | MSNBC Breaking News Today May 18 2026

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Lawrence O'Donnell. Good evening, Lawrence.

[00:00:04]>> Good evening, Rachel. I'm back from what was just a oneweek vacation and and here's what was so great about it. As of Saturday, it felt like I'd been away for a month because because I did a I did a week on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean having absolutely nothing come my way that has anything to do with what I do here in this job. And so that's what a real vacation is. A real vacation is really away from the job and and it really >> I am I am very very glad that you did that. I am jealous and very glad that you did that. I will also let you know that while you were out some of the most corrupt stuff that has ever happened in the United States, ever back to the history of our founding and before happened while you were gone. So I'm glad you're home.

[00:00:54]>> Well, if it happened before today, I don't know anything about it. So, this will be this next hour will be about today. Uh because that's all I know about. I paid no attention last week.

[00:01:10]>> Enough corrupt stuff happened today that I know it's going to be a pretty good show. Welcome back, Lawrence. We missed you.

[00:01:15]>> Thanks, Rachel. Thank you.

[00:01:19]>> Well, Donald Trump is now just 27 days away from completing the 80th year of his life. And on this the 338th day of Donald Trump's 80th year, he finally said, "I don't want to be stupid."

[00:01:43]Too late, Donald.

[00:01:45]Too late. The time to not want to be stupid is not when you are president of the United States. The time to not want to be stupid is when you are in elementary school or at the very latest high school. And the solution to the problem of possibly being stupid is to do your homework. Something Donald Trump has never done. Donald Trump's ghostritten first book tells stories of his life growing up as a spoiled rich kid. And in his school years, there is nothing about pulling all-nighters as final exams approached. There is nothing about academic excellence or academic striving because Donald Trump was still sane enough to know in 1987 when the book was published that if he claimed to graduate from college sumakum laad that kind of lie would be easily caught and exposed.

[00:02:48]There is a story proudly told in that book of Donald Trump punching one of his teachers in elementary school which is a very strong indicator of being very very stupid because it's Donald Trump telling a story about him punching a teacher.

[00:03:10]There's no reason to believe it because Donald Trump lies about everything and he always has. But either way, actually punching a teacher in elementary school or inventing a story about punching your teacher in elementary school is a mark of grotesque stupidity.

[00:03:29]We in the news media are now struggling to keep up with two constantly expanding stories about Donald Trump. The corruption and the stupidity. And it has been impossible to really keep up with both of those stories because they are each so enormous and always expanding.

[00:03:46]There is a new facet of Trump corruption and Trump stupidity revealed every day.

[00:03:50]But at the same time, not all of the corruption is visible and not all of the stupidity is visible and some items in both categories just aren't big enough to make it into our coverage of the day. One small example of stupidity that you will probably hear nothing about anywhere else is the 90-day extension of the breathtakingly stupid waiver of the Jones Act that begins today. The extension begins today, making Donald Trump's waiver of the Jones Act the longest waiver in the history of that obscure law. The Jones Act requires that all cargo shipping between harbors in the United States must be carried on American flagged ships. American cruise.

[00:04:40]No foreign flagged ships are allowed to transport anything from, say, New York Harbor to Boston Harbor or any other American port. The law is designed to protect the jobs of American maritime workers on ships and working in the ports. And Donald Trump has suspended that law because of his war in Iran, which a New York Times poll, a new New York Times poll says 64% of Americans believe was a mistake. The poll doesn't use the word stupid mistake, just uses the phrase the wrong decision.

[00:05:17]But surely tens of millions of Americans believe that Donald Trump's war was a stupid mistake by Donald Trump. To compound that stupid mistake, Donald Trump actually thinks that the price of gasoline in America can somehow be made cheaper by suspending the Jones Act and allowing foreign ships to transport goods and fuel and anything else from one American port to another, even though there is absolutely no economic evidence that that could have the slightest effect on the price of gasoline anywhere in the country.

[00:05:50]Waivers to the Jones Act are rare and usually targeted at a specific emergency. President Biden waved the Jones Act in 2022 to allow a foreign flag tanker, just one, to deliver fuel to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fa.

[00:06:06]That's a typical use of a limited targeted emergency use of a Jones Act waiver.

[00:06:12]Donald Trump, who claims to be the American president more concerned with American jobs than any other president in American history, now faces this objection from the Seafares Union to his waiver of the Jones Act. Quote, "America's maritime labor unions are deeply concerned about the administration's broad Act waiver, which undermines our national security, weakens military readiness, and hands critical maritime work to foreign vessel operators, or any other president.

[00:06:40]Waving the Jones Act for what will now be 150 days would be a major story that would provoke emergency congressional hearings that would clearly demonstrate the utter pointlessness of such a waiver. But for Donald Trump, it's just a tiny entry in a long list of very stupid choices and broken promises about his devotion to American workers and American jobs.

[00:07:07]And the New York Times reporting on its poll showing Donald Trump at a new low in the New York Times poll of a 37% approval. Brent Klein Jr., a Republican who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 and 2024 told the New York Times, quote, "He's not doing what he said he was going to do. That's my biggest frustration with him." Mr. Klein, 43, the owner of a cleaning company who lives in Branson, Missouri, described himself as very pissed off with the president's decision to attack around Iran without seeking congressional approval. I just want my family to live a good, healthy life, he added, and to not have to constantly pay more and more for food products and stuff. And a man who identified himself as Thomas from Hawaii, calling into C-SPAN on the Republican line, said he voted for Donald Trump three times and now regrets it.

[00:08:06]I wanted to believe Trump was the real deal for a long time, even though I had doubts because I knew enough about his uh business history to think otherwise.

[00:08:17]But now I regret my support for him and I should have known better. He's making it plain as day. He's a con man, a liar, doesn't keep his promises. He's in office all for himself. And he doesn't even try to hide his corruption anymore.

[00:08:34]He's the worst president we've ever had and he's the most corrupt president we've ever had. I know that's hard. It took me a while to be able to say that.

[00:08:42]Very difficult when you commit yourself to believing in somebody.

[00:08:47]>> Thomas from Hawaii was asked, "What was the straw that broke the camel's back?"

[00:08:54]>> What was the the straw that broke the camel's back this time around? Was it the war? Is it >> I don't think it's one thing. It's been a cumulative process.

[00:09:03]Um, and it's it's gotten so blatant now.

[00:09:07]And he's just literally the things he's, you know, he was going to lower prices on day one. He was going to do this on day one. Only he could fix all this stuff. And uh, now I understand how somebody like Adolf Hitler was able to brainwash millions of people. I never thought I'd see that again in my lifetime, but but it's happened, right?

[00:09:28]I thought we got past that, but we don't learn from history.

[00:09:33]Speaking of history, Donald Trump is the first president in history to publicly promise to commit war crimes, which is in and of itself a war crime. He did it yesterday on social media, saying, quote, "For Iran, the clock is ticking and they better get moving fast or there won't be anything left of them." Time is of the essence exclamation point. The world has come to ignore Donald Trump's written threats of war crimes. The president of the United States yesterday said there won't be anything left of them. That would mean that Donald Trump was planning to kill every child in Iran, every baby, every pregnant woman, every person in the country.

[00:10:20]And not one person in the world took Donald Trump seriously when he said that because he has said it too many times before, more times than the world can keep track of. And the world knows, as the Iranian regime surely knows, that Donald Trump wasn't going to do it.

[00:10:39]That it was just another empty threat from Donald Trump. And sure enough, today on social media, Donald Trump said that he had decided, quote, to hold off our planned military attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was scheduled for tomorrow. He claimed that the dictators of other countries in the region, urged him not to commit any war crimes against Iran in the hope of concluding a peace agreement with Iran.

[00:11:05]And Donald Trump said, quote, "This deal will include, importantly, no nuclear weapons for Iran." exclamation points.

[00:11:12]In other words, it will include exactly what was included in the deal President Obama and five other countries negotiated with Iran in which Iran promised not to make nuclear weapons, not to pursue nuclear weapons in any way. Donald Trump ripped up that deal negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry. In his first term as president, Donald Trump just dropped out of the deal. Donald Trump withdrew the United States from an agreement in which Iran said in writing, quote, "Under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons." And now Donald Trump has gone to war to desperately attempt to get Iran to put that same sentence in writing again for him. and Iran is refusing to do so. At 5:37 p.m. today, Donald Trump said, quote, "We were getting ready to do a very major attack tomorrow, and I've put it off for a little while. Hopefully, maybe forever, but possibly for a little while, because we've had uh very big discussions with Iran, and we'll see what they amount to." I was asked by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and some others if we could put it off for two or three days, a short period of time because they think that they are getting very close to making a deal. And if we can do that where there's no nuclear weapon going into the hands of Iran, I think, and if they're satisfied, uh, we will be probably satisfied also.

[00:12:49]>> That's the man who said, "I don't want to be stupid." So there is Donald Trump now saying the negotiations are up to Iran's neighbors and if they're satisfied then we will be satisfied.

[00:13:02]That's not what President Obama did.

[00:13:03]That's not what John Kerry did.

[00:13:06]Donald Trump has found an even weaker negotiating position with Iran.

[00:13:12]The Iranian regime knows just how opposed to Donald Trump's war the American people are. And that came up today in a Trump phone interview with the New York Post. The New York Post reports, quote, "Questioned about regional source claims that Iran is attempting to wait out Washington on both the nuclear issue and reopening the Straight of Hormuz." Trump said he hadn't heard that. "I'm not hearing anything." He said, "I can't talk to you about it. It's a negotiation.

[00:13:42]I don't want to be stupid."

[00:13:45]There is no reason to believe Donald Trump is planning a major attack on Iran, knowing that the American people are opposed to that. A possible indicator that nothing serious was planned in Iran is the fact that Donald Trump's defense secretary went to Kentucky today to campaign for a Trumpup supported Republican running for Congress against the incumbent Republican Thomas Massie who has angered Donald Trump by supporting the release of the Epstein files and pursuing more information about the man who said he was Donald Trump's closest friend for 10 years, the rapist and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. We've never seen a secretary of defense campaigning for a member of Congress. Most secretaries of defense chosen by Democratic presidents have actually been Republicans.

[00:14:34]President Clinton had a Republican Secretary of Defense. President Obama had two Republican secretaries of defense. And needless to say, none of those secretaries of defense campaigned against the president's political opponents.

[00:14:49]That is a uniquely Trumpian event and nothing could make it more clear to the American people that Donald Trump's defense secretary has no serious business to conduct in his job this week if he can go to Kentucky for a campaign event when he is supposed to be planning according to Donald Trump a way to attack Iran so that quote there won't be anything left of them. How stupid do you have to be to repeatedly threaten Iran with attacks that never come to the point that your threats become meaningless? And how stupid do you have to be to send your secretary of defense to Kentucky for a campaign event when you want Iran to think that the defense secretary is planning the next big attack on Iran?

[00:15:39]And Donald Trump says today, "I don't want to be stupid."

[00:15:43]Which is exactly the same as Donald Trump saying with his 80th birthday approaching, "I don't want to be old."

[00:15:52]Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington State. He is the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee. Carson Smith. Uh, this situation that we're now in where where the world has lost track of how many times Donald Trump has threatened war crimes in Iran, threatened to just wipe out Iran, wipe it off the face of the of the earth with the Iran on the other end of those threats, realizing that they're empty. Uh, where does that leave these negotiations, if there are any negotiations?

[00:16:27]>> Well, it leaves them where they were. I mean, look, Trump has done this over and over and over again. So, let's start with the actual factual world. And in the factual world, there aren't much in the way of negotiations going on between Iran and us right now. Iran has said what they will negotiate over is how much are we going to pay them to open the strike. They're going to talk about nukes. They're not going to talk about anything else. And as far as we can tell, that position has not changed for over a month now. But Donald Trump keeps coming out and making this big threat and then saying, "Oh, I'm pulling that threat back because they've agreed to something." It's really important for your listeners to understand or your viewers to understand he's making that all up. Okay? We are in the exact same place we were before. The real alternative here is to actually start working with the rest of the world to get into a stronger negotiating position. But what Trump is doing right now, he's all he's making it all up.

[00:17:18]None of this is actually happening. And yes, the the threats of war crimes diminish the United States and make us look horrible on the world stage every single time he does them. Um even if he doesn't mean them, but they don't change the fundamental fact that he started a war that he doesn't know how to end and he's just as stuck now as he was when it began. So what we just heard him say on video today is in effect that Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region are negotiating with Iran and if they agree to something with Iran then the United States will agree to whatever they agree to.

[00:17:55]Yeah, that that doesn't really make a ton of sense there because we are the ones that are in the conflict with Iran most directly. And is Saudi Arabia and the UAE going to be able to open up the straight? Are Saudi Arabia and the UAE going to be able to enforce an agreement to, you know, eliminate their nuclear weapons? Now, that doesn't even make any sense. We are engaged in this negotiation. And look, it is just having such a devastating impact on this country. The cost of Donald Trump's policies just keep going up and up and up. None more so than the war, but it's certainly not the only one. So, look, again, I think it's important, and we can lament all the terrible stuff that Trump has done. I think it's also important for a path out and that path out is not to start bombing again. That doesn't get us anywhere. The blockade's not working. We've got to bring in the rest of the world, negotiate an actual agreement from Iran. And it's terrible.

[00:18:44]Trump has put us in an incredible position of weakness, but continuing this comes at such an incredibly high cost. We have to get real negotiators to get in there and actually start working to find some agreement to end this war.

[00:18:57]In terms of high cost, the high cost for the American consumer, the American taxpayer is something that Donald Trump has basically said he doesn't care about. He's not even thinking about. Uh how does that work? That seems to be reflected in that New York Times poll.

[00:19:15]>> Yeah. Look, I mean, and the thing is, and I listen to the people saying, "I voted for Trump. I regret it. He didn't do what he said he was going to do." I mean, I'll take that. But look, Trump said when he was campaigning this time, he's going to go out and take vengeance on his enemies. He's in it for himself, 100%. Now, that isn't that he doesn't occasionally have policies here and there that he that he sort of, you know, flits around with all over the place, but at the end of the day, he wants to have as much power as he possibly can for himself. He doesn't care about us and he wants to use our government, the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security to settle his personal scores and and just basically for his ego, you know, whether it's renaming the Kennedy Center, tearing down the the the East Wing of the White House, you know, now he's putting up an arch, he's doing all Look, this is unbelievable to me. I mean, this is an authoritarian destroying our representative democracy basically just for the glorification of his massive ego and we're all paying an enormous price for it. So, it's time to wake up and hold him to account for it.

[00:20:15]Congressman Adam Smith, thank you very much for starting off our coverage tonight.

[00:20:19]>> Thanks, Lance. And coming up, Elizabeth Warren is calling it corruption on steroids. And Donald Trump is lying, claiming that he knows nothing about it, as his attorney general is planning to hand out almost $2 billion in what could be secret payments to violent criminal Trump supporters or anyone else Donald Trump wants to give money to. That's next.

[00:20:45]Senator Elizabeth Warren is calling it corruption on steroids. Donald Trump is ordering the United States Treasury to pay 1 billion776 million to criminals who were convicted of violently attacking the capital in an attempt to overthrow a presidential election won decisively by Joe Biden.

[00:21:07]Donald Trump did this in the form of a so-called settlement of a lawsuit that he filed against the federal government which he controls for $10 billion when Donald Trump's attempt to basically steal $10 billion directly from the federal government became politically unbearable even for Donald Trump. He forced the Justice Department to settle his case, which is a frivolous lawsuit of no merit at all. And the Justice Department announced the settlement today, landing on the magic number of 1776 as the precise figure for a fund called the Anti-Weaponization Fund. The fund will be controlled by Donald Trump and his attorney general. And nothing the fund does needs to be made public.

[00:21:52]According to the agreement, nothing the fund does can be questioned by anyone outside the fund, like a court. The fund will be run by five members chosen by Donald Trump through his attorney general. The fund will pay unlimited amounts that will not be taxable income to anyone. Donald Trump and as an attorney general decide have somehow been victimized by being prosecuted for their crimes. Or they could just give the money to anyone who claims they've been in any way bothered by the American legal system. When asked about it today, Donald Trump told this lie. He said, "I have to tell you, I know very little about it. I wasn't involved in the whole creation of it and the negotiation, but this is reimbursing people that were horribly treated." Donald Trump is the plaintiff in this case. It is impossible to legally settle a lawsuit without the plaintiff knowing everything about the settlement and approving everything about the settlement. Personally, Donald Trump's lawyers would not be allowed legally to settle this case without Donald Trump being involved in that settlement. So, Donald Trump continues to lie and continues to believe that there is no way of insulting the intelligence of elected Republicans in Washington or his Republican voters.

[00:23:14]Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Roan of California. He's a member of the House Oversight Committee. Uh, Carson Conno, we have never seen anything like it. And as I read this thing, it's really open to Donald Trump to give money to anyone he wants to, even if you weren't prosecuted for anything uh, by the Justice Department.

[00:23:36]>> Lawrence, this 1776 fund is making a mockery of every principle of our 1776 founding. I mean, it's literally Donald Trump stealing American taxpayer money and giving it to his criminal allies. No president, no president in our history has ever just ever just stolen American taxpayer money like this. And what is shameful is at a time where Americans have more costs of food, of gas, of utilities because of a war Donald Trump started, he's not taking this money and giving a check to the American people as any decent president would do. He has no regard for the public good. It's shameful. It's the most corrupt administration in American history.

[00:24:16]>> The uh the the details of this are are are really quite stunning as you read them. Uh it it includes the fact that uh that they make no claim of being able to prevent anything illegal from being done with the money by any recipients of the money.

[00:24:37]>> Absolutely not. I mean, look, Todd Blanch, who is the attorney general, acting attorney general, has blocked all the Epstein files. He's going to get to appoint five people on a board who are basically going to determine who gets the money uh of this tax dollars.

[00:24:52]There's no legal process. It's Trump's cronies getting to distribute workingclass money uh taxpayer money to whoever supported him. And these are criminals. These are people who invaded the capital. These are people who beat police officers. It is just total corruption in plain sight.

[00:25:12]>> And then it's a fivep person group u and a quorum is defined in the agreement as three and a majority of that quorum two is all you need uh to actually get one of these payments. Uh and and it's it's just and there's no as I read it, there's no requirement for any of the decisions, anything that is done by this group to be made public.

[00:25:39]Nothing. Basically, you have to convince Todd Blanch that you're a Trump acolyte.

[00:25:45]You could have a criminal record. You could have beat a cop. You could have uh been part of the insurrection. You could have destroyed the capital. But if you're for Donald Trump and you can show that this group, the secret group, will take American tax dollars and basically hand it to you. And uh we're not talking about an insignificant sum. We're talking about $1.7 billion. I mean, you could have a check to everyone who has a higher gas prices at the pump. Instead, you're funding Trump's criminal allies.

[00:26:15]And I think people are seeing this now.

[00:26:17]It's because it's not just corruption.

[00:26:19]It's corruption that's taking literally stealing from American taxpayers >> and the Treasury Secretary is involved in this particular corruption. Donald Trump ordering the Treasury Secretary to deliver that money to the Justice Department. Uh Carson Conor, we have to squeeze in a commercial break here. If you could please stay with us. When we come back, I want to ask you about today's interview uh by the the House with the last person who saw who thinks she's the last person who saw Jeffrey Epstein alive. That's next.

[00:26:52]really happy to have you here. Happy Monday. I have some stuff to show you guys. If we are trying to backs stop our democracy, part of it is Congress asserting itself. How hard has it been to get this information? Can I just get your take, your read on what's going on here? Trump has never been less powerful. The agenda he's pursuing has never been more evident and more unpopular. The people on the other side of this fight, they know the way they're going to save American democracy is by using American democratic means to do so.

[00:27:24]We are