On May 27, 2026, Lawrence O’Donnell on The Last Word once again filled his show with attacks on President Donald Trump and his cabinet meetings.
O’Donnell said:
“Still important enough to be private so that everyone involved could speak freely to the president. Donald Trump’s so called cabinet meetings are really the kind of cheap reality TV Donald Trump used to play in a fake conference room on an absurd NBC show. And it is plain to everyone who actually watches even a second of a Trump cabinet meeting on TV that no one there would ever consider speaking freely to Donald Trump. They all know their job there is to praise Donald Trump and nothing else. And that has never been the purpose of a cabinet meeting before Donald Trump’s silly televised Cabinet Room performances. Donald Trump said, I don’t care about the midterms when he was rambling about his belief that Iran had not negotiated a peace deal with him yet because Iran thinks that the political pressure of the coming midterm congressional elections will work in their favor in negotiating with Donald Trump.”
President Trump:
“They thought they were gonna outwait me. You know, we’ll outwait him. He’s got the midterms. I don’t care about the midterms.”
O’Donnell:
“I don’t care about the midterms. That is exactly what Republicans in Congress have been assuming about Donald Trump. That he doesn’t care about the midterms. He doesn’t care about their future. But Donald Trump has not been able to resist meddling in the midterm elections. Senate Republicans are reportedly upset that Donald Trump turned against one of their colleagues, a reliable incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, to support a profoundly damaged new Republican nominee for Senate in Texas, Ken Paxton, who Republicans believe will be easier for Democrat James Talarico to beat than John Cornyn would have been…”
Then of course O’Donnell replayed his interview with Talarico who called Paxton the most corrupt politician in America.
Trump’s cabinet meetings feature serious policy discussions on the economy, border security, energy production, and foreign threats like Iran. They give the American public direct visibility into the administration’s priorities and progress.
O’Donnell (and much of legacy media) complains because these meetings let the public see Trump’s team working directly on issues like Iran, the border, and the economy — without the media filter. That transparency threatens their narrative that everything Trump does is chaotic or authoritarian. They prefer old-school, closed-door Washington where they control the story.
“…They thought they were going to outwait me, you know, ‘We’ll outwait him, he’s got the midterms.’
I don’t care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to the midterms,
Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I’m doing that for the world. I’m not doing it just for us. And we’ve had great support from other nations, by the way. We don’t need it at all. But we’ve had great support from other nations. The problem is you always get the support when you don’t need it. When you need it, you don’t get the support. With Operation Epic Fury, our warriors are ensuring that the world’s number one state sponsor of terror never obtains a nuclear weapon. And they won’t.”
When President Trump said “I don’t care about the midterms,” he was making a very clear point: Iran was trying to stall negotiations, believing they could “outwait” him because of political pressure from the upcoming midterm elections. National and global security comes first.
O’Donnell claimed Trump hurt Republicans by turning against “one of their colleagues, a reliable incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas” to support Ken Paxton.
That “reliable incumbent” label is exactly how Democrats and the Washington establishment view Cornyn — he’s the kind of Republican they like because he’s willing to betray his own voters and Republican principles by cutting deals with Democrats on gun control, repeatedly voting for massive Ukraine aid packages, voting to certify Biden’s 2020 election, saying Trump’s “time has passed,” and supporting omnibus spending bills funding Democrat priorities. John Cornyn was a reliable establishment Republican who has held public office since 1984 and served 24 years in the U.S. Senate — not a MAGA warrior.
Meanwhile, Democrat James Talarico is the candidate who called illegal aliens “undocumented Americans,” pushes pathways to citizenship for illegal aliens, advised people in the USA illegally on how to evade ICE, backs boys competing in girls’ sports and gender mutilation surgeries on kids, claimed modern science recognizes six biological sexes, supports abortion on demand up to birth, explicitly said “I oppose voter ID,” and holds many other far-left positions that are completely out of step with Texas voters.
As for Ken Paxton, there’s always more to the story than the media wants to tell. Yes, he was impeached by establishment Republicans in the Texas House in 2023, but he was fully acquitted by the Republican-controlled Texas Senate on every single charge. He’s a battle-tested conservative fighter who survived an establishment GOP attempt to remove him — and Texas voters continue to back him.
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