Transcripts For MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell

That does it for us tonight. It is time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Sorry to eat your last 45 seconds. Its tough to watch. There are reports that said he was able to wave to people on the way out. He seemed to be coming back even when he was on the floor. Thats right. His aides and family both say he will be fine but obviously nobody likes to see that. We will be watching reports. Thank you, rachel. A new lawsuit could force President Trump to release his tax returns and finally revealing who he owes money to and other details because of the emoluments clause of the constitution. Laurence tribe is part of the lawsuit thats been brought about that clause. He will join us tonight. I wonder what its like when you are telling a kid about the story of George Washington cutting down the cherry tree and saying to his dad, i cannot tell a lie. I cut down the tree. Are kids still buying that story, or are they saying it wasnt a lie . It was a falsehood. I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings i know. This is off to a terrible start. This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period. I dont trust anyone who ends a sentence with the word period. Imagine if someone said, look, im a doctor, period. Our secretary gave alternate facts. They are not facts they are falsehoods. You are worried your country is in the hands of this unpredictable man. Relax, i got this. The framers wanted a president who had undivided loyalty to the american people. Whats your reaction to lawsuits today . Hes not going to release the tax return. We litigated it throughout the election. People didnt care. They voted for him. President trump, i did not vote for you. I want to be able to support you, but first i ask you support me. We have our work cut out for us. And its going to get harder before it gets easier. Our right to fight back. Fight back so we have now entered the president ial era of falsehoods and footnotes. Parents and teachers around the country who have been trying to teach kids to follow George Washingtons example of never telling a lie are now busy explaining to those kids what a falsehood is now that much of the news media has seemed to arrive at an informal agreement to call a lie a falsehood. This is a big step forward for those sections of the media that spent a couple of years now, or more than that, tweeting trump lies about president obamas birth as trump being trump. Major newspapers an the country started to use the word lie in reference to things trump and his staff were saying and now they seem to havelanded on the softer sounding falsehood. In some cases it is a more accurate description and in some less accurate. A falsehood is a statement that is untrue. You can pass along a falsehood not knowing it is untrue. In that case it wouldnt technically be a lie because the lie is a deliberate use of a falsehood with the intention to deceive. The word falsehood removes that intention. It allows the intention to remain a mystery. Heres one of the falsehoods President Trump delivered on saturday when he delivered the cia, the institution dedicated to operating falsehoods from facts. I made a speech. I looked out, it looked like a million, 1. 5 Million People. Now that is a falsehood. Donald trumpas never looked out a as a crowd as what he saw at his inauguration, he never tried to estimate such a crowd. And it was a relatively small turnout as far as inauguration crowds go. But it could have looked huge to him. Im sure. From where he was standing. Thats where the crowd looks biggest. But the same man who said he saw a million, 1. 5 Million People, also told you he saw this. I watched, when the World Trade Center came tumbling down and i watched in jersey city, new jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. I watched thousands and thousands of people. Now, we all know from absolute fact that he did not watch that because that never happened. Thousands and thousands of people cheering as that building was coming down. So we know thats a lie. Thats what donald trump looks like when hes lying. Now, im fine going along with the new convention of calling some of these things falsehoods, but when we know it is a lie,s if we call it a falsehood than we become the liar. Today the New York Times introduced something new to its coverage of the Trump Administration falsehoodhood. The times included two footnotes, one correcting something that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on saturday and another thing that the president said on saturday. In a lifetime of reading newspapers around the world, i have never once seen a footnote before in a newspaper. Falsehood correcting footnote might be the best new thing in the newspaper world for 2017. The footnote shows that the New York Times is thinking hd how to deal with the trump presidency. They know this is different. The times seems to be trying to come up with new rules for handling the flow of information from the Trump Administration that they have every right to expect based on the campaign will obtain an unprecedented level of falsehoods. Today sean spicer explained why he wasted his first appearance in the White House Press Briefing Room trying to push falsehoods about the size of the inauguration crowd that were instantly proven to be untrue. Its not just about a crowd size. Its about this constant, you know, hes not going to run, than if he runs hes going to rop drop out. No way he can win in pennsylvania, michigan, theres a constant theme to undercut the enormous support that he has. I think its unbelievably frustrating which enyou are told it is not big enough, not good enough. You cant win. A constant theme to undercut the enormous support that he has. Wow, its a good thing nothing like that happened to previous president s or we would have seen how frustratinged they get. Sean spicer is saying its okay to lash out with falsehoods from a white house podium when you are frustrated or demoralized. Okay. Lets compare this just to Donald Trumps immediate predecessor. When donald trump went on the today show and said he sent investigators to hawaii to investigate president obamas birth and you wont believe what they are finding, do you think that was frustrating for president obama . Frustrating for Michelle Obama . Maybe demoralizing for the obama children . Did president obama tweet about it . Did he say a word about it . Or did he process the years of donald trump lying about him and his birth with the fullest possible version of president ial grace and dignity. All that we could possibly expect from a president. Who probably was a little frustrated. The president s most recent falsehood, President Trumps most recent falsehood is a gem he delivered tonight, to a meeting of bipart congressional leaders at the white house where he explained to them the reason Hillary Clinton got millions more votes than he did was voter fraud, pure and simple. And that is how every trump supporter ive spoken to privately since the election has explained Hillary Clintons vote total to me. Who needs facts when your followers believe your falsehoods . Joining us now david corn Washington Bureau chief for mother jones and msnbc political analyst and washington columnist in for the boston globe and contributor to politico magazine. Just to work backwards from our most recent news report, here we have reports coming out of that discussion the president had with congressional leadership tonight where his full, straighton explanation for why Hillary Clinton got almost 3 million more votes than he did is just plain voter fraud. Of course not a shred of evidence. Is that a falsehood, or is that a lie . Well, i love your distinction between the two. I would say this is one of those cases where it speaks to sean spicers original point, which is the delegitimizeation. He is concerned about his legitimacy and doesnt like the fact people can say that Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes than he did. He continues to repeat the thing that has no verification or evidence behind it or Illegal Immigrants voting and continues to say he won a landslide in the Electoral College, when we know it was one of the lowest Electoral College victories in history. You can say it is a falsehood in the sense that donald trump has convinced himself and believes it and it ties back to the point you are making about children and George Washington. I want to bring this up. For the womens march on saturday in washington, i went to observe and report and i brought along my fifth grade son. He pointed out to me one of the signs in the crowd that he liked that had George Washington saying i cannot tell a lie Richard Nixon saying i cant not tell the truth and donald trump saying i cannot tell the difference. It is a legitimate question. Can he tell the difference between the falsehoods or is he intentionally lying . Either way doesnt matter. Alternative facts are not true and we cannot be lulled in a to another version of reality. It is orwellian. How old did you say your son is . Fifth grader. His political education is way beyond mine in the fifth grade. Thats impressive. David corn, our nbc news reporting on what donald trump said at the white house has two sources confirming to nbc news that donald trump spent approximately the first ten minutes talking about this and about the vote totals and saying that between 3 million and 5 million illegals, that was his word, illegals, voted in the 2016 election. So in this country, where illegal voters cannot vote because they dont have acceptable i. D. S to certain states, somehow 5 million illegals, as he put it you can see he needs a number that is more than 3 million, i think, david because he needs to have he doesnt want a tie with Hillary Clinton. He needs to beat her by a couple of million. He can do that basic math. Take some comfort in that, lawrence. Your wonderful opening, you set up a dichotomy between lies and falsehoods. I think you got it right but there might be a third option, which is delusions. Im not being overly glib when i say that. He may really believe that he saw thousands of people protests, cheering on the 9 11 tragedy in jerse city, he may really believe there are 5 Million People because its convenient to believe this. He may really believe he wasnt making fun of a reporter. During one of the debates, Hillary Clinton said, you called Global Warming Climate Change a hoax created by the chinese. He said, no, i did not. That was exactly what he had tweeted. She was quoting him accurately. He may have believed he never said it. Maybe he forgot. So i think theres something about his processing of information, to maybe be charitable about it, that still leaves a lot of mystery. Its mystifying. When he goes to the cia headquarters, as he did on saturday, and says i have been on Time Magazine cover more than anybody. Well, he probably believes that even though it is not true. Its going to be a big problem for the media to cover this well and fairly. Lets take a look at the big moment in the alternative facts moment that happened this weekend on meet the press with chuck todd. Lets just look at this exchange with Kellyanne Conway. Answer the question of why the president asked the White House Press secretary to come out in front of the podium, for the first time, and utter a falsehood. Why did he do that that . It undermines the credibility of the White House Press office. Dont be overly dramatic about it, chuck. What you are saying is a falsehood and our press secretary gave alternative facts to that. Alternative facts. Four of the five fact he uttered, one thing he got four of five were not true. Alternative facts are not facts. Thefs falsehoods. Of all of the reviews you can give to chuck todd on meet the press, overly dramatic is the single most unfair are view chuck has ever gotten. He definitely stays under dramatic. But there are you are. I mean, chuck really hit it there with the alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods. He was completely right in calling that out and saying alternative facts arent facts. You cant just rename things. This i think is a real problem. When we talk about Donald Trumps tenuous attachment to the truth, i mean certainly the fact that he catapulted himself in to political prominence through the whole birther thing, promoting the lie that barack obama was not born in the United States, he continued all of these other falsehoods with have talked about, about claiming he had a landslide victory. I guess we shouldnt have expected the day he became president he was going to have a come to jesus moment with the truth. At the same time, we cant allow the Trump Administration to turn the watch dogs on the press. Sean spicer actually used the term were going to hold you accountable, you the media talk about accountability journalism we are going to hold you accountable. I say go ahead and hold us accountable and every administration before this one has had the perfect right and should call out unfru, unfair coverage. What you can not do is push back against factual coverage. This is where i agree with some of my colleagues that reporters that work in a authoritarian regime and that first briefing reminded me of the briefings i have been to in beijing. A lot of reporters who worked in china, russia and cuba might have a pretty good advantage covering the Trump Administration. Have you seen footnotes in a newspaper article before . I never have. What im interested in, it clearly indicates to me the times realizes they are dealing with something they have never dealt with before. They are working on this and having discussions how to handle this. Do you think the media needs more of that or has a good grip how to handle the trump esidency . For the last ten years, i have been writing president s and how the press covers leaders who dont tell the truth. I think they have been scared to use the word lies and scared to Say Something was a false statement. Often it is four or five paragraphs and you have to have somebody else say it is false so therefore it is a he saidshe said situation. Donald trump, this is one 0 his great accomplishments has pushed the major news organizations to think of putting in the headline, in the lead that he said something that was false, that was not true, that was inaccurate. I think that they need to continue to do that in a very, very clear manner. I think that should always be the lead. The lead isnt that the president said something that later, you know, you say is wrong. The lead is that he said something that was false. At cia headquarters or sean spicer today, their false misleading statements should be the top of the news. You know what, i know its going to get boring, lawrence because it will happen almost every day, if not several times a day. The media will be, you know, attacked by sean and kelly anne and the right wing media. Why are you dwelling on this . And they will have to say because its important. If they keep accusing chuck todd of being overly dramatic they are not going to get away with that lie. They are not going to. Thank you for joining us tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you, lawrence. Coming up, a new unprecedented lawsuit because it involves the trump presidency, and hopes to force donald trump to release his tax returns and divest the ownership of the hotel in washington and other assets. Laurence tribe will join us for an interview on that. And later, a look at the history made on saturday. A day unlike any we have ever seen in the history of protests of president ial inaugurations. Your Insurance Company wont replace the full value of your totaled new car. The guy says, you picked the wrong insurance plan. No, i picked the wrong Insurance Company. 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The clause in the constitution says no Person Holding any office or profit or trust under them shall without the consent of the congress accept any present emolument office or title of any kind from any king, prince or foreign state. Heres what President Trump said today about that lawsuit. Totally without merit. It could force donal