“The Last Word” host Lawrence O’Donnell aired an eight-minute takedown of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday night, deriding him for shedding tears for former President Donald Trump but not children killed in school shootings.
“Lindsey Graham has never cried for a single child who has been murdered in a classroom in America. Not one,” O’Donnell said, naming the three children and three adults who were killed in the school shooting in Nashville just last week.
“Lindsey Graham did not shed a single tear for any one of those victims of America’s latest mass murderer who used an AR-15 to fire 152 bullets in that school,” the host continued. “After that mass murder, Lindsey Graham proudly told reporters in Washington that he owns an AR-15. He didn’t say why.”
O’Donnell’s takedown began as a response to Graham’s viral moment this week where, seemingly on the brink of tears, he begged Trump supporters to donate to the campaign to help with the former president’s legal expenses.
“You need to help this man Donald J. Trump, they’re trying to drain him dry,” Graham said on Fox News March 30. “He spent more money on lawyers than most people spend on campaigns. They’re trying to bleed him dry. donaldjtrump.com. Go tonight, give the president some money to fight this bulls–t.”
This, O’Donnell pointed out, all in support of a politician who ran a 2016 presidential campaign on the idea that he didn’t rely on donors at all.
“I don’t need anybody’s money,” Trump said at the time. “I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyist I’m not using donors, I don’t care.”
“That was a foundational line of the Trump political career,” O’Donnell said. “Trump claimed to be ‘so rich’ that he would never need any contributions at all and therefore he would be incorruptible. And now Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in history, and he has taken more money out of the pockets of his supporters than any other president in history. That’s the person Lindsey Graham is crying for now.
The rest of the segment continues to list various hypocrisies in where and when Graham seems to invest his emotions, drawing comparisons to his support of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh vs. the women harmed by the ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, and more.
Watch the full “The Last Word” segment in the video above.