A stunning declaration from President Trump during a cabinet meeting has sent shockwaves through political circles, with the president telling reporters he doesn’t “care about the midterms” — a statement that cable host Lawrence O’Donnell described as unprecedented in American political history.
The admission came as Trump fielded questions about his ongoing war on Iran and negotiations to end the conflict. “They thought they were going to outwait me, you know?” Trump said. “‘We’ll outwait him. He’s got the midterms.’ I don’t care about the midterms.”
O’Donnell devoted a blistering monologue on “The Last Word” that evening to what he framed as a historic moment of political self-sabotage. The MS NOW host argued that no occupant of the Oval Office has ever uttered such words — privately or otherwise — and that Trump chose to do so in front of cameras while his Cabinet looked on.
Republicans Quietly Breaking Away
While Trump may have shrugged off the political calendar, his party is not. O’Donnell pointed out that Republican lawmakers in both chambers are increasingly distancing themselves from the president as the upcoming midterm elections approach — contests that even right-wing pundits expect to be disastrous for the GOP.
Republicans in the Senate and in the House care about the midterm elections, and they know Donald Trump is not helping them, and they know nothing is hurting them more than Donald Trump’s war in Iran and the inflation it has caused in this country.
Signs of GOP fractures have been multiplying. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has torched the Trump Department of Justice’s $1.776 billion fund as a “cop beaters’ slush fund,” and a majority of GOP voters now oppose it. In Texas, Ken Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary runoff, scrambling the map further. House Speaker Mike Johnson is struggling to hold his caucus together, and FBI Director Kash Patel has been forced to fire a far-right agent over a bigoted attack. In Florida, Representative Byron Donalds is grappling with MAGA infighting during his gubernatorial primary.
The Iran War Looming Over Everything
Now on the 88th day of what Trump has branded his “smart war,” the conflict has claimed at least 13 U.S. military service members and thousands of Iranians, fueling fears of a global energy crisis and driving skyrocketing costs for gasoline and diesel fuel at home. U.S. and Iranian negotiators had reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire for 60 days and open nuclear talks, but Trump had yet to formally approve the deal, making a series of new demands after a Situation Room meeting in which he had promised a “final determination” — even as Secretary of State Marco Rubio had predicted “good news” within hours, according to NBC News and CNN. Polling shared by O’Donnell indicated that 83 percent of voters say gas prices are going up, with not a single respondent saying prices are dropping significantly — except, the host noted dryly, Trump himself, who made that very claim during the session.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was among the most effusive at the meeting, praising Trump for what he called a “smart” war on Iran. The president responded by literally patting Hegseth on the back and laughingly stating, “He loves war.”
A Cabinet Meeting Turned Reality Show
Trump opened up to the White House press corps during the meeting, transforming the Cabinet Room into a television studio. O’Donnell argued that Cabinet meetings, traditionally treated as sensitive deliberative sessions, have been transformed under Trump into something resembling “the kind of cheap reality TV” the former “The Apprentice” host built his celebrity brand around. Trump opened the gathering by bragging about inviting reporters inside — a flourish O’Donnell described as emblematic of the spectacle that has replaced substantive governance.
Cameras captured that pattern, with Cabinet members fawning over the president in a now-familiar ritual. The result, the host said, is that officials are prevented from “speaking freely to Donald Trump,” reduced instead to taking turns offering praise.
“The Cabinet room has never reeked of such stupidity and inhumanity before, and it never will again after the Trump presidency,” O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell also flagged that the president spent nearly nine minutes of the meeting expounding on his plans to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., a fixation that exists alongside his obsession with the controversial White House ballroom project.
Democrats, meanwhile, are seizing the opening. Sen. Cory Booker has hammered Trump-era ICE detention practices, former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper is mounting a Senate bid focused on voters “hit hard” by Trump’s economy, and Texas State Representative James Talarico is running against what he calls the nation’s “most corrupt political system.” Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms recently captured the Democratic nomination for Georgia governor, and Representative Terri Sewell has been rallying voters against new GOP-led voting restrictions.
For O’Donnell, the through line was unmistakable: a president performing for the cameras while his own party scrambles to outrun the consequences of his choices. As reaction continued to spread, fellow MS NOW personalities, including Nicolle Wallace, weighed in on the moment, while critics from Stephen Miller’s orbit to podcaster Joe Rogan have spent the past weeks dissecting Trump’s ever-more-theatrical style of governance.