The president’s new campaign-trail riff about an Ohio senator’s physique has an MS NOW anchor reaching for the 25th Amendment.
Lawrence O’Donnell, host of “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell,” urged Vice President JD Vance and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and strip President Donald Trump of the powers of his office during the Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, edition of his MS NOW program, a segment he built around the president’s disapproval numbers heading into the November midterms.
What set him off was a riff Trump delivered at a rally in northern Kentucky on Saturday, Oct. 17, while stumping for a race in that state. The president turned to U.S. Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio. “I examined his a**,” Trump said, before running through the senator’s shoulders, feet, hand and jawline. He added that he was still recovering after feeling how hard the senator’s shoulder was.
“This Is Not AI,” He Told Viewers
Before rolling the tape, O’Donnell headed off the obvious question. “This is not AI,” he said, assuring viewers the clip really showed the sitting president.
Next, he delivered his diagnosis. “This is madness,” O’Donnell continued, calling it “utter insanity.” He granted that the moment was silly and would be joked about forever, but insisted it was also “presidential madness” from a man who, at times, does not seem to know he is president.
He asked viewers to imagine the uproar if any other president had said it, and labeled the episode “another marker of the cognitive decline of Donald Trump.”
Then Congress Could Ask About Everything Else
That led to his pitch: Vance and the Cabinet, he said, should “invoke the 25th Amendment” and take away Trump’s presidential powers. He acknowledged the mechanism would surely send Trump to Congress to appeal, where the president would argue against Vance taking his place — and would have to account for the Kentucky riff.
Trump might testify persuasively that the whole thing was a joke, O’Donnell said. But while Trump defended himself, O’Donnell said, lawmakers could quiz him about “all his other demonstrations and proofs that he is unfit for office.”
High on his list: Trump’s deal to buy diesel from Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose troops remain in Ukraine and whose government has reportedly been helping Iran. Had Trump obtained a formal declaration of war against Iran, O’Donnell argued, the fuel deal would amount to treason for “siding with the enemy” — though he noted the Supreme Court has appeared to require a declared war, something the country has not done since World War II, before conduct can legally qualify. Even so, he said, the president’s corruption and his record of acting against American interests merit impeachment or removal.
Pulling it all back to the campaign calendar, O’Donnell concluded, “And so that’s how lost Donald Trump is in these final two weeks of the campaign — he’s talking about his candidate’s a**. That’s how lost the Republican Party is.” “The Last Word” airs weeknights at 10/9c on MS NOW.
He Said It Again in Greenville
If the segment was meant as a warning, it did not take. On Tuesday, Oct. 20, at a rally in Greenville, N.C., for Senate candidate Michael Whatley, Trump circled right back to the Ohio senator’s build. “I’ve never studied the body of a man before,” Trump said, before working through Husted’s legs, shoulders and hands, describing a tap on the shoulder as “like a piece of steel” and calling the senator “a monster” and a “violent tackler.”
Trump credited former NFL coach Jon Gruden with telling him about Husted’s background as an All-American defensive back at the University of Dayton. He also claimed the earlier remarks had been good politics, saying Husted had gone from 10 points down to 2 points up in Ohio.
It was the third time this month the president has gone there. He first described studying Husted’s build at an Oct. 12 rally in Youngstown, Ohio, then again in northern Kentucky on Oct. 17, then in North Carolina. Husted, who is running for reelection against Democrat Sherrod Brown, has not publicly responded to any of it.