Lawrence O’Donnell opened Thursday’s edition of The Last Word by criticizing Fox News’ Jesse Watters, whose comments Donald Trump used to criticize the jury in his criminal trial.
The former president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan. He has pleaded not guilty.
Jury selection in the trial began on Monday. As of Thursday evening, 12 jurors and one alternate have been impaneled. It is expected several more alternate jurors will be chosen.
Trump caused a stir on Wednesday when he seemingly violated a gag order by posting about the jury in his case. On Truth Social, the former president quoted Watters discussing the jury – sort of.
“They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury,” Trump said, citing Watters.
“Here is the lie that Jesse Watters told on Fox yesterday at 5:28 p.m. when Donald Trump was watching,” O’Donnell said. He then aired a clip of Wednesday’s episode of The Five, which Watters co-hosts in addition to hosting Jesse Watters Primetime at 8 p.m. E.T.
“They are trying to rig this jury,” Watters said. “They are catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge.”
Watters did not say the latter part of the quote Trump attributed to him, i.e., “…in order to get on the Trump Jury.”
O’Donnell strongly criticized the Fox News host:
Jesse Watters is the newest liar to occupy the 8:00 p.m. slot on Fox, the lying channel. A network that has been adjudicated to have told [$787.5] million dollars worth of lies in a defamation case. The previous occupant of the 8 p.m. slot had told so many of those lies, that even Fox decided they had to let him go.
And the occupant before that one of the 8:00 p.m. slot lost his job only after being exposed as a grievous serial sexual harasser at Fox, who, in just one case, paid $32 million to one woman Bill O’Reilly sexually harassed.
Jesse Watters got his start at Fox as Bill O’Reilly’s errand boy, running around with a microphone on the sidewalk following people down the street trying to get them to talk to him. Whatever O’Reilly wanted him to do.
Jesse Watters is the same person who, last week, said publicly that he believed that the minimum wage produces an income of $100,000 a year in America. That’s how stupid you can be on Fox at 8:00 P.M., or in the case of Jesse Watters, also at 5:00 p.m.
O’Donnell went on to state there is no evidence that “activists” of any kind lied their way onto the jury in Trump’s case. He then noted a “problem” Trump now has.
“Donald Trump rewrote Jesse Watters’ lie,” he said. “So he cannot put it in quotation marks the way he did and ascribe it to Jesse Watters. Jesse Watters never said the phrase, ‘in order to get on the Trump jury.’ That’s Donald Trump’s original composition. That’s his writing. So, that is going to become a challenge for Donald Trump’s lawyers when this issue is subject to a hearing on Tuesday.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
