On Wednesday night’s edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word, host Lawrence O’Donnell went into damage-control mode in the aftermath of Tuesday night’s Pennsylvania Senate debate where Democrat candidate John Fetterman proved to everyone watching that he is incapacitated from the stroke he suffered last spring, and is unqualified to serve in the United States Senate. Knowing that O’Donnell used the opening monologue of his show to compare Fetterman’s illness to former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. 

“Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had the good fortune to serve as the highest elected officials in their countries, long before television news could cover their every move and long before Twitter could have people pumping out of their instant reactions to their public appearances,” O’Donnell whined in an apparent attempt to excuse the fact that Fetterman can’t put a coherent sentence together. 

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt believed that it would be painful to watch him, being lifted in and out of a car by Secret Service agents so he never allowed cameras to capture that. Elaborate steps were taken when his train would arrive or depart so that he could be transferred from the car to the train, lifted in and out, without anyone seeing and without anyone thinking that it was painful to watch,” O’Donnell continued. 

Later on, O’Donnell informed his audience that the phrase “painful to watch” was “an oft-repeated phrase on Twitter last night during the Pennsylvania Senate campaign debate because Democratic candidate John Fetterman suffered a stroke this spring and has not fully recovered 100 percent of his verbal fluency.” 

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By tying FDR and Churchill to Fetterman, O’Donnell hopes to lead his viewers to believe that Fetterman is just as capable of performing his duties as Senator as FDR and Churchill were in leading their respective nations in World War II. 

The problem is that FDR was stricken by Polio and unable to walk. That didn’t affect his ability to speak or make important decisions. Whereas Fetterman is clearly mentally incapacitated. 

O’Donnell is so desperate for his party to control the United States Senate that he’s willing to lie to his audience. 

This dishonest segment was made possible by Liberty Mutual. Their information is linked. 

To read the relevant transcript click “expand”: 

MSNBC’s The Last Word
10/26/2022
10:05:39 p.m. Eastern 

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had the good fortune to serve as the highest elected officials in their countries, long before television news could cover their every move and long before Twitter could have people pumping out of their instant reactions to their public appearances. Franklin Delano Roosevelt believed that it would be painful to watch him, being lifted in and out of a car by Secret Service agents so he never allowed cameras to capture that. Elaborate steps were taken when his train would arrive or depart so that he could be transferred from the car to the train, lifted in and out, without anyone seeing and without anyone thinking that it was painful to watch. Kids grew up in America during the FDR presidency not knowing that the President could not walk. 

Caroline morale was an 11-year-old growing up in Washington D.C. when her father, a lawyer with connections to the Roosevelt administration, brought her to a reception at the White House where, with no cameras present, President Roosevelt was rolled into the east room in his wheelchair. Caroline Morales’s eyes widened, she tugged her father’s sleeve and looked up, and whispered, I won’t tell anyone! 

She felt she was in the presence of a secret about the President’s condition and she felt as most Americans did and as the press corps did way back then. That the President’s condition should be respected. 11-year-old Caroline Morales did not think that’s in her one lucky moment of being in the room of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that he was painful to watch. 

Painful to watch quickly became an oft-repeated phrase on Twitter last night during the Pennsylvania Senate campaign debate because Democratic candidate John Fetterman suffered a stroke this spring and has not fully recovered 100 percent of his verbal fluency.