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The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell

Lawrence: In siding with Russia’s dictator, Trump abandons U.S. position as ‘leader of the free world’

The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell

NBC News

Policy, Msnbc, Politics, President, Washington, Congress, Government, Senate, News

4.45.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tonight on The Last Word: Donald Trump orders a pause on military aid to Ukraine. Also, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board says Trump is taking “the dumbest tariff plunge.” Plus, a USAID memo says the Trump aid cuts will threaten lives on a “massive scale.” And a top FBI official is forced out over Trump January 6 cases. Sen. Mark Kelly, Sen. Gary Peters, fmr. Amb. Samantha Power, and Andrew Weissmann join Lawrence O’Donnell.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Well, the real breaking news of the night is that Donald Trump has stopped aid to Ukraine.

0:06.1

The unnamed White House officials who have leaked this story to NBC News, the Washington Post, and other news organizations are using the word pause, not stop.

0:16.6

But that's the word they used when they claimed they paused, the humanitarian aid being

0:24.1

delivered to starving babies in Sudan.

0:28.1

The food that was being delivered to children in the middle of a famine, they paused that.

0:35.9

That pause killed starving children and is continuing to kill starving children

0:42.0

because the truth is it was not a pause. A USAID official was immediately put on administrative

0:49.9

leave when a memo emerged this weekend in which the official explained that even though a judge

0:56.3

has ordered them to do it, the Trump administration has made no attempt at all to restart the

1:04.5

funding and the machinery for that humanitarian aid at USAID, which includes life-saving drugs and food for people, children and

1:15.4

adults, who are starving to death. And so when the Trump White House team uses the word

1:21.3

pause, we have reason to believe, and Ukraine has reason to believe, and the world has reason to believe,

1:28.6

that Donald Trump might never resume any form of aid to Ukraine.

1:35.4

The Washington Post reports that their White House source said, quote,

1:39.6

the decision could be reversed if Zelensky demonstrates a good faith effort to participate in peace talks.

1:49.2

That is exactly what President Zelensky demonstrated in the Oval Office on Friday when he was confronted with a very bad faith effort,

2:00.7

first led by J.D. Vance, then followed incoherently by

2:04.2

Donald Trump, to simply insult the president of Ukraine, much to the delight of the dictator

2:10.8

who Donald Trump seems to think of as a comrade in arms.

2:18.2

Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch

2:22.0

hunt where they used him in Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, and he went through it. He was accused

2:27.7

of all that stuff. The whole thing was a scam. And he had to put up with that. He was being

...

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