MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell pinpointed the exact moment Mark Carney “humiliated” Donald Trump at the Oval Office—and said the president was “too stupid” to notice.
The new Canadian prime minister met with Trump on Tuesday and inflicted what O’Donnell referred to as a “steady stream of humiliation” on a president who “is clearly off his game.”
According to O’Donnell, throughout the course of the two men’s conversation, Trump utterly failed to make any progress on a trade deal, was told “no” to his face when repeating his oft-stated desire to make Canada the 51st state, and appeared confused and out of his depth when talking specifics with the Canadian PM.
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During a discussion about Canada’s sovereignty, Carney told Trump: “Well, if I may, as you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale. We’re sitting in one right now. You know, Buckingham Palace that you visited as well. And having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign, it’s not for sale. And it won’t be for sale, ever.”
Trump, appearing not to understand the meaning behind Carney’s words, simply nodded and said “that’s true,” as the Canadian prime minister admonished him to his face. He also failed to pick up on the subtext behind Carney’s backhanded compliment when he was told that his chumminess with Russia had “revitalized international security, and revitalized NATO” after indirectly causing Europe and its allies to spurn the U.S. and forge closer military ties. “That’s true,” the president added.
Introducing the clip, O’Donnell said: “What you are about to see is the president of the United States, who sounds like he is out of his mind, sitting beside a real head of state, who obviously, though he must have expected it, still can’t really believe what he’s hearing in the Oval Office.”
“Donald Trump had no fight in him today when the very polite Canadian beside him talked rings around Donald Trump like a ring master in a circus with a trained animal, threw in some magic words that sounded flattering enough to Donald Trump so that Donald Trump actually―and you’ll see this―ends up nodding and agreeing with the man who is humiliating him and defeating him right there in the room on TV,” he added.
“No president has ever lost more in one conversation in the Oval Office than Donald Trump lost in these 90 seconds.”
Chastising the president for his failure to secure “90 deals in 90 days” like he had previously promised to do, O’Donnell pointed to Trump’s cratering image on the world stage. “Donald Trump was far too exhausted at this point to try to interrupt the way he did when Ukraine’s President Zelensky was sitting beside him in the Oval Office,” he said, pointing out that things have been going wrong nearly every day for the president since his fateful meeting with the Ukrainian leader.
“Donald Trump is now refusing to do joint press conferences, the standard thing with visiting heads of state, because he does seem to have figured out exactly how much humiliation would be heaped upon him in such a press conference,” O’Donnell added.
