Lawrence O'Donnell: Trump Actually Wants You to Watch CNN
*By Max Godnick*
One of MSNBC's most well known on-air personalities thinks the President of the United States would rather audiences watch CNN.
"He never says the letters MSNBC," said Lawrence O'Donnell in an interview with Cheddar on Monday. "We have a much bigger audience than CNN and he would prefer people to watch CNN."
The host of "The Last Word" said he thinks Trump's anti-CNN rhetoric is meant to increase the network's viewership so that audiences can hear from pundits who agree with him. Unlike MSNBC, CNN uses conservative commentators like Rick Santorum, S.E. Cupp and Jason Miller to diversify its panels with voices from both sides of the aisle.
"A good third of the show will be a spirited, and insane and lying, defense of Donald Trump," said O'Donnell about CNN.
O'Donnell's own network made headlines when [Rachel Maddow broke down in tears](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKuIjT-k-C8) last week while reading a breaking news report about the existence of "tender age" shelters for the babies and toddlers of illegal immigrants caught crossing the border. Maddow hosts the network's 9 o'clock hour and was handing over coverage to O'Donnell when the moment occurred.
O'Donnell told Cheddar that he was originally supposed to read the report, not Maddow.
"I was afraid of reading it because I didn't think I could get through it," he said. "I'm a real crybaby, Rachel is the hardest person in the world to crack."
The host said it was his colleague's tearful display that allowed him to stay composed on air.
"Rachel strengthened me," O'Donnell said. "I was able to be less emotional because Rachel was expressing my emotions for me."
Cable news networks devoted wall-to-wall coverage to the family separation crisis at the border. After a days-long standoff that saw some members of the president's own party rebuke his policy, Trump signed an executive order that ended the practice. O'Donnell said Trump's reversal does not mean networks like MSNBC will stop covering the aftermath.
"We're going to continue to get more secret recordings of children out of these jails," he said.
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/lawrence-odonnell-sounds-off-on-the-cable-news-landscape)
Sarah Warbelow, legal director for Human Rights Campaign, joins Cheddar News to discuss why advocates want to overturn the FDA's rule restricting gay and bisexual men from donating blood.
David Levine, elections integrity fellow with Alliance for Securing Democracy, joins Cheddar News to discuss Politico's bombshell finding revealing the RNC's plan to contest the elections.
A survey by the BMO Real Financial Progress Index found that 25 percent of Americans are pulling back on retirement contributions to offset the cost of inflation. This comes as market volatility reduced retirement savings with the S&P 500 shedding more than 12 percent this year alone.
As abortion rights take center stage in courts around the country, so do discussions about reproductive health. Signs and social media posts say things like "protect women's rights" and "her body, her choice," leaving others who need and receive abortions completely out of the picture. The potential end to Roe v. Wade would impact far more people and facilities than you may think. Cheddar News' Baker Machado breaks it all down.
Arkansas is planning to reshape itself by putting a strong emphasis on technology through computer science in the classroom. Governor Asa Hutchinson joined Cheddar News Buffa to discuss the state's efforts to promote itself as a future tech hub. “It gives young people such a huge opportunity for success," he noted. The term-limited governor also touched on the issue of gun ownership, offering up the idea of possibly raising the age limit to obtain rifles like the AR-15 to 21 instead of 18 as it currently stands.
The dating app Bumble has sponsored bills and pushed lawmakers to criminalize the online practice of sending unsolicited nudes or “cyberflashing." Payton Iheme, Bumble's head of public policy for the Americas, joined Cheddar News to discuss why the app was going after the harassing behavior beyond its own platform. "Now, while we went to work internally in the company, and we created something called private detector to automatically blur those images so the user can decide if they want to see them, there's nothing for the rest of the internet," she said. "And so that's why we went to work with these laws."
