Lawrence O’Donnell Spots ‘Profoundly Ignorant’ Way Trump Made History After DC Plane Crash

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell criticized President Donald Trump on Thursday for his “completely indiscriminate” accusations at a press briefing regarding the deadly plane crash in Washington, D.C.

“It is the first time in history that a president in the United States has assigned blame for an aviation accident on his own, immediately, based entirely on his own profoundly ignorant, prejudiced guess,” said O’Donnell of Trump, who blamed diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts for the midair collision.

O’Donnell compared Trump’s actions to Democrats who did not blame Ronald Reagan for the Air Florida Flight 90 crash into a D.C. bridge and falling into an icy Potomac River below in 1982, which resulted in 67 deaths.

O’Donnell also criticized Trump for jumping to conclusions about Wednesday’s crash without waiting for the investigation to unfold.

He highlighted how previous presidents had shown sympathy in similar situations, including Reagan, who did not receive blame for the Air Florida crash.

O’Donnell praised Lenny Skutnik, who rescued a survivor from the Potomac River during the crash, calling him “an American hero.”

O’Donnell referenced a 1982 article from The New York Times where Skutnik expressed his willingness to do the rescue again but stated he could do without the fame that followed.

O’Donnell concluded by saying, “There’s nothing about Lenny Skutnik — not his humility, not his heroism, nothing about him that Donald Trump could ever understand.”