Lawrence: Day 150 shows what happens when a madman starts a war

**Lawrence O'Donnell** (0:00)
Well, returning for a week's vacation here, there are so many things that seem important, that seem as though they must be covered immediately. And so it's not an easy menu, it's never an easy menu. And Donald Trump is always very busy trying to create diversions from his biggest scandals and his biggest failures. And now, right now, with his war going about as badly as it possibly could, Donald Trump is more eager than ever to change the subject. And so we'll try to cover as many subjects, important subjects as we can in this hour, important for this week's news and today's news. But we will begin with war. Because when a country is at war, there is no more important story day in and day out. The one story that you know every historian will write about when looking at the year 2026 is Donald Trump's war. And in that war, historians will find everything they need to know about Donald Trump's incompetence, Donald Trump's laziness, Donald Trump's ignorance.
And yes, Donald Trump's madness.
What happens when a madman starts a war? As of tonight, the United States military has completed 150 days of war service under Commander-in-Chief Trump. Donald Trump's war is now five months old. David Sanger, a New York Times reporter specializing in foreign policy, once participated in an interview with Donald Trump, in which Donald Trump said the only limit on him, the only limit is, quote, my own morality. That's what Donald Trump said, was the only limit on him, which is to say, no limit at all because we all know just how much morality Donald Trump has.
David Sanger writes this five-month assessment of Donald Trump and his war. In recent weeks, he has seemed trapped. His presidency gradually consumed by a war he cannot find his way out of. He has discovered limits on his power that he could have scarcely imagined as he began full combat operations on February 28th, when he set out goals for a swift end to Iran's nuclear program and the overthrow of the country's government. Five months later, those goals remain almost entirely unaccomplished. The shipping that crawled to a stop in the Strait of Hormuz, then was opened for a few short weeks, is back to a trickle. He has said publicly that he knows there is no appetite for sending in ground troops. Those limits have left him deeply frustrated, his aides say, and have made him more erratic, even by Trumpian standards.
Erratic is the kindest possible description of Donald Trump's public utterances. He has been speaking in circles and self-contradicting language from the very first day of his war, and he continues to do it every time he talks about the war that he started, but obviously does not understand. The American people seem to understand Donald Trump's war much better than he does. A new CBS poll shows that a large majority of Americans believe Donald Trump's war is going badly. 63% of Americans say that Donald Trump's war is going badly. 30% say it's going very badly. That same poll shows that Americans want what Americans have always wanted when an inexplicable war waged by an American president is going badly, very badly. They want that war to end right now. 67% of Americans want Donald Trump's war to end now. 65% of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump's handling of his war. Donald Trump obviously has no idea what to do. He agrees to cease fires, then he bombs, then he agrees to another cease fire, then he bombs. If the bombing were working, there would obviously be no reason to stop the bombing.
And Donald Trump keeps saying things like this.

**Donald Trump** (4:46)
Iran took a beating over the last 14 days, and they asked us very nicely, please stop, let's beat. And that's what we are right now. We'll see what happens. If we don't make a deal, we go back to the same thing.

**Lawrence O'Donnell** (5:02)
That's Donald Trump today saying a version of what he has said several times in the past. And so his threat to the Iranians and his promise to Americans is that he will do what doesn't work. That is his promise to 67% of Americans who want Donald Trump to end his war now. His promise to them is that he will keep up the bombing campaign that has achieved nothing if Iran doesn't reach some kind of agreement with him. But Americans watched Iran reach an historic agreement with President Obama, negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, the most important diplomatic breakthrough of the 21st century. And they watched Donald Trump come into office as president and immediately violate that agreement that Iran had negotiated with the United States of America. And then they watched Donald Trump dramatically sign, in this war, a memorandum of understanding with Iran, which appeared to stop Donald Trump's war, but not for long. And so Americans have every right to expect that any agreement Donald Trump reaches with Iran, Donald Trump will then violate, because that's what he does with agreements with Iran. He violates them. And if Iran violates it, then the war will continue. That's the likelihood. The war will continue because Donald Trump has no idea what to do in the war that he started. Donald Trump wants to be the first American president to win a war from the sky, a war, win the war from the sky without sending a single soldier onto a battlefield to fire a single shot.