He’s got the well-defined jawline and the steely glare, and veins pop out of his forehead when he’s angry.
He’s not The Hulk. He’s Lawrence O’Donnell when things in the control room are out of order.
On Wednesday, Mediaite published a full eight minutes of outtakes from the MSNBC host’s Aug. 29 broadcast of “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.” Apparently O’Donnell’s earpiece was acting up that night, a malfunction he repeatedly sounded off about between segments.
“There’s insanity in the control room tonight!” O’Donnell steams at one point, muttering a curse word through pursed lips.
In another particularly abrupt transition, O’Donnell calmly finishes a report, then ― apparently hearing hammering in his earpiece ― begins yelling:
“STOP THE HAMMERING. STOP THE HAMMERING OUT THERE. WHO’S GOT A HAMMER? WHERE IS IT? WHERE’S THE HAMMER?!? STOP THE HAMMERING.”
The hammering persists and O’Donnell reaches a new, profanity-filled level of anger: “I’LL GO DOWN TO THE GODDAMNED FLOOR MYSELF AND STOP IT, KEEP THE GODDAMNED COMMERCIAL BREAK GOING,” he yells. “CALL F**KING [MSNBC PRESIDENT] PHIL GRIFFIN, I DON’T CARE WHO THE F**K YOU HAVE TO CALL. STOP THE HAMMERING.”
O’Donnell took to Twitter on Wednesday evening to address the reports:
Sometimes, it seems, “The Last Word” is spelled with four letters and not fit for broadcast.
This has been updated with O’Donnell’s comments on Twitter.