Why This MSNBC Host Must Take a Vacation Is Hilarious

Matt Vespa | March 14, 2025 6:00 AM

It’s not like anyone will notice as we’re sane and don’t watch MSNBC regularly, but host Lawrence O’Donnell had a major announcement: he needed a week off because Donald Trump was winning too much. I’m not kidding.

The longtime late-night fixture on the nation’s most insufferable network has taken some time off because of the Trump presidency. And I thought the kids who got exams canceled for such reasons were soft—O’Donnell fleeing because of a new president (via Fox News):

A broken and completely demoralized Lawrence O’Donnell announces he’s taking a mental health break for a week because he’s exhausted from covering the Trump presidency. pic.twitter.com/FQeu20zF0n
— Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) March 13, 2025

MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell revealed on Wednesday night that he was exhausted by covering President Donald Trump and that he was taking a week off from hosting his show, "The Last Word," lamenting that it was only day 52 of Trump's second term.
"I know you've pledged to cover and be here for the first hundred days of the Trump presidency. I hope you noticed that I did not make that same pledge," O'Donnell told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.
Maddow, who usually hosts her show once a week on the network, recently committed to hosting her program daily for the duration of Trump's first 100 days in office.
[…]
Maddow jokingly asked, "Can I go with you?"
"No, no, no. You said 100 days, you said 100 days. You can’t. One hundred days," O'Donnell said.
After his announcement and back-and-forth with Maddow, O'Donnell turned to Trump.
"And so America is at this hour completing the 52nd day of having a President of the United States whose brain does not work. Donald Trump’s brain is broken, badly damaged, as he exhibits every day. And once again, today, Donald Trump said something that would have gotten any other president rushed to the hospital for a neurological examination and an evaluation for dementia, for starters. That’s where they would have begun," he said, referring to Trump's comments about Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.