'He insults intelligence': Lawrence O’Donnell debunks Trump campaign's email about FBI's Mar-A-Lago raid

WASHINGTON, DC: MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell called out donors funding the third presidential campaign of former president Donald Trump on his show 'The Last Word' as he debunked the Republican's claim that President Joe Biden had authorized the FBI's use of deadly force against him.

According to AP News, Trump highlighted standard language in an FBI document which was unsealed on Tuesday, May 21, to baselessly accuse the Biden administration of trying to kill him during the search of his Mar-A-Lago estate for displaced classified documents almost two years ago.

Donald Trump's claim

Taking to his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump wrote, "WOW! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, the ‘Icebox,’ and was shown Reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE."

"Now we know, for sure, that Joe Biden is a serious threat to democracy. He is mentally unfit for office — 25th amendment!” he added.

The stance was promoted by his supporters, including Georgia GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who wrote on X (formerly Twitter), "I made sure that he knew. The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light. Does everyone get it yet???!!!! What are Republicans going to do about it? I tried to oust our Speaker who funded Biden’s DOJ AND FBI, but Democrats stopped it."

Clarification by the FBI

The policy statement on the “use of deadly force,” which appeared in an operations order for the Mar-a-Lago search, is not evidence of a plot to kill Donald Trump, reported AP. It is simply a standard Department of Justice policy that is included in all such documents.

A statement on the issue from the agency read, "The FBI followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force. No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”

The policy in question notes that DoJ officials “may use deadly force only when necessary, that is when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.”

Lawrence O’Donnell's take on the subject

Lawrence O'Donnell mocked Donald Trump on his show for making the false claims, as well as his followers for believing in the former president.

"No one insults the intelligence of Trump voters more than Donald Trump. And I am sure that most voters who vote for Donald Trump are smarter than Donald Trump ... but the people who send money to Trump, who are a tiny, tiny percentage of Trump voters, really must be every bit as stupid as Donald Trump insists that they are," he said.

Sharing the email sent to voters by the Trump campaign promoting his false claims against the DoJ, O'Donnell referred to the supporters who believed as "dangerously stupid."

He also shared that Trump was not at his estate in Florida at the time the search warrant was issued and carried out, making the allegation leveled by him even more far-fetched.

The host also stated that the standard regulation on the use of deadly force which was present in the warrant against Trump, was also part of the warrant to search for classified documents at Joe Biden's home, something that "poor Trump voters ... would never know."

"Donald Trump knows that he has some supporters, a tiny group of them, who are so hopelessly stupid, he can tell them that the FBI 'was authorized to shoot me,' and they will believe him. Not only will they believe it, they will send him money," the news anchor added.