MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell praised the history-making journalism of NBC News' Lester Holt during a Saturday appearance on "AM Joy."
The conversation examined President Donald Trump's latest claim that he did not fire FBI Director James Comey because of the bureau's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 and potential Trump campaign collusion.
In 2017, President Trump gave an entirely different story in an interview with Holt.
“And, in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said: ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won,'” Trump admitted.
Host Joy Reid noted that "among the people who are undercutting Donald Trump's new defense that he didn't fire Comey because of Russia are Donald Trump in the past in his past statements, but also Rudy Giuliani, who is ostensibly his lawyer."
Guiliani told Fox News personality Sean Hannity that Trump "fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn't the target of the investigation. He is entitled to that, Hillary Clinton got that, and he couldn't get that. So he fired him and he said, 'I'm free of this guy.'"
O'Donnell, host of "The Last Word" on MSNBC, was dumbfounded by the statements undermining Trump's legal defense.
"Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani are now in the middle of a contest for who can say the stupidest thing about the firing -- the most harmful thing about the firing of Comey on TV, most harmful to Donald Trump," O'Donnell explained.
"Lester Holt's position in American history is now set," O'Donnell predicted. "He is the anchor person -- in the history of American television -- who asked the most important question ever asked of a president on television and got the most important and most revealing answer ever obtained from a president on television."
"Absolutely," Reid agreed. "And the problem being that obstruction of justice stemming from the firing of Comey is part of Donald Trump's biggest problem right now."
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