MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell began his show on Thursday night with a sobering segment about the ongoing wave of death threats against government officials from supporters of former president Donald Trump.
After playing two chilling voicemails received by Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, O'Donnell noted that despite apparently having committed federal crimes, the callers have not been contacted by law enforcement.
They were, however, contacted by the Reuters news agency, which reported earlier this week that it has documented nearly 800 intimidating messages to election officials in 12 states, including more than 100 that could warrant prosecution.
"Those two phone calls are the tip of a very large iceberg," O'Donnell said, pointing to a Department of Homeland Security bulletin issued this week, which warned about the rising threat of violence against government officials.
"The two men whose phone calls you just heard are the kind of extremists the Homeland Security terror bulletin is describing," O'Donnell said. "They are lost in their homicidal fantasies that they might or might not at some point try to turn into realities. Now they are spreading terror with their telephones. The mix of stupidity and rage that drives these people is shared by and promoted by Donald Trump. They are Trump terrorists."
O'Donnell went on to say that no other political figure in America has followers who are threatening to kill government officials on a daily basis.
"This is Trump-inspired terrorism and they are Trump terrorists," he said. "That is Donald Trump's gift to American politics and American life, and possibly at some point it could become an American way of death, when one of Donald Trump's terrorists decides to do something more than terrorize people with telephone calls."
And the threats aren't limited to elected officials, O'Donnell said, noting that some 200 people work in Hobbs' office, before playing another clip from a voicemail left for the secretary of state by Jeff Yeager, a 56-year-old self-employed electrician from Los Angeles.
"Trump is still your president, and God bless America, you f*ckin' traitors," Yeager said in the voicemail.
"What is Jeff Yeager's family going to do about his sickness?" O'Donnell said. "Who is going to help him? Who is going to stop him? Trump is not anyone's president, and Jeff Yeager is, like Donald Trump, a cowardly man, twisted by rageful stupidity."
Watch below.
Lawrence O'Donnell on 'Trump terrorists'www.youtube.com
