MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Claims Trump Allies ‘Caved’ on Shutdown — And Brought Epstein Files ‘Back to Life!’

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell claimed on Monday that it was President Donald Trump and his allies who “caved” to end the government shutdown — and in the process brought the so-called Epstein Files “back to life.”

Democrats and their allies are livid over a deal that a small group of Democratic senators made with Republicans in order to end the government shutdown.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), Sen. Angus King (I-ME), Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) voted to advance a bill that would reopen the government in exchange for some job protections and a promise to hold a vote on Obamacare subsidies in December.

On Monday night’s edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word, O’Donnell argued that it was Trump and 271 GOP members of Congress who were “forced” to change their positions by the five Democrats who moved to make the compromise.

He also noted with relish that the end of the shutdown opens the way for Democrats to press Trump and his administration on issues related to deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell:

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: The Trump Republican government shutdown helped crush Republicans in last week’s elections. Chuck Schumer was able to hold on to those five Democratic senators until November, which meant that the bills for shocking increases in health care premiums have already been received by many Americans who will have to deal with those bills. And those bills have become vivid to all of us, thanks to the attention paid to those bills during the shutdown. The very same health insurance bills that caused Marjorie Taylor Greene in the Republican House of Representatives to publicly say that her party is wrong on that issue.

No Democrat today said that the Democrats are wrong on that issue, but five Democrats decided to move into a compromise position. Chuck Schumer has always been easy to make fun of. The late night comedians love him for that. It would be great if he was somehow a smoother public speaker. But Lyndon Johnson was one of the worst public speakers of the television age, and he got the job done as Senate majority leader.

When the House, the Senate, and the White House are all controlled by the same party, the minority party in the United States Senate has never gotten what they wanted in a government shutdown. The five senators who reached that compromise over Chuck Schumer’s objection created a compromise that only funds the government until the end of January. It is the live to fight another day strategy. It’s a very common strategy in the United States Senate.

The Republican speaker of the house, Mike Johnson’s position was that the House of Representatives had already passed the budget bill, and there was no reason for House members to even come to Washington, because the next step was simply for the Senate to pass exactly what the House passed. That was it. That was Mike Johnson’s position. Zero compromise. Nothing. Not one sentence.

So Mike Johnson, according to the cave theory of this story, Mike Johnson is a huge loser in this compromise because Mike Johnson’s bill that he passed through the House of Representatives by five votes is not going to be signed into law. It’s going to be ripped up. Mike Johnson has to bring all of his Republican House members back. And all of them, all of them have to change their positions to agree with just five Senate Democrats who changed their positions.

And when Mike Johnson does that, the Epstein files come back to life in the House of Representatives. Because when Mike Johnson convenes the House of Representatives, he will have to swear in the newest elected member of the House of Representatives, Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. She will then immediately become the 218th signature on a discharge petition that will force a vote of the House of Representatives on releasing the Epstein files, a vote Mike Johnson fears more than any vote ever cast during his speakership.

That is why Mike Johnson closed down the House of Representatives and gave every Republican in the House a paid vacation for the last seven weeks, fear, abject fear of the Epstein files, where we know Donald Trump’s name has to appear many times because, as Jeffrey Epstein said, Jeffrey Epstein was Donald Trump’s closest friend for 10 years.

The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin, has some questions for Donald Trump, which he put in writing and sent directly to Donald Trump at the White House. Congressman Raskin tells Donald Trump in writing, quote, You have adamantly refused to release the Epstein files despite campaigning on their release. You lied when you denied authoring a lewd and incriminating birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein. And you ridiculously claim that your unmistakable signature on that note was not your signature. You shut down the Department Justice’s ongoing investigation into Epstein’s co-conspirators. And you expressly declined to rule out pardoning his main accomplice, convicted child sex-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

The House Committee on the Judiciary has now received whistleblower information indicating that this cover-up goes even further into the Department of Justice and Bureau of Prisons than was known before. Documents and information received over the last several days by this committee indicate that under Dr. Tanisha Hall, the warden of Federal Prison Camp Bryan, the federal law enforcement staff working at the camp have been waiting on Ms. Maxwell hand and foot. This information also indicates that Ghislaine Maxwell is working on filing a commutation application with your administration, demonstrating either that Ms. Maxwell is herself requesting you release her from her 20-year prison sentence for her role as a conspirator in Jeffrey Epstein’s international child sex-trafficking ring, or that this child sex predator now holds such tremendous sway in the second Trump administration that you and your Department of Justice will follow her clemency recommendations.

Congressman Raskin demands that Donald Trump, quote, make your former personal attorney and now Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche available for a public hearing immediately with our committee. I am demanding answers to these three questions. First, have you discussed a potential commutation or any form of presidential clemency for Ms. Maxwell, and with Mr. Blanche, his underlings, or anyone else in your administration? Second, have you directed Mr. Blanche or anyone else in your administration to provide Ms. Maxwell with the transfer to the prison camp, favorable and preferential treatment in prison, or special accommodations for her communications and interaction with her family and the outside world? Third, what has Ms. Maxwell, her attorneys, family, or representatives promised you or your attorneys?

Watch above via MSNBC’s The Last Word.