MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Coins Sopranos-Inspired Nickname for Trump After ‘Deranged Riffing’ About Dolls
MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell christened President Donald Trump with a mob-style moniker straight out of The Sopranos after the president’s “deranged riffing” at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday about toy dolls.
O’Donnell rolled out “Donny Two Dolls,” a nickname cooked up in response to Trump’s eyebrow-raising admission earlier in the day, saying the quiet part out loud, that his tariffs could mean a leaner Christmas for American kids.
In a meeting with his Cabinet on Wednesday Trump downplayed the effects of his own trade policies, saying: “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”
That night, on The Last Word, O’Donnell pounced on the quote, calling it part of Trump’s growing “Scrooge effect on Christmas.”
“There’s a new possibility for the now years-old guessing game of what Donald Trump’s name would be if he were a character on HBO’s Emmy-winning gangster series,” O’Donnell said, laying down the “Donny Two Dolls” label with a smirk.
Rolling back the clip from the cabinet meeting, O’Donnell added: “So, Donny Two Dolls thinks this country’s kids are wildly oversupplied with dolls.”
He pointed out that even during the height of World War II mobilization efforts, which came after the Great Depression, amid pricing restrictions on gas or tires, no president had ever “said how many dolls could be under a Christmas tree.”
He continued, explaining how media and political pressure were forcing Trump to admit the truth:
Only Donny Two Dolls could think like that. Why didn’t he mention that in the campaign? Why didn’t Donald Trump say in the campaign ‘there’s not going to be as many toys under the Christmas tree when I’m president’, especially dolls? And why didn’t he say Christmas was going to be more expensive? Why did he never say that his tariffs were going to mean that on Christmas you were going to have to pay, as he put it, a couple of bucks more for those two dolls. And why is he saying that now?
He’s saying it now because the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the stock market and the Democratic members of Congress in the Senate, like our first guest tonight, Senator Elizabeth Warren, are hammering Donald Trump with the truth about his tariffs every single day.
Trump on Day 100: ‘Your kids will now have fewer toys.’ And also you’re going to pay higher prices. For those of you out there who have ever owned a Barbie, I know most of you owned more than one. If your parents could afford it. I know many of you owned at least a dozen, but Donny Two Dolls says those days are over. No more in America. Two is enough.
The host went on to batter Trump by venturing that the Grinch-style “deranged riffing” about dolls could have a strange origin story, set in “historical record.” He pointed to a story Ivanka Trump told talk show host Conan O’Brien, recalling a Christmas where her dad bought her just one Barbie when her brothers got Legos.
Watch above via MSNBC.