MSNBC's O'Donnell failed to challenge false claim that Clinton haircut held up LAX

On the April 24 edition of MSNBC Live, anchor Norah O'Donnell failed to challenge Republican strategist Alex Johnson's false claim that former President Bill Clinton "h[e]ld up the tarmac at LAX [Los Angeles International Airport] for four hours" while getting a haircut. As Media Matters for America noted, a June 30, 1993, Newsday article reported that the reports of delays at the airport "were wrong," adding that the haircut "caused no significant delays of regularly scheduled passenger flights -- no circling planes, no traffic jams on the runways."

From the 1 p.m. ET hour of the April 24 edition of MSNBC Live:

O'DONNELL: Alex, let me ask you about [presidential candidate and former Sen.] John Edwards [D-NC]. He has been kind of struggling this week under a lot of news that he apparently got a $400 haircut.

JOHNSON: Right.

O'DONNELL: He -- he addressed the issue yesterday, managed to make a joke about it. Let's take a listen.

EDWARDS [video clip]: You can come from nothing to spending $400 on a haircut. There are great opportunities -- so embarrassing, by the way, so embarrassing.

O'DONNELL: You know, Alex, how damaging -- I mean, I know Republicans are already making fun of it. They've been making fun of it on the Fox News Channel, for instance, but you know, John Edwards has been trying to present this message of the two Americas, you know, where there is gap between rich and poor. I mean, how much does it hurt him that he himself is getting a $400 haircut?

JOHNSON: Well, at least he didn't hold up the tarmac at LAX for fours like Bill Clinton did, but --

O'DONNELL: To get his --

JOHNSON: -- you know, in due respect, the best way he can handle that is with a joke, because the bottom line for John Edwards is he's a very wealthy man, and he's running sort of as the mantle of the poverty candidate. And so, how he reconciles those two should be interesting, but he's got his work cut out for him on that -- on that token.

O'DONNELL: Well, I know you will both be watching MSNBC Thursday night.

—B.J.L.