LAWRENCE O'DONNELL (HOST): Donald Trump began the day today by saying what we knew he would say, that of course the massacre in Orlando is President Obama's fault. We all knew that was coming. Donald Trump was going to find some way to blame the president, but he didn't just blame the president's policies. He said the president actually is cheering for the other side. He said the president has something else in mind when it comes to fighting terrorism, meaning that the president doesn't really want to fight terrorism because he has something else in mind. Those were his words. The suggestion that the president was really working for the other side was delivered in Trump's classic imitation of Joe McCarthy, innuendo on top of innuendo.
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David, we knew it was going to be President Obama's fault, but the details were interestingly crafted this time.
DAVID CORN: Well we don't have details as you put it, we have innuendo. And this is just a continuation of the argument that made him a conservative favorite to begin with: birtherism. That there's something phoney and furtive and secretive and creepy about President Barack Obama. He's really a secret Muslim, secret socialist, he doesn't like America, and Trump doesn't say these things explicitly. But it's clear that the implication is that he wants the terrorism to succeed or happen. That he's not interested in stopping it, and he has this sort of a secret agenda. Wink, wink, nod, nod; this is Alex Jones stuff. It's racist, and it feeds the base and the paranoia that brought Trump to where he is. And it's just -- the fact that other Republicans don't come out -- I mean, Peter will -- but other Republicans don't come out and call him out on this in this moment of national tragedy is equally sad.
PETER WEHNER: I think it's all that Donald Trump knows. This is the way the man is. He pulls these pins on these grenades and he rolls them and then it explodes and he says, geez, what happened? I think the guy has a personality disorder. I don't think he can control himself. So I think even if it's not in his interest to engage in this kind of stuff, he would do it. Beyond that I think he does it because he is the most massively ignorant person ever to run for president and he cannot discuss public policy. So everything he's done from the day that he's gone in is to set up these debates that are on the ground of appealing to the darkest impulses of the country. That is what he relishes, and he wants to be in the gutter. The trouble is he's bringing a lot of people down there with him.
