This is a must-watch monologue. Thank you, Lawrence O'Donnell:
Love.
Love is the single most important word that Donald Trump does not understand, and he proved that today, more than once, in the most perverse possible public displays of ignorance by a President of the United States. We have never seen anything like this in our history. I know we've said that before, but we mean it tonight.
Donald Trump is the most irreligious man in the history of the presidency and currently the most irreligious man in Washington. And he used the National Prayer Breakfast to attack Mitt Romney, who is probably the most religious man in Washington. Donald Trump, who has said he's never prayed for forgiveness for anything, used the National Prayer Breakfast to attack Nancy Pelosi for praying. Most of you probably already know that because that has been well reported today. What has not been as well reported is what Donald Trump listened to right before he got up to speak. Harvard professor Arthur Brooks was the speaker before Donald Trump, and his theme was how to communicate with people who you disagree with politically.
[video clip] ARTHUR BROOKS: If you want to persuade them, which you should, you can only do it one way, and that's with love. It was not an applause line. Thank you. Finally. The applause I've been waiting so long for. [end clip]
O'DONNELL: Like most people in that room, Arthur Brooks is a conservative, a political conservative. And he was talking about the concept of Christian love, which is why he expected to get applause for that line. But he didn't because everyone there was probably very nervous about how uncomfortable that line made Donald Trump, and then everyone realized they're going have to applaud for Christian love at the prayer breakfast, and so they did. But one person didn't -- Donald Trump. He didn't just not applaud the concept of "loving thy neighbor," he had to physically turn around from the man who was saying it. There was more.
[video clip] BROOKS: Ask God to give you the strength to go against your human nature, to follow Jesus' teaching. You believe Jesus' teaching? Act like it, me too. To love your enemies. Ask God to take political contempt from your heart. And sometimes, when it's just too hard, ask God to help you fake it.
O'DONNELL: Love your enemies. Donald Trump doesn't know that that was Jesus Christ's idea. Take contempt from your heart. What would be left in Donald Trump's heart if there were no contempt? And if that's too hard to do, then fake it. Donald Trump has faked a lot of things, but he couldn't fake that not even today at a prayer breakfast where the speaker right before him suggested to him, urged him to at least try to fake being a good person for once, at least try to fake that he understood the Christian concept of love your enemies. It was as if Arthur Brooks was giving that speech to that audience-of-one sitting to his right, and Donald Trump definitely heard the speech. He was listening enough to give his opinion. He was listening enough to ad-lib his reaction to Arthur Brooks' concept of Christian love when he got up to speak.
[video clip] DONALD TRUMP: Arthur, I don't know if I agree with you. But I don't know if Arthur's going to like what I'm going to say.
O'DONNELL: We can be very sure that Arthur didn't like what Donald Trump had to say. But what Donald Trump didn't understand was that he wasn't disagreeing with Arthur brooks. He was disagreeing with Jesus Christ. Arthur Brooks was only quoting Jesus Christ, saying love your neighbors, love your enemies. Everyone in the room knew that except Donald Trump. Donald Trump got up at the National Prayer Breakfast today, and the very first thing he did was disagree with Jesus Christ. And he proved how much he disagrees with Jesus Christ when he let his hatred of Nancy Pelosi flow and his hatred of Mitt Romney flow.
[video clip] TRUMP: I don't like people who use their faith as just a justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say 'I pray for you' when they know that that's not so.
O'DONNELL: Stunned silence. That was the reaction in that room full of religious people who pray every day, all of whom know now that Donald Trump doesn't know what prayer is, that Donald Trump was never taught to pray for his enemies as Nancy Pelosi was when she was a little girl growing up in a Catholic church in Baltimore. It seems Donald Trump was never taught anything about love because later at the White House when he spent an hour raging against his impeachment enemies and praising his impeachment allies, Donald Trump said one of the saddest things he has ever publicly said, he was praising his Republican ally, Congressman Steve Scalise, who was shot by a deranged man with a gun during a practice session for the annual Congressional baseball game. And Donald Trump described encountering Steve Scalise's wife at the hospital.
[video clip] TRUMP: He got whacked. He got whacked, my Steve, right? I went to the hospital with our great first lady that night, right, honey? And we saw a man who was not going to make it. He was not going to make it -- he was -- the doctor -- and told him his wife, I said she loves you and why did you say that, because she was devastated. A lot of wives wouldn't give a damn. A lot of wives -- a lot of wives would have said, hey, yeah. I said 'how's he doing,' she couldn't talk, she was inconsolable. Most wives would say 'not good. I'm going home.'
O'DONNELL: Most wives? Does he mean most Trump wives? He's on his third wife. Does he mean at least two of his or all of his wouldn't care if he got shot? Where else could that thought come from? It could only come from a man who does not know what it is to love or be loved. Donald Trump demonstrated today he has no comprehension of the concept of Christian love or romantic love or marital love, and he has no idea about nothing we have learned about his dealings with Ukraine and his obstruction of justice with Mueller investigation or his paying off of Stormy Daniels. None of that is as perverse as what Donald Trump revealed about himself today. He does not now, never has, and never will understand the word love, and so he feels nothing when he separates children from their parents at the southern border. He feels nothing when he abandons the Kurds. He feels nothing when he's told that 64 soldiers have traumatic brain injury from the Iranian missile attack on our troops in Iraq. He feels nothing about any of those things and can lie and has lied about all of those things. Donald Trump feels no shame at being impeached by the House of Representatives. He feels no shame at being found guilty by 48 United States Senators, including the first senator in history to find a president of his own party guilty in a Senate impeachment trial. Donald Trump feels no guilt. He has never felt guilt for anything. Donald Trump feels no embarrassment at being unable to comprehend anything about the concept of Christian love that was laid out for him today before he got up to speak at a prayer breakfast. The most dangerous thing about the most dangerous president that this country has ever had is that Donald Trump feels nothing.
