MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell apologizes after video of epic rant is leaked

A leaked video was released on Mediate Wednesday morning of MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell melting down while taping the August 29th episode of The Last Word. It all began with a simple problem with his earpiece. After reading an introduction to a clip, O’Donnell pointed at his ear and said, “Why don’t I have sound? Alright it’s back, someone is pressing buttons and turning the sound off. Who’s asking for a Labor Day rundown in my ear?” O’Donnell then added, “Someone in that control room is out of control.” That’s when O’Donnell started to get out control. Not only was the anchor distracted by the people talking in his ear, but there was someone hammering in the next room. “Stop the hammering out there! Who’s got a hammer? Where is it? Where’s the hammer? Go up on the other floor! Somebody go up there and stop the hammering!” O’Donnell yelled. He then continued, saying, “Call f*cking Phil Griffin! I don’t care who the f*ck you have to call! Stop the hammering!” In case you’re wondering, Phil Griffin is the president of MSNBC. As the mistakes and distractions continued to pile up, O’Donnell got more and more fed up. The anchor continued yelling, “Jesus Christ! Crazy f*cking sound coming in my ear! This f*cking stupid hammering!” O’Donnell took to Twitter Wednesday afternoon to apologize. The tweet read, “A better anchorman and a better person would’ve had a better reaction to technical difficulties. I’m sorry.” O’Donnell’s rant was reminiscent of Bill O’Reilly’s infamous rant from when he was an anchor on Inside Edition. And of course, it wasn’t long before the internet took the video and ran with it. One person made a great mashups of MC Hammer’s “Hammertime” playing under snippets of O’Donnell’s and O’Reilly’s rants.