MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell theorized Tuesday night on "The Last Word" that President Donald Trump is suffering from mental illness.
O'Donnell argued in an extensive monologue that Trump's "incoherence" led Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to join the White House team in order to care for him. O'Donnell further pondered their thoughts and concluded that they believe Trump's mental health is deteriorating.
"The kids were worried about the old man," he said. "The kids had been watching, especially over recent years, a decline in Donald Trump's executive function."
O'Donnell assumed that Trump's family did not expect him to win but wanted to be available in the White House once he did. He rooted his reasoning in the idea that Kushner and Ivanka Trump had no previous interest in politics.
"Prior to election night, when they were no doubt as surprised at the rest of us at the outcome of the Electoral College, neither one of them had ever given any thought to going to work in a government building of any kind," he said.
"After winning the election, they decided to work in the White House," O’Donnell added.
He also said he did not suspect Kushner "craved power in the White House," but rather had a simpler guess that he was worried about his father-in-law's health.
"Having personally watched Donald Trump become increasingly incoherent the last several years, my first assumption was the kids were going to Washington because they know that dad is utterly incoherent much of the time and forgetful and inattentive," O'Donnell said.
O'Donnell reasoned that President Trump wanted to give Kushner this power because he found him more intelligent than his birth sons.
"It had to be Jared instead of Donald Jr. or Eric Trump because, as some close observers of the president have reported, Donald Trump thinks his son-in-law is smarter than his sons," he said. "Given what we now know about Jared Kushner, that may be one of Donald Trump's many misjudgments."
He went on to credit Kushner with the stupidest suggestion "in the recorded history of presidential transitions" for the idea to set up communication with Moscow through the Russian embassy.
O'Donnell argued that he had evidence that Trump's memory was failing. He compared Trump's quote saying that Russians never met with anyone from the campaign to a quote from 12 days before when he said Donald Trump Jr. was fine to meet with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
"Does the president have any memory at all of what he said 12 days earlier about the same thing?" he asked.