MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Smears American Veterans as Bigger Terror Threat Than Illegal Border Crossers
“It is very clear from the evidence that if you want to worry about terrorism in this country, the United States Army is a much bigger problem than the southern border.”
This was a shocking new low, even for MSNBC.
This week, host Lawrence O’Donnell suggested that American veterans, specifically Army vets, are a greater terror threat than illegal immigrants crossing the southern border.
O’Donnell used the suspect in the New Orleans attack this week and Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, as examples.
FOX News reports:
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell claims US military personnel pose greater threat than illegal immigrants
MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell argued that Americans should look to their fellow citizens, specifically U.S. military personnel, and not illegal immigrants, as instigators of terrorism within the U.S. in a segment Thursday.
“The simple fact is, this country has suffered more deadly terrorism at the hands of American-born citizens who are veterans of the United States military than people who have crossed into this country at the southern border,” O’Donnell said. “It is very clear from the evidence that if you want to worry about terrorism in this country, the United States Army is a much bigger problem than the southern border.”…
O’Donnell used examples of military veterans, including Timothy McVeigh, the domestic terrorist behind the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, to argue that American veterans have perpetuated more violence than immigrants have in U.S. history.
“Timothy McVeigh parked a truck outside that building loaded with explosives in an act of homegrown American terrorism,” O’Donnell said. “Timothy McVeigh’s hatred of the American government was not tamed in any way by his service in the American military. So, too, with America’s latest terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, with an American military veteran driving a pickup truck through a crowd to murder 14 people.”
Here’s the clip:
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell: "It is very clear from the evidence that if you want to worry about terrorism in this country, the United States Army is a much bigger problem than the southern border." pic.twitter.com/b5859v9QIm
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 3, 2025
There was a time in this country when a moment like this could get a news host fired, but we’re clearly past that point.
Even the Associated Press is pushing this narrative:
New Orleans attack and Vegas explosion highlight extremist violence by active military and veterans
While much remains unknown about the man who carried out an attack in New Orleans on New Year’s and another who died in an explosion in Las Vegas the same day, the violence highlights the increased role of people with military experience in ideologically driven attacks, especially those that seek mass casualties…
Service members and veterans who radicalize make up a tiny fraction of a percentage point of the millions and millions who have honorably served their country. But an Associated Press investigation published last year found that radicalization among both veterans and active duty service members was on the rise and that hundreds of people with military backgrounds had been arrested for extremist crimes since 2017. The AP found that extremist plots they were involved in during that period had killed or injured nearly 100 people.
For decades now, there has been an ongoing media narrative of ‘not all Muslims’ which was intended to downplay the threat of Islamic radicalism, but apparently ‘not all veterans’ is not applicable.
I would say that MSNBC should be ashamed, but they’re clearly not capable of that.
Featured image via YouTube.
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He and Nicole Wallace make a perfect couple. What a blowhard, filled with rage and sanctimony, so out of touch with reality that he would actually emote such trash as “commentary.”
This is nothing new. The Obama administration warned LE agencies that returning servicemembers were a great threat to commit domestic terrorism. On the other side, we have Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction blaming teachers unions.
Typically of modern America, we blame everyone except those who actually did the deed.
16 million Americans served in the Armed Forces during WW II. As soon as the war was over there was a spike in domestic terrorism.
As a result of the Korean War terrorism reigned all through the 1950’s.
Don’t even get me started on 2.7 million in Vietnam veterans who returned home to a hero’s welcome and went on to become terrorists.
And then again on 9/11 US veterans terrorized the country by hijacking planes and killing thousands of people.
Thumbs up to Lawrence O’Donnell for pointing this out. This will surely add to his magnificent and illustrious career.
I came back from Desert Storm and got a parking ticket. I’m still waiting for an FBI interview. Oh yeah, I pulled a tag off my mattress, too. I am an extremist terrorist. Hear me roar!
Ok Larry. Now use the same logic for Murder, Rape, assault, robbery, car jacking, burglary, theft and shop lifting. Tell us which demographic subgroup(s) commit these crimes and then explain how dangerous they are.
I hear veterans go to Chicago every weekend and shoot the place up—somewhere in the neighborhood of 35oo dead and 13,ooo wounded every year.
Paula? Did you forget something?
I forgot the Civil War.
Every day in America, 22 veterans commit suicide. Plus, it’s getting worse: the number of suicide deaths among veterans has increased by 10% since 2022. And don’t even get me started talking about the number of homeless veterans and the number parlyzed, blind, maimed, quadriplegic and injured both mentally and physically.
That is a plain fact that I don’t think anyone will dispute. And if past performance were a guarantee of future results then his conclusion would be justified. But we all know it isn’t.
That depends which evidence you’re considering. If you limit yourself to the fact he stated in the first part then yes, that is the conclusion you must draw. But that isn’t the only relevant evidence. The mere fact that the border is wide open inherently means there is a huge threat of terrorists coming over it. The fact that so far none have (that we know of) doesn’t mean anything.
Terrorist attacks are rare events. Even now they’re rare and always newsworthy. So it’s not surprising that of all the millions who’ve poured over the border, none have yet committed a terrorist attack. It doesn’t change the fact that sooner or later one is likely to. International terrorists who wish to infiltrate the USA know about that opportunity, and it’s impossible that none have taken advantage of it. Surely there are potential terrorists who came that way, living here and waiting for the moons to align or whatever it is that sets them off.
This is an excellent post Milhouse.
O’Donnell obviously has an ax to grind by attempting to take the focus off islamic terrorism and direct attention to something else.
Islamic terrorism is a serious threat to this country, but it is not the only, or even the main source.
The southern border is the source of many rapists and murderers, but it is not the primary source.
As to veterans, many veterans who have committed terrorism are muslims. But the focus of the media and the government has been on white supremacists which clearly is not the main problem. And now to add to the confusion, O’Donnell is suggesting the problem is veterans.
O’Donnell begins with, “The simple fact is….blah, blah. blah.” It is anything but simple. I think Milhouse has done a good job summarizing a very complex and serious problem.
Two thumbs up.
Although I would point out that at least in the Ft Hood attack and the New Orleans attack both attackers had converted to Islam prior to the attack. So even though you can say former or active military they are also Islamic terrorists. So add their victims to the tally of the dead that is well past 3000 for Islamic terrorists, unless you do like one newscaster did and not start counting until 2002.
He said nothing about Islam. He merely compared the terrorism statistics for US servicemen against those for people who’ve illegally crossed our southern border. And he’s right that so far no terrorist attack has been committed by someone who came here in that way. Now if you were to compare terrorist attacks by servicemen against those committed by Moslems (counting Moslem servicemen in both categories) you will very quickly reach a conclusion that O’donnell doesn’t like.
“Timothy McVeigh’s hatred of the American government was not tamed in any way by his service in the American military.”
“Government” is such a nebulous term.
Did McVeigh hate the American system?
Or did he hate the people who had perverted it?
I don’t think McVeigh had the IQ to have an opinion. If you ever say any of his interviews or videos of him speaking, he as so obviously a scapegoat who wasn’t smart en0ugh to realize he was a scapegoat.
Oh and there is no way in Hades he built that bomb either.
Not saying he is innocent, it is very clear he isn’t, but still.
McVeigh hated the government murdering people at Waco, TX and Ruby Ridge.
“””Journalists””” conveniently omit that part, as if he just woke up one day and decided to attack FedGov for no reason.
I distinctly remember where I was the morning after the nightly news broke. I was on an airport van heading to Logan, far end of the route, so only the driver and I at the start, and we were discussing the event. General consensus of the newspuppets at that time (48 hour rule had not expired) was that “the Arabs” had done it. (Back then, they were “the Arabs,” as in “Abscam” — they didn’t become “the Muslims” until 9/11.) “Glad to hear it,” I replied, “I was positive they were going to try to hang this on militias.”
Joke was on me.
Degrading the military has been going most of my life inside and out. Barack was the big downturn in troop moral and PDS. I don’t know how long it can be turned around.
Yea, the only memory I retain of Lawrence O’Donnell is from a segment he did the night of one of the mid-term’s during Obumbles Misguided Adventures. The democrats had lost at least the House as I remember and done very poorly in Governors races and O’Donnell’s closing remark was to look at the camera with what I can only describe as a creeper smile and made the statement that “it is clear that the real winner tonight is Barack Obama”
Complete and utter delusional denial that the dems has gotten their butts kicked. I remember that because it reminds me to never ever listen to anything this moron says.
You may think you hate the MSM, but you don’t hate them enough.
First, Lawrence O’Donnell clearly does not understand the difference between correlation and causality. One could equally accurately (and equally uselessly) state that all of these individuals were born to women.
Second, our current political climate (ever since 9/11) does not seem to permit an honest and useful discussion about terrorism. To be useful for any interdiction activity one needs to understand motivation. Terrorism is an asymmetric tactic that enables relatively powerless individuals to combat a much more capable state apparatus. Knowledge of that tactic by itself does little to combat the evil individuals except to further restrict rights and privileges of the general public. By far the most prevalent motivation of terrorism that has captured our attention is radical Islamic fundamentalists.
Third, to say that we haven’t seen large numbers of terrorist activities traced to illegal migrants from the southern border misses the point. Anything above zero is too much. In addition, we can be certain that some of the illegal & unvetted individuals will in the future act out on their ill intent towards the domestic populace or towards the American state apparatus.
So Larry, should we put them down like we do the K-9 dogs when they retire? Arlington is going to be very busy!
Well, either that or start a registry like they have for sexual predators and whenever a military member is discharged they must sign up for a registry so the FBI can keep track of them, maybe wear a monitor or something. Can’t be too careful you know.
O’Donnell’s comments, even if accurate, are apples and oranges. We are stuck with the consequences of military people, blacks, white supremacists, or any other US citizen group you wish to throw a rock at. We have to deal with whatever they do as best we can. Illegals DO NOT BELONG HERE. One Laken Riley is one too many and pointing to some other group entitled to be here causing more problems is not relevant.
Frankly, Larry O’Donnell is psychotic and you do best to ignore him completely.
Prediction: This time next year Trump will still have his job and Larry-Boy…won’t.
Larry….Stop the hammering.
So O’Donnell’s argument is that we shouldn’t let Muslims and Islamist’s into the military? I’ll go along with that.
No, that’s not his argument at all. He didn’t mention Islam and he would rather we didn’t notice that. No, according to him Nidal Hasan shot up all those soldiers because he was a product of the US Army, and his religion had nothing to do with it. the important point, according to him, is that Hasan didn’t come over the southern border. Which is true, but irrelevant.
As of 2018, criminal illegal aliens have murdered 33,000 Americans
GAO report:
Page 26 plus page 32
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-18-433.pdf
Where in the report did you get that number from?
Note that the report is about all criminal aliens, not only illegal ones.
Also that its numbers are not all that reliable, because the information the authors had access to was very spotty and not representative.
But I couldn’t see anywhere where it said what you did.
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