Maddow, O’Donnell Blast Trump, DOGE for ‘Setting Back’ Alzheimer’s Research by 20 Years: ‘Painful,’ ‘Angering,’ ‘Mindless Cruelty’

MADDOW: “All right, I’ll see you again tomorrow. Now it’s time for ‘The Last Word’ with the great Lawrence O’Donnell. Good evening, Lawrence.”
O’DONNELL: “Good evening, Rachel. You know, your last segment there about Donald Trump and Elon Musk setting back Alzheimer’s research 20 years, that final response in your discussion was really stunning, but also completely understandable. That’s the way medical and scientific research works. Your lab specimens aren’t going to sit there waiting for you to decide about funding. And it’s — and this is exactly the kind of thing that Donald Trump and Elon Musk do not comprehend in the slightest.”
MADDOW: “No. And to know that — to hear one of the leading researchers in the field say, ‘We are kind of on the precipice of a breakthrough in terms of treating Alzheimer’s,’ and you just think about how many people watching us right now hear that, and it really means something to them personally, because they know somebody in their lives who has passed with Alzheimer’s and they know somebody who’s coping with it. Now, if you don’t have somebody in your family, you know somebody whose family is contending with that. And to know that a cure is on the horizon and they are cutting the NIH research center, including its brain bank, and you cannot reverse those cuts once you close that place, you cannot just decide, ‘Oops, let’s hire them all back, didn’t mean to do that,’ like, there’s a reason these things need continuous funding. To have this sort of arsonists at work in our country is really painful, I think. It’s angering, but it’s really painful to a lot of people who are dealing with this personally. And I just really feel it. I gotta tell you.”
O’DONNELL: “Yeah. And it’s a mindless cruelty because I’m sure Donald Trump has no idea of anything that was just said in that last segment. He has no idea what he’s doing. Musk has no idea what he’s doing. So it’s a cruelty that they don’t even know they’re inflicting.”
MADDOW: “Yeah, well, I’m going to send them the clip. We’ll see what happens.”
O’DONNELL: “Yeah, that’s right. That’s the audience that needs to see that. Absolutely. Thank you, Rachel.”
MADDOW: “Thank you, Lawrence.”