HUMILIATING: MSNBC Host Lawrence O’Donnell Forced To Apologize To Trump On-Air!

Now, even though O'Donnell made the apology on-air, the fact that he was forced to do this and that it was not out of his own volition is obvious.

Pay careful attention to O'Donnell's wording here. 

“We don’t know whether the information is inaccurate."

Did you catch that?

As if trying to gloss over the fact that the claim about Trump's loans being co-signed by Russains was entirely baseless and had absolutely ZERO proof to back it up, O'Donnell still left some room for interpretation there like the information could still be true.

Many are seeing through O'Donnell's insincere apology:

O'Donnell's forced apology follows threats by Trump's lawyers to sue and President Trump calling the claim out on Twitter:

CBS News has more to say about why O'Donnell was forced to retract his accusation:

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday retracted his story about supposed Russian ties to President Trump's finances and apologized for reporting it — just as Mr. Trump's lawyer demanded. O'Donnell said, however, he still doesn't know whether or not the story is true.

His public pull-back unfolded quickly in the opening minute of "The Last Word," where 24 hours earlier the cable news host said a source had told him that Deutsche Bank documents showed that Russian oligarchs had co-signed a loan application for Mr. Trump.

O'Donnell reported the story, based on a single source he did not identify, even as he couched it with the qualifier "if true" and admitted it had not been verified by NBC News.

Mr. Trump's lawyer, Charles Harder, had written to NBC Wednesday afternoon, saying the story was false and defamatory and threatening legal action if it wasn't disowned. Harder said the story could have been disproven with an internet search.

O'Donnell quickly tweeted that he made an "error in judgment" reporting the story.

"We don't know whether the information is inaccurate," he said later on the air. "But the fact is we do know it wasn't ready for broadcast and for that I apologize."

He later apologized on air, saying the story "wasn't ready for broadcast." NBC News has not said whether or not O'Donnell faces disciplinary action.

In court Tuesday, Deutsche Bank had revealed that it possessed some of Mr. Trump's tax returns that had never been released to the public, leading to speculation about what information those documents contained.

When he initially reported on the supposed co-signing of the loans on Tuesday, O'Donnell said "that would explain, it seems to me, every kind word that Donald Trump has ever said about Russia and Vladimir Putin, if true, and I stress the 'if true' part of this."

Boston Herald also said:

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday retracted his story about supposed Russian ties to President Trump’s finances and apologized for reporting it — just as Trump’s lawyer demanded.

His public pull-back unfolded quickly in the opening minute of “The Last Word,” where 24 hours earlier the cable news host said that a source had told him that Deutsche Bank documents showed that Russian oligarchs had co-signed a loan application for Trump.

O’Donnell reported the story, based on a single source he did not identify, even as he couched it with the qualifier “if true” and admitted it had not been verified by NBC News.

Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, had written to NBC Wednesday afternoon, saying the story was false and defamatory, and threatening legal action if it wasn’t disowned. Harder said the story could have been disproven with an internet search.

O’Donnell quickly tweeted that he made an “error in judgment” reporting the story.

“We don’t know whether the information is inaccurate,” he said later on the air. “But the fact is we do know it wasn’t ready for broadcast and for that I apologize.”