MSNBC’s O’Donnell Says Trump Stared Him Down in Court With ‘Intimidating Look’: ‘It Was Just a Crazy Face’

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell claimed Donald Trump went to great lengths to avoid eye contact with him on Friday at his hush money trial following an encounter where O’Donnell said the former president shot him a “crazy face.”

O’Donnell, host of MSNBC’s The Last Word, began attending Trump’s Manhattan trial on Thursday. The former president is being charged with more than 30 felony counts. He’s accused of falsifying business records to cover up various hush money payments, including to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to hide an alleged affair. He’s denied all wrongdoing.

After attending the trial on Friday, O’Donnell recalled in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Jansing that tried giving him an “intimidating look” when he saw him in the audience as he was leaving court on Thursday.

“When he was walking by my position at the aisle, he decided he was going to stare at me with what I’m sure he was hoping was some kind of intimidating look, but he was trying to load so much into it, anger, and hatred, that it just became a crazy look,” O’Donnell said. “It was just a crazy face, and I was just, you know, lightly smiling back at him, hoping he could read my mind, which was to — which would have been if I had a question, how stupid does it feel that your life has ended up in this room in this way?”

Jansing noted that New York Times reporter Maggie Habermann previously referred to a moment where Trump was “squinting strangely” at O’Donnell, a vocal critic of the former president.

O’Donnell called the wordless exchange “peculiar” and claimed Trump “studiously” avoided looking at O’Donnell on Friday in court following O’Donnell discussing the glare on his show.

“This time he studiously avoided looking at me and there was a moment during recess where he turned around and he was looking at the entire audience, just letting his eyes wander around the room,” he said. “It’s something he likes to do. He likes to see who is there. Anderson Cooper was across the aisle from me. That’s the kind of thing that Donald Trump likes to take in and his eye movement was flawless in the way it stopped right at the line of the man sitting beside me and would never then move another half inch to take me in.”

Watch above via MSNBC.