In an exclusive two-part debate between Lou Dobbs and The Nation‘s Isabel Macdonald on MSNBC’s The Last Word, host Lawrence O’Donnell declares Dobbs on trial for hypocrisy in the court of public opinion. In her year-long investigation for The Nation, “Lou Dobbs, American Hypocrite,” Macdonald tracked down and conducted interviews with five undocumented workers who had tended to Dobbs’s estates and prize horses—all while the talk-radio star and former CNN host was arguing on air that employers who hired undocumented workers should face felony charges.
Will Dobbs ask to be charged with a felony? When Dobbs and Macdonald squared off on The Last Word yesterday, Dobbs denied being aware that his contractors had hired undocumented workers, but admits that undocumented workers may have worked for him: “The only person who would have been an illegal would have been a landscaper who was working for the contractor working on my house in Florida. That may have happened.”
But Macdonald reminded Dobbs that in the past on his program he called employers ridiculous for insisting that they should not have to be held accountable for their contractors’ employees. “Lou,” Macdonald asks, “does the buck stop with you or not?”
—Joanna Chiu
