MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell apologizes for expletive-laden tantrums caught on leaked clips

Leaked footage showing MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell having several on-camera outbursts has prompted the anchorman to do some damage control.

“A better anchorman and a better person would've had a better reaction to technical difficulties. I'm sorry,” the political pundit tweeted about his expletive-laden tirade Wednesday evening.

In the obscenity-heavy rant published on Mediaite, “The Last Word” anchor bangs on his desk, gesticulates wildly, curses at a woman talking in his earpiece and berates his staff for not getting the edits he wants in the script.

“There's insanity in the control room tonight,” O'Donnell said, later adding. “You have insanity in my earpiece … It's not my earpiece, it's somebody talking on our lines.”

The cobbled-together clips appear to be from the Aug. 29 show, Mediate said, and also feature the increasingly irate newsman losing it when nearby hammering disrupts his segment. O'Donnell, a former writer and producer of “The West Wing,” even calls on MSNBC president Phil Griffin to put an end to it.

“Somebody go up there and stop the hammering! I'll go down to the … floor myself and stop it. Keep the … commercial break going,” he shouted. “I don't care who you have to call. Stop the hammering!”