-Hello, everyone,
and welcome back to the attic.
If you have been following
my three-months-plus journey
up here, you know we've had
to work out some kinks.
There have been book shenanigans
and infestation of adorable wasps,
my hair part mysteriously switching sides.
And then, on top of all that, some helpful eagle-eyed viewers
caught a bit of an irregularity from our Monday show,
something that can only be described
as an accidental cameo.
I assure you we are looking into this problem
and we will have it fixed.
As I have repeatedly told my many famous friends,
the door in my attic, regardless
of its apparent magical qualities,
is not to be abused for walk-ons or plugs,
and I certainly don't wanna be responsible
for anyone gettin' trapped in there,
especially not Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke.
Because, you know, that man commits.
If he gets trapped in there, it's gonna be like 12 years,
"Boyhood"-style.
And, speaking of things that feel like
they've gone on for 12 years,
President Trump -- yes, the segues are back! --
and his allies on Fox News have settled
on a strategy for getting reelected.
Economic reco-- Oh, sorry. I read that wrong.
Racism! Their strategy is racism.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Suspenseful theme plays ]
Every day brings fresh new evidence
of the depravity and amoral criminality
of the Trump administration.
The details may differ, but, in many ways,
it feels like the same day over and over again.
It's like we're all Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day,"
except no one is learning the piano
and we still hate Ned Ryerson.
Get lost, Ned!
This is "Groundhog Day," if the ceremony was waiting
for the groundhog to make his way down the ramp.
No matter what, it takes him six more weeks of winter
to get from the top to the bottom.
Congress could spend the next decade
investigating Trump and still not get to everything.
He's a racist tax cheat who profits from his office,
wants to slow down testing for a pandemic he ignored,
he's facing new accusations that he extorted
multiple countries to interfere in our elections
and, just today, we heard damning congressional testimony
from a prosecutor in the Roger Stone case,
alleging that top Justice Department officials
intervened to get favorable treatment for Stone
because he was a political ally of the president.
-At a House Judiciary Committee hearing later today,
a federal prosecutor plans to testify
that Attorney General William Barr
and his top deputies gave inappropriate orders on cases
in an effort to cater to President Trump.
-Roger Stone was treated differently because of politics.
What I heard, repeatedly,
was that this leniency was happening
because of Stone's relationship to the president,
that the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia
was receiving heavy pressure
from the highest levels of the Department of Justice
and that his instructions to us
were based on political considerations.
And I was told that the acting U.S. attorney
was giving Stone a break because he was afraid
of the president of the United States.
-Of course they're afraid of the president.
Look at him. Looks like something
from a legend they tell kids in a small Irish village
to make them do their homework.
[ Irish accent ] Finish your maths, Liam,
or the fire gollum will climb into the window
and eat your hands.
He'll eat your hands, Liam!
Looks like something that would pop out at you
on a Amazon River cruise.
Anaconman.
Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
That one deserves an attic high-five.
-[ Electronic voice ]
-[ Clap ]
The president subverted the rule of law
to get favorable treatment for a political ally
and key go-between in Russia's criminal conspiracy
to help Trump win the 2016 election.
A guy who, setting aside all the evidence against him,
looks like an obvious criminal.
I mean, he just looks like a villain
who would try to steal the TARDIS from Doctor Who.
If you didn't know he was an adviser to Trump,
you'd think he was a Times Square weirdo,
pretending to be James Spader from "The Blacklist."
[ As Red ] Hey, lady, your kids want a picture with Red?
You know, Red from "The Blacklist."
And, hey, since we mentioned James Spader,
I also want to mention that my summer goal
continues to be
growing my hair long enough to look like
James Spader's character, Steff, from "Pretty in Pink."
I'm gonna go out and buy the suit and everything.
Of course, the only thing I can't buy
is that Spader confidence.
Ah, one day.
And the Stone news comes just days after Trump's DOJ
ousted one of the most powerful prosecutors in the country,
the U.S. attorney for the Southern District New York.
That's the office currently overseeing
several investigations of Trump and his allies,
including Trump's lawyer
and sundowning gremlin Rudy Giuliani.
[ Irish accent ] Finish your science project, too, Liam,
or the potato vampire
will fly through your window and steal your pills.
I don't know what he wants your pills for, Liam.
I just know he's comin',
If that papier-mâché volcano
isn't done come mornin',
Liam!
Trump is using the cover of a series
of acute national crises, from institutional racism
and police brutality to the pandemic,
to the economic crash,
to dismantle the rule of law
and protect himself and his cronies.
It's like if Nixon had managed
to distract everyone from Watergate
by crashin' his car into a Dairy Queen.
There are days when it can feel difficult
to fully capture the gravity of the situation we're in,
but then, there are other days, when you realize
there really are no words
to convey just how seismically, historically,
earth-shatteringly stupid everything is right now.
Like yesterday, when the president spoke
to an auditorium of so-called Students for Trump
in a state, Arizona, which is currently seeing
a record-setting spike in coronavirus cases,
and he amped up the crowd with this super racist comment.
-There's never been anything where they have so many names.
I could give you 19 or 20 names for that, right?
It's got all different names.
Wuhan.
[ Laughter ]
Wuhan was catching on.
Coronavirus, right?
[ Shouting ]
Kung flu, yes.
[ Cheering and applause ] Kung flu [ Indistinct ]
Kung flu.
-You know, racists like to complain
that the rules are changing all the time
and they don't know what's okay to say, what isn't,
but that would've been racist in 1920.
If Clara Bow had said that, she'd have been canceled.
"Bow's Gotta Go!" That's like something
a racist fourth grader would spray-paint
in the bathroom and get expelled for,
unless that school required two-thirds of the Senate
to vote to expel, in which case,
Susan Collins would be telling us...
[ As Collins ] I think Timmy has learned his lesson,
in regards to spray-painting.
Sssss!
He's spray-painting behind me right now, isn't he?
I don't know what to say anymore, man.
He just sucks, so hard.
Just a thoroughly cretinous, irredeemable Mr. Tomato Head,
slinkin' back to the White House
like he just got kicked out of a party at Studio 54
for doin' whippets in the bathroom.
He has to be the biggest douche on Earth,
and I say that knowing full well that Kid Rock is out there,
somewhere, fillin' up a pair of flag pants
with chili dog farts.
It's especially disheartening to hear
the audience losing their minds,
like Gallagher just walked out with a watermelon.
Now, the audience was supposed to be Students for Trump
and I'm just guessing, but the word students
and Students for Trump
probably has a pretty a loose definition.
They're probably students the way Trump is, you know,
"married." But don't worry.
Trump made sure to follow up his trademark racism
with some breathtaking stupidity, too.
-COVID, COVID-19, COVID.
I say, "What's the 19? COVID-19."
Some people can't explain what the 19.
COVID-19.
I said, "That's an odd name."
-What do you think it means?
[ As Trump ] COVID-19, of course,
is when a freshman goes off to COVID
and they gain weight, sometimes as much as 19 pounds.
The COVID-19, if you will.
I mean, why do you think they call it the 2020 election?
Do you think you need perfect eyesight to vote?
Of course, as always, when he says "some people,"
he means himself. That's his trademark way
of admitting he doesn't know something.
As soon as someone explains to him
what the 19 stands for, you can be sure
he'll say something like, "People don't know this,
but the 19 stands for the year it was discovered.
That's something most people just found out very recently
and not something they were told multiple times, but they forgot
because they don't really listen at meetings."
Now that he's overseen one
of the most catastrophic periods in American history,
from a pandemic he ignored to an economic crash
he has no interest in stopping, this is all Trump has left,
doubling down on explicit racism.
He and his allies on the right have very few tricks left
in their reelection bag.
They've apparently settled on a strategy
of racist fearmongering
about Black Lives Matter protests,
undermining the integrity of the election itself,
and assuring you that the president's right arm
is strong enough to hold a glass of water.
Normally, when someone's eager to show you
they can hold a cup on their own,
that cup has a Minion on it.
At this moment, states like Arizona and Texas
are experiencing record-setting COVID spikes
and Americans are campin' out for hours in the heat
to apply for unemployment.
You'd think viewers tuning into the news
would wanna hear some words of assurance
about those crises from the president.
Instead, Fox News chose to run
with this very real headline
from Trump's rally in Tulsa...
Wow, you guys are --
guys are doing some grade A journalism over there.
It reminds me of that famous headline
the day after the Gettysburg Address...
They are really scrapin' the bottom of the barrel.
It just goes to show you how desperate they are
and how intellectually bankrupt
the conservative movement has become.
They can't celebrate any policy successes
because they don't have any
and they can't tell you how great things are
because things are horrible.
The best they can do is brag about the fact
that the president's motor skills are still intact.
They're talking about him like he just emerged
from a decade-long coma.
I can't wait for their primetime special...
This is all they have left.
When they're not enthusiastically
cheering the president for successfully
lifting a glass to his lips, the way you'd reward a dog
for learning how to shake your hand,
they're trying to scare the crap out of their audience
with racist fearmongering
about the Black Lives Matter protests.
Here, for example, is Rudy Giuliani on Fox,
claiming Black Lives Matter
was literally coming to take your house away.
-Black Lives Matter,
the Communists,
and their allies
are executing a plan
they wrote about four, five years ago.
Just go back and read what they wrote
in the manifestos that they wrote,
including "Black Lives Matter."
They wanna destroy our government,
they wanna do away with our system of courts.
and they want to take your property away
and give it to other people.
This is an anarchist --
organized anarchists supported with a lot of money.
People who say they're favorable to Black Lives Matter?
Black Lives Matter wants to come
and take your house away from you.
-[ As Giuliani ] That's what happened to me!
They took my house away and I've been sleeping
in the reptile wing of the Natural History Museum.
No one notices me.
Besides, we all know that,
if anyone is gonna take your house away,
it's Tom Selleck. Oh, sure.
He says reverse mortgages
aren't a trick to take away your house,
but if that were true, why would he keep bringing it up?
That's like saying, "Have some of the milkshake.
It's not poison.
I've told you the milkshake isn't poison, haven't I?
Good.
Now, drink your milkshake.
It's not poison."
I got eyes on you, Selleck.
Just a side note here, but, Rudy,
please stop saying you're from New York City.
It's embarrassing to the rest of us.
Can't you just tell everyone you used to be the mayor
of Del Boca Vista or something?
Hell, just make somethin' up.
Tell people you're from a country where people
are just naturally born without necks.
No-neck-istan. Oo-ooh!
I think that might call for another attic high-five.
Okay. Jesus.
When did you get so picky, Attic High-Five?
This kind of racist fearmongering
is so absurd and on the nose,
it's almost hard to take seriously,
if it wasn't obviously the Fox News strategy
for tryin' to get Trump reelected.
Last night, for example, states like Texas,
Arizona, and California set new records
for coronavirus infections, and the U.S. headed back
up the curve toward our peak from a few months ago,
prompting the European Union to consider a ban
on travelers from the United States.
Here's what the president's
favorite propaganda channel was talking about.
-Democratic politicians don't fear the mob.
Notice that? Why?
Because they don't need to.
They control the mob.
The mob operates with their permission.
These are their foot soldiers.
This is their militia.
-Breaking tonight, massive chaos
in America's cities. It's ongoing.
-The main point that everyone watching this tonight
needs to understand really clearly --
Biden equals chaos.
-"Biden equals chaos"?
I hate to tell you this,
but even your guy calls him Sleepy Joe.
I mean, you can't have it both ways.
I mean, right now, he might as well just be running
for Lunesta spokesman.
Look, I know he's been doin' campaign events,
but I never even know about them
and, honestly, I prefer that.
I love this strategy. If I had my way,
Biden's campaign slogan would be...
And if you guys are so anti-chaos,
maybe you haven't noticed the current president is Donald Trump.
And I know you guys desperately wish that wasn't true,
because you much prefer to spend your time
attacking Democrats than having to do PR
for the Squinty Eye of Sauron over here,
but that's the reality.
This is a sociopathic political movement
concerned only with amassing and maintaining power
and they've decided, amid Trump's many failures,
to double down on crude, bald-faced racism
as their only hope of winning.
They don't actually wanna govern. In fact...
-They wanna destroy our government.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
As New York works hard to reopen under phase 2,
remember that we're still a city in crisis
and City Harvest has been stepping up
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