Since Trump took office, there's been no shortage
of financial scandals coming out of this cabinet, right?
There was Housing Secretary Ben Carson,
who used taxpayer money to buy a $31,000 dining set,
Treasure Secretary Steve Mnuchin wasted almost a million dollars
on travel expenses,
and of course, Attorney General Jeff Sessions,
who spent $3 million
on an experimental body-stretching operation.
Worth every penny, if you ask me.
I think he looks great.
But nobody in Washington
has been as consistently caught up in scandal
as EPA Chief Scott Pruitt.
And surprisingly, his scandals haven't come
from him working to destroy the environment.
No, no, no. They've come from his little side hustles, right?
And normally, when you find out about corruption in D.C.,
it's the kind of corruption that makes you mad.
You know? Millions in bribes!
But with every new Pruitt revelation,
every time you find out, you just go, "Wait, what?"
This morning, the controversies keep coming
for EPA Chief Scott Pruitt.
E-mails show that Pruitt had
one of his aides reach out to Chick-fil-A.
NEWSMAN: Scott Pruitt apparently tried to use his position
as head of the Environmental Protection Agency
to get his wife a franchise with Chick-fil-A.
As astonishing as that sounds, even more astonishing--
it's all in writing in government e-mails.
You know, I'll-I'll be honest,
this is not the fast-food scandal
I saw coming out of the White House. I...
Yeah, if anything, I thought it would be Trump
getting in trouble for pardoning the Hamburglar.
That's what I thought it would be.
And yes, in case you didn't know,
the Hamburglar is in prison, and not for stealing burgers--
he was trafficking Fentanyl. Horrible story.
But... but just think about this for a second.
You're the head of a major government agency
with influence over some of the biggest corporations
in the world, and you decide to abuse your position
to get your wife a chicken store.
(laughter)
My man, focus.
You have all that power.
You've got to think bigger.
It's like... it's like he's Thanos,
and he's using the Infinity Gauntlet
to cut the line at Disney World.
(laughter)
It's just, like, "Too many people.
-(snaps fingers) -"Baah!
All right! Space Mountain!"
And honestly, like, the only thing weirder
than Pruitt trying to score his wife a Chick-fil-A
was his explanation for it.
Look, my wife is-is an entrepreneur herself.
Uh, I love, she loves, we love, we-- uh,
Chick-fil-A is a franchise of faith,
and-and it's one of the best in the country.
And so, uh, that's something we were very excited about.
So, and we need more of them in Tulsa
and we need more of them across the country.
So, anyway, it's, uh, it's an exciting time.
What?
It's an exciting time?
What's, what's an exciting time?
He's so busted in that moment
that he couldn't come up with the right emotion.
He-He sounds like a guy caught red-handed at a murder scene.
(laughing): "Well, um, the body, the body-- I-I came in,
"and he-he tried to grab me, and his-his head--
Anyway, it's an exciting time, officer."
(chuckling)
And it really is an exciting time for Pruitt,
because he's finding little grifts all over Washington.
New trouble for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Politico reports he loved eating at the White House so much
he's been asked to eat there less often.
Pruitt was frequenting White House Mess,
an exclusive restaurant run by the Navy,
with excellent food, by the way, at bargain prices.
Oh, yeah. You heard that right.
Scott Pruitt was eating so many discounted meals
at the White House, they had to ask him
to please stop coming.
Like, I've heard of the government curbing handouts,
but not for one guy.
Like, how cheap can you be?
Scott Pruitt's so cheap, he's probably at Starbucks like,
"So what you do is you bring an empty thermos,
y-you fill it up with some of that 2% milk
"they got sitting out there, and boom, free milk.
Yeah. Yeah. What do you say?"
Like, the man can't help himself.
Remember-Remember that time, uh,
when George Bush was in Iraq
and a guy threw a shoe at him? Right?
If that were Pruitt, he probably would have caught the shoe
and been like, "Yes.
One more invasion and I'll have a pair!"
Like, I'm telling you, once you begin
to understand this guy's mindset,
all his other weird scandals start to make more sense.
Like, earlier this week,
we found out that Pruitt used EPA officials
to buy him a used mattress from Trump's hotel.
And it's a weird story, and at first, we thought
that maybe he was trying to suck up to Trump, right?
But it turns out, he was just trying
to score a hotel mattress for cheap.
In his mind, he was just like,
"It's cheaper than buying it new,
and they throw in the bed bugs for free."
And-And in addition, just today, just today,
we found out that Pruitt-- and this is a true story--
Pruitt sent his security detail
to go and get him moisturizing lotion
from a Ritz-Carlton hotel. Yeah.
He basically, he basically asked his taxpayer-funded security
to protect him from ashy ankles, that's what he did.
So now, so now,
this guy has got his guards running around town
trying to snag him some fancy moisturizer
like it's Lotion's 8 or some shit like that.
I mean, like, how is this real life?
And-And th-there are actually signs
that Republicans in Congress,
who are, of course, the only people who matter in Congress,
are also starting to get tired
of Pruitt's endless claims, right, and his scams.
Because, when you combine these small grifts
with all the other things that he's done,
it's a pretty impressive list.
TV REPORTER: The White House is awaiting an ethics review
on Pruitt that could lead to his removal.
The list of probes or investigations
into Pruitt is a long one, from leasing a D.C. condo
from a lobbyist's wife, below cost,
to spending tax dollars on first-class travel
and weekend trips home;
handing out jobs and pay raises to political aides;
holding questionable meetings
with companies seeking EPA favors.
13 separate probes now underway involving Pruitt.
I've never seen a political scandal
that looks like a Star Wars opening.
(laughter)
Look at that list.
Like, that list of investigations
is longer than a CVS receipt.
That's what it is. Yeah.
And by the way, Scott Pruitt, if you save those receipts,
you can tape them together and you hang it up
and it's like a free curtain.
Yeah, you can do it.
(laughter and applause)
You know, honestly, what's funniest to me
about this entire thing is that,
if Pruitt does gets fired,
it won't be because he's an EPA chief
who's destroying the environment,
it'll be because he got caught up
in some embarrassing scandal like stuffing his pockets
with White House toilet paper.
But, I mean, you know what?
At least he'll go down doing what he loves.
So, to Scott Pruitt, I say this:
Scott Pruitt, my friend...
Cheers.
And may you grift until the last possible second.
Mmm.