-Donald Trump spoke at the far right
Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend,
where he repeated his lies about the 2020 election
as Republicans panicked over an Alabama court
ruling that put access to fertility treatments
and IVF at risk.
For more on this, it’s time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
Well, we’ve been off for a week and a lot has happened
while we were gone. The total owed
by Donald Trump and his company
and his civil fraud trial has climbed to $464 million,
and he’s been barred from doing business in New York
for three years, which means he will no longer
be allowed to sell his Channnel bags in Times Square
that are suspiciously spelled with three N’s.
The GOP’s already feeble impeachment case
crumbled after their key informant
was arrested for lying to the FBI
and confessed to having ties to Russian intelligence.
Trump won the South Carolina primary
despite 1 in 5 primary voters
saying they won’t support him in November,
and he debuted a new line of sneakers
that looked like they should be sticking off the legs of a witch
who got crushed by a Trump condo
the bank foreclosed on,
and yet Trump remains the likely GOP nominee for president.
And that’s a sign of something very unhealthy in our politics.
Increasingly, it feels like
the basic mechanisms of our democracy are breaking.
Normally, in a healthy political system,
when you’re repeatedly rejected by voters
you respond to that feedback
by moderating your positions to appeal to more people.
Instead, we have a conservative movement
whose leaders just keep doubling down
and routinely say stuff like this.
-I always hear Republicans can’t win California,
you can’t win. I will tell you,
if God came down and God was the vote checker,
I believe we would win. If God --
If God does come down, I hope we give him a real job
instead of vote checker, which
is not an actual job title or an expression anyone else uses.
Vote checker sounds like a job you give your little brother
to keep him distracted.
And why does God need to come down here to check votes?
He’s God. He was working remotely long
before the pandemic.
Working remotely is like his main thing.
It doesn’t matter that this nonsense is utterly deranged
and has been repeatedly debunked.
It’s gospel with the MAGA cult
and the people at the annual weirdo convention known as CPAC
where Trump spoke on Saturday.
-They’re very angry at me because I won an election
that wasn’t supposed to happen,
and they were caught off guard and they said,
"We’ll never let that happen again."
And in 2020 they cheated like dogs, and we all know it.
-Why does he always talk about dogs as cheaters?
I think he may have gotten the wrong message
from that painting of dogs playing poker.
Trump’s election delusion
is infected the entirety of the GOP.
Just look at this exit poll from South Carolina over the weekend.
-Do you think Biden legitimately won
the 2020 election here in South Carolina?
In this primary today, only a third, 32%,
say that he did legitimately win.
Only a third give the correct answer to this question.
Two thirds, 65%, wrongly say that Joe Biden
did not legitimately win the 2020 election.
-And in that same poll, 70% said dogs are [bleep] liars.
[ Laughter ]
This is how detached from reality
one of our two main political parties has become.
No matter how squarely the facts stare them in the face,
they double down on unhinged fantasy.
And while we’re on the subject,
I just want to point out some Democrats
seem to be learning the wrong lessons from this.
Just because MAGA is a cult
doesn’t mean the left should be one, too.
But that seems to be exactly
what some Democratic politicians want.
-The president is going to win here in Pennsylvania,
and I’ve always believed that whoever wins Pennsylvania
is going to be the next president as well, too.
And this is going to be -- it’s going to be difficult.
And we all have to lean in on that.
And we also have to start having,
you know, all kinds of Democrats
criticizing the president too publicly.
I don’t understand why.
I don’t know what’s in it for you to do that,
whether you’re just chasing clout
or you want to make it in the news or anything like that.
But if you’re not willing to just support the president now
and say these kinds of things,
you might as well just get your MAGA hat
because you now are helping Trump at this.
-No, that’s not how it works.
Criticizing or mocking our leaders
is a healthy thing in a democracy.
I mean, Joe Biden seems to be able to take a joke.
We here at "Late Night" make jokes about him all the time.
And I think if we ever invited him, he’d come on the show.
Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing.
[ Laughter ]
The point is, the GOP is fully committed to the delusion
that Trump won in 2020,
and that delusion has short circuited
the normal mechanisms of politics.
In a healthy democracy,
when one party keeps losing over and over,
they would reevaluate and become less extreme.
But if you can just keep telling yourself
lies about why you lost
or that you never actually lost in the first place,
then you never have to change to appeal to voters.
That’s why Trump keeps bragging about being responsible
for overturning Roe v. Wade,
despite the fact that it is repeatedly
cost Republicans election after election.
-I’d like for you to reassure me
that you can protect all life,
every person’s right to life without compromise.
-So that’s a great question. I appreciate it, too.
You wouldn’t be asking that question
even talking about the issue,
because for 54 years they were trying to get
Roe v. Wade terminated and I did it.
And I’m proud to have done it.
-He can’t help himself. Even though he knows overturning
Roe and outlawing abortion are massively unpopular,
he still wants credit for doing it.
If Trump farted at a party,
he’d say, "Jesse, you know that wasn’t the dog.
I did that, and if the dog tells you they did it,
just remember, dogs are [bleeping] liars.
Just look at the polling in South Carolina.
They're [bleep]."
The Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe
after a decades long push by Republicans
has now led directly to a shock
ruling from Alabama’s conservative Supreme Court
that put fertility clinics and IVF treatments at risk
by declaring that all embryos are children.
-A first of its kind ruling that puts in vitro fertilization
in jeopardy for thousands of families.
Alabama’s Supreme Court says frozen embryos are children
and would be protected
under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
-What Donald Trump brags about doing,
the thing he is so proud of doing, opened the door
to what we are witnessing in Alabama right now.
Alabama Supreme Court
ruling literally cites the Dobbs decision,
by my count, 15 times. -The Alabama Supreme Court
cited Dobbs repeatedly for the proposition
that embryos are human beings
with equal protection under the law.
It just could not have happened
if Trump had not appointed the three justices
who led the way in overturning Roe v. Wade.
-Count down to Trump immediately backing away
from the thing he just bragged about.
There’s a good chance next time he’s asked about IVF
he’s going to pull a Homer Simpson meme.
[ Laughter ]
So the conservative Alabama Supreme Court
repeatedly cited the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade
in its own decision declaring that all embryos are children.
And yet there are some Republicans
and right wing pundits claiming that actually
this ruling has nothing to do with Dobbs,
and Republicans have no intention of banning IVF.
-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
was just asked about the Alabama Supreme Court
ruling that stated frozen embryos amount
to unborn children.
She tied it to Roe v. Wade,
and it has nothing to do with Roe v. Wade.
-Hillary Clinton’s accusing us of being against birth control.
The last thing we’ll do is shut down a fertility clinic
to have a child that you desperately want.
And the last thing we’ll ever do is try to outlaw birth control.
So when Hillary Clinton talks about that,
that tells me they’ve run out of things to say
about their own agenda.
It’s BS, and it’s not going to work.
-[ As Graham ] That’s what I said to Hillary,
and that’s what I said to my meemaw
when she asked me to scratch her back
because her arthritis pills make her skin dry.
Your excuses are BS, and they’re not going to work.
Just use that back scratcher I got you for Christmas,
you old bat.
I don’t care if you got frozen shoulder.
Use your other hand.
[ Normal voice] Come on, Lindsey, wear a tie.
You’re on TV.
[ Laughter and applause ]
How?
How can you claim this has nothing to do with Roe v. Wade
and the Republicans won’t go after fertility clinics
when that’s exactly what they just did?
The ruling was issued by Republican judges in Alabama,
who ran for the state Supreme Court as Republicans,
who cited a ruling overturning Roe v. Wade
that was written by Republican justices
who were appointed by Republican presidents,
including a guy named Donald Trump.
Saying this has nothing to do with Republicans
is like saying the Dolly Parton song "Jolene"
has nothing to do with a woman named Jolene,
which is another argument
I’m sure Lindsey Graham would happily make.
[ As Graham ] I listened to that song plenty of times.
I’ve never heard of this Jolene, Jolene.
Jolene, Jolene.
[ Normal voice ] The threat to fertility treatments
and IVF in Alabama
is the inevitable consequence of your actions.
You can’t say you’re pro IVF
if you’re also in favor of so called fetal personhood,
which puts IVF at risk. Voters know that.
And you can tell Trump is spooked
because his handlers wrangled him
into reading a prepared statement
expressing support for IVF off a teleprompter,
although he can’t even do that like a normal person.
-I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples
who are trying to have a precious little beautiful baby.
-Oof! [ Laughter ]
Trump’s syntax is so weird.
If a friend called and said, I’d love to come over
and see your precious little beautiful baby,
you’d immediately move and never give them your new address.
Word has it the stork made a delivery.
It’s your friend Keith, we got to move.
The Alabama ruling is a direct result of the GOP’s successful,
decades long push to overturn Roe,
and now they’re shamelessly trying to pretend
they had nothing to do with it. In a normal democracy,
they would have to abandon the doctrine of fetal personhood
because of how extreme it is, But MAGA conspiracy theorist
have broken the normal mechanisms of politics.
Now, instead of accepting defeat,
whenever Trump loses, he whines like...
-A precious little beautiful baby.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
Hey, everybody, thanks for watching "A Closer Look."
And as a reminder, my brother Josh
and I have started a new podcast
called "Family Trips with the Myers Brothers."
We hope you listen, we hope you like it and see you soon.