-Donald Trump has always been a shameless liar,
but he's taken it to a new level this week
with his administration's defenses
of his cruel family separation policy.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
Trump's only political skill
is his total and complete lack of shame.
His malignant narcissism allows him to confidently
and brazenly lie
in a way that most other politicians
would be too embarrassed to even try,
like earlier this week when he claimed
he had cut more regulations
than any previous president in history,
including fictional ones.
-We've set the all-time record in history of this country
in cutting regulation.
We've cut more regulations than any administration,
whether it's 4 years, 8 years, or 16 years in one case.
-No.
[ Laughter ]
In no cases.
Unless he's talking about himself,
because it definitely feels
like he's been president for 16 years.
Trump might -- Trump might be thinking of FDR,
who was elected to a fourth term,
but he only served 12 years.
Of course, to know that, you'd have to be
some kind of history buff or, you know, in 7th grade.
[ Laughter ]
This is what Trump does.
He just confidently tells a very specific lie,
and knowing that it's obvious he's lying.
[ As Trump ] In one case, there was a president
who served 16 years.
This was, of course, 1492
when Columbus sailed all the way to India
with his best friend, Albert Einstein.
And let me -- They had so much fun on that boat, so m--
That's where they came up with E equals MC Hammer.
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] And then --
[ Applause ]
Then there was Trump's announcement on Monday
that he had directed the Pentagon to create
a sixth branch of the military focused on space.
Trump doesn't actually know
anything about space or space policy,
so he can't actually explain why he thinks
a pointless and expensive space force is necessary.
Instead, he just says stuff like this.
-You will go out there and you will take that frontier,
which is largely unknown by man or woman,
and you will learn everything there is to know about it.
And what you're doing is so important.
Remember, economically, militarily, scientifically,
in every way, there is no place like space.
[ Laughter ]
-He sounds like an actor playing Captain Kirk
in a dinner theater production of "Star Trek"
who forgot all his lines.
He's even got Vanilla Spock right next to him.
[ Laughter ]
And not only --
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ As Trump ] You know.
[ Normal voice ] And not only does Trump
confidently and brazenly lie,
but he also insists
that the people who believe and repeat his lies
are the smart ones,
as he did during his interview last week
with state TV outlet, "Fox & Friends."
-I have the greatest supporters in the world.
By the way, they're the smartest.
We have the great brain power right in this country,
I'm proud to say,
and you're certainly a member of that group.
-No.
Seriously, you think Steve Doocy has brain power,
the guy who lost [bleep]
when you complimented him on-air?
-"Fox & Friends" in the morning.
They're very honorable people.
-Wow!
What do you think about that?
[ Laughter ]
-He sounds like --
[ Applause ]
[ Laughs ]
[ Laughter ]
He sounds like the mushrooms just kicked in.
"Wow!
A purple demon just told me how I die.
What do you think of that?"
[ Laughter ]
Trump also loves to insist in the face
of indisputable evidence to the contrary
that his lies are always proven right.
Yesterday, for example,
in defending his immigration policies,
Trump revisited the foundational lie of his campaign
that Mexico is not sending their finest,
insisting that he was 100 percent right.
Obviously, he wasn't,
but this lie is central to Trump's world view,
and it's a through line we've seen throughout his presidency,
up to and including his policy of family separation.
Trump wants to link immigrants to crime,
even if he has to make stuff up to do it.
For example, Germany has had an influx of refugees,
and yet crime is at its lowest rate since 1992.
But Trump wants you to believe
that immigration leads to more crime,
so he says stuff like this.
-Germany. We talk about Germany.
They allowed millions of people in.
And, by the way, their crime from the time they started
is up more than 10 percent,
and one of the reasons it's at that level,
is because they don't like reporting that kind of crime,
so they put it down as different kind of crime.
But their crime is up more than 10 percent
since they've started taking immi--
-Hey, man, you can't just make up statistics like that.
That's like me saying, did you know that 10 percent
of people who work in the Trump administration
are Draculas?
Which is clearly a lie because it's at least 30 percent.
[ Laughter ]
And Trump's shamelessness --
[ Applause ]
His shameless lying is not unique to him.
We saw that with his cruel policy
of tearing children away from their parents at the border.
In defending the policy this week, Kirstjen Nielsen,
Trump's Homeland Security secretary, tweeted...
Now, one way you know someone's full of [bleep]
is when they have to say the punctuation
at the end of their sentence like this guy did.
-This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration,
period!
-And I am not screaming, exclamation point!
And when -- when they were insisting
the policy didn't exist,
they were insisting Congress -- Congress -- had to fix it.
-Congress and the courts created this problem,
and Congress alone can fix it.
-The Democrats have to change their law.
That's their law.
-It's Congress' job to change the law.
We're calling on them to do exactly that.
-Okay. There you go. Congress alone can fix it,
and Trump can't do it by himself.
I understand.
-President Trump abruptly reversing course today,
signing an executive order
to end the separation of families on the border.
-We're signing an executive order.
We're keeping families together,
and this will solve that problem.
-Let's be clear about one thing.
You don't get credit for solving a problem
when you're the one who created the problem.
You can't eat --
[ Cheers and applause ]
You can't eat half a cheeseburger, put it down,
and say you're a vegan,
especially when everyone knows
you're just waiting for people to stop paying attention
so you can finish your cheeseburger.
Now, whether it's the birther lie
or the Mexicans are rapists lie
or the idea that Democrats are responsible
for separating families,
Trump's paranoid fantasies are a Rosetta stone
for understanding what's happening right now.
Just look at Fox News, which has spent the past week
lying about the policy and trying to make you believe
that what you're seeing with your own eyes
isn't actually real.
-Since more illegal immigrants are rushing the border,
more kids are being separated from their parents
and temporarily housed
in what are essentially summer cramp -- camps.
-These kids are being coached. -I'm so sorry, we have to go.
-They're given scripts to read by liberals,
according to the New Yorker.
Don't fall for the actor children.
-We got from the border patrol
some of the images inside these detention facilities.
Some refer to these as cages,
and I can understand that point of view.
Look, I'm from a farm community.
To me, I see the chain link fences.
It's more like a security pen to me.
-Oh, a security pen. That's way better.
Look. Let's be clear about something.
If you rip a child away from its parents
and you put that child in a suite at the Ritz,
you're still a [bleep] monster.
When someone's that stupid --
[ Cheers and applause ]
When someone's that stupid,
there is really only one thing you can say to them.
-Wow.
[ Laughter ]
-Also I should note, that New Yorker article
you heard Ann Coulter cite to support her insane claim
that child actors are using scripts at the border
contains no such claim.
In fact, the author of that piece said of Coulter...
[ Laughter ]
Oh, that's ridiculous.
Of course Ann Coulter knows how to read.
She communicates with her Dark Lord every night
by reading a Ouija board.
[ Laughter ]
The through line of Trump's political career
is blindingly clear.
He concocts racist lies,
uses dehumanizing language
to justify cruelty towards immigrants and outsiders.
It wasn't an accident, it wasn't a law,
it was a choice by Trump and his supporters.
And lest you have any doubt at all
about how the people who support this policy really feel,
here's Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager,
on Fox News last night.
-I read today about a 10-year-old girl
with down syndrome who was taken from her mother
and put in a cage.
-Wah wah. -I read about a --
Did you just say "wah wah" to a 10 year old with down syndrome
being taken from her mother? -What I said is you can pick
anything you want. -How dare you?
-But the bottom line is very clear --
-How dare you?
-Man, I thought when you showed a dick on TV,
you had to blur it.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
You know...
something you hear a lot
on days like today or days like yesterday is,
"This is not who we are."
But it is who we are right now.
It might change tomorrow or the day after that,
but today, we are this.
And you personally may not be this,
but who we are is too often decided by those in power,
which is why you vote.
So remember, if you want who we are
to match with who you are,
you have to get up early and vote next chance you have.
This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪