-In the wake of Georgia's draconian Voter Suppression Law
and as coronavirus cases continue to climb back up,
Republicans are trying to cancel everyone
from Major League Baseball to Dr. Anthony Fauci.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
The modern GOP is intellectually bankrupt and bereft of ideas.
They don't have popular policies,
and that's why they lost the presidency
and both Houses of Congress
and spend all their time whining
about the dumbest [bleep] on Earth,
like Dr. Seuss or Mr. Potato Head.
Although, they're probably just mad at Mr. Potato Head
because his face is more life-like than theirs.
Are you seriously telling me Rudy wouldn't look more normal
with Mr. Potato Head's facial features?
Now, that's a lawyer fit for a President.
"Why you smiling, Rudy? We got indicted."
"Oh, sorry, Boss. Wrong mouth."
[ Laughing ] It's a movement --
It's a movement built entirely on racism,
paranoia, and fake cultural outrage.
Just take these actual chyrons from real Fox News segments
over the last few weeks --
"comic book series snubs Melania Trump"
and "cancel culture targeting trees."
How did a comic book series snub Melania Trump?
Did the X-Men not cast her as the new Emma Frost?
Because she would make an insanely good Emma Frost.
[Bleep] She did get snubbed.
Also, I can't believe they actually found a way
to get outraged about trees.
You can't win with these people.
They used to accuse the left of hugging trees.
Now they accuse the left of canceling trees.
You know who actually tried to cancel trees?
The Once-Ler, a character created by Dr. Seuss,
who Fox News claims has also been canceled.
But wait a second. Books are made from trees.
So by Fox logic, does that mean Dr. Seuss
tried to cancel trees
by writing books about saving trees?
If you pose that question to Brian Kilmeade,
he will short-circuit like an android in a sci-fi movie.
Though, honestly, you'd get the same result
from a Denny's place-mat maze.
"He's supposed to get all the way over there
from all the way over here?"
Republicans have taken their supposed cancel culture obsession so far,
they're actually proposing real legislation about it.
They want to use the power of the state
to cancel speech or activism they don't like.
For example, yesterday,
Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Mike Lee
introduced legislation to punish Major League Baseball
by stripping it of its antitrust exemption
after the MLB moved its All-Star Game in protest
of Georgia's egregious new Voter Suppression Law.
And again, let's just remember
that the Georgia law is so extreme
that it actually makes it a crime
to offer food or water to voters waiting in lines.
Even Lindsey Graham, who supports the law
and has spread the big lie about nonexistent voter fraud
that motivated the Georgia bill, could not defend that.
-Senator, why on Earth,
if Americans are willing to wait hours to vote,
would you make it a crime for people to come
and give them a bottle of water?
-Well, we -- All I can say is that
that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
-Even Lindsey Graham was speechless,
a man who has, on multiple occasions,
given lengthy speeches on the Senate floor
like an actor doing a David Mamet monologue
in an audition for the local community theater.
"As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado.
Anyone want to see the second prize?
Second prize is a set of steak knives.
Third prize is you have to live with my meemaw
and wash her feet
so I can finally leave this one-horse town
and make something of myself.
I'll teach them how to wash them how you like, Meemaw!
Geez and also Louise!"
That's how indefensible the Georgia law is.
And yet Republicans want to use the power of the state
to silence anyone who opposes it,
and they're doing it under the guise
of supposedly opposing monopolies and corporate power.
-Three Republican senators are looking to put pressure
on Major League Baseball
after it decided to pull the All-Star Game out of Georgia,
the League making the move to protest
Georgia's controversial new voting law.
Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Josh Hawley
are introducing legislation today
to eliminate a nearly century-old antitrust exemption
from Major League Baseball
as a way of punishing the League.
-On the Republican side, you're really seeing eyes opened
to the power and danger of these monopolies.
I think voters already know it. I mean, they're living it.
They're being censored on social media.
They're living in fear
that these banks are going to cancel them,
that these big corporations are going to cancel them.
-I'm sorry, you think voters are living in fear
that Coca-Cola or United Airlines are going to cancel them?
And what do you mean they're afraid banks are going to cancel them, too?
I mean, the closest I've ever come to having a bank cancel me
was when I got dragged away from a Coinstar machine
because it got jammed up on some Pogs and Canadian coins.
"I'm sorry not everything in my big-ass jar
isn't a U.S. coin with some dead white guy on it.
I'm sorry you don't have room in your coin-counting metal mouth
for my Domino's Pizza Noid Pog."
Also, yeah, sure, Republicans are totally
having their eyes opened to dangerous corporations
after they shoveled $2 trillion in tax cuts
into the pockets of corporations like Amazon,
which, by the way, paid zero in federal income taxes in 2018,
thanks in part to the GOP tax cut,
not to mention all the other regulatory rollbacks
and tax breaks and other giveaways
Republicans have thrown at large corporations over the years.
Republicans punish corporations
the way clueless dads punish their kids.
"Oh, you're smoking Dad's cigarette?
Well, maybe you'd also like a glass of scotch
and a nice steak, too.
You would? And how do you like it cooked?
Hold on, I'm gonna write this down so I don't get it wrong.
Pink in the middle.
Okay, I'll have that for you in one minute.
Can I get you some bread while you wait and learn your lesson?"
The way you know this is all bull[bleep]
is that progressives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren
have actually taken on big corporations
by, among other things, using the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
to fight predatory corporate practices
or by proposing real detailed plans
to break up big tech companies.
They've already been doing that stuff for years,
and they were met with either silence or hostility
by fake populists in the GOP.
In fact, Bernie even went down to Alabama
to support the Amazon union drive there.
Where was supposed
anti-corporate crusader Josh Hawley?
Probably peeling off his morning face mask
while listening to Huey Lewis and the News.
And, by the way, these same Republicans who pretend to be pro-worker
also pretended to be anti-war during the Trump years
when they suddenly started decrying endless wars,
even as Trump was showing off giant posters
of all the weapons he was selling to Saudi Arabia
in the Oval Office like an eighth grader
who threw together a history class project
at the last minute.
"So as you can see, during World War II,
they used boats, but they also used planes.
And interestingly, they also used spaceships,
little space men."
So given that Republicans pretended to suddenly care
about ending endless wars during the Trump years,
you'd think they would have been thrilled
when President Biden announced that the U.S.
would finally withdraw troops from Afghanistan by September,
20 years after the war began.
And it is insane that this has not happened yet.
The war in Afghanistan should have ended a long time ago.
Last time we were in a war this long, it starred Alan Alda.
That's a joke for the TikTok crowd.
Anyway, this will not shock you.
The same Republicans who cheered on Trump
are now opposed to ending endless wars.
-Precipitously withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan
is a grave mistake.
It is a retreat in the face of an enemy
that has not yet been vanquished,
an abdication of American leadership.
-Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe,
the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee,
called the President's decision premature.
-It's ludicrous.
-It's an action South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham
disapproves of.
In a statement, the Republican said, quote,
"If reports are accurate that President Biden
is withdrawing all forces from Afghanistan,
it's a disaster in the making.
A full withdrawal from Afghanistan
is so irresponsible."
Graham referred to the action as, quote, "dumber than dirt."
-Seriously, what do these guys want?
A permanent military presence in Afghanistan?
It's been 20 years.
Nothing that goes on for that long stays good,
with the exception of "Law & Order: SVU,"
which, if Biden keeps his word, will run longer
than the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Congratulations to you all, but bad news -- you've been reassigned.
So sometimes Republicans pretend to be anti-corporations,
then they oppose raising taxes on corporations.
Sometimes they pretend to be anti-war,
then they oppose ending wars.
What all of this shows is that the Republican party
has no actual ideological principles,
no core beliefs other than racism, paranoia,
and feigned cultural outrage against anything they perceive
as even a mild infringement
on their right to do whatever the hell they want.
For example, even as COVID cases climb back up
and public health officials worry
about one last surge before summer,
they're still spreading dangerous misinformation
about lockdown, social distancing, and masks.
And, yes, vaccine distribution has been a huge success so far.
Just a few days ago, we hit a new record
at 4.6 million vaccinations in one day,
and officials have pledged
that the Johnson & Johnson pause won't slow things down.
In fact, Pfizer just announced they'll be able to produce
10% more of it's highly safe and effective vaccine
by the end of May.
And, yes, real-world studies of vaccinated groups,
from the Mayo Clinic to the CDC, to front-line healthcare workers
to nursing-home staff, have shown the vaccines
to be incredibly effective.
But while cases are still high,
we should all continue to remain cautious.
It's just the decent thing to do.
I mean, I still wear my mask
and keep my distance until cases are down,
and everyone around me is vaccinated,
even though I already got my second shot,
which I was thrilled about,
even though it felt like Hugh Jackman
had punched me in the deltoid, which actually happened.
That was so long ago, we were still in Afghanistan.
One of the GOP's most aggressive purveyors of COVID lies
and staunchest anti-mask crusaders
has been Rand Paul,
and this week, he actually suggested
that Dr. Anthony Fauci should be taken off TV
for continuing to suggest caution
as cases continue to rise.
-There is no scientific evidence that the lockdowns in Michigan
have done anything or in California.
So there is no real correlation between economic lockdowns,
mask mandates, or any of this.
So I think it's actually television malpractice
for these TV doctors to come on and say,
"Oh, the mask is so much more important than the vaccine.
It's so much more of an immediate benefit."
Dr. Fauci should be voluntarily removed from TV,
because what he says is such a disservice
and such fearmongering,
and almost all of what he says
isn't even matched by the science of his own institute.
-I'm sorry, you want Fauci off TV?
If I had to choose between
the kindly world-renowned infectious disease expert
who was played by Brad Pitt on "SNL"
or the guy who looks like a puppet
fired by the Jim Henson workshop for stealing office supplies,
I'd go with Fauci.
Also, does this mean you're trying to cancel Fauci?
You guys accuse the left of trying to cancel Dr. Seuss,
and now you're trying to cancel an actual doctor?
If this keeps up, Republicans are going to try to cancel
actual potatoes.
Also, I like how Rand Paul wants to cancel Fauci,
but in order to avoid using the word "cancel,"
he calls it voluntary removal.
That's just canceling by another name.
NBC should have tried that. "We didn't cancel 'Animal Practice.'
We voluntarily removed it and burned all the tapes."
Paul won't stop going after Fauci.
He seems determined to keep spreading misinformation
about public health measures.
This week, Paul also tweeted,
"Fauci continues to ignore 100 years of vaccine science.
His only real theme is, 'Do what I say,
even when it makes no sense.'
If you've recovered or been vaccinated, go about your life.
Eat, drink, work, open the schools.
Enough with the petty tyrants!"
He is a petty tyrant.
You guys are the ones trying to cancel baseball.
You can't get more anti-American than going after baseball.
What you going to do? Take up cricket?
Which, honestly, would look less ridiculous
than what Rand Paul usually wears.
Also, how can you say that wearing masks
and keeping people physically apart from each other
doesn't stop the virus from spreading?
It's literally based on the germ theory of disease,
which is centuries old and was popularized by,
among other famous figure, Louis Pasteur.
I shouldn't have to explain this to you.
I'm just a late-night host.
I barely paid attention in high school.
I was hanging in the back of math class,
making all my friends laugh by doing hilarious stuff,
like typing "ace of base" upside down on a calculator.
And then when the teacher asked me to go up to the board
and identify the curve, I'd write, "I saw the sine."
Another one for the TikTok crowd.
Come up with a dance for that.
What? You won't?
Why, too busy? Oh, you just don't like it?
Okay.
Thanks for the feedback.
Republicans decry supposed cancel culture,
but that's exactly what they're engaged in right now.
They want to use their platforms and the power of the state
to cancel anyone they disagree with,
from Anthony Fauci to Major League Baseball.
Rand Paul is up for reelection in 2022.
And if you ask me, he should be...
-Voluntarily removed.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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