All year, Republicans in Congress have been acting out.
Marjorie Taylor Greene compared mask mandates to the Holocaust.
Paul Gosar chopped off AOC's head in an anime video.
And Mitt Romney, well,
he went through that sexy goth phase.
And now Colorado's Lauren Boebert
is under fire for a little stand-up routine
that she's been doing about Ilhan Omar.
There has still been no condemnation
from Republican leaders
after GOP Congresswoman Lauren Boebert
made an Islamophobic comment
about one of her Democratic colleagues in a new video.
NEWSWOMAN: Congresswoman Lauren Boebert
making an Islamophobic suicide bomber joke
about being in an elevator with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
-I look to my left and there she is. -MAN: Oh, no.
-Ilhan Omar. -(chuckling) -MAN 2: Whoops.
And I said, "Well, she doesn't have a backpack.
We should be fine."
NEWSWOMAN: Suggesting she was concerned
Omar would blow up the elevator.
So, we only had one floor to go and I was like,
"Eh, should I say it or not?" I looked over.
And I said, "Oh, look.
The Jihad Squad decided to show up for work today."
Wow. You know, for something that offensive,
that was one of the most boring stories I've ever heard.
'Cause you realize, basically, she was like,
"So I'm on an elevator with a brown person,
"and the whole time, I'm having racist thoughts.
The end."
Now if you're familiar with Lauren Boebert,
hearing that she made some Islamophobic jokes
about a fellow congressperson-- that won't come
as too much of a surprise for you,
because Boebert, like Marjorie Taylor Greene
or Madison Cawthorn or countless other Republicans--
they are like the crazy little spawn
that Donald Trump gave birth to right before he left town.
But if you don't know who Lauren Boebert is,
well, you're about to find out
in another installment of Fringe-Watching.
♪ ♪
In less than a year,
Lauren Boebert has made a name for herself
as one of Congress's preeminent nut jobs.
But before she could get to D.C.,
she had to win over the voters
of her conservative Colorado district.
And props to her because she knew just how to do it.
NEWSMAN: Republican Lauren Boebert
pulled off a stunning upset by taking down
five-term congressman Scott Tipton.
And her path to victory was straight out
of the far right playbook.
NEWSWOMAN: In May, her restaurant
refused to close down during the COVID-19 pandemic,
even after a cease-and-desist order,
until her license was temporarily suspended.
And we don't want to be restricted
by these, uh, arbitrary...
orders in place by our governor who thinks that he's a king.
Lauren Boebert is the third, uh, candidate this cycle
that we've seen on the Republican side
who has spoken approvingly of QAnon,
this conspiracy theory,
who actually emerged on top in her primary.
Honestly, um, everything that I've heard of Q,
I hope that... I hope that this is real
because it only means
-America is getting stronger and better... -Yup.
and people are returning to conservative values.
Yeah, that's right. QAnon is a return to Qonservative values.
I mean, we all remember
Ronald Reagan's famous speech in Berlin.
Mr. Gorbachev, Tom Hanks, costar of Bosom Buddies,
drinks baby blood.
(applause)
Powerful stuff, man. Powerful stuff.
I remember that day.
Now to be fair to Boebert, that's what she was saying
about QAnon before her Republican primary.
Because you see, six days after she won her primary,
she clarified that she is not a follower of QAnon
and had been purposefully vague about it earlier.
So, she isn't necessarily insane,
just willing to say anything to win the votes
of insane people, which, in a way, is much worse.
On the other hand, though, there is a conspiracy theory
that Boebert has fully embraced,
and this, she's embraced with all her heart,
and that is that the 2020 election was stolen
from Donald J. Trump.
And on January 6, she was busy riling up her fellow believers.
One of Congress's newest faces is already facing calls
for her resignation just a few days into her term.
I have constituents outside this building right now.
NEWSWOMAN 2: Less than a half hour
before the Capitol came under siege...
They know that this election is not right!
NEWSWOMAN 2: ...one of the newest Republican House members,
34-year-old Lauren Boebert of Colorado,
was on the House floor fanning the flames of the insurrection.
I will not allow the people to be ignored!
NEWSWOMAN 2: She spent the morning tweeting,
"Today is 1776," and promising to
"fight with everything I have
to ensure the fairness of the election."
During the insurrection, she used her Twitter account
to announce to the public, and thereby,
any insurrectionists who might look,
that Speaker Pelosi had been removed from chambers.
Okay, okay, Okay, I know that sounds bad,
but let's not jump to conclusions.
Like, maybe she wasn't trying to say,
"Nancy Pelosi is getting away! Go get her!"
You know, maybe it was more like,
"Oh, great. Nancy Pelosi got away.
You blew it, dipshits."
After the riots, Boebert released a statement
denouncing the violence, but, I mean, she was the one
telling everyone it was 1776.
Which only means one thing.
Like, I'm not an expert in American history,
but I'm pretty sure that the colonists
didn't overthrow Britain with a Change.org petition.
Those dudes were killing each other... in funny wigs.
You know how violent you have to be to put on a funny wig
and then stab somebody? That's next level violent.
But Boebert's true passion isn't Qanon,
or overthrowing the government, or even casual Islamophobia.
No. what really gets her going is the Second Amendment.
And I know you're thinking,
"Yeah, there's a lot of people who like guns."
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm telling you now, that Lauren Boebert--
she makes all of them look like Gandhi.
This is Lauren Boebert. She's a congresswoman from Colorado.
She was at a hearing, and she...
her background on her Zoom is a whole bunch of guns.
Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert
decided to copy one of her Republican colleagues,
and she posted a photo of herself
with her children-- you know, some of them rather young here--
holding what appear to be semiautomatic rifles
in front of their Christmas tree.
On the day she was sworn in, she released this flashy video...
...declaring she'll be bringing her nine-millimeter Glock
to the halls of Congress and streets of D.C.
It's our job in Congress to defend your rights,
including your Second Amendment,
and that's exactly what I'm here to do.
NEWSWOMAN: Boebert has attracted national attention for a while.
She owns Shooter's Grill
in her hometown of Rifle, Colorado,
a gun-themed restaurant where she encourages her employees
to be armed.
WOMAN: I'm guessing you haven't had any sort of altercations
or any attempted robbers or anything like that
since the girls started packing heat.
No, we have had no altercations like that,
nothing physical, and no one has certainly tried to rob us.
Unless you count our salt shakers.
Those get taken often.
(mock chuckling)
That's right, Lauren Boebert owns a restaurant
where all the waitresses are strapped.
Which also makes it the only restaurant in America
where nobody asks to split the check five ways.
No, I'll just pay, thank you.
And look, I don't know if I want to eat at a restaurant
where everybody's armed.
I mean, it's a fun gimmick, but you realize
the second someone drops a plate,
that place is turning into a Tarantino movie.
I mean, it's still a restaurant, so you can't have bare feet,
but otherwise, it's a Tarantino movie.
But clearly, this person has an unhealthy fixation with guns.
Forget Congress, she's not qualified to serve
as an interior decorator.
You know what this bed needs? A pile of guns.
And let's zhuzh up this bathroom with another pile of guns.
And you know what? Instead of a kitchen,
just guns.
But that's Boebert. She's probably the first person ever
to try and register an emotional support Glock.
And it really makes me wonder why.
Like, why is the Second Amendment
the only amendment that politicians are obsessed with?
I mean, like, obsessed with!
Like, just once, I want to see a politician
who's all about the Third Amendment.
You know? Just stomping through a campaign commercial like:
Send me to Washington, and I'll make sure a soldier
in peacetime is never quartered in your house!
Use Airbnb, and let me be! Yeah!
But look, I’m sure Boebert is as safe and careful as possible
when she's hanging AR-15s on the Christmas tree.
Or at least she's more careful with that
than she is with campaign finance laws.
NEWSMAN: In August, news broke that Boebert did not disclose
almost a half million dollars her husband made
in the energy industry.
Ethics and campaign finance laws require candidates
and members of Congress to disclose
how immediate family members make money
so voters know about potential conflicts of interest.
Now we have learned that Boebert paid rent
and utility bills for her restaurant
with campaign funds, which is very much in violation
of federal campaign finance laws
the new filings of the Federal Election Commission show.
And this is not the first time
Boebert has misused campaign funds.
In February, the Denver Post reported
Boebert paid herself more than $22,000
in mileage reimbursements for her campaign account last year.
To justify those reimbursements, Boebert would have had to drive,
get this, 38,712 miles while campaigning,
despite having no publicly advertised campaign events
in March, April, July, and only one in May.
After questions were raised, Boebert amended her filing,
subtracting 7,000 miles from her claim.
So she miscalculated by 7,000 miles?
The only other time that happens is after you make a wrong turn
using Google Maps.
Recalculating. New distance: 7,000 miles.
You will arrive at your destination in the year 2183.
'Cause that's a lot of shady campaign finance stuff,
after just one campaign.
One.
I mean, I guess this is the swagger of someone
who owns that many guns.
I mean, the FEC probably had a Zoom meeting with her,
and then they saw her background.
What were they gonna say?
Hey, man, what's a few thousand miles?
Let's just be cool. Let's be cool, lady.
Yeah, log me out, log me out.
So, that's Lauren Boebert,
law-breaking conspiracy theorist,
gun enthusiast and insurrectionist.
In other words, if you see her get on an elevator,
maybe you should take the stairs.