-So, yesterday,
we checked in on my old friend the Sea Captain,
as he was making his way
through my copy of "The Thorn Birds,"
back in the captain's quarters,
but I want to make clear to everyone who is worried --
the Sea Captain is not coming back.
I haven't spoken to him since I left those captain quarters,
although, when I went down to the bank
of the East River this morning for my daily constitutional,
I did find this message in a bottle
floating in the water.
And let's see here what it says.
"Hey, Seth, what did the pirate say to his ex-wife
when they spotted a lighthouse?
'Land, ho!'" Jesus, man.
God help whoever he ends up with next.
And, hey, speakin' of needing help --
studio segue --
the president held an old-fashioned campaign rally
in North Carolina, as if the coronavirus pandemic
that's still raging out of control
had just magically disappeared.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Suspenseful theme plays ]
Now is typically the time in the political calendar
when an incumbent president
who's trailing badly in the polls
starts to get desperate
and Donald Trump couldn't look any more desperate
if he was crammed into a phone booth,
beggin' for the Glengarry leads.
No human being on Earth
reeks of desperation more than Donald Trump.
He sweats like a guy at the OTB who bet everything on a horse
named Ol' Three Legs.
Now, we all know that Trump doesn't just lie.
He belches out the most outlandish lies he can think of,
especially when he's desperate.
But on Tuesday, at a rally in North Carolina,
he managed to outdo himself when he told his supporters
that, despite what they can see and hear
with their own eyes and ears, Mexico really is paying
for the dumb border wall he didn't build.
And, honestly, it was a real throwback,
to hear the old Mexico border wall lie again.
It was like hearin' "Uptown Funk" on the radio
and thinkin', "Oh, man!
I used to hear this song at the gym.
And I used to go to the gym.
And I used to leave my apartment. [ Chuckle ]
Uptown funk you up, indeed."
But, yeah, "Mexico's paying for the wall" is back.
Now, to be clear, the parts of the wall that have been built
or renovated were funded, not by Mexico,
but by taxpayer dollars that Congress allocated
for the Defense Department.
Trump used a national emergency declaration
to pull funds that were supposed to be spent
on military construction projects,
schools and daycares, among other things.
That money -- your money -- went to his wall.
But on Tuesday, Trump tried to paper over that
with a new, breathtakingly stupid lie
about how Mexico would supposedly pay for the wall.
-And, you know, Mexico is paying for the wall,
just so you understand.
They don't say that.
They never say it.
But we're gonna charge them a small fee at the border,
you know, the tollbooths.
We have tollbooths.
It's the biggest border in the world,
in terms of people going across it,
in terms of industry, believe it or not,
the southern border.
We're putting a small toll on
and maybe we're going to do something with remittance.
That's where people come here, make money,
and they send it back.
So we'll do something and we're gonna get all the money
that we spent on the mall -- wall -- will be coming back.
-Wait, so, now, you're gonna put tollbooths
on the southern border and charge people a fee
when they drive across?
That's your plan? It's one of the largest
international borders in the world,
not the Verrazzano Bridge.
They're comin' from Mexico, not Staten Island.
[ Laughing ] Thank God.
[ As Trump ] We're gonna charge 'em a toll
and no E-ZPass, folks.
We're gonna have those little,
little baskets where you toss a coin.
You remember those.
And you have to have the exact change.
You absolutely have to have the exact.
And if you miss and you're out of coins in your car,
you gotta get out of your car
and you gotta pick it up while everyone honks at you.
We're also gonna put in some
of those coin-operated binoculars,
so, if they miss home,
they have to pay fifty cents to look back at Mexico.
Maybe one of those grocery store kiddie rides.
Those guys are cash cows.
It'll add up. It'll add up. It'll buy a wall.
Honestly, why does he even come up
with these elaborate explanations?
If you're gonna lie, keep it simple.
Your hardcore fans will believe anything.
Just have Eric come onstage in a sombrero and fake mustache,
pretending to be the president of Mexico,
presenting you with a giant novelty check
for a gajillion pesos.
[ As Trump ] Oh, look, everyone, the president of Mexico is here.
"No, Dad. It's me, Eric."
Oh! iIdioto!
So that's what the president was talkin' about as the pandemic
[ Laughing ] continued to rage outta control,
rising in at least 22 states.
Now, we know these events have seeded outbreaks.
Trump's Tulsa rally in June likely seeded an outbreak there,
according to the local health director
and, yet, Trump keeps doing them, anyway,
because he doesn't care if people get sick.
In fact, today we learned
that he admitted to journalist Bob Woodward
that he downplayed the threat from the virus.
And, at the rally, he actually expressed amazement
at how many people had come out to his super spreader event.
-I'm thrilled to be in Winston-Salem
with thousands of loyal, hardworking American patriots.
[ Cheering and applause ] You are great people.
Great people.
[ Cheering and applause continues ]
I don't know how many people are here, but there's a lot.
[ Cheering intensifies ]
There's a lot. [ Whistling and applause ]
We said, "Let's keep it down."
They didn't do too good a job, but that's good, right?
That's good. No, these crowds, I tell ya.
It's beyond what we had, in terms of enthusiasm,
beyond what we had four years ago in 2016,
and that was a record enthusiasm.
We are breaking that record by a lot.
[ As Trump ] It's incredible how many people are here, chanting and yelling
and coughing in close proximity to each other.
Also, we got a couple of beach balls bouncin' around the crowd,
so make sure you get your hands and your mouths on those.
Now, as we head down the home stretch
of the presidential campaign, we're in a moment
of acute national crisis,
unlike anything we've seen in a century.
There are multiple crises colliding all at once --
a raging pandemic, an economic crash,
the collapse of our democracy,
the dismantling of the post office,
the breakdown of the school system,
a housing crisis, widespread food insecurity,
extreme weather events supercharged by climate change,
a national reckoning over systemic racism.
There's even -- true story -- of national coin shortage.
We just didn't notice because everyone's
too scared to use coins now.
And, when you do, you have to wipe it down so much,
you can't even tell who's on it anymore.
I mean, I think that's maybe
the dude from ZZ Top?
Is that you, Billy Gibbons?!
-♪ Oh, hoh hoh hoh ♪
-Oh, [bleep]
Are the graphics gonna start talkin' now.
Hey, ZZ Top Lincoln, what's the difference
between you in real life and you on a penny?
-♪ Legs ♪
We have limited crew back, but the people who say no
to jokes like that are still out of the building.
In fact, things are so bad,
even Trump seems aware, on some level,
that we've careened way over the precipice
and plunged down into the abyss.
In the middle of a rant about God knows what --
honestly, I couldn't explain it and it's not worth trying --
he was, I guess, telling his crowd
to imagine what it would be like
if they return to Earth 3,000 years from now.
-If you come back in 1,000 years,
2,000 years, or 3,000 years, if you're lucky enough --
[ Laughing ] assuming we have something.
The world is a crazy place, isn't it?
-What?!
Is it slam poetry night in the head injury ward?
Yeah, man! We know the world is crazy.
Did you just wake up from a four-year KFC coma?
"Last thing I remember, I was chugging gravy out of a bucket
and then, I fell asleep on the Trump Tower escalator."
The world is a crazy place
and you're a big reason for that.
Trump makes everything crazy. He's like the friend
who shows up at your place at 3:00 am
with a vape pen, a handle of vodka, and a duffel bag,
askin' if he can crash with you.
And then, when you're gettin' ready for work in the morning,
he says, "Bro, you look tired."
But, in particular, two of the simultaneous crises
we're currently dealing with are a rapid slide into autocracy
and an out-of-control pandemic
and, in many ways, they're related.
Like any would-be dictator, Trump doesn't care
about the public health response to the pandemic
or preventing the deaths
of hundreds of thousands of Americans,
unless it benefits him personally.
That's why he hawked one miracle cure after another,
touted by cable pundits and a pillow salesman
and a doctor who believes in demon sperm.
It doesn't matter that they're crazy or incompetent,
just that they praised him.
If Trump met a herbalist who complimented his tie,
he'd show up to his next press conference
with some tinctures and sage.
[ As Trump ] Alright, everyone, we're gonna smudge the room
and then drink some honeysuckle extract
while holding one of these crystals.
They're just rocks I dug up in the Rose Garden.
We're calling 'em crystals, though.
In fact, Trump is, once again, desperately hoping
for a coronaviruses silver bullet
to revive his political fortunes.
He's pressuring the CDC and FDA
to approve a coronavirus vaccine before November,
despite the fact that experts have said that's unlikely.
And, yet, on Monday, Trump announced
that a vaccine could be ready by October,
which just happens to be right before the election.
-Under my leadership, we'll produce a vaccine
in record time.
'Cause, now, they see we've done an incredible job,
and in speed like nobody's ever seen before.
This could've taken two or three years
and, instead, it's going to be -- [ Laughs ]
it's gonna be done in a very short period of time.
Could even have it during the month of October.
-Oh! October. How convenient.
He's like an inveterate gambler who's in deep with a loan shark.
"I quit gambling and I can get you your money.
You just gotta give me until the day after the Kentucky Derby.
Don't let me down again, Ol' Three Legs!"
And, look, we all desperately want a vaccine
as soon as humanly possible, but we want it
to be safe and effective, so enough people will get it
and we can put this nightmare behind us.
Unfortunately, the way Trump is going,
he's gonna start handin' out vials of Diet Coke
at his rallies, labeled "vaxine."
Trump sees no distinction between the government
and his personal interests.
America's slide into autocracy
and the administration's horrific response
to the coronavirus pandemic are related crises.
Aspiring dictators like Trump
only care about what serves their interests.
Trump and the GOP are an authoritarian movement
and, in a functioning democracy,
the people responsible for this crisis
would be banished from power for...
-1,000 years, 2,000 years, or 3,000 years.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪