-Donald Trump held campaign events
in Wisconsin and Michigan on Tuesday,
where he and his supporters once again tried
to rewrite history by claiming Americans were better off
when Trump was president.
Meanwhile, President Biden faced yet another sizable protest vote
over his handling of the war in Gaza.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Theme music plays ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
Donald Trump does not have a discernible policy agenda.
The average voter would be hard-pressed
to identify a single thing he would do as president
to make their lives better on any issue,
ranging from jobs to healthcare.
Even his position on immigration is incoherent.
-Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail tonight,
trying to rally support in two critical battleground states
he lost in 2020 -- Michigan and Wisconsin.
-So far, it has again just been him doubling down
on his anti-immigration rhetoric
and promising the expansion of these hard-line policies.
-If your constitutional rights have been violated,
we will defend you.
If you have illegal aliens invading your home,
we will deport you. -Wait.
[ Laughter ]
If illegal aliens are invading my home, you'll deport me?
So, they get my home?
Do they get my show, too?
It wouldn't be the first time an immigrant has come here
and stolen one of our late-night talk shows.
Yeah. [ Laughter ]
"Last Week Tonight? That doesn't even make sense.
Speak English, dude. [ Laughter ]
And then what happens to me?
Like, where do I get deported?
Can I at least pick the country?
Ooh, can it be a country
where I'm already really good at the accent,
so I can blend in with the locals, like Australia?
[ Clears throat ] [ Laughter ]
[ Australian accent ] I'm as Australian as a dingo
drinking a Foster's and playing a didgeridoo.
Crikey. [ Laughter ]
[ Clears throat ] [ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] Trump doesn't want to fix immigration.
He just wants to scare people, as evidenced by the way
he torpedoed a bipartisan border compromise
while his aides draw up plans
for mass deportations, raids, and detention camps.
There's only one policy he seems absolutely clear on.
-When I win, you are all getting tax cuts
and you're getting a brand-new Trump economic boom.
And that's where we were headed. [ Cheers and applause ]
-We were headed for an economic boom
when you left office? He's doing that thing again
where he pretends the last year of his presidency
didn't happen, like a Bill Cosby biography that ends in 2014.
[ Laughter ]
I can't believe I have to say this,
but COVID happened and it was bad.
The economy crashed, and people were locked inside their homes.
I did this show in an attic,
and I remember because it's still my attic,
I'll say to my kids, "Hey, remember
when daddy did a show up there?" And they say,
"Oh, we thought you just went up there to drink."
And I say, "I went there for my job, not to drink."
And they say, "We thought your job was drinking."
And I said, "Based on what?"
And they said, "Rihanna, Dua Lipa, and Kelly Clarkson."
I said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah."
[ Laughter ]
"Yeah, that's fair."
Trump and his goons do this at all their rallies,
or in their softball interviews on Fox News.
They try to Jedi-mind-trick everyone
into thinking the year 2020 never happened.
Here's Arkansas governor and former Trump press secretary
Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Fox, acting like
none of that ever happened.
-This is a very clear contrast.
You have one person who was a president
that had a tremendous and successful record,
and one that has a record of complete disaster.
-I can't believe I'm saying this,
but I agree with Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
We definitely had one of each of those presidents, you know?
[ Laughter ]
Unemployment has been at its lowest point
in half a century, under Joe Biden.
Manufacturing jobs are coming back,
prescription drugs are cheaper,
and billions in student-loan debt has been wiped out.
While Donald Trump deliberately undermined the COVID response,
tanked the economy, oversaw a massive crime spike,
and forced us all to stay locked inside our homes
while we watched "Tiger King" on a loop
and used Pottery Barn catalogs as toilet paper.
But clearly that's what Sanders was talking about.
See, bipartisan compromise is possible.
When we set aside our blinders and look squarely at the facts,
we can come together and really understand one another.
Oh, [bleep] she wasn't done talking, was she?
-President Trump is winning because the contrast is clear.
-Guys, you got to show me the clip before the show!
[ Laughter ] If you think things were
better under Trump, you're out of your mind.
Also, you probably had a great pandemic.
She strikes me as the kind of person
who always has two generators
and a bunker full of toilet paper, just ready to go.
[ Laughter ] The point is,
life was obviously demonstrably worse under Trump's presidency,
but he and his allies think
they can just pretend everything was fine.
Sometimes they do it
by conveniently changing the timeframe.
Normally, a presidential candidate will ask
if you're better off than you were four years ago.
But last night, Trump tried this little rhetorical trick.
-Three years ago, we were a great nation,
and we will soon be a great nation again.
-Yeah, if only we could have whoever was president
three years ago. [ Laughter ]
"Three years ago, we were, uh, we were, uh..."
[ Cheers and applause ]
"We were all -- We were all so happy three years ago.
I can't remember the details of why,
but it felt as though a darkness had been lifted."
[ Laughter ]
Three years ago was April 2021, right?
Joe Biden was in the white House.
You were moping around your chintzy swamp castle
full of plastic surgeons and their third wives,
looking paler than the boxes of classified documents
you kept stuffed in your bathroom.
Even Trump knows
he can't say we were better off four years ago,
so he tries to change it to three years ago,
but the numbers don't work. He's like a kid in remedial math
who gets the answer wrong just
so he can spell funny words on his calculator.
Okay, Donald, what's 2024 minus three?
"Alright, let's see here. 5-3-1-8-0-0-8.
You're not gonna believe this. I'm getting 'boobies' again."
[ Laughter ]
"I guess I have one of those beautiful minds."
[ Laughter ]
Even Trump and his gang of weirdos
know things were demonstrably worse four years ago
than they are now. And yet, Joe Biden can't seem
to pull away from Trump in the polls,
thanks, in part, to frustration among Biden's
own voters over his handling of the war in Gaza.
Tens of thousands of Democratic voters
have gone to the polls in primaries
to send Biden a message that they want him to change course.
-In the key battleground of Wisconsin,
more than 47,000 Democratic voters cast a ballot
for "Uninstructed" as part of the movement
to protest the president's handling of the war in Gaza.
Organizers doubled their goal of 20,000 votes,
which represented Biden's margin of victory
over Trump in that state four years ago.
-It's primary day in New York state,
and thousands of registered Democrats
are believed to have left their ballots blank
in protest of President Biden's handling
of the Israel-Hamas war.
This protest vote movement began in Michigan this year,
with more than 100,000 Democratic voters checking
the Uncommitted box instead of voting for Biden.
New York state doesn't allow uncommitted votes in the primary
nor write-in options, so a campaign encouraging voters
to submit blank ballots gains traction.
-Do you know how angry someone has to be to leave their home,
go to their local polling place,
and wait in line just to submit a blank ballot?
That's like driving to your nearest Apple Store,
waiting in line all day for the new Vision Pro,
and then, when you get to the counter,
screaming, "I don't want these! I think these look stupid."
[ Laughter ]
By the way, I want to say, I agree.
You ever seen a dork using one of these on the subway?
They look like a French mime wearing a snorkel mask.
Except when they do this, it's not an invisible wall.
They're playing Wordle. [ Laughter ]
[ Laughter ] And by the way,
the weather's been miserable in New York City this week.
I got soaked yesterday on my way to the train,
after an umbrella was stolen by a rat.
[ Laughter ]
saw a guy stabbing one of those disgusting street puddles
on my way to the train yesterday.
He just sank all the way to the bottom.
[ Laughter ]
Can we look at that photo again?
I feel like that guy has smiling eyes.
[ Laughter ] I feel like that guy that, like,
his kink is sinking in a street puddle.
I feel like if we went to graphics right now
and we're like, "Show me the whole head,"
that guy's like this.
[ Laughter ]
Also, can we go back to it one more time?
Like, I feel like it should have been on a curb
where there maybe would be a bigger pot--
Like where?
So that's just a hole in New York City.
[ Laughter ]
Also, why is he not blurry, and everyone in the background...
[ Laughter ]
I don't think that really happened.
[ Laughter ]
I think I just caught myself in a lie.
[ Laughter ]
And yet voters still went to the polls to submit blank ballots.
They are understandably upset.
Biden keeps claiming he's frustrated
with Netanyahu's handling of the war,
while simultaneously sending more weapons
to support that war, against the wishes of majority of Americans.
Back in February,
Biden said he hoped to see a ceasefire within days.
And I remember him saying that, because despite my best efforts,
I was standing right [bleep] there.
[ Laughter ] That ceasefire did not happen.
And when Biden was asked again just a few days after that,
he made it sound like there wasn't much he could do.
But what do you mean, you're hopeful?
You're the most powerful man in the world,
and you're talking about it
like you're the manager of the New York Mets.
I mean, I hope -- I hope we win a few games.
But, you know, if it keeps raining,
we might not lose that many. [ Laughter ]
You're the president.
You can just say, "No more funding, no more weapons."
You call for a ceasefire.
That's what a majority of Americans want,
including the tens of thousands of Democrats
who are registering protest votes
in key battleground states.
Thousands of Israelis also took to the streets
this week to protest the Netanyahu government
and call for a ceasefire deal to free the hostages.
As we've said on the show before,
there must be an immediate, lasting ceasefire
and the safe return of all hostages.
That's the loud-and-clear message of these protest votes,
and Biden must listen.
Otherwise, he's at risk of losing to someone
whose presidency was a... -...complete disaster.
This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Theme music plays ] [ Cheers and applause ]
Hey, I hope you enjoyed "A Closer Look."
And if you didn't, why are you still watching?
Why would you stay for this part?
Anyway, did you know that we also have something on our show
called "Corrections"?
We tape it right after the audience leaves on Thursday,
and right after our cameraman, Buck,
does a whole tank of nitrous.
[ Laughter ]
It's full of inside jokes like that,
that you couldn't possibly get
unless you go all the way back to the beginning.
That's right.
I'm not telling you to watch "Corrections" starting today.
I'm telling you to go back and watch from episode one.
If you miss even one, the whole thing is [bleep].
[ Laughter ]
It's easily over 20 hours at this point.
It was nominated for an Emmy in 2021, in 2022,
and never again.
[ Laughter ]
So the arrow is pointing down.
"Corrections" -- it posts every Friday.
Give it a look. And, oh, one more thing.
I wrote a podcast with my brother!
[bleep] Oh!