-We are now just over a week away
from the most consequential midterm elections
in recent memory and Republicans have made
their priorities very clear --
continue spreading conspiracy theories
about the 2020 election,
intimidate people trying to vote in this election,
and claim preemptively that the results
must be illegitimate, if they lose.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]
These are anxiety-ridden times,
so, let's start with the good news.
Thanks to new, relaxed COVID restrictions
in the building, our cue card guy, Wally,
no longer has to wear a face shield during the show.
Now, that's true of everyone here,
but Wally's face shield was different.
Want to tell them why, Wally?
-Yeah, mine had a tiny, wet sponge on it.
-Wally's had a tiny, wet sponge on it.
[ Laughter ]
Wally, you want to tell them why it had a tiny, wet sponge?
-Yeah, well, I couldn't lick my fingers between each cue card,
so, I needed the sponge for moisture.
[ Laughter ]
-He couldn't use his tongue...
[ Laughter ]
...so, he had a tiny, wet sponge.
He couldn't do this --
[ Laughter ]
...so we had to do this --
[ Laughter ]
And, for over two years, I've had to read cue cards
while looking at that, thinking to myself,
"That sponge is a stand-in for a human tongue,"
[ Laughter ] and I dare anyone here,
I dare any person here or watching
to see a mask today that's more disgusting than that.
Happy [Bleep] Halloween, everybody.
[ Laughter and applause ]
[ Cheering ]
My national nightmare is over.
[ Laughter ] Moving on.
Wally, I said, moving on.
Ugh!
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
Republicans have made it clear, if they win back power,
they'll do things like impeach Joe Biden,
pass a national abortion ban,
and threaten to detonate the economy
to force cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
But it's not just Congress
where pivotal elections are being held.
Pro-Trump Republican election deniers across the country
are running for key positions that would allow them
to supervise elections in swing states
and some are poised to win.
The Washington Post conducted an exhaustive survey
and found that a majority of GOP nominees
on the ballot this fall deny or question the 2020 results,
and the website FiveThirtyEight found
that most of those candidates are likely to win.
-60% of Americans are going to have
an election denier on the ballot this fall.
Of the 552 Republican nominees running for office,
200 have fully denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
-We simply cannot have a functioning democracy
where one party denies the legitimacy
of any election they don't win.
You don't see Jets fans
spraying champagne on each other,
claiming they beat the Patriots yesterday,
[ Laughter ] even though they lost 22-17.
Yeah, the Jets jokes are back, baby!
[ Laughter and applause ]
After a red --
After a red-hot start to the season,
the Jets lost to their bitter division rivals
at home yesterday, so, this morning, first thing I did,
I walked right up to our security guard,
Jim Brier, and I said, "How about those jets yesterday?"
And he said, "Stand back, or I'll crush your head
like a peanut, joke man."
[ Laughter and applause ]
And then I said, "Yes, sir," because I respect Jim,
because at no point did he wear a tiny, wet sponge on his face.
[ Laughter ]
Take, for example, the GOP's nominee
for secretary of state in Arizona,
a guy named Mark Finchem.
Finchem was actually at the Capitol on January 6th
and has been interviewed by the January 6th Committee.
In fact, just a few weeks ago, Finchem, who is currently
leading many polls for secretary of state,
which supervises Arizona's elections, tweeted...
...which is the worst
Mariah Carey cover I've ever heard.
[ Laughter ]
And, of course, it will not shock you to learn
that these lunatics have absolutely
no evidence, whatsoever, for their lies.
In fact, Finchem was asked directly
by a reporter for Time magazine if he would certify Biden
as the winner of the 2024 election,
if Biden gets the most votes,
and this is how the exchange went.
Finchem told the reporter...
Well, where were you looking, in the crowd on January 6th?
[ Laughter ] Do you think maybe,
if someone voted for Joe Biden,
they wouldn't want to say that to you,
a [bleep] looney tune who asks Santa for Christmas arrests?
[ Laughter ]
Other than that, solid logic.
That's his argument -- if you don't personally
know anyone who voted for Joe Biden,
then, by logical extension, no one voted for Joe Biden.
In fact, now that you mention it,
if you never met Joe Biden
and you don't know anyone who's met Joe Biden,
then how do you even know Joe Biden exists?
[ Laughter ] He's probably not even real.
That's why he gets stuck on stage sometimes
and freezes in place.
[ Laughter and applause ]
He's actually just a computer simulation
and what we're seeing is a glitch.
[ Laughter ]
By the way, if you recently bought a tech company,
that whole glitch thing was a joke,
not something for you to post and say, "Food for thought."
[ Laughter ] And, sure enough,
all these stolen election lies
are having very real consequences.
In Arizona, for example, self-appointed poll watchers,
some with guns and tactical gear,
have been loitering near early voting dropboxes
to intimidate voters.
-These people waiting in the dark hours
of Arizona nights...
What brings you out tonight?
...are part of an effort by conservatives to watch --
critics say intimidate -- voters
as they drop early ballots into dropboxes.
Arizona's secretary of state's office
has referred six incidents of potential voter intimidation
in these parking lots to the FBI for investigation.
Some individuals have been armed and masked.
-They're referencing these people
did varying numbers at two different dropboxes
in Maricopa County, people sitting in lawn chairs
and then, some say, they are camo-clad,
that they are intimidating,
that they have a clear intent to intimidate.
-Alright, first of all, why the [bleep]
are you wearing camouflage in a parking lot?
[ Laughter ]
Why do they even sell camouflage in Phoenix?
The only thing you can blend in with,
wearing camouflage in Phoenix,
is all the other idiots wearing camouflage in Phoenix.
[ Laughter ] The whole point of camouflage is to blend in.
If you wanted to hide in a parking lot,
you should disguise yourself as a shopping cart.
[ Laughter ]
[ Gruffly ] Mongoose, why aren't you at your post?!
[ Southern accent ] They rolled me back into the car corral, sir.
[ Laughter ]
It continues to shock me, how these guys continue to be
both incredibly dangerous menaces
and also complete dip[bleep], at the same time.
We are living in an era of lethal dip[bleep].
[ Laughter ] On the one hand, they're accomplishing their mission
of scaring voters away from dropboxes,
but, on the other hand, they're sitting in lawn chairs,
wearing camouflage,
like a dude trying to catch a gopher in his backyard.
[ Southern accent ] You think you can eat my petunias,
you bucktoothed son of a bitch, you got another think coming.
[ Laughter ] I've got a cooler full of Natty Light
and no place to be.
Oh, damn it!
Honey, can you run to the store, get more Natty Light?!
The gophers ran off with it again!
[ Laughter ]
Let's not have any illusions
about who's fueling all of this --
the MAGA cult of election deniers led
by the GOP statewide candidates in Arizona;
and, of course, Donald Trump,
who has continued to spread deranged claims
about the dropboxes on social media
and even reposted the specific address of one of those boxes.
-Donald Trump himself has now reposted videos and photos
on his social media account
of new, unfounded claims by these dropbox watchers
and another repost of his included the exact address
of one of those Maricopa County dropboxes.
-Trump is now posting the specific addresses
of ballot dropboxes in Arizona.
Do you know how out of your mind obsessed you have to be
to even know the address of a ballot dropbox?
I don't even know the exact address
of my six-year-old's school.
I just drive around until I find a building
with [bleep] drawings in the window.
[ Laughter ]
I mean, not him. He's got a real --
He's got a real talent.
[ Laughter ]
Got a real --
Got a real Claude Monet in the house.
[ Laughter ]
At this point, Trump's social me--
[ Laughing ] At this point, Trump's social media accounts
are like scavenger hunts for insane people.
It's...
[ Laughter ]
[ As Trump ] You have to find a dropbox,
a Susan B. Anthony dollar,
and the severed head of a bird.
[ Laughter ] And, if you need a hint
for where to find a severed head,
I would check under a windmill because,
[ Laughter ] to a bird, a windmill --
the windmill is the Freddy Krueger --
Freddy Krueger.
We love Freddy Krueger, don't we, folks?
He was -- He was a tough character.
He was a tough character.
[ Cheering and applause ]
He was a tough character.
But he cleaned up Elm Street.
He cleaned it up. [ Laughter ]
No one gives him any credit for that,
but he came in, he killed all the kids,
and, now, Elm Street is a nice place to live again.
[ Laughter ]
No more slumber party keeping you up all night on Elm Street.
[ Laughter ]
I remember Freddy came up to me, once, tears in his eyes,
[bleep] face, and he said to me,
[ Laughter ] he said --
he said to me, he said, "Sir, sir,
I may be hard to look at,
but at least I don't wear
a mask with a tiny, wet sponge on it."
[ Laughter and applause ] And I respect that.
[ Cheering ] So true. So true.
Couldn't lick his fingers, either,
because they're knives.
[ Laughter ]
Knife fingers, and he still wouldn't do the wet sponge.
[ Laughter ]
He toughed it out because he knew
a sponge would be gross to look at.
[ Laughter ]
And Trump hasn't just been egging on
the ballot dropbox crazies in his base.
He's also been talking directly to the candidates themselves,
encouraging them to double down on his stolen election lies.
Take Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters.
When Masters was running for the GOP nomination,
he said, in an ad, that he thought Trump won
and even had a section on his website
claiming the election was stolen.
But then when it came time
to appeal to voters in a general election,
he deleted that passage from his website
and admitted, in a televised debate,
that he didn't see any actual evidence of vote tampering,
which infuriated Trump.
In fact, a film crew following Masters
for a Tucker Carlson documentary captured a phone call from Trump
in which Trump told Masters to stand firm on the claim
that the 2020 election was stolen.
-Mr. President, how are you, sir?
Doing great.
[ Tender tune plays ]
Absolutely, we stay with those people.
[ Laughter ]
I'm not going soft.
[ Laughter ] -I didn't think anything could be more grating
than Trump talking,
but I underestimated Speakerphone Trump.
[ Laughter ]
It really accentuates
just how much his throat has deteriorated.
He sounds like he's been smoking
three packs of Marlboros every day
and eating one.
[ Laughter ] And, sure enough, the entire GOP
and their media apparatus are in lockstep behind Trump.
In fact, they're now even claiming, preemptively,
that any Democratic wins
in the midterms next week must be illegitimate,
like, say, if John Fetterman wins
the Senate race in Pennsylvania, even though polls
have consistently shown him leading Dr. Oz.
-It's not about the person.
It's about the party.
It's not about the individual.
It's about the group.
And, to prove it, they can even run
mentally defective candidates who can barely speak
and not only expect them to [ Raising voice ] "win,"
but expect you to accept the outcome,
no matter how transparently absurd it is.
On November 9th, they'll be telling you
that John Fetterman got 81 million votes in Pennsylvania
and they'll threaten to put you in jail,
if you don't believe it.
Why wouldn't they do that?
It worked with Joe Biden.
-[ As Carlson ] Why wouldn't they do that?
Why wouldn't they conspire
to steal an election in Pennsylvania
and throw you in jail, if you don't believe it?
Why wouldn't they come to your house
and ask who you voted for and, if you say Republican,
why wouldn't they take your house away?
Why wouldn't they take your car and all your money?
Why wouldn't they take your dog?
Why wouldn't they take your second, secret dog
[ Laughter ] that's an exact replica of your first dog,
that you keep in your basement because you've been anticipating
that the leftist woke regime would come to your house
and take your first dog?
[ Laughter ]
Why wouldn't they threaten to put you in jail
or kick you off social media
or ban you from your favorite restaurant,
Carrabba's Italian Grill,
[ Laughter ] and, when you show up to Carrabba's
in a fake mustache,
why wouldn't they point and laugh and say,
"Did you really think that would work?"
And then why wouldn't they drag you into the parking lot
and make you sit next to small bushes
you only later realize were actually
camouflaged dip[bleep] lawn chairs?
[ Laughter and applause ] This is all, obviously, insane
and, to combat it, the Democratic Party has turned
to, perhaps, its most popular figure
for the last days of the campaign --
Barack Obama, who's been out, hitting the campaign trail
to push back on Republican conspiracy theories,
like, at recent rallies
for Wisconsin Senate candidate Mandela Barnes
and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
-Mandela's opponent has done more
than just about anybody in Congress
to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
I mean, he has a gold medal
[ Laughter ] in that event.
If that doesn't elicit uniform outrage,
what will?
What does it take?
The other day, a video came out of Governor Whitmer's opponent,
claiming that Democrats have been working, for decades,
to topple the United States
because they're still upset about losing the Civil War.
[ Laughter ]
And that COVID restrictions
were part of some master plan to do this.
Now, first of all,
what?!
[ Laughter and applause ]
What -- What?!
[ Scoffs ]
What?!
[ Laughter ]
-Whatever else you may think of him,
you can't help but love stand-up comedy Obama.
[ Laughter and applause ] I mean,
clearly working on material
for his new Netflix special...
[ Cheering and applause ]
It's just nice to see a politician have
a normal human reaction to how utterly deranged this all is.
I wish we could use that as a reaction clip
for everything going forward.
-On November 9th, they'll be telling you
that John Fetterman got 81 million votes in Pennsylvania
and they'll threaten to put you in jail,
if you don't believe it.
-What?!
[ Laughter and applause ]
The stakes of this midterm election couldn't be higher.
Republicans have made that clear.
They've told us what they plan to do
if they win back power, both in Congress
and in key states across the country,
and priority number one seems to be rigging future elections
and laying the groundwork for the next coup attempt.
They're already preemptively claiming these elections
will be illegitimate, if they lose.
Most people react to those voter fraud claims
the same way I reacted
when I first saw Wally's tiny, wet sponge, by saying...
-What?!
[ Laughter and applause ]
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
The midterm elections are coming up, so,
to make sure that you're good to vote in this election,
visit our good friends at headcount.org
to check your voter registration status or to register to vote.