-Not a single Republican voted for the historic
$1.9 trillion COVID relief bill passed by the Senate this week.
And in fact, Republicans spent most of the weekend
trying to derail it while still whining about Dr. Seuss.
For more on this, it's time for a closer look.
♪♪
The past few months have offered a deeply-revealing look
at the state of American democracy
and the course it could take over the next few years
without major reforms.
On the one hand, we saw a political faction
which represents a minority of American voters
try to overturn an election they lost
and then sow a violent insurrection to interfere
with the lawful counting of electoral votes.
And then about two months later, we saw 50 Senate Democrats,
who represent about 41 million more Americans
than the 50 Senate Republicans,
vote to deliver one of the largest rescue bills in history,
which has been massively popular in poll after poll.
And not a single Republican joined them
in the Senate or in the House.
They were too busy doing dumb [bleep] like this.
-"Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss.
"I am Sam. I am Sam. Sam, I am."
"Do you like green eggs and ham?"
"I do not like them, Sam, I am."
"You do not like them. Say -- so you say.
Try them, try them, and you may."
"Say! I like green eggs and ham. I do. I like them Sam, I am."
"I do so like green eggs and ham.
Thank you. Thank you Sam, I am."
Enjoy your day.
-Well I can't now.
Not after that performance.
There's nothing cringier than watching
a grown adult in a suit read Dr. Seuss
to an empty room with no children around.
Is that the Fox News version of "Reading Rainbow?"
"Reading Rainblows?"
This is what a hostage video would look like
if Barney was the kidnapper.
Serious Stockholm Syndrome when you get kidnapped by Barney --
you're so mad when you get rescued.
You don't understand. I love him. He loves me.
Most importantly, green eggs and ham isn't canceled, ya goober!
It's on Amazon's best seller list,
thanks to all your whining.
I wouldn't be surprised if we find out
the Seuss people did this just to move more product.
"No one's buying our books."
[ Dramatically ] "Say we're pulling them for racism.
They will fly off the shelves!"
[ Laughter ]
[ Normally ] No one canceled anything.
The copyright holder voluntarily withdrew
six books from publication
because of racist imagery and language.
The books include titles like "The Cat's Quizzer"
and "McElligot's Pool,"
which I'm guessing is where Steve Bannon drowned.
When it comes to Fox News and the Republican Party,
their brand is overreaction.
Take their feigned outrage over "The Muppet Show."
Disney decided to add a disclaimer
in front of an episode with a Confederate flag,
among others.
But it's Fox News, not Fox Nuance.
So they act like Kermit the Frog was thrown in an unmarked van,
never to be seen or heard from again.
You can still see the episode.
And just to show you cancel culture isn't real,
it stars Johnny Cash,
who shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
No second reason.
Anyway, the point is this
is what our two major political factions
have decided to spend their time on --
one's trying to deliver a massively popular relief bill
that includes direct payments,
expanded child and unemployment benefits,
and funding for vaccinations.
And another is holding story time for ghost children
in a library of the damned, trying to overturn the election,
and trying to prevent people from voting in the next one.
The tidal wave of anti-voting legislation unleashed
by Republican state legislatures over the past few weeks
has gotten so insane that Georgia Republicans
have proposed a series of bills that would,
among other things, target Black voters,
ban no-excuse absentee ballots, roll back Sunday voting,
and ban what is known as "line warming,"
the practice of having volunteers provide water,
snacks, chairs and other assistance to voters in line.
Holy [bleep]. They're trying to ban voters from having water,
snacks, and chairs?
Republicans want to turn voting
into one of those extreme radio station contests
where whoever goes the longest without peeing
gets two backstage passes to an Aerosmith concert.
If the GOP had their way, there would be one polling place
in every state open for like three hours a week,
and instead of a school, it would be at
the end of an "American Ninja Warrior"-style obstacle course.
If you don't bring three forms of ID,
you get knocked off the platform by a giant foam hand.
Also, I love how the party of freedom
wants to make it illegal to give someone a snack.
They're canceling snacks.
Quick get Kevin McCarthy on YouTube
so he can read the ingredients on a pack of Oreos.
[ Imitating Kevin McCarthy] Unbleached enriched flour,
canola oil or palm oil. Enjoy your day,
[ Normally ] I guess in the GOP's America,
voters aren't allowed to drink water
unless it's from McElligot's pool.
So that's the central story
of our political culture at the moment.
One coalition is becoming increasingly deranged
and extreme and anti-democracy,
and the other is still committed to competent governance.
And look, that doesn't mean this bill is perfect --
far from it. For one thing, the bill keeps the expanded
unemployment benefits at $300 rather than the original $400
Democrats had aimed for,
and it sets them to expire by Labor Day --
a deal forced by moderate Democrat Joe Manchin,
for reasons no one seems to understand
on either side of the aisle.
When asked what Manchin's issue was,
his fellow moderate Democrat, Jon Tester, said,
"I don't know. I really don't."
Republican Shelley Moore Capito said,
"I have no idea what he's doing."
Cool, because that's what you want in a Senate
that's split 50/50 -- a wild card.
So, I know that photo right there was taken
just as Manchin found out he was a Democrat.
[ Bewildered ] "I am? Oh, man, in West Virginia?
Hoohoohoo, good luck to me."
[ Normally ] It's weird to hear senators talking about
one of their colleagues the way baseball announcers
talk about a streaker. "And now he's wrestling
the T-shirt gun away from the Philly fanatic.
Do you know what he is doing out there, Buck?"
"I really don't. Either we're all getting T-shirts
or we're going to see a man get his nuts tasered off."
A 50/50 split means
all the Democrats have to stick together.
You can't have one guy splintering off the last minute.
It's like an escape room where everyone's focused on the clue
hidden under the genie's lamp, and one guy's like,
"I bet I can just kick this door down."
"Devin, can you just use your brain for once?"
"Uh, and waste these quads? No, thank you."
Then there's the fact that a group of Democratic senators
and Independent Angus King split off and joined Republicans
in voting down a proposal to raise the minimum wage
to $15 an hour, which is wildly popular in polls and something
President Biden campaigned on.
One member of that group, Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema,
has gotten a lot of criticism for the enthusiastic thumbs down
she gave the bill on the Senate floor,
like a judge on "America's Got Talent"
after an 8-year-old bombs doing stand up.
"Sorry, Tyler, but the 90s called --
they want their joke format back."
But let's not lose sight of the senators
from safe Democratic seats like Chris Coons
and Tom Carper in Delaware, who voted it down for no reason
other than they don't like it on policy grounds.
I mean, what's wrong with you guys?
You're not going to face any
serious Republican opposition,
and yet you're still siding with them?
Watching these guys is like
watching LeBron play defense against himself.
By the way, playing defense against himself
is the only way he'll ever get called for a foul.
I'm just kidding. I love him and I want him to be my friend.
With all that said, it's important not to understate
the truly seismic nature of this bill
and all the incredible good it will do for millions of poor
and working-class Americans. For one thing,
it's way bigger than the 2009 stimulus,
and that's a good thing because the 2009 stimulus
wasn't nearly enough.
This bill sends about $350 billion
in state and local governments to keep services running,
save pensions and schools and public transit,
and keep people employed. It sends out direct payments
to about 85% of Americans,
and it expands unemployment benefits and child benefits.
One study suggested that the bill will reduce poverty
by a third, lifting nearly 13 million Americans out of it,
and that child poverty would be reduced by more than half.
Meanwhile, for a family of four with one working parent
and one who remains unemployed
because of childcare constraints,
the benefits could total more than $12,000.
But what about the tax credit for high earners
who use S-corporations to buy fine art for their catamarans?
Who will think of the catamarans?!
Anyway, the point is, this is a flawed but really good bill
that delivers desperately-needed help
to the people who need it most, on a scale that's necessary
to make an actual difference in the economy
and in people's lives. And that, of course,
means Republicans did everything they could to derail it
with [bleep] like Texas Senator Ted Cruz,
who offered an amendment to stop the checks
from going to undocumented immigrants,
even though the bill doesn't do that anyway,
and he was immediately rebuffed by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.
-Mr. President, moments ago, the Democrats in this chamber
just voted to send $1,400 stimulus checks to murderers,
to rapists, and child molesters incarcerated in prison.
This amendment before us today
provides that the stimulus checks
should not go to illegal aliens in this country.
Should your money -- should taxpayer money be sent?
$1,400 to every illegal alien in America.
-Mr. President, the statement of the senator from Texas
is just plain false. False! Let me be clear.
Undocumented immigrants do not have Social Security numbers
and they do not qualify for stimulus relief checks, period.
And for you to stand up there and say the opposite
is just to rile people up over something that's not true.
-Will the senator yield for a question?
-No, I won't.
It is not true. And we know what's going on here.
They want to be able to give speeches
and say the checks go to undocumented people.
-Cruz is so bad at this, he can't even be subtle
about his [bleep] fear-mongering.
"Democrats just voted to send stimulus checks to murderers,
rapists, child molesters,
Chuckys, Jasons, Xenomorphs, Freddy Kruegers, and Kuatos."
Second, I love his sociopathic little chuckle at the end there.
Millions out of work, in poverty,
facing food insecurity, and it's all so funny to him --
or maybe it was just remembering
when he grabbed the maracas away from a mariachi
at the Señor Frogs in Cancun.
So Democrats stuck together to fend off GOP stonewalling
and passed a historic relief bill
that could not come at a more precarious time.
We're currently in what may well be a crossroads in the pandemic.
There's lots of good news, but also some bad news.
Vaccinations are accelerating at a previously unthinkable pace,
with nearly 3 million doses administered on Saturday alone.
Cases have fallen as dramatically as they ever have
since the peak in January.
But cases also now seem to be plateauing
at a stubbornly high number of 60 to 70 thousand per day,
which leaves more than enough virus circulating
for one more deadly outbreak before summer,
and yet several states are racing to prematurely lift
mask mandates or open up entirely,
from Texas to Mississippi, Alabama, and even Connecticut,
where the mask mandate will remain in effect,
but capacity limits will be lifted on retail,
restaurants, and gyms.
Why would you lift capacity on gyms?
The whole business model for gyms is that people join them
and then don't go. It's just a key fob
that costs $100 a month to carry around.
There should be capacity limits on gyms
even when there isn't a pandemic.
No one wants to change into running shoes
right next to one of those weirdly jacked 80-year-olds
air-drying his [bleep].
"Bad things happen when I put it away wet."
Stay out of my space, grandpa.
Now's not the time to take our foot off the gas --
if we just hunker down and spend the next month or two
crushin' this thing, combined with the ramped-up vaccinations,
we can have potentially a great summer.
Think about it. We could have block parties,
neighborhood barbecues, street fairs.
Do you remember street fairs in New York?
You'd be in a cab in a rush heading to your apartment
and all of a sudden the road would be closed
and you'd say, "Ah! [Bleep] street fairs!"
We can have that back soon.
And yet if you express any caution or hesitation at all
about opening up too quickly in the hopes that we'll be able
to crush this thing by summer, Fox News,
the same people who spread lies about everything from masks
to social distancing to lockdowns
to the COVID death toll to vaccines to scam miracle cures,
had the gall to accuse you of being pro-pandemic.
-We might be out of the pandemic by summer, medically.
We'll see how long it will take us to get out
of the pandemic politically.
Dr. Siegel, thanks so much for telling us about this new point.
-Great point, Will. There's plenty of people
that want that pandemic to continue,
but it is not us. Thanks for having me.
-Exactly.
-Are you out of your [bleep] mind? Nobody wants
this godforsaken pandemic to go on any longer.
We've all been trapped inside for a year.
Forget going to gyms or movie theaters,
I'd give anything to be on a packed "F" train right now
without air conditioning, getting crushed on one side
by a guy with a bike and the other side by a guy
with a lizard on his shoulders.
This is the central story of our politics right now.
One political coalition, for all its faults,
is focused on actually governing,
and the other has become unmoored from reality
and fueled entirely by imagined cultural grievances over
everything from children's books to "The Muppets."
And with a few exceptions, Republicans have made
the conscious decision to lean into that.
They've made the cynical calculation
that sticking with a racist, authoritarian criminal
who sowed an insurrection
to overthrow democracy is the path to power.
Senator Lindsey Graham told Axios last night
he's trying to harness the energy of the Trump movement.
-There's something about Trump.
There's a dark side and there's some magic there.
And what I'm trying to do is just harness the magic.
To me, Donald Trump is sort of a cross between Jesse Helms,
Ronald Reagan, and P.T. Barnum.
-And that sounds like a good combination to you?
Who else were you going to include?
John Gotti and Jabba the Hutt?
Also, what do you mean, you want to "harness the magic?"
You sound like a regional theater director
trying to whip your cast into shape
for a production of "Our Town."
[ Southern accent ] "Come on, people. You were supposed to practice
these dance numbers on your own time.
You need to stop whining and harness the magic,
or else my Mee-maw's is going to keep telling me
I wasn't cut out for Broadway.
At least I have dreams, Mee-maw!"
The majority of House Republicans
voted to overturn the November election results,
and not a single one of them voted to fund vaccinations
and send urgently-needed relief to the American people
amid a pandemic and economic crash.
That simple fact should tell you everything you need to know
about the state of our politics.
Whatever their flaws, the Democrats' message
to voters is this. "Do you like checks?
Do you like unemployment benefits?
Do you like money for children, schools,
vaccines, and pensioners?"
And the Republicans' message to voters is,
-"Do you like green eggs and ham?"
-This has been a closer look.
♪♪
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