-President Trump
held a rally in Georgia,
where he defended
his possibly illegal phone call
pressuring Georgia election officials
to overturn his loss to Joe Biden.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
On Monday night, Trump held what will very likely be
his last rally as president of the United States
and, man, it feels good to say that.
I feel like Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch.
You guys remember that, when that was like a five-day story?
Now, things happen so fast that,
when a celebrity jumps off a couch cushion,
it's old news by the time they land.
And, look, I know Trump's going to keep holding rallies
after he leaves office because it's either that
or pay for therapy, but it just won't be the same.
I mean, you can still go to Grateful Dead concerts,
but it's like two of the original guys
and it ends at 9:30,
people are dancing with knee braces on
and, instead of joints, they're passing around
a tube of Fixodent.
As president, Trump has power
and we have to listen to him.
But, in two weeks, he'll just be a guy hosting a show
from whatever rental van they shoot Newsmax out of,
ranting about low-flush toilets
and B-list celebrities from the '90s.
[ As Trump ] Bobby Knight -- "The General," they called him.
Met him at an after-party for the ESPYs, 1994.
Nasty guy. Mean guy.
Nice to me, though.
Remember when he threw that chair?
Real son of a bitch.
One time, I saw him stab a waiter with a fork.
Charity benefit. Donated nothing.
Ate the food and left. Real piece of [bleep]
[ Laughter ] Liked me. Liked me.
If there's one takeaway from the Trump presidency,
let it be that -- the man loved a rally.
Remember, he even started his phone call
with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger
by claiming there's no way he could've lost the election
because of the size of his rallies.
Okay, first of all, Biden had small numbers of people
because it's a [bleep] pandemic, you sociopath.
Luring people into tightly packed crowds
for hours at a time,
with a highly contagious and deadly disease
spreading rapidly through the air
is like something the Joker would do.
Although, knowing the Joker,
he'd probably add some unnecessary logistics,
where there are like two rallies happening simultaneously
and one has a bomb and the other has poison gas.
Batman's girlfriend's at one and Alfred's at the other.
And, meanwhile, Batman's thinking,
"I can't wait until Gotham City
is rid of this insufferable ass[bleep],"
not knowing, of course, that the villain after the Joker
[ As Bane ] is going to sound like this!
[ Laughter ]
So much for my New Year's resolution
not to lean on the Bane impression.
[ Laughter ]
Also, the reason Biden didn't need big rallies is
because people weren't voting for him,
they were voting against you.
One of the reasons they were voting against you is
because of the way you behaved at rallies.
So the irony is Biden did have giant rallies.
They were just yours.
And you have to love that big crowds
was Trump's first argument right out of the gate.
I'm surprised he didn't follow up with hard evidence
of "Most red hats sold"
or "Candidate whose name Jeanine Pirro says the loudest."
And Trump should've been ready for this call.
According to The Washington Post...
And prank call is a perfectly reasonable thing to think.
If you read the transcript of Trump's phone call
with Raffensperger and his lawyer Ryan Germany
in a different voice,
you'd think it was one of the Jerky Boys.
[ As Jerky Boy ]
They were a cultural phenomenon.
[ Laughter ]
If you were a young man in 1993,
the Jerky Boys were loud and the parties were hopping.
So Trump thinks rally size
is proof he actually won the election.
Well, Monday night gave him one last chance
to show off that oratorical prowess
he's so legendary for, and he did not disappoint.
-We have made Ame...rica strong again.
[ Cheering ] Look at that arm. Look at that.
-While it's troubling that someone who runs America
can't say "America,"
[ Laughing ] "Look at that arm" is a terrific save.
Did he say "Amurrica"?
"Shhh! I'm looking at his arm!"
And, hey, anyone's capable of making a mistake,
but you never hear Angela Merkel say --
[ As Merkel ] We love our country,
Juzmuhkey.
[ Laughter ] Look at the haircut!
[ Laughter ]
This is what happens when you zap your brain
with 20 hours of cable news a day.
Your aides have to pump you full of Red Bull and Adderall
just to get you through a speech and, by the end of it,
your primary motor cortex starts to turn into cottage cheese.
I mean, compare his frantic, slurring energy during the rally
with this photo his daughter Ivanka posted
on the plane on the way to the rally.
[ Laughs ]
There's that quality
father-daughter time every family dreams about.
"Dad, I want to take a picture."
[ As Trump ] Then take it!
[ Laughter ]
It looks like the photo you see
when you see a retired athlete
at your airport gate and don't want to bother them.
[ Laughter ]
Trump was supposedly there to rally votes
for GOP Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue,
two of the most soulless, vacant, D.C. robots
you'll ever see in politics.
As far as I can tell, neither
has any discernible policy positions,
other than wanting to be a senator and making money.
For example, here's Loeffler, a Wall Street executive
who's originally from Illinois, trying to sound like
a character in a Tennessee Williams play.
-Let's give the senator a hand.
-Whoo! [ Applause ] He has worked so hard for y'all.
And y'all are working hard.
I have a very important question for y'all.
Grateful for y'all. That's why y'all are here.
We need y'all to get out and vote.
-It's like watching someone audition for Tami Taylor
in a dinner theater production of "Friday Night Lights."
"Okay, Kelly, can you maybe do it one more time,
but, this time, don't say 'y'all' so much?"
[ As Loeffler ] Y'all got it, y'all.
Trump was supposed to be there
to campaign for Loeffler and Perdue,
so, naturally, he started out by immediately obsessing
over his election loss.
[ Cheering ] -Hello, Georgia. By the way...
-[ Screaming ] -...there's no way
we lost Georgia. There's no way.
-That has to be the fastest use of "by the way"
in any speech, ever. You weren't even on the way yet.
Give yourself some runway, buddy.
If you wake up next to your spouse
and say, "Good morning. By the way,"
they're going to know you were lying awake, furious all night.
Trump tried to talk about the Senate race,
but every time he mentioned it, he couldn't help
but veer back into nursing his wounded ego.
-If the liberal Democrats take the Senate
or the White House --
And they're not taking this White House.
We're going to fight like hell.
I'll tell you right now. [ Cheering and applause ]
These Senate seats are truly the last line of defense.
Now, I must preface that by saying --
because they'll say, "He just conceded!"
[ Booing ] No, no, I don't think so.
-There's nothing to concede. It's over.
It doesn't matter whether you concede or not.
I mean, you can try it, just to see how it feels,
see if your first moment of self-reflection
and acceptance of failure in 74 years
has a Grinch-like effect
of growing your heart three sizes,
at which point it will be as big as what the Grinch started with.
And yet, even after Trump's corrupt
and possibly illegal phone call, Republicans are still going
along with his attempt to subvert the election
for the sake of their own political interests.
During the rally, Loeffler jumped up to the mic
to tell the crowd she'd be objecting
to the Electoral College vote
and implied that it would somehow work.
-Hello, Georgia!
Whoo!
[ Cheering and applause ] Thank you, Georgia!
I have an announcement, Georgia.
On January 6th,
I will object to the Electoral College vote.
[ Cheering and applause ]
That's right.
Thank you.
[ Whistling ]
We're going to get this done!
Alright, Georgia!
But I have a very important question for you.
Are you ready to show America that Georgia's a red state?
-Yeah!
-She can't overturn the election results,
but she did overturn her own Southern accent.
I mean, where did it go? Did Antifa steal it?
She could've at least thrown a "y'all" in there.
She didn't even say, "Get this done"
in a Southern accent.
She sounds like Larry the Cable Guy
after elocution lessons.
[ Southern accent ] It's like we say down here in the South --
[ posh accent ] Get her done.
[ Laughter ]
Of course, what she's describing is not possible,
legal, or constitutional. It was already sedition
when Republicans were attempting to overturn
a free and fair election before Trump's call,
but to get onboard after the call
is just shocking in its brazenness.
I mean, the guy may have committed a crime
by basically admitting he was trying to steal the election
and Republicans are like, "Sign me up."
They're shoving it in our faces.
They're like suspects in a police lineup,
raising their hands, saying, "It was me! I did it!
Can I go now? I can? Good.
To jail?!"
You can't pretend this is about high-minded principle anymore.
After that phone call, it's clear
what this is really about -- stealing votes
to assuage Trump's ego and illegally cling to power.
And, even after the phone call came out, Trump is, of course,
still insisting there was nothing wrong with it.
-They talked about my phone call.
They don't like my phone call.
Everyone loved my phone call.
-My God, he sounds like a Hollywood director
talking himself up after a big flop.
"Everyone love my movie. They said they prefer
the version with the unblurred buttholes."
No, no one loved your call.
Even Republicans who are diehard Trump loyalists
and who have signed on to the attempt
to reject the Electoral College vote,
like Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn,
gently tried to tiptoe away from the phone call.
-Brian, one of the things
I think that everyone has said
is that this call was not a helpful call.
-Oh, I'm so sorry the president wasn't helpful to your attempt
to steal the election by blurting out
what you were really trying to do the whole time.
Republicans all think they're slick members
of an elite heist squad trying
to rob a precious jewel from a museum,
rappelling down into the vault on a rope,
jumping around lasers, and Trump's the guy who just
walks up to the security guard with a hammer and says --
[ As Trump ] I'm here to steal the fancy diamond.
Oh, thank you, a map. Excuse me.
How does this map know I am here?
Does it move when I move?
And, by the way, just to be clear,
the call may very well have been illegal.
The Georgia secretary of state said there might be
an investigation of the call, and election law experts
have said it seems like it may be a crime.
-Well, it sure sounds like what the president was asking for was
for the secretary of state to manufacture votes,
just enough votes to give him a one-vote margin in Georgia.
It's not clear how this would work.
George's already sent in its Electoral College votes,
but it sounds like it could be a crime under both federal law
and under state law,
because, when you ask someone to come up with fake votes,
that's kind of the definition of election fraud.
-Yeah, of course it is. If you try to fraudulently
overturn an election, that's election fraud.
Seems pretty clear-cut to me, but then again...
[ Southern accent ] I'm just a simple country lawyer,
like Kelly Loeffler, you all.
[ Laughter ]
You're from here and you're from here!
I'm not! [ Laughter ]
Trump tried to pressure Georgia election officials
and it didn't work, so, now, he's trying to pressure
his own vice president, Mike Pence.
Pence will have to preside over the counting
of electoral votes tomorrow. Now, to be clear,
Pence has no power to just overturn the results,
despite Trump's insistence on Twitter today that...
No, he doesn't.
All Pence is supposed to do is count.
Pence can't change the results, any more than Vanna White
can change the phrase on the board,
although, apparently, even counting is difficult for Pence.
The New York Times reported that...
...which is like me saying it's gut-wrenching,
balancing my years preaching a healthy diet
with my four-year-old's desire to eat a thousand gummy worms.
But spare a thought for Mike Pence's gut
because it's really been through the wringer
these past few years and, now,
he has to choose between the Constitution
and a sleazy Mafia don cold-calling election officials,
illegally begging for votes like a telemarketer.
[ As Trump ] Hello, this is the secretary of state for Georgia?
Are you happy with your Internet service?
Oh, what if I told you you could combine Wi-Fi and cable
for the price of only 11,000 votes?
And then, yesterday, Trump added to the pressure
by telling the crowd he'd be mad at Pence
if the vice president didn't steal the election for him.
-I hope Mike Pence comes through for us.
I have to tell you. [ Cheering and applause ]
I hope that our great vice president,
our great vice president, comes through for us.
He's a great guy.
Of course, if he doesn't come through,
I won't like him quite as much.
-I have a hard time believing Trump likes Pence, even now.
There's no way those two have anything in common,
aside from their desperate desire
to wield power at any cost.
Trump gets what he needs from Pence, and vice versa.
They're like a rhino
and that weird bird that eats bugs off of them.
If it weren't for the bugs, they're not hanging out.
By the way, you can decide for yourself
which is which. I don't care.
From the very beginning, they've looked like
two cops thrown together
and forced to put aside their differences to stop --
or, in this case, start -- a crime spree.
I think I saw it last night on TNT.
"Officer Ham, Officer Milk, get in here!"
[ Laughter ]
[ As Trump ] Milk, you've got to tell him
you're the one who crashed the cruiser.
[ As Pence ] It was you that crashed the cruiser.
[ As Trump ] I didn't know it was a one-way street!
[ As Pence ] It said one-way!
[ As Trump ] But it didn't say which way.
[ Laughter ] [ As Pence ] That's what the arrow was for!
[ As Trump ] Who has time to look at the arrow?!
Plus, I was chasing a suspect.
[ As Pence ] You were trying to get to McDonald's
before they stopped serving breakfast.
[ As Trump ] [ Laughs ] That's true.
[ Laughter ] You caught me in a fib.
Oh, Milk.
If I was a lady cop,
would your wife have to be in the car with us? [ Laughter ]
♪♪
So tomorrow Congress will count the votes
that have already been cast by the Electoral College.
Again, Congress does not have any authority to just overturn
the results of a presidential election and pick someone else.
It's not a thing. This isn't "American Idol."
It's not like there's an audience vote
and then, Lionel Richie gets to weigh in.
Ted Cruz doesn't get a veto.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say,
"The president shall be chosen by the Electoral College,
unless a time-traveling Old West bartender disagrees."
[ As Cruz ] I declare President Trump the winner
and sarsaparilla on the house!
Republicans are running a scam
by telling their voters there's actually a chance
objecting to tomorrow's Electoral College certification
will somehow allow Trump to stay in office.
Their entire case falls apart, once you ask them for even
the simplest explanation of how this is supposed to work,
and that's because it's all a lie to conceal the truth,
the truth Trump revealed on his phone call.
It's not about principle or election integrity.
It's about power.
These guys believe their opponents are illegitimate.
They want to dismantle our democracy
and replace it with an authoritarian state
in which they're the only ones who get to govern...
-Ame...rica.
[ Laughter ] -This has been -- Look at my arm! --
"A Closer Look."
♪♪
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