-The one-year anniversary of President Trump's inauguration
was marked this weekend by nationwide protests
and a government shutdown that ended today
despite Trump doing as little as possible it resolve it.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
It's been a year since Trump's inauguration
and the historic women's marches that followed.
And on Saturday, we saw yet again that the women's march
wasn't merely a one-time phenomenon,
but a sustained movement
unlike anything the country's seen in decades.
-Women across the country were on the march today.
Thousands took to the streets from coast to coast.
They rallied for a variety of causes with a focus
on having their voices heard in November's midterm elections.
-Taking to the streets in over 300 rallies in all 50 states.
-But it just wasn't in the U.S. where women marched.
This was the scene in Nova Scotia, where half the town
of Sandy Cove also participated in the women's march.
-Wow. Half the town was protesting.
That, I have to say...
[ Applause ]
That's got to be super awkward for people who weren't there.
[ Laughter ]
"Dale, I didn't see you at the women's march."
"Oh, yeah, was it a good turnout?"
"Half, Dale! It was half."
[ Laughter ]
Of course, one of the best parts of any protests are the signs,
and this year was especially refreshing
to see children participating,
like this sign that said "Vote for women!"
This sign that said
"boys are equal to girls and girls are equal to boys,"
and then there was this little girl
who clearly got to write her own sign.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Although... [ Applause ]
To be fair, it's possible she spent more time on that
than the Trump administration did on the original travel ban.
[ Laughter, cheers and applause ]
[ Imitating Trump ] "Don't forget.
"Don't forget the purple circles.
The purple circles make it legally airtight."
[ Laughter ]
Of course, Trump, who was cooped up in the White House
all weekend watching coverage of the protests,
couldn't help but weigh in, tweeting...
Dude, you know that's not why they were marching.
[ Laughter ]
Trump's the kind of guy, who if he came home to find his wife
dumped all his clothes on the sidewalk, would say to her,
"I get it. You want to see me naked."
[ Laughter and applause ]
"I pick up on stuff. I pick up on stuff."
[ Applause ]
So the one-year anniversary of Trump's inauguration
saw a second straight year of sustained nationwide protests
but, of course, it wasn't just the protests
that marred Trump's celebration.
-The government is shut down
for the first time in more than four years.
"The Art of the Deal" President could not reach that deal
with Democrats and a few Republicans,
and just a few hours ago, they marked the one-year anniversary
of his presidency by rejecting a budget bill.
-This is the first time in modern history,
the first time in modern U.S. history,
that a party that's controlled
the House, the Senate, and the White House,
has had a government shutdown on their watch.
-You got to hand it to Trump,
he finally did something no other President has ever done.
[ Imitating Trump ] "Bush couldn't do it, Obama couldn't.
We made history. We made history."
Now Trump has, of course, tried to claim it's actually Democrats
who will suffer politically from the shutdown,
tweeting over the weekend...
But there's at least one immutable law of physics
that still applies in Washington.
For each Trump quote, there's an equal and opposite Trump quote.
And the question of who's to blame for government shutdowns
is no exception because when Obama was President,
Trump was very clear about who was to blame.
-Who's going to bear the brunt of the responsibility
if, indeed, there is a shutdown of our government?
-Well, if you say, "who gets fired?" it always has
to be the top. I mean, problems start from the top,
and have to get solved from the top,
and the President's the leader.
In 25 years, in 50 years, in a hundred years from now,
when the government is, you know, they talk
about the government shutdown, they're going to be talking
about the President of the United States.
Who was the President at that time?
If there is a shutdown, I think it would be
a tremendously negative mark
on the President of the United States.
I hear the Democrats are going to be blamed
and the Republicans are going to be blamed.
I actually think the President would be blamed.
-There's literally, literally...
[ Cheers and applause ]
...not one situation where there isn't an old Trump quote
that completely contradicts his current position.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's an old Trump tweet
out there that says, "Only a loser
would wear a baseball cap with a suit."
[ Laughter ]
In fact, Trump was asked point-blank in 2011 how he would
handle a potential shutdown differently
from then-President Obama.
And in retrospect, let's say he was a little overconfident.
-I'm a deal man. I made hundreds and hundreds of deals
and transactions. He never did deals before.
How can you expect a man that's not a deal man
that never did a deal other than, frankly,
becoming President of the United States,
he never did a deal --
how is he going to corral all these people?
-So how would you do it now? Now you're in the Oval Office
right now, it's Wednesday -- -I would get everybody together
and we'd have a budget. -They've all gotten together.
-Well, that's because they don't have the right leader.
You don't have the right leader.
This is the President of the United States
has to get this done, but it's pretty sad
because the whole world is looking at us
and laughing at us.
[ Laughter ]
-It's amazing.
[ Cheers and applause ]
I agree with everything he just said.
Of course, in reality, Republicans control
all three branches of government and on top of that,
we have a President who repeatedly sold himself
on the campaign trail as an ultimate dealmaker.
-We need a President that's going to be able to make deals,
great deals. I want to make great deals.
That's what it is. For the people.
I do hundreds of deals. The deals come out of my ears.
If you can't make a good deal with a politician,
then there's something wrong you.
You're certainly not very good.
You can't leave the White House, go to Hawaii and play golf
for three weeks and be a real dealmaker.
It doesn't work that way.
-That's right. You can't go to Hawaii to play golf
and be a dealmaker. You have to go to Florida.
And you can't do it for three weeks.
You have to do it for an entire year.
And yet even as the government shutdown ended,
the self-proclaimed deal man was M.I.A.,
completely absent from the negotiations
and leaving everyone confused about where he stood.
In fact, in order to counter that growing impression
that Trump was sitting around doing nothing,
the White House released a series of official photos
of what they called President Donald J. Trump
working in the White House during the Democrat shutdown,
including this photo of Trump walking around,
this photo of Trump talking to people,
and this photo of Trump supposedly on the phone.
Look at him. [ Imitating Trump ] "Hello, police, come quick.
Somebody stole all the work off my desk."
[ Laughter ]
You know, you don't really look like you're working
when you're staring directly at the camera.
You look like you just got busted having phone sex.
[ Imitating Trump ] "I got to... call you back."
[ Cheers and applause ]
The main reason the government was in this mess
in the first place was that Trump doesn't know
what he believes other than the fact that he spent
the entire campaign promising to build a wall,
and now his party's scrambling to find a way to follow through
on that promise even though they know it's absurd.
Even Trump's Chief of Staff, John Kelly,
reportedly told lawmakers Trump's promises on the wall
were uninformed and is now saying the so-called wall
doesn't even have to be an actual physical barrier.
-Did he really say the President was uninformed on the wall?
-Yes. Well, I had a meeting. I was sitting right next to him,
next to Mr. Kelly, and here's what he said.
He said, "the President of the United States,
"when he was campaigning, made promises
that were not fully informed."
He said "I've educated the President,
and the President has evolved on the issue."
And when I asked General Kelly "what's a wall?"
he said it could be the inhospitable terrain,
it could be border patrol agent, it could be drones.
-Oh, my God, this wall keeps getting worse and worse.
It could be terrain, it could be drones.
Soon, it's just going to be a tunnel
painted on the side of a mountain.
[ Laughter ]
So we have a President making cartoonish demands
that everyone knows are impractical.
There's absolutely no guiding principles
or knowledge of policy, and he changes his views on a whim
depending on who he's talking to.
And a former campaign aide told "The New York Times"
that Trump doesn't even care to learn...
So it's simple. It's not that he does not know
what he does not know, it's that he does know
what he does not know, which means he doesn't know
what he does know and he does think
that he doesn't need to know it. You know?
[ Cheers and applause ] Just to give you...
[ Applause ]
Just to give you an idea of how incoherent
and scattershot Trump's views are, he spent the weekend
bashing Democrats over DACA, tweeting...
Even though he, himself, has spent months insisting
that he wants to deal with the DREAMers,
the young undocumented immigrants
brought here as children, with compassion.
-The DACA situation is a very, very -- it's a very difficult
thing for me because, you know, I love these kids.
I love kids. I have kids.
They shouldn't be very worried. They are here illegally.
They shouldn't be very worried. I do have a big heart.
We're going to take care of everybody.
Well, I have a great heart for the folks we're talking about.
A great love for them.
I feel having the Democrats in with us is absolutely vital
because this should be a bipartisan deal.
This should be a bill of love, truly, should be a bill of love.
-Of course, a bill of love is also what Trump pays
porn stars in hush money.
[ Rimshot ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
This weekend's shutdown was very much the Trump presidency,
a microcosm, the President with no guiding principles
and no knowledge of policy, flailing wildly,
and relegated to making cartoonish demands
from the sidelines while everyone else scrambles
to figure out how to make it work.
I don't know what Trump would say about that,
but I do know how his biggest critic feels.
-The whole world is looking at us and laughing at us.
-He's right. This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]