-Hello, everyone, and welcome back
to the attic crawl space.
And, of course, the mystery remains.
I know you've all been thinking about it --
the tiny door.
What is it? How'd it get there?
Why would an architect build a door of that size
into an otherwise normal-size house?
Or maybe it is a normal-size door
and I've simply been 12'0" tall this whole time.
You can never tell on TV.
Or maybe, you guys, maybe,
it's a Malkovich door.
I won't confirm or deny, but let's just say
if you ever tune in and see John Malkovich
doing "A Closer Look," someone please come pick me up
on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.
Look, I know you're all wondering,
so, if you have any guesses, submit them to
whatsupwithsethstinydoor @gmail.com.
Maybe we'll read some on the air; maybe we won't.
Who knows?
Honestly, we might never even check that email
and you just have to be okay with that.
It's a pandemic. There are no rules.
And, hey, while you're speculating
about what's behind that door, the president is speculating
about an unproven medical treatment for coronavirus
after ignoring repeated warnings about the threat of a pandemic.
Segue!
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Suspenseful theme plays ]
Seems like, almost every day, we get more and more evidence
that the Trump administration knew well in advance
of the very real threat of a pandemic
and that they both ignored it
and lied to the American people about it,
despite the fact that the president
keeps saying stuff like this.
-Nobody could've predicted something like this.
Nobody knew there'd be a pandemic
or an epidemic of this proportion.
I just think this is something, Peter,
that you can never really think is going to happen.
It's an unforeseen problem.
What a problem.
Came out of nowhere.
We're having to fix a problem that, four weeks ago,
nobody ever thought would be a problem.
It's something that nobody expected.
I would view it as --
as something that just surprised the whole world.
-It's very telling about his psychological state,
that, when he means "I," he says "nobody."
[ As Trump ] Folks, nobody coulda kept
a casino open in Atlantic City.
Nobody really blew it.
Nobody sucks!
So, nobody coulda seen this coming.
Yeah. Taiwan and South Korea
and New Zealand and Singapore were all surprised.
That's why they have a combined total of 12,000 cases
and we have a total of 400,000 cases.
Although, in fairness, New Zealand had a huge advantage
because they could call in those eagles
from the end of "Return of the King."
And, I'm sorry, guys, but where the hell were you
this whole time? You're tellin' me
Sam and Frodo spent three movies climbing Mount Doom,
fighting giant spiders
and getting stabbed by Ringwraiths,
and, this whole time,
they just coulda hitched a ride on a giant bird?
Oh, what, you don't do direct flights from Hobbiton?
You guys are less reliable than Spirit.
Although, [ Laughs ] I forgot it was called Hobbiton.
Hey, J.R.R., what are you gonna call
the part of the shire that Bilbo lives in?
"Oh, I don't know. I was thinkin' maybe like Hobbiton.
Oh, I don't know if Hobbiton's good.
It sounds like a little lazy.
No one's gonna think I'm lazy!
This thing's gonna be like a thousand [bleep] pages."
Hobbiton.
Anyway, no.
This did not surprise the whole world.
Just because it surprised you
doesn't mean it surprised the world.
Everything surprises you.
Even your own speeches surprise you
because you so often are reading them out loud
for the first time, which is why you do that weird thing
where you're both reading and doing a DVD commentary
on your own speeches.
[ As Trump ] We will be sending aid
to all 50 states.
50, wow.
Wow, that's a big number, 50.
Wasn't always 50.
He's like a guy who walks into a birthday party,
when everyone yells "Surprise!", said,
"Wow, we are all equally surprised.
I can't believe we all got lured here
under the same false pretenses.
Did you guys also think
this was gonna be a quiet dinner for two?"
In fact, at one point, Trump even claimed that,
despite notable pandemics that have occurred
throughout history, like the 1918 Spanish flu,
nothing like this has ever happened before.
-So, there's never been anything like this in history.
There's never been.
Nobody's ever seen anything like this.
-Stop sayin' nobody!
People who were alive in 1918
have definitely seen something like this
and I'm pretty sure your friends would like all of them.
[ As Trump ] Wilbur, tell me what the Spanish flu was like.
[ Creaky voice ] It was horrible.
We had to subsists on a soup and a beer.
Good thing I was over 21.
That's not a Photoshop.
I went on TV and had soup and beer.
In fact, Trump keeps vaguely mentioning
the 1918 flu pandemic, but, for some reason,
he keeps getting the date wrong by exactly one year.
-Nobody's seen this.
I would say, since 1917,
which was the greatest of them all.
Probably the greatest of them all, right?
1917.
There's been nothing like this since probably 1917.
That was the big one.
You read about 'em.
You read about 'em from 1917
and you read about 'em from lots of other times.
-[ As Trump ] So, I may have been late,
reacting to coronavirus,
but I was a year early on the Spanish flu.
Of course, no one writes about that, do they?
So, I think I know what happened here.
Trump knows there was a movie called "1917."
He thought those guys looked kinda sick
and just assumed it was about the Spanish flu.
Of course, they're not sick, they're just British,
which Trump would know, if he hadn't turned off the movie
to watch "Rugrats."
And, yet, despite Trump's repeated claims
that no one could've foreseen this,
it turns out a lotta people foresaw this.
Including people in the Trump administration.
Here's just a quick list.
First, Obama officials walked Trump aides
through a global pandemic exercise in 2017.
Then, in 2017 and 2018,
threat assessment intelligence analysts
even mentioned a close cousin of coronavirus by name,
saying it had pandemic potential.
Then, in 2018,
the director for medical and biodefense preparedness
at the National Security Council told a symposium
that the threat of pandemic flu
is our number one health security concern.
Then, top administration officials said last year
that the threat of a pandemic kept them up at night.
Then, White House economists warned,
in 2019, a pandemic could devastate America.
Then, intelligence reports warned of coronavirus crises
as early as November; and then, U.S. intelligence reports
from January and February warned about a likely pandemic.
Well, you know the old saying,
"Eight strikes and you're out."
Seriously, how many incredibly specific warnings do you need?
This is like gettin' a note that says,
"I know what you did last summer.
Specifically, you hit a man with your car
and then, you and Freddie Prinze Jr. decided
to hide the body and pretend it never happened.
And now, in an act of revenge,
I'm going to systematically
stalk and kill each of you, one at a time.
I am also sending this via email
and will copy all above-referenced parties."
[ As Trump ] I don't know what that means,
what any of that means, but,
I think we should all go camping in the woods.
I know a great place with no cell service.
In fact, in this White House,
if you plunge your head in the sand and ignore reality,
you can actually get rewarded.
Case in point, yesterday,
Trump appointed campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany
as the new White House press secretary.
In February, over a month
after our first confirmed case of coronavirus,
McEnany said this...
-This president will always put America first.
He will always protect American citizens.
We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here.
We will not see terrorism come here
and isn't that refreshing, when contrasting it
with the awful presidency of President Obama?
-If you think goin' from this... to this is refreshing,
then you might not know what that word means.
Trump looks like the physical embodiment
of the feeling you get when you fall asleep on the couch
and wake up after dark and you don't know what day it is.
The only thing refreshing here
is the Kool-Aid you drank.
If Trump's gonna hire people who go on TV
and say things that are that wrong,
he might as well hire this lady
as the secretary of Knowing Who Greta Thunberg Is.
-A 2019 book entitled "No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference"
is a collection of speeches made
by a Swedish climate change activist.
What's her name?
-Sharon.
-Agh! So close.
First of all, I love that woman
and that clip will never not make me happy.
Second of all, Sharon is such a bad guess,
for so many reasons,
the least of which is how not Swedish Sharon sounds.
[ changes accent ] These are my friends,
Elsa and Ingrid and Sharon.
Anyway, after all those warnings,
on Tuesday, we found out about yet another warning,
when it was reported that Trump's trade advisor
warned the White House in January
of the risks of a pandemic.
And, at the top of the document he wrote,
it literally says "Memorandum to president."
Of course Trump has probably
never even heard the word memorandum before.
He probably saw that and said...
[ As Trump ] I can't read it.
It's in Latin.
So, they knew, and they lied to you.
They told you it wasn't a threat, but they knew, it was,
and they put lives at risk, not to mention
all the economic carnage they knew was coming.
They knew.
Here's another part of the problem.
The guy who wrote that memo, Peter Navarro,
is also a crank.
It's what happens when
an oatmeal-brained sociopath guts the civil service
and surrounds himself with fringe right-wing weirdos.
Even if someone's right, you don't know who to believe.
For example, Navarro, a trade advisor,
has been one of the loudest voices in the administration
pushing the unproven malaria medication hydroxychloroquine
for coronavirus.
Now, Navarro has zero medical expertise,
which led to this exchange on CNN on Monday...
-My qualifications, in terms of looking at the science,
is that I'm a social scientist.
I have a PhD and I understand how to read statistical studies,
whether it's in medicine, the law, economics,
or whatever. -I-I-I'm sorry.
That doesn't qualify you to treat patients.
Do you want an internist striking trade deals
-Heh. Touché. -with Asian countries?
-[ English accent ] "Ha, ha, ha, yes!
Touché, sir.
I doff my cap to you, sir.
On the question of this potentially dangerous
and unproven medication, you have checkmated me, sir.
Well-played, old chap. Bravo.
These guys are so easy to outmaneuver.
It's like playing tic-tac-toe with someone who doesn't realize
you're supposed to make a straight line.
[ English accent ] Looks like my O's
have all four corners.
"No, I beat you in three moves."
Touché, old friend.
Beat me, you have.
If you're wondering how somebody like Navarro
ended up on Trump's team, in the first place,
according to Vanity Fair, at one point,
during the campaign, when Trump wanted
to speak more substantively about China,
he gave Kushner a summary of his views
and then asked him to do some research.
Kushner simply went on Amazon, where he was struck
by the title of one book, "Death by China,"
co-authored by Peter Navarro.
He cold-called Navarro, a well-known trade deficit hawk,
who agreed to join the team as an economic advisor.
You know, we give Jared a hard time
for havin' no skills or expertise,
but in his defense,
he has Amazon.
Dude probably rocks Google, too, and here I am,
givin' him a hard time, sayin' he has no idea what he's doin',
when he's probably Askin' Jeeves as we speak.
And Trump has followed the lead
of his grifter friends and allies
in pushing hydroxychloroquine
over the objections of Dr. Anthony Fauci,
who said we need clinical trials
to prove it's safe and effective.
For example, it could have potentially lethal
side effects on the heart
and, yet, Trump has brushed those concerns aside.
According to The New York Times,
Trump made a rare appearance in the situation room on Sunday
as his pandemic task force was meeting,
determined to talk about the anti-malaria medicine
that he has aggressively promoted lately
as a treatment for the coronavirus.
Once again, the experts warned
against overselling a drug yet to be proved a safe remedy,
particularly for the heart patients.
"Yes, the heart stuff," Mr. Trump acknowledged.
"Yes, the heart stuff."
Thank you, Doctor.
I can see Trump walkin' in to give a patient the bad news.
[ As Trump ] Listen, Jim, I'm afraid it's, uh, heart stuff,
and that's extra bad because you know you have that, uh,
lung thingy.
It's clear that, because he ignored
repeated warnings about this horrific situation,
Trump is now hoping there's a miracle cure
that will get him off the hook.
Just listen to him selling hydroxychloroquine
in a bizarrely hushed tone
at a White House press briefing on Saturday.
-And I hope they use the hydroxychloroquine
and they can also do it with Z-Pak,
subject to your doctor's approval and all of that.
But I hope they use it because I'll tell you what, uh --
What do you have to lose?
There's a possibility, a possibility,
and I say it, what do you have to lose?
I'll say it again -- what do you have to lose?
Take it. I really think
they should take it, but it's their choice.
And it's their doctor's choice, or the doctors in the hospital.
But hydroxychloroquine.
[ Airily ] Try it, if you'd like.
-My God, is anyone else
creeped out by his tone of voice?
I feel like he just pulled up in a windowless white van
across from a high school.
[ As Trump, hushed ] Hey, kids,
I got some hydroxychloroquine.
It'll make you feel sky-high.
Try it, if you like.
Also, there's heart stuff.
Trump is desperately hoping this will all just go away
and that's why he's pushing an unproven miracle cure.
This morning he tweeted that, once this deadly pandemic
that cratered our economy is over,
it must be quickly forgotten.
But it shouldn't be forgotten.
Our government, led by our sociopath president,
ignored repeated warnings that a major public health
and economic disaster was headed our way.
And, if you point that out to Trump and his supporters,
the best they can counter with is...
-Heh. Touché.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
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