-Hello, everyone, and welcome to the attic again.
We just got back from a week-long hiatus.
Although let's be honest, "back" isn't quite the right word,
because I didn't go anywhere.
I just sat here with the lights off,
quietly performing "Closer Looks" to myself
about how every time I kill a wasp in the attic,
three more appear to avenge their kin.
I got so bored, I started parting my hair
on the other side.
And sure, sure,
I also did some drinking alone, which is depressing.
I mean, it's always depressing.
But a year ago, I was drinking with Rihanna,
so this is a precipitous drop-off.
And look, I know this is a long shot, but, Rihanna,
if you're on Zoom, my meeting I.D. is 917-112-15
and the password is "Work work work work work work from home."
Anyway, let's just get into it without a segue.
The president suggested the coronavirus could be cured
with disinfectants, then said he was joking,
then threatened to stop doing press briefings altogether,
which of course we know he can't do
because he loves cameras more than wasps love my attic.
There's the segue. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
I got to be honest, when we went on hiatus a week ago,
I did not expect that when we came back
I'd be talking about the president suggesting
you could use disinfectants and powerful lights
to cure coronavirus, but then again that's on me.
I mean, I should have expected it.
We should all know by now Trump will be more outlandish
with each passing week because that's his nature.
It's like the frog and the scorpion fable.
I won't go through the whole thing, but at the end,
the scorpion stings the frog, and as they sink
to their deaths, the frog says, "Why would you sting me?"
And the scorpion responds,
[As Trump] "Some people are saying scorpion venom
is an effective treatment for the coronavirus.
I'm not a doctor, but I have -- you know, I have heard that,
and what do you have to lose?
Blub, blub, this is Obama's fault."
That was a scorpion drowning.
We have to expect this nonsense.
Looking back, I should have known
I'd be doing my show from the attic
before this was all over.
When Trump won in 2016, I should have called up
the wardrobe department and said,
"Hey, could I get a few more shirts to put in my attic
in case I ever have to do the show up there?"
And they would have said, "How many?"
And I would have said, "Five.
I mean, I can't imagine it will be for more than a week."
And then they would have said, "Okay,
but if it's more than a week, you'll have to rotate shirts,"
And I'd say, "Guys, it's not gonna be more than a week."
Long story short, this shirt has now been on camera
more than any recurring character
I ever did on "SNL."
So, congratulations, shirt.
Anyway, after the president said that psychotic thing
in a White House briefing last week,
he cycled through his usual series of obviously BS excuses,
starting with the classic, "I was just joking,"
because if there's one thing people want from leadership
during a pandemic, it's sarcasm,
and that was me using sarcasm.
-I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters
like you, just to see what would happen.
But I was asking a sarcastic -- and a very sarcastic question
to the reporters in the room
about disinfectant on the inside.
Okay.
-But you were asking your medical experts to look into it.
-No. No, no, no.
-Were you being sarcastic with them?
-To look into whether or not sun
and disinfectant on the hands,
but whether or not sun can help us.
-You have two renowned scientists working with you.
Why are you pitching ideas like a 6th-century Druid?
"Maybe the sun can help us. Have we thought about sun?"
More often than not, Trump's ideas for solutions
are things that have always been there
and require no work or effort from him.
He's like a kid who forgot it was show-and-tell.
"While I appreciate everything my classmates
have brought in today, I would like you to direct your eyes
out the window to an item I brought
which is 100 times the size of Earth."
"Did you forget, Tyler?
Did you forget it was show-and-tell day?"
"I did. I did forget.
"Also, my diorama is just my mouth."
And you were not talking to reporters.
You turned to your medical advisers,
directly addressed them,
and asked them to look into it.
-And then I see the disinfectant
where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute,
and is there a way we can do something like that,
uh, by injection inside or --
or almost a cleaning?
Because you see it gets in the lungs
and it does a tremendous number on the lungs,
so it would be interesting to check that,
so that you're going to have to use medical doctors with.
But it sounds -- it sounds interesting to me.
I would like you to speak to the medical doctors
to see if there's any way that you can apply
light and heat to cure, you know?
If you could. And maybe you can, maybe you can't.
Again, I say maybe you can, maybe you can't.
I'm not a doctor. But I'm like a person
that has a good, you know what.
-But, sir, you're the president.
-Deborah, have you ever heard of that...
the heat and the light relative to certain viruses,
yes, but relative to this virus?
-Just look at Dr. Birx's face
while he's asking her these insane questions.
If this keeps up, she's gonna start wearing five more scarves.
And look, we just need to be prepared.
This is going to keep happening.
Trump is a powerful dumb guy,
and he is friends with other powerful dumb guys,
and they like to call each other up
and pitch their dumb ideas to each other.
The whole thing is like a lifelong episode of "Shark Tank"
where no one has a good idea and everyone wins.
"They're called sock gloves."
"Yeah, I'm in. I'm in.
Yeah, we're all -- we're all in."
At his next press conference, Trump's gonna tell people
they can replenish their energy by eating one battery a day.
"Some people need double-A. Some people need triple-A.
The other day, someone on the street told me I'm a giant D."
Look, this matters, sadly, because Trump is,
you know, he's the president,
and unfortunately, people listen to him,
as Maryland's Republican governor Larry Hogan
explained on Sunday.
-We had hundreds of calls come into our emergency hotline
at our health department, asking if it was right
to ingest Clorox or, you know,
alcohol cleaning products,
whether that was going to help them fight the virus.
So we had to put out that warning to make sure
that people were not doing something like that
which would kill people, actually, to do it.
-Jesus.
Clorox is gonna have to add a new warning to their labels.
"Keep away from children and the President of the United States."
I mean, this idiot gets on TV and pitches harebrained ideas
that are liable to get people killed
because he thinks he's a medical genius, and dude,
you're not Jonas Salk.
You're Jonas Sulk.
Remember, he began this whole outbreak
by repeatedly ignoring dire warnings
from public health officials
and claiming it would go away like a miracle.
Now, over 50,000 Americans are dead
and at least 26 million are out of work,
and the president is still insisting
there will be a miraculous ending.
Over the weekend he tweeted,
"I never said that the coronavirus is a 'Hoax,'
I said that the Democrats and the way they lied about it
are a Hoax.
Also, it did start with 'one person from China,'
and then grew, and will be a 'Miracle' end!"
No, it's not a miracle end
if in the process people die or lose their jobs.
They wouldn't have called it "The Miracle on Ice"
if the entire American hockey team had drowned
in Lake Placid.
Also, this will end, not because of a miracle,
but thanks to the hard work of medical professionals
as well as the collective efforts we're making
as a society to slow the spread.
You know, hard work and sacrifice.
But Trump can't recognize either of those.
Trump is the kind of guy who if you slaved all day
in the kitchen to make him a four-course meal
would finish it and say, "What's your secret?
Is it miracles?
I feel like I tasted miracles in here."
This stuff is hurting him politically.
When the coronavirus outbreak first began,
and Trump was getting free unlimited airtime
on all the news networks, his poll numbers
actually went up despite his dismal response,
which makes sense because that's how Trump got popular
in the first place.
He was always on TV, first "The Apprentice,"
then "Celebrity Apprentice,"
then his years as a racist blowhard
who was always on cable news.
I'm pretty sure he even popped up in those Liberty Mutual ads.
Remember, he was the guy who said insurance
is a waste of money because nothing bad ever happens,
and when it does you just wait for miracles.
And then of course there was his presidential run,
where cable networks breathlessly awaited
his speeches by training their cameras on his empty podium.
Remember that?
When the Democratic candidate for president
had to compete for the media's attention with furniture?
Trump loses this year, who are the Republicans
gonna run in 2024?
A racist beanbag chair that brags about how many women
have sat on him?
"Folks, I've seen more asses than you'd believe."
Now, pollsters suspected Trump's initial rise in the polls
was what they call a "rally around the flag effect,"
in which Americans show their support for the president
in a time of crisis.
And sure enough, Trump's poll numbers
have already begun to fall again.
"Trump's approval rating is down significantly from 49% in March,
while his disapproval rating is up 9% from 45%.
Trump had the shortest rally around the flag event
in modern presidential history."
Which is surprising for a guy who knows a thing or two
about rallying around the flag.
I mean, my God, these two look like they just met in person
for the first time on "Love is Blind,"
and you can tell immediately from the flag's reaction
she is not into it.
This is a classic Jessica-Mark situation.
And yes, I did watch all of "Love is Blind" in two days.
And I have said it before, but when this is all over
and we all have a lot less on our plates,
we need to talk about Jessica.
Anyway, the point is this --
it can be maddening in a crisis like this
to see Trump up at that podium every day
yelling at reporters and telling people, you know, to huff Lysol,
or Mitch McConnell doling out tax breaks to big corporations
while decrying so-called blue state bailouts.
Or small groups of unhinged right wing protesters
screaming at nurses funded by conservative groups
and cheered on by Fox News.
But just remember that these people have always been
and continue to be massively unpopular.
Just take the protesters.
Polls show Americans overwhelmingly support
the social distancing measures used to fight coronavirus.
You just don't see them on TV,
because they're in their houses.
And nobody can see your signs when you're in your houses.
So Trump's numbers are already falling again
even as other world leaders facing similar crises
have won praise for their responses.
Just take New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern,
whose handling has won more than 80% approval,
well above any leader
in the Group of Seven wealthy democracies.
80%?
The only way Donald Trump could ever get an 80% approval rating
is from himself.
Like over the weekend when he tweeted,
"Remember, the Cure can't be worse than the problem itself.
Be careful, be safe, use common sense!"
And then one of his other personalities replied
to that tweet and said, "So true!"
He's just fully talking to himself now.
Please, Fauci, Birx, just give him an unplugged mic,
sit him down in front of a mirror,
and he'll be perfectly happy.
"This guy, this guy giving this speech is making a lot of sense.
I hope he's not being sarcastic.
I like what he's saying."
In fact, if he sits on the lawn and holds the mirror
under his chin, he could even cure himself with some...
-Light and heat.
-So New Zealand has effectively contained the outbreak.
In fact, experts believe New Zealand could succeed
in eliminating COVID-19.
So how is New Zealand doing it?
Obviously there are giant differences
between their country and ours.
But for one thing, their prime minister is a sane,
normal person, which is nice.
Instead of self-aggrandizing mini rallies where she theorizes
about blasting powerful lights into your eyes like we're all
experimental patients in "A Clockwork Orange,"
she holds both formal press conferences
and also more informal Facebook Live chats
where she updates residents on the country's
strict lockdown measures.
-And I thought that I would jump online very quickly
and just give another summary.
Perhaps a shorter one than the one that we did at 1:00 today,
announcing what the rest of the alert level framework
looks like.
You'll be pleased to know
that we do consider both the Tooth Fairy
and the Easter Bunny to be essential workers.
But as you can imagine at this time,
of course they're going to be potentially
quite busy at home with their family as well
and their own bunnies.
And so I say to the children of New Zealand,
if the Easter Bunny doesn't make it to your household,
then we have to understand that it's a bit difficult
at the moment for the Bunny to perhaps get everywhere.
-I mean, can you imagine Donald Trump addressing
the nation's children on the status of Tooth Fairy
or the Easter Bunny?
For one thing, every time they appear in public together,
Trump rambles so much even the Easter Bunny looks like
he wants to mainline Clorox into his veins.
Or maybe, I don't know, he already did.
"You ready for the White House Easter egg roll?"
"Yeah, just, um --- just get me a glass of bleach first."
Obviously the geographic realities of life in New Zealand
are very different, but there are still lessons
we can learn from how they and other countries
have successful dealt with this crisis
and begun to slowly reopen their economies in a safe way.
And some states are trying to learn lessons
from other countries.
Like Germany, which has begun opening some businesses,
like book shops and auto dealerships.
Germany is employing a technique known as contact tracing,
which we desperately need here.
And New Jersey's health commissioner said this weekend
that she has spoken with Germany's health minister
about the steps they'd taken to implement that program
and reopen the economy.
-He emphasized the importance of robust testing
to help to quickly identify new cases
as well as their contacts
so they can be isolated immediately.
They are being very aggressive in their contact tracing,
using a team of 5 officers
for every 20,000 members of the community
to trace people who have come into recent contact
with every confirmed case.
Their experience can inform our efforts
as we look ahead
to ease some of our social distancing restrictions
in the state and increase our testing capacity.
-First of all, that is valuable information.
And it's crazy that individual states have to get it themselves
instead of, you know, the federal government.
Second, I think the best thing about that to me
is imagining describing what New Jersey is like
to a German.
[ German accent ] "So you identify yourself
not by the town you live in,
but by the exit you're from?
And this man, you call him The Boss
even though he is not yet your direct supervisor?
And is it not difficult to travel
when your highways are jammed with broken heroes
on a last-chance power drive?"
And yet not only are we failing to adopt those techniques
nationwide, Trump's sycophants are actually mocking the idea
of contact tracing.
Last week the president's chinless gargoyle Rudy Giuliani
went on Fox host Laura Ingraham's show,
where the two laughed about how ridiculous it was
for New York City to implement contact tracing for coronavirus.
-Michael Bloomberg is going to handle the tracing,
army of tracers in New York, we learned today from Cuomo.
-Well, that's totally ridiculous.
-Yeah, I know, army of tracers.
-Then we should trace everybody for cancer.
-Yeah, army of tracers.
-We should trace everybody for cancer and heart disease,
and uh, and obesity and --
I mean, a lot of things kill you more than COVID-19.
-Well -- -So we should be traced
for all those things.
-Yeah, man, I hate when someone sneezes on me
and I catch heart disease.
You know what else we should trace? Brain worms.
Because I'm pretty sure you guys are spreading them around.
And by the way, just a tip, Rudy,
no one's going to think you're smart
just because you started wearing glasses.
All it does is make you look like Dr. Bunsen Honeydew
went on a meth bender.
Adding glasses isn't going to suddenly make you look
like a gentleman of letters.
"Well, well, well.
Who's that scholarly kumquat?
We could easily be learning important lessons
from other countries and implementing techniques
like mass testing, like contact tracing
on a nationwide basis to safely and slowly reopen
parts of our country.
Instead, the president
is musing about using disinfectants
and powerful lights to clean out the lungs
and having conversations with himself on Twitter.
I got to be honest, at this point
I think something might be wrong with his...
-You know what. -This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
We've been talking about City Harvest on our show,
and they've asked us to thank you
for your generous donations, so let's keep going.
With unemployment skyrocketing,
they're keeping their trucks full
to feed the growing number of New Yorkers
who are turning to them to put food on their tables.
If you're watching this online, please hit the "donate" button.
Stay safe. Wash your hands. We love you.