-The select House committee investigating
Donald Trump's attempted coup on January 6th
held its second hearing today,
and it was just as damning as the first, with multiple
Trump aides and advisers on tape confirming
that there was no evidence for Trump's stolen election lies
and that they had told Trump repeatedly
that there was no evidence for those lies.
Oh, also, Rudy Giuliani was wasted on election night.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
Today's hearing was no less a blockbuster than the first one,
which is saying a lot, given how many bombshells there were
in the first hearing last week.
Today, the committee laid out in painstaking detail
the degree to which virtually everyone around Trump,
from his campaign manager to his attorney general
to his own family,
knew that there was no evidence of election fraud
and told Trump there was no evidence of fraud.
-They wasted a whole month on these claims
on the Dominion voting machines, and they were idiotic claims.
I told them that it was -- it was crazy stuff
and they were wasting their time on that.
All the early claims that I understood
were completely bogus and silly,
and usually based on complete misinformation.
-Told him flat out
that much of the information he's getting is false
and/or just not supported by the evidence.
We look at the allegations, but they don't pan out.
-So, this wild claim is thrown out,
which, you know, on its face didn't seem,
you know, realistic or possible to me.
-I thought the Dominion stuff was...
I never saw any evidence whatsoever
to sustain those allegations.
What they were proposing, I thought was nuts.
The theory was also completely nuts, right?
I mean, it was a combination of the Italians, the Germans.
I mean, different things had been floating around
as to who was involved,
Hugo Chávez and the Venezuelans.
-I told him that the stuff that his people were shoveling out
to the public were -- was bullshit.
I mean that the claims of fraud were bullshit.
-Of course it was all bull[bleep].
It's like Trump asked for a story
that explained why he lost and his team said,
"How much time do we have to come up with it?"
And he said, "Three seconds!" And they said,
"Uh, uh, a dead Venezuelan dictator
teamed with, um, an election software company
and the governments of Italy, Germany, and China
to stuff fraudulent ballots
into suitcases and shopping carts?"
[As Trump] Oh, that's good. You guys are worth every penny.
[Normal voice] Actually -- uh, actually, sir, you don't pay us.
[As Trump] Exactly.
[Normal voice] Everyone around Trump knew it was bull[bleep]
and told Trump it was bull[bleep]
over and over and over again.
But Trump went ahead and declared the election stolen
anyway and spent months spreading that lie,
despite hearing repeatedly from his closest aides
and advisers that what he was saying was insane.
And documenting that Trump knew it was all bull[bleep]
is important for establishing his frame of mind.
He obviously had criminal intent.
I know this is obvious, but still, it's important
to establish that he wasn't just, like, innocently
investigating credible allegations of fraud.
He was actively trying to overturn an election
he knew he did not win, and engaged
in many potentially criminal activities to do it,
including fomenting a violent attack on the Capitol.
In fact, Trump's campaign manager, Bill Stepien,
even said in one deposition
that he and other Trump aides who knew there wasn't fraud
had been divided into a separate group from all the crazy people,
and the non-crazy people even had an informal name.
-I didn't mind being categorized.
There were two groups of them.
We called them kind of my team and Rudy's team.
I didn't mind being characterized
as being part of Team Normal,
as reporters kind of started to do around that point in time.
-That's right, they were known as Team Normal.
Now, I could tell you the specific names of the people
who were supposedly on Team Normal.
Or I could just tell you that none of them look like this.
[ Laughter and applause ]
[As Giuliani] Hey, I'm here for Team Normal tryouts.
[Normal voice] Actually, I'm sorry, Team Normal's full.
[As Giuliani] Be honest. Was it my eyes?
[ Laughter and applause ]
[Normal voice] Also -- Also, in regards to Stepien,
I'd argue that despite his resistance
to Trump's fraud claims,
he was still just as complicit as anyone else,
given that he was managing Trump's campaign
even while Trump was preemptively claiming
the election would be rigged, and never once spoke out
to warn the public about how dangerous Trump was.
And yet, for some reason, the photo they used of him all day
made him look kick-ass.
Look at my man So-Called Life-in' it
Claire Danes style.
God, it' so cool that she grew up to be in the CIA.
And whatever happened to that other guy?
Aah!
Fun fact -- they put him on Team Normal before Rudy.
Either way, Trump obviously
decided to go with Rudy over Team Normal.
Now, early in her opening statement,
Congresswoman Liz Cheney
teased that the hearing would touch upon Rudy's role
in the attempted coup when she said this.
-You will also hear testimony that President Trump
rejected the advice of his campaign experts
on election night
and instead followed the course recommended
by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani
to just claim he won and insist that the vote counting stop,
to falsely claim everything was fraudulent.
-I mean, that is brutal. It's embarrassing to have
a member of Congress announce
on live television that you were visibly drunk.
I mean, I've been visibly drunk on TV before,
but it's for entertainment.
Never once during any of my Day Drinking episodes
have I ever said to my guest, "Hey, you wanna do a coup?"
[ Laughter ]
And let me make something perfectly clear.
If Rihanna had suggested it,
I would have been down at the Capitol in a heartbeat.
[ Laughter ]
Now, when Cheney said Rudy was inebriated,
I thought, "Damn, that's embarrassing,
But I guess that's the end of that."
What I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams
was that it was just a tease for what was coming up,
because it turns out a significant portion
of the hearing, bolstered by witness testimony,
focused on former Mayor Giuliani,
an attorney to the president of the United States,
being blitzed out of his [bleep] mind.
-Were you in the White House residence
during the sort of -- past midnight
into the early morning hours of November 4th?
-Yes. Oh, sure. It went over beyond midnight.
Yes. -Do you remember Rudy Giuliani
being at the White House on election night
and into the early hours the next morning?
-I do.
-What do you remember about when he came?
-Um... [ Clears throat ]
He...
He was, um...
They were...
I had heard that he was upstairs, you know,
in that aforementioned reception area.
And, um...
he was looking to talk to the president.
And it was suggested instead that he come talk
to several of us down off the Map Room.
-Was there anyone in that conversation
who, in your observation, had had too much to drink?
-Um, like Mayor Giuliani.
-Tell me more about that. What was your observation
about his potential intoxication during that -- that discussion
about what the president should say
when he addressed the nation on election night?
-The mayor was definitely intoxicated, but I do not know
his level of intoxication
when he spoke with the president, for example.
-It's so funny to me how in all these deposition,
Trump aides are all hemming and hawing,
pausing and taking their time to use the most precise
legal language possible because they're under oath.
But then, as soon as someone asks,
"Was anyone drunk at the White House?"
they all immediately buzz in like the overeager uncle
on "Family Feud."
"Rudy! It was Rudy!"
[ Laughter ]
In fact, if "Who was drunk at the White House?"
was a question on "Family Feud,"
the top five answers would all be the same.
[ Laughter ]
Also, I love the follow-up where the lawyer says,
"Tell me more about that."
I wish I could have seen the rest of that deposition.
"And how did you know Rudy was drunk?"
"Well, I saw him holding an empty bottle of Scotch
and hitting on a portrait of Dolley Madison."
[As Giuliani] Well, hello, young lady!
Now, before we go any further,
you have a legal obligation to tell me
if you're my cousin.
[ Laughter ]
Fool me twice!
[ Laughter ]
[Normal voice] So, as the committee established,
Trump had a choice between Team Normal and Team Rudy,
and obviously he chose Team Rudy.
In fact, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner,
who looked in every clip like he had just smelled
one of Rudy's Scotch farts,
said at one point that he tried to warn Trump about Rudy,
although you could tell Kushner was definitely walking
on eggshells when he answered the question.
-Did you ever share, Mr. Kushner,
your view of Mr. Giuliani?
Did you ever share your perspective about him
with the president?
-Um...
I-I guess...
[ Sighs ]
Uh...yes.
[ Laughter ]
-Tell me what you said.
-Basically, "Not the approach I would take if I was you."
-Okay. And how did he react?
How did President Trump react
when you shared that view with him?
-Oh, he said, you know, "I have confidence in Rudy."
-That was a very long pause.
You could tell Kushner did not want to answer the question.
I'm shocked he didn't break out into a song called
"We Don't Talk About Rudy."
That's definitely the length of the pause you take
when someone asks you about a friend
who was super drunk at a party,
especially a friend you invited.
"Hey, uh, you know your friend Kyle?"
"Uh..."
[ Laughter ]
[ Sighs ]
"Yeeeeah."
"He just did a cannonball in the pool
with all his clothes on and told everyone
if they didn't do a Jell-O shot with him,
he'd have them arrested."
"Yeah, but so what?"
"Well, it's a kid's birthday party."
So, today's hearing was laser-focused
on disproving the big lie
and showing the public that everyone around Trump,
except for the drunk and/or crazy people,
thought the fraud claims were insane
and told Trump those claims were insane.
And here's a key point.
A lot of people are watching these hearings.
So proving that Trump was both full of [bleep]
and knew he was full of [bleep] is important
because a big question going into these hearings last week
was whether people would watch.
Republicans and right-wing media personalities, for example,
were invested heavily in the idea that no one would watch
because they had better things to do, but they were wrong.
And audience of at least 20 million people
watched the first prime-time hearing,
in the ballpark of television events
like a big "Sunday Night Football" game
or the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
And I'm not surprised the hearing
got Thanksgiving Parade ratings
since so many of Trump's inner circle
look like they could be balloons.
[ Laughter ]
"Oh, look, kid, it's the Mike Lindell balloon!
Oh, stop crying. It's not him. It's just a balloon.
Oh, wait. Okay.
I actually do think it actually might be him."
[As Lindell] "Yeah, it's me, alright!
They just tied some strings to me
and filled me up with da air!"
[Normal voice] So, the first hearing
actually ended up scoring big in the ratings,
even though one channel conspicuously decided
not to air it, which was, of course, Fox News.
Fox News stuck with its normal prime-time shows.
Not just that, they also didn't show commercials
for the entire two hours that the hearing was on,
because they didn't want their viewers to change the channel
and see the hearing on a different network.
-They didn't take any commercial breaks for the entire two hours
when the hearing was taking place.
The reason you would not take a commercial break
is because you do not want your viewers to have a chance
to click over to another channel to see what's going on.
You want to keep them with you the whole time.
Last night, Fox News eliminated two hours of commercial breaks,
at the cost of I don't know how much money,
thousands of dollars,
all to keep their viewers' eyes away from the truth
that was airing on every other news network in the country.
-Think about that. They were so desperate
to keep their viewers from seeing the hearing
that they cost themselves money by not airing commercials.
You know how many Acorn Stairlifts they could have sold?
Though I don't think that was necessary.
If you've ever been in a home where they watch Fox News,
you know they're not big on flipping around.
I'm pretty sure they just buy the TV, put it on Fox,
and then bury the remote in the backyard.
But still, just think about that.
Fox went an entire two hours
without airing one of their usual commercials
for some dumb scam product aimed solely at old people
like gold coins, tactical sunglasses,
commemorative plates with Ronald Reagan's face on them,
or a MAGA teddy bear with Donald Trump's voice.
"I love my MAGA teddy bear!
You just push his belly and he says the most adorable things."
-Then they did dumps. They call 'em dumps.
Big, massive dumps.
[ Laughter ]
-It's also not surprising that Fox would want
to keep its audience from watching the hearing
because in addition to providing damning evidence
that Trump knew the election had not been stolen
and that he orchestrated a criminal plot
to overthrow the government, the hearing was also
deeply embarrassing for the Trump family.
For example, the committee played video
of Trump's daughter Ivanka saying she accepted
Attorney General Bill Barr's assessment
that there was no widespread fraud
and that the election had not been stolen,
meaning she disagreed with her father's stolen election lies.
-Many of President Trump's White House staff
also recognized that the evidence did not support
the claims President Trump was making.
This is the president's daughter
commenting on Bill Barr's statement
that the department found no fraud sufficient
to overturn the election.
-How did that affect your perspective about the election
when Attorney General Barr made that statement?
-It affected my perspective.
I respect Attorney General Barr.
So I...
accepted what he was saying.
-Oh, you did? That's weird. I don't remember you mentioning
any of that in the two months after the election,
when your father planned a coup
and fomented a mob of armed insurrectionists
and werewolves to ransack the Capitol
like a Black Friday sale at a Bass Pro Shop.
Ivanka, just like Barr and Stepien and all the rest,
could have easily spoken up at the time,
but instead she just quietly faded away,
hoping no one would notice.
She basically tried to do the Homer Simpson GIF.
[ Laughter ]
Also, this is just a side note,
but I do love how they always use the [bleep] cameras
for these depositions. Ivanka Trump
was the most glamorous member of the Trump family,
and now she looks like me doing my show during lockdown.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Piece...
Real quick piece of advice, Vank --
Don't read the YouTube comments.
Because people will have notes.
But the most predictable part of Ivanka saying
she agreed with Barr
was that her own father threw her under the bus
by responding the next day on his social media site,
where he essentially said she had no idea
what she was talking about.
-Trump is downplaying his daughter's involvement,
writing on his Truth Social platform,
"Ivanka Trump was not involved
in looking at or studying election results.
She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion,
only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr
and his position as attorney general.
He sucked."
[ Laughter ]
-Even with his family turning on him
and millions of people watching nationally televised hearings
describing his mental fragility,
Trump still has a way with words.
[As Trump] "Mr. Barr was derelict in his duties."
No, that's too wordy.
Let me say, let me think, let me think.
"When the moment called for courage,
Mr. Barr failed to answer."
No, that's not quite right.
Oh, it's on the tip of my tongue.
"He sucked." That's it!
[ Laughter ]
These hearings have so far been powerful,
effective, and well-produced. They've painstakingly proven
that Trump and the people around him
knew what they were saying was a brazen and dangerous lie,
and that the riot was not just some impulsive incident.
It was part of a detailed plan orchestrated by Donald Trump
to stage a coup and overturn the election.
Trump's team tried to tell him the truth,
but he refused to accept it.
Meanwhile, Rudy saw a drop of Scotch
left at the bottom of the bottle
and was so desperate to get it out...
-He sucked.
[ Laughter and applause ]
[ Audience cheering ]
-I'll accept it. I'll accept it.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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