-The chief of staff
to former Vice President Mike Pence
was so worried that Donald Trump
would put Pence's physical safety at risk
in the run-up to the attempted coup on January 6th
that he told the Secret Service about it,
a prediction that was borne out
when Trump sicced a violent mob on the Capitol
and reportedly spoke approvingly
of the mob chanting, "Hang Mike Pence."
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]
The endless bad faith and lying from the Republican Party
just keeps getting more and more exhausting.
For example, Texas Senator Ted Cruz
recently tried to blame the Biden administration
for rising electricity prices in his state, tweeting...
Two things -- first of all, Texas has its own power grid,
where electricity is generated
and used only within state lines.
So, Texas' electric grid is separate
from the rest of the country. You know, the way you
become separate from the country every time there's
[ Laughter ] a crisis in your state.
No surprise that Cruz is a liar,
though, doesn't he just look like the guy
who shows up in an Old West Town
[ Laughter and applause ] and promises he can make it rain
if you give him a few bars of gold?
[ Laughter ] Then, the next morning, when it doesn't rain,
a group of townspeople go to his room
and find a note that says, "So long, suckers!"
[ Laughter ] So, they go to the stable and he's still there
because he couldn't figure out how
to get the saddle on his horse [ Laughter and applause ]
and they just beat the living crap out of him.
Doesn't he just look like that guy?
[ Laughter ]
Second, Democrats,
much to the dismay of progressives
and anyone who doesn't want the planet
to turn into a climate change-induced apocalypse
have not passed the Green New Deal.
This is yet another reminder that Democrats
should do more stuff because, whether they do or not,
Republicans are going to attack them for it.
They don't care if it's true.
Ted Cruz is going to bitch about how Biden
outlawed red meat and took his guns away
while he flips burgers with the butt end of his AR-15.
[ Laughter and applause ] When everyone rushed --
When everyone rushed to fact-check Cruz,
he then followed up by claiming that natural gas prices
have doubled because of Green New Deal policies,
which, again, is insane, since the Green New Deal
is not, and has never been, law.
In fact, if anything, rising energy prices
are even more reason to pass a Green New Deal,
so we can generate our own renewable energy
right here in the U.S., instead of being held hostage
to global energy markets dictated, in large part,
by oil-based autocracies, like Russia and Saudi Arabia.
If you ask me, I'd much prefer to get my electricity
from a wind turbine or a solar panel on my roof
[ Cheering and applause ] than a bloodthirsty dictator.
Plus, plus, wind turbines have the added benefit
of annoying the [bleep] out of Donald Trump,
[ Laughter and applause ] who, notoriously,
[ Cheering ] hates them and, and,
and thinks they sound like this --
-Rirr, rirr!
[ Laughter and applause ]
-I think --
I think he's confusing wind turbines with cats.
[ Laughter and applause ]
[ As Trump ] Windmills go like this --
"Rirr, rirr!
Meow, meow.
[ Hiss ]"
[ Laughter and applause ]
Anyway, the point is Republicans are shameless liars.
Well, I guess that was the point.
[ Laughter ] I mean, it is "A Closer Look"
and that's usually the point of these.
[ Laughter ] Here's another example --
Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert tweeted
this incredibly dumb retort to calls for more gun control...
And, yes, it's true, it stands for ArmaLite rifle.
And, as someone who has made that mistake myself in the past,
I would just like to issue this sincere apology
to Lauren Boebert -- I'm sorry
for not giving a [bleep].
[ Laughter and applause ] I mean, I love --
I love that the same people -- the same people who say,
"I don't care what your pronouns are," also say --
[ As Boebert ] Don't get the name of my gun wrong!
[ Laughter and applause ] My gun has feelings, too.
Anyway, the point is this is the modern Republican Party --
a collection of ghoulish conmen and weirdos saying
and doing whatever they think they can get away with
to gain and hold on to power.
The most recent example of this trend
is the fact that the GOP nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania
is now officially none other than Dr. Oz.
[ Laughter ] I mean, how can you be the best man for the job
when you're not even the best "Oprah" doctor spinoff?
[ Laughter and applause ] I'm -- I'm not saying Dr. Phil
would be a good senator, but at least he'd have a plan,
if your team started dressing too sexy.
[ Laughter ] I never thought Dr. Oz
would be a nominee for anything other than
The New England Journal of Medicine's annual
Craziest Doctor Alive! Issue.
[ Laughter and applause ]
This guy is a notorious scam artist,
according to many of his colleagues and peers.
When four out of five doctors agree,
he's the other doctor.
[ Laughter and applause ]
And, just like almost every other
successful Republican politician in the country,
Oz has learned that, in order to thrive
in today's GOP and court the Republican base,
you have to embrace election denialism
by implying there was widespread fraud in 2020,
when we all know that there was not.
-The reality for me is 2020, under the cover of COVID,
was an example of how you should not run an election.
Here in Pennsylvania, people are really worked up about it.
I already said, on the debate stage,
I was the first to say we cannot leave 2020 behind.
We have to get under the hood, examine exactly what went down,
and address those issues.
There are so many different things that happened.
As you really, really examine it --
As a physician, you know,
I like to get into the details.
I've talked to individuals
who say their votes weren't counted,
who went to the polls and claimed
that someone had already voted with their absentee ballot.
We have got to understand the different ways
where cheating occurred, so we can, first of all,
identify how much happened,
but also make sure that it never happens again.
-I understand that, as a physician,
you want to get into the details,
but there are also times you just don't have to.
If a patient came in and said their arm fell off,
but you could see that it hadn't,
you probably wouldn't order a full set of tests.
[ Laughter and applause ] You'd probably, you know,
you'd send them off to a different doctor,
who did, you know, brain stuff, which is
[ Laughter ] what we used to do to anyone
who said their vote wasn't counted
because I doubt these people knew that.
Did their sticker also have tiny writing on it?
[ Laughter and applause ]
But this is the ideological heart of the GOP --
conmen and scam artists embracing the lie
that any election they lose is illegitimate.
That was the lie that fueled the coup attempt on January 6th
and the GOP is as committed as ever to defending that lie,
a lie that we now know
almost got Trump's own vice president killed.
In fact, we just recently learned that,
even in advance of January 6th,
Pence's team was so worried that Trump was intentionally
putting Pence at risk of physical danger
that they alerted the Secret Service.
-A stunning new report in The New York Times says
that a top aide to former Vice President Mike Pence
warned the Secret Service that President Trump
could turn on the vice president
and the aide feared for Pence's safety
on the eve of the Capitol riot.
The Times report claims Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short,
warned the Secret Service of his safety concerns
one day before the insurrection.
-This falls into the category of one of those stories
that's both incredibly shocking and not at all surprising.
I mean, of course, Trump was putting Pence in danger.
That was the point.
He was threatening Pence
with physical violence,
unless Pence gave him what he wanted.
The dude spent a lifetime in New York real estate.
He knows how to act like a mobster.
[ Laughter ] You think he never sat behind a desk,
threatening a city planning commissioner
while petting a cat? Or, in Trump's case,
Rudy Giuliani?
[ Laughter and applause ]
[ As Giuliani ] Oh.
Oh, that's right, that's right,
I love it right behind the ears, boss.
[ Laughter ] [ As Trump ] Be quiet.
Be quiet, furry windmill.
[ Laughter and applause ] In fact, even after the mob
tried to follow through on Trump's directive
and stormed the Capitol, chanting, "Hang Mike Pence,"
Trump didn't back down.
He ignored repeated pleas
from even the people closest to him to quell the mob
and he reportedly even told his then-chief of staff,
Mark Meadows, that he thought maybe Pence should be hanged.
-Stunning new reporting on the investigation
into the January 6th attack
concerning Donald Trump and his reaction
to the chants from his supporters
outside of the Capitol that day to, "Hang Mike Pence"...
-"Maybe Mike Pence should be hanged" is a reminder
that Trump is both a monster and wishy-washy?
[ Laughter ] I mean, if there's ever a time to come down firmly
on one side or the other... [ Laughter ]
...it's "Should we hang the vice president?"
[ Laughter ] I mean, Trump would've made a terrible Queen of Hearts.
[ As Trump ] Off with his head. Or maybe,
maybe we leave it on. [ Laughter and applause ]
A lot of people are saying, "Get that head outta here!",
but you can also make a case for keeping the head.
We love -- We love the head, don't we, folks?
[ Laughter ] It has, oh, so many great parts.
I mean, the eyes, the ears.
Don't forget the nose! [ Laughter ]
And the most -- the beautiful mouth.
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
Remember, I mean --
[ Laughter ]
We're waiting for all of this and more to finally come out
when the January 6th Committee
holds its first televised hearings,
beginning this Thursday in primetime.
Now, if you ask me, they should've done this a while ago
and a lot more people should already be in jail by now,
but better late than never, I guess.
And, yet, the Trump team's argument is mainly
that no one's going to watch, a point former Trump spokesman
Jason Miller made over the weekend.
-This is basically just an echo chamber,
a lefty echo chamber,
where they think, in their minds,
"Well, people at home will stop what they're doing
at 8:00 pm at night."
No, you're getting the kids put to bed
or getting done with the homework
or you're watching sports.
We talk about the finals -- Stanley Cup or NBA.
You're going to stop and watch Liz Cheney, Bennie Thompson,
Adam Kinzinger? No.
Now, we're getting into the summer. We're into June.
People have better things to do in their lives.
-Dude, no one's expecting millions of viewers
to change channels en masse from the NBA Finals
to a congressional hearing, and I don't blame them.
I'd also rather watch the NBA Finals, even though
I'd think about Jason Miller the whole time
because his head is the shape
of a partially deflated basketball.
[ Laughter and applause ] Also, no one should be surprised that Congress --
Congress -- picked the worst time to start these hearings.
I mean, way to wait until the summer,
when people famously watch the most TV.
"Oh, it's 85°.
Should we take the boat out on the lake with a cold six-pack
or stay inside to watch the hearings?" [ Laughter ]
But no one's trying to compete with the NBA finals
and that's not the point. The point is to document
what happened in the lead-up to the coup attempt
because Republicans are going to try it again.
Do you think Donald Trump's just going to give up
after almost getting his own vice president killed?
Trump's like the Wile E. Coyote to Pence's Roadrunner.
[ Laughter ] Remember that insane Oval Office meeting
where Pence sat totally still with his eyes closed,
hoping no one would notice him?
[ Laughter ] He learned that from cartoons.
What people don't remember is that,
at the end of that meeting,
Pence held up a little sign that said...
[ Laughter and applause ]
The shameless bad faith of the GOP,
in trying to whitewash an attempted coup,
remains both shocking and also not surprising,
which is why we need a full, clear, exhaustive account
of everything that went into their plan,
so we can, hopefully, stop it from happening again.
We need to sound the alarm now and hope that everyone hears it.
Maybe it would help if the alarm sounded like this --
-Rirr, rirr!
[ Laughter and applause ]
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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