-The number-two House Republican refused to say
that the 2020 election was not stolen from Donald Trump,
while the Biden administration blocked an attempt by Trump
to withhold documents related to the investigation
of the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
There's a lot going on right now,
from the GOP's ongoing attempts to dismantle democracy
to centrist Democrats holding up President Biden's agenda
to Bernie Sanders holding press conferences
in a leather chair, therapist-style.
"How will we pay for it?
Oh! What a great question. That is a new one!
I've never heard that one before.
I'm gonna write you a note that says, 'Tax the rich,'
and a prescription for some ginkgo biloba."
[ Laughter ]
But here's a moment from last week
that pretty much sums up my feelings
about the current state of our politics.
Biden was asked about a short-term deal
to avert economic catastrophe and raise the debt ceiling.
In response, he crossed his fingers,
although, at first, I thought he was going
for a very different hand gesture.
[ Laughter ]
It really does encapsulate where we're at politically,
that every response is a coin flip
between "hoping for the best" and "[bleep] off!"
[ Laughter ]
I definitely thought Biden was going full bird there,
mostly because of his technique. Yes, his fingers were crossed,
but he brought it up like he was cranking with the other hand.
[ Laughter ]
This was the risk we took
when we elected President Finger Guns.
Those things are deadly weapons.
They make him run it through the metal detector
when he comes to work every morning.
With Trump, I was always worried
he was going to say the wrong thing to a world leader,
but with Biden, I'm afraid a hand gesture
is going to get away from him. "Bad news --
The President tried to do a 'I see you'
to the Sultan of Brunei,
and instead he slipped and he Three Stooged him."
"What?!" [ Laughter ]
"Why didn't the Sultan do a block hand?"
"I guess they don't have the Stooges there."
[ Laughter ]
During the time you were gone,
we did a lot of "MASH" references,
a "Star Trek Next Generation,"
but obviously now human beings are here.
We had to freshen it up with the Stooges.
[ Laughter ]
While Biden was desperately trying to convince Republicans
to do the bare minimum to avert potential economic catastrophe
over the debt ceiling,
he was also refusing an attempt by his predecessor
to shield documents from a congressional investigation
into the insurrection on January 6th.
-NBC News first to report earlier today
that the Biden White House has decided, in fact,
not to block the release of documents related to Trump,
his presidency, and the insurrection.
The move sets up a legal and potentially lengthy showdown
between two presidents, current and former,
over the issue of executive privilege.
-The White House is blocking former President Trump
from playing the executive privilege card,
and the committee investigating the January 6th insurrection
says Donald Trump's minions
will not get away with ignoring the rule of law.
-Okay. Now that's definitely a middle finger.
So Trump thought he could just unilaterally
assert executive privilege, no questions asked.
You're not president anymore, dude.
That's not how it works. What's he gonna do next?
Try to book a flight on Air Force One?
"What do you mean I can't use the plane anymore?
But what about all those miles I racked up?
Can I transfer them to JetBlue?
JetBlue. [ Laughter ]
We love JetBlue, don't we, folks?"
[ Laughter ]
"JetBlue, the first place I ever had a Terra chip,
and I remember --" [ Laughter ]
I remember, I said to the stewardess,
"There's something wrong with my chip -- it's red.
I have a red chip."
And she told me, she said to me, "Sir" -- tears in her eyes --
she said, 'Sir, that's a seasonal root vegetable.'"
[ Laughter ]
Now, before we dive into that story any further --
the executive-privilege story --
not the Trump, JetBlue, Terra chip story.
I think we got all we're gonna get from that.
[ Laughter ]
And they said we couldn't do tangents when the audience came.
We're gonna do -- gonna take a few tangents.
[ Cheers and applause ]
I do think it's worth taking a quick step back to acknowledge
this is our first show with a live audience in 19 months.
Well, to be fair, we did have a full audience one night
this summer, but they didn't laugh at anything,
so we just pretended they weren't there
and decided to wait a while before trying again.
It's been a long, strange trip.
We did a show in my attic, in my in-laws house,
I befriended Ethan Hawke and a painting of a sea captain,
I grew my hair out,
and I started dressing casually -- by choice --
and not, as "The Daily Mail" reported,
because I had to sell my suits
to cover gambling losses incurred
when I took me under on the Mets having one [bleep] season.
[ Laughter ]
Second Mets joke.
First one is in the monologue,
so if you only watch this online,
you gotta go back and watch the monologue now.
What's that? You're not going to?
Because you live in Austria and you hate the Mets jokes?
Fair enough. [ Laughter ]
Over the last 19 months, I became closer with my crew,
who were the only feedback I had in real time.
Speaking of the crew...
Oh! Oh, that's very interesting,
because earlier today, Wally said,
"I bet the first time you cut to me,
I'll get a round of applause from the audience and yet --
[ Cheers and applause ] Doesn't count! Doesn't count!
It doesn't count. No, no, no!
No, no, no! It doesn't count 'cause he didn't do anything.
[ Laughter ]
You did nothing! When we cut to him,
you did nothing, and I had to say it, and then you did it,
so it doesn't count! [ Laughter ]
Doesn't count, Wally. -That was too fast of a cut!
-You didn't stipulate how fast the cut would be!
-This is an outrage! -Outrage!
Oh, we spent so much time together,
we finish each other's sentences.
[ Laughter ]
The point is...
right up until you gave Wally what he wanted,
I'm thrilled to be back in front of an audience.
[ Laughter ]
And I'm just hoping my audience is a little more enthusiastic
than Trump's audience. The man just refuses to go away.
On Saturday, he went to Iowa to hold yet another rally
where he repeated the same deranged lies
about the election that he's been repeating for months.
And yet even his own crowd wasn't exactly electrified
by hearing the same old incoherent nonsense
over and over again. -You know, I was up by
massive numbers on Election Day.
It was even -- The news was saying, "Wow.
What a big lead in Pennsylvania."
I love Pennsylvania.
I went to school in Pennsylvania -- college.
But what a great state and what great people.
And I was up by so much.
All of a sudden, the booths close,
the tabulation centers are closed,
3:00 in the morning.
And shortly thereafter, we tied.
They know they got caught.
All you have to do is listen to the numbers.
And remember what I said.
Joe Biden has launched a foreign invasion of his own country.
"Come on in." He said, "Come in."
This is a, uh -- This is a sick --
This is a sick thing that's happening to our country.
-Wow. And I was worried about bringing audiences back.
[ Laughter ]
I never thought I'd say this,
but maybe you should go into lockdown.
You know, remote shows might be better for you.
You could borrow my attic. [ Laughter ]
Although, if you were in my attic,
I'd never get any sleep. "Honey, what's that noise?"
"I think he's talking about how windmills kill birds."
"It's 2:00 -- 2:00 in the morning."
"I know, but he had like 50 Diet Cokes."
[ Laughter ]
"Why did you let him use our attic?"
"Because he used to be president!
I'm sorry that I respect the office!"
Also, I love the cutaways to sullen Trump fans
just standing there in silence,
like tourists watching one of those gold-statue guys
in Times Square. [ Laughter ]
"So, is he gonna like... do something?"
[ Laughter ]
And you could tell Trump was waiting
for a crowd reaction, too. I mean, look at him.
It's like watching a open-mic night at the senior center.
"Joe Biden said, 'Come on in. Come on in.' Am I right?"
[ Laughter ]
"Cyrus knows what I'm talking about."
[ Laughter ]
"Cyrus?" [ Laughter ]
"Cyrus." [ Laughter ]
"Get the paddles. What else?"
[ Laughter ]
It's been liberating not having to think or care
about what this lunatic says or does on a daily basis
for the last few months. Unfortunately, the GOP
has not felt the same way.
They're still fully devoted to Trump.
He was joined at his rally by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley.
Virtually the entirety of the Republican Party
remains in thrall to Trump and committed to the Big Lie
that the election was somehow stolen from him,
as demonstrated by this interview,
the number-two House Republican Steve Scalise did
on Fox News Sunday.
-Do you think the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump?
And continuing to make that charge.
Not having states do election reforms
but specifically making this charge
that the election was stolen.
Do you think that that hurts, undermines American democracy?
-Well, Chris, I've been very clear from the beginning.
If you look at a number of states,
they didn't follow their state-passed laws.
-The states all certified -- -They didn't follow
those legislative rules.
Right. But at the end of the day,
are we gonna follow what the Constitution says?
-Do you think the election was stolen or not?
I understand you think there were irregularities
and things that need to be fixed.
Do you think the election was stolen?
-And it's not just irregular. It's states that did not follow
the laws set, which the Constitution
says they're supposed to follow.
-I like how they say the word "irregularities"
without actually specifying what that means.
It's that vague Mafia talk they've all adopted.
"It's a shame what happened to your restaurant,
but the boss got your last payment,
and there was some, uh, irregularities."
[ Laughter ]
These guys can't actually give an example of widespread fraud
because there aren't any, as multiple audits
and roughly 60 court cases,
including with several Trump-appointed judges, proved.
But all they have are these bat [bleep] conspiracy theories
promoted by the rotating cast of weirdos
who inhabit Trump's orbit, rambling incoherently
about nonsense like Italian satellites,
hacking voting machines, or mysterious midnight
election dumps or bamboo fibers on ballots.
Last week, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell
once again repeated the insane claim
that dead people had somehow voted.
-I'll give an example today.
2,650 people over the age of 100.
Now, you might say, "Oh, wow. That's --
That could be, that could be.
2,000 of them were over 200.
Wouldn't you like to live in that state?
Brad, they were 200-and-some years old,
so obviously they one guy was --
-They were 200 years old? These people that --
that are voting are 200 years old?
Of course, they're obviously not living.
-They're obviously deceased. But one guy was 850 years old.
Okay? [ Laughter ]
And these are -- And these are facts.
You can get them -- You can get them
from your own state's thing.
-First of all, we know an 850-year-old who voted, okay?
He was on TV.
[ Laughter ]
That's why -- That's why Rudy's neck is hunched.
He sleeps in a coffin that's one size too small.
[ Laughter ]
"I couldn't afford the king-size
'cause I'm paying alimony -- to my cousin.
It's not taboo amongst vampires."
[ Laughter ]
"The immortal just have less to choose from."
[ Laughter ]
I also like how Lindell says, "These are facts,"
but then he can't even name the database where he got them.
He just says, "You can get them from your own --
your own state's thing." [ Laughter ]
"I went online to the thing and saw all the dead people
who voted by looking at their birthdays
and counting up the years."
[ Laughter and applause ] You know, it's nice.
Yeah.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Nice to finally road test the Lindell
in front of an audience.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Crowd-pleasing, crowd-pleasing.
[ Applause ]
[ Laughter ]
"Did you see my new lion painting?"
[ Laughter ]
"I hope the lion's not too big."
[ Laughter ]
"I'd hate for the lion painting to take away from my points."
[ Laughter ]
Lindell, of course, is being sued for defamation
by the election technology company Dominion.
And now even a deep-red state like Idaho
is sending him a bill for an election audit
because his claims were bogus.
And Lindell's not the only one facing financial hardship,
thanks to his participation in the Big Lie.
There's also Rudy Giuliani, who's reportedly
drowning in legal bills after Trump refused to pay him.
And now, in a newly released deposition,
Rudy has explained why he worked for Trump
without payment.
An attorney in a defamation suit against Rudy asked Giuliani
whether he was ever paid to represent the Trump campaign.
Giuliani replied that he was not paid to represent the campaign
and had been reimbursed for only his expenses,
according to the transcript. The attorney then asked Giuliani
why he would represent the Trump campaign without compensation.
"The president -- the president, ordered me to do it,"
Giuliani said. Rudy, that's not how it works.
Your client can't just order you to do something for free.
You can't let Trump push you around anymore.
You're a grown man. You're 850 years old.
[ Laughter and applause ]
And yet, aside from some potential financial consequences
for weirdos like Rudy and Lindell,
the co-conspirators who fomented the January 6th insurrection
and orchestrated the attempted coup
have largely escaped accountability,
like Texas Senator Ted Cruz,
who hasn't faced any consequences for his role
in trying to overturn the election results on January 6th.
In fact, Cruz is still there in the Senate, causing chaos.
Just last week, he was whining
that the GOP had done the bare minimum
to avert economic catastrophe
and mustered just enough votes to help Democrats
raise the debt ceiling at the last minute.
Although he chose a very weird analogy.
-I believe the end result
of this game of chicken was clear.
Unfortunately, yesterday, Republicans blinked.
I think that was a mistake.
But sometimes in a poker game, a bluff wins the pot.
In this case, to mix my metaphors,
which would make my high school English teacher very angry,
in the game of chicken,
Chuck Schumer won this game of chicken.
As two trucks drove towards each other on a country road,
one or the other was gonna turn,
or you were gonna have a lot of dead chickens.
[ Laughter ]
-What -- What the hell are you talking --
[ Laughter ]
You think when two trucks play chicken on a country road,
they have to be full of chickens?
That's not -- That's not why they call it chicken.
"The hardest thing about the game of chicken
is keeping your resolve.
It's trying to concentrate above the din of terrified chickens
in the truck, because, of course,
theirs are the lives at stake."
The Republican Party has fully embraced
Trumpism and the Big Lie.
They're trying to install Trump loyalists in key positions
across the country and passing laws
that would make it easier to steal the next election.
One of his lawyers wrote an instruction manual for a coup,
which they could easily use next time.
These people should face consequences
for trying to destroy a democracy
that so far has stood the test of time.
In fact, if you ask Mike Lindell,
he'd probably say it's...
-850 years old.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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