-The Supreme Court dealt President Trump
yet another major legal defeat yesterday
when it rejected a GOP lawsuit seeking to block Pennsylvania
from certifying its electoral votes for Joe Biden.
So now the GOP is attempting yet another desperate Hail Mary pass
to overturn the results, this one spearheaded by Texas.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
-in the waning days of his presidency,
Trump has been very clear about two things --
one, he's hoping for the courts, or really anyone,
to intervene and steal the election for him.
And two, despite his catastrophic, sociopathic
mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, he wants credit
for the arrival of a safe, effective vaccine,
which we all know is insane.
Trump's like those guys who say, "We're having a baby!"
You didn't do anything. All right, you did one thing
nine months ago, and by all accounts,
you didn't do that right either.
I doubt Trump is an expert on vaccines.
I mean, his favorite activities are honking horns
and pretending to drive big trucks.
He has the intellect and attention span
of a goldfish with a head injury.
Asking Trump to explain how a vaccine works would be like
asking a basset hound to find the hypotenuse of a triangle.
Trump's not Algernon, he's the other mouse
that got the placebo, and who nobody wrote a book about
because he just sat in the corner of the maze
eating cheese and watching whatever the mouse version
of "Judge Jeanine" is.
"America, it's time to wake up,
because there's one party that's dead-set
on destroying your nation.
I'm speaking, of course, of the Democats.
[Bleep] you, Shoe, you should have told me to take it out.
It's been on all day. Side-eyeing me over there.
In fact --
In fact, for all his desperation to claim credit for the vaccine,
it turns out Trump even botched that, too.
-The Trump administration reportedly passed
on the opportunity to lock in a chance
to buy millions of additional doses
of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine over the summer.
That's according to people familiar with the matter
who spoke to the "New York Times."
The Trump administration brokered a deal
for 100 millions doses for $1.95 billion months ago.
That's enough to vaccinate only 50 million Americans.
Now the company may not be able to provide more of its vaccine
to the United States until next June.
-What? You had the chance to buy more vaccine,
the one thing every expert has said could be
the silver bullet that finally ends the pandemic,
and you just passed on it?
"In my defense, I was pretty high on bleach
and hydroxychloroquine during that meeting.
And now experts are saying we might be
facing vaccine shortages.
I mean, I knew Trump was a [bleep] businessman,
but I didn't think he was this bad.
I'm starting to think if you gave him a time machine,
he'd go back to the year 2000 and buy stock
in apples and Enron.
I mean, what did you spend that money on instead?
The wall? Space Force?
Discount hair dye for Rudy Giuliani?
"You can also use it to tar your driveway. Win-win."
Trump championed the vaccine as the one thing he was doing
to combat the virus, and even that he [bleep] up.
It's like if The Flash showed up to the Justice League
with a pulled hamstring. "You can't run?
That's like your whole thing!"
"Maybe I can help with the plans?
I have good ideas too, Batman!"
And yet, during a White House event yesterday,
Trump still went out of his way to pat himself on the back
for the development of the vaccine.
-We're here to discuss a monumental national achievement.
From the instant the coronavirus invaded our shores,
we raced into action to develop a safe
and effective vaccine at breakneck speed.
It would normally take five years, six years,
seven years, or even more.
Before Operation Warp Speed, the typical time frame
for development and approval, as you know, could be infinity.
-Yes, the old medical cliche -- could be infinity.
I'll never forget when the doctor told my grandpa
he had between six months and infinity to live.
I also like when he says, "as you know."
Like we're all just going to nod our heads and agree with him.
He'd be the [bleep] Jedi.
"These aren't the droids you're looking for, as you know."
"Um, yeah, no, yeah, they're right there.
Step out of the land speeder, sir."
"Thanks for the help, droids. Be-be-boo-boop to you!"
[ Laughter ]
He thinks he can just skate past saying something insane
and we'll all go for it.
It's like if you asked your wife about her day and she said,
"Oh, paid some bills, made a smoothie,
the pool boy was here for a few hours, went to the store,"
and you said, "Wait. We don't have a pool."
But the best part came in the middle of that event
when the twin failures of his presidency --
his disastrous handling of the pandemic
and his historic loss to Joe Biden collided at once.
Because right in the middle of his dumb, self-promoting,
campaign-style vaccine event,
the Supreme Court rejected a desperate last-ditch effort
by Republicans to stop Pennsylvania from certifying
its electoral votes for Joe Biden.
And Fox News, of all the networks,
had to break in during live coverage
of the Trump vaccine event to report the devastating news.
-I want to kick things off -- as I mentioned,
there's a reason we asked you,
in addition to your general expertise
and leadership, but it was that the CDC --
-Alright, we're momentarily interrupting this to pass along
some news that will be distressing for the President.
The U.S. Supreme Court has just rejected a Republican challenge
to Joe Biden's election win in Pennsylvania.
The Supreme Court has taken a look at the request
on the part of Republicans to challenge that,
to re-examine that.
It has rejected that.
The win stands.
Joe Biden now clearly the President-elect
of the United States.
Now back to the summit.
-I mean, it's amazing. I'm surprised Trump
didn't look like post-failure Wile E. Coyote
when they cut back to him.
His favorite network interrupted what was supposed to be
a celebration of his greatest accomplishment
to report the news that the court that was supposed
to help him steal the election, which includes
three of his own appointees, had rejected his bid to overturn
the results of an election he lost.
I'm not sure there's a single moment
that captures this farce any better.
It's like if halfway through "Sesame Street,"
Big Bird interrupted a song about the alphabet,
looked straight into the camera and said,
"Breaking news, kid, no one likes you,
and you're never going to learn how to spell."
Trump put three judges on the Court,
and he was very explicit about the fact
that he wanted them to jump in and steal the election for him,
Bush v. Gore style, and he still lost.
When those three saw the actual court filing, it was probably
like meeting someone you matched with on Tinder in person.
"So that picture you posted, that was before the explosion?"
The right-wing judges on the Supreme Court
are Trump superfans.
They're desperate to side with him.
If he could have given them a case
with even a little meat on it, they were ready to
Hamburger Helper it into a full meal,
but there was nothing there.
They had to admit it. Although, I have to say,
probably my favorite part of this latest Trump
legal face-plant is that Texas Senator Ted Cruz
offered very publicly to present the oral arguments
if the Court took the case, in a sad attempt to curry favor
with Trump and his voters.
-Senator, let me applaud you,
'cause you have offered to step up.
That to me is a slam dunk case the Supreme Court should take.
You're now willing to argue that.
-I believe the Supreme Court should choose to take the case.
I think they should hear the appeal.
And as you noted, the legal team reached out
and asked if I would be willing to present the oral argument
if the Court took the case, and I told them I'd be happy to.
-Now, I'm betting Ted Cruz knew the Supreme Court
wasn't going to take the case, so he had nothing to lose
by posturing and offering to participate.
Say what you will about Ted Cruz, the man is crafty.
As a rule, anytime you see someone succeed
despite reverse charisma, they crafty.
Although, it's a shame. I would have loved to have seen
knockoff General Zod in front of the Supreme Court
arguing that the election results should be overturned
in favor of a candidate who attacked his wife
and said his dad killed J.F.K.
The only way it could have been more pathetic is if Trump was
giving him a swirly during the hearing.
And then, of course, today after the Supreme Court rejected
this latest dumb lawsuit, Trump tried to pretend
he had nothing to do with it, and that actually
a new lawsuit filed by the Texas attorney general
was the real lawsuit that would finally have
all the proof he's been promising
of massive voter fraud.
-This morning the President tweeted,
"Well, this was not my case."
-He says the case that everyone has been waiting for
is the state's case with Texas.
That's because Texas is now suing other battlegrounds
over their results. -He wrote, quote,
"We will be intervening in the Texas case.
This is the big one."
-Oh, so this is the big one? Not the 50 before it?
This is like when in high school when I tried to impress a date
by winning her a stuffed animal at the carnival, and it took me
a bunch of tries, because those things are rigged.
And then when I asked the guy running it if I could just
buy the bear, he said, "Those ain't the rules."
And then I turned around, only to find that Kelsey
had long bailed on me. Yeah.
She went and met up with Tyler Fletcher,
which was always her plan.
Turns out she only agreed to go with me
because her dad said, "If I ever see that Fletcher boy
rolling up here in his BMW again, young lady,
you'll be grounded until graduation."
So now, I'm there, standing with no money,
no bear,
no Kelsey!
Point is, Biden won!
Let it go, dude!
Now I got makeup all over my hands.
I guess it's not a surprise Trump thinks he can just
keep filing as many lawsuits as he wants,
since that's what he's done his whole life.
I mean, even before he became president, he was involved
in 3,500 lawsuits, so 50 is just a drop in the bucket for him.
It's like asking Tommy Chong to take one hit off a bong,
and then asking him, "Do you feel anything yet?"
Incidentally, the lawsuit Trump is mentioning was brought
by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton,
a guy who was already under criminal indictment
for securities fraud when seven of his aides
called on law enforcement to investigate him
for bribery and abuse of office in October.
I guess he's angling for one of those pardons Trump's doling out
to friends and accomplices the way your boss hands out
$5 Starbucks gift cards at the office holiday party.
"Merry Christmas, enjoy half a frappuccino on me.
Half frap!" Paxton wants the legislatures
of four states that went for Biden
to just override the will of their own citizens
and give their electoral votes to Trump,
as he explained on "Fox and Friends" this morning.
-Ken, why is Texas getting involved in this?
-Well, these elections in other states
where state law was not followed as required
by the Constitution affects my voters.
Our argument is that because these states,
like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, did not follow
their own state law, and that these orders
were by other elected officials to change the law
or by other judges, that is unconstitutional.
Therefore, that election... -Right.
-...we can't go back and fix it, but we can say,
"Okay, let's transfer this to the legislature,
which used to do this in other states,
and let them decide the outcome of the election."
-First of all, I always assumed the unspoken part
of "Don't mess with Texas" is that Texas would, in turn,
not mess with the rest of us.
Second, I'm not sure we should take advice
about what the law says from a guy who's already
under criminal indictment, and whose own aides
say he should be investigated for abuse of office.
And not just one or two aides,
seven of his aides came out publicly
and said Paxton broke the law.
It's like an episode of "Law & Order"
where Lennie Briscoe knocks on a suspect's door,
and all the neighbors pour into the hallway and yell,
"Yeah, that guy did it!"
Third, the most horrifying thing
about this whole charade is the idea
that the GOP doesn't just want to invalidate
the votes of millions of Americans,
they want state legislatures to override them.
That's why Trump has been cold-calling officials
in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
He's been asking them to overturn the results
in their states.
There's nothing you can say about this
other than the fact that it's authoritarian behavior.
They're actively trying to light our democracy on fire.
We need to state that plainly.
The Republican Party and the modern conservative movement
are opposed to democracy and want to destroy it.
Just because Trump is scream-tweeting at late night
reruns of Sean Hannity instead of rolling down
Pennsylvania Avenue on a tank in a bunch of designer scarves
doesn't mean this isn't a coup.
It's just a bad one, because the people attempting it
are traffic court lawyers hired off Craigslist
who got their law degrees from DeVry,
or as we here at "Late Night" call them,
the Kooky Cuckoo Coup Crew.
Which, very exciting news,
is going to be a new show on Peacock starring
Kaley Cuoco, Ice-T, and Coco.
That's what we get paid the big bucks for.
The simple, horrifying fact is that it's now going to become
canon in the right-wing cinematic universe
that Trump actually won this election,
and Biden is an illegitimate president.
That's why only 26 Congressional Republicans are willing to say
on the record that Biden is the President-elect.
It's why Republican leaders shot down a simple resolution
yesterday saying as much.
It's why Republican wingnuts, like Newt Gingrich,
insist that any victory
by their Democratic opponents is illegitimate
and must be the result of fraud.
-The objective fact is,
I believe Trump probably did actually carry Georgia.
I believe that the election process is a mess.
I really wish the governor would call a special session
to clean it up.
And the Republicans simply have to turn out
more votes than Stacey Abrams can steal.
-Fox, I know you're scared because you're losing viewers
to Newsmax, but please,
stop putting this racist nut-sack on TV.
In a medical textbooks, Newt Gingrich Disease
is what happens when you try an epic skateboard trick
and land nards-first on the handrail.
You think Stacey Abrams is stealing votes?
Trump's the one cold-calling states trying to get them
to overturn their results like a telemarketer
trying to get seniors to fork over their
Social Security numbers for a free cruise.
At this point, when Trump calls a state lawmaker's iPhone,
the number shows up as "scam likely."
Anyone who thinks this will all just go away
after Biden is sworn in should think again.
The modern Republican Party is an unhinged
authoritarian movement bent on toppling our democracy
in the service of powerful interests
and their wealthy patrons.
Trump didn't create that, he just revealed it
and supercharged it, and it will definitely outlast him,
which is why we need serious, far-reaching reforms
to shore up our institutions.
Otherwise, this assault on our democracy could go on
for months or years or, as experts say...
-Could be infinity.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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