-As the house prepares
for a formal vote to authorize
the impeachment inquiry into President Trump,
Republicans are comparing their situation to a horror movie.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Suspenseful theme plays ] [ Cheering and applause ]
Just step back and remember that, from day one,
the actual facts in the Ukraine scandal
have been damning for the president.
We have the notes from the call.
We know that Trump held up
hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid
that Congress had specifically directed to Ukraine
and, while he was holding up that aid,
Trump asked the Ukrainian president
to investigate his political rivals.
It's all right there.
Trump mentions the Bidens, by name, multiple times.
The only -- the only -- legitimate reason
a president has ever had for mentioning Joe Biden
on a call with a foreign leader is when Obama had
to apologize for him.
[ Laughter ] [as Obama] Uh, Mr. Prime Minister,
I'm, uh, sorry about Joe.
[ Laughter ] Just because he could see
London and France does not mean he, uh...
should've anything about your underpants.
[ Laughter ]
And, of course, let's not forget that, during that phone call
with the president of Ukraine, Trump literally said the words,
"I would like you to do us a favor."
Remember, during the Russia investigation,
when everyone was wondering if there would be a smoking gun,
well, this is the smoking gun.
It turns out the smoking gun was
Donald Trump's mouth the whole time.
[ Laughter ] And his brain,
much like a revolver,
is only capable of holding six words.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheering and applause ] Now, we know -- we know --
We know that one of those words is "perfect"
because Trump keeps insisting, every time he speaks,
almost without fail, that his phone call
with the president of Ukraine was not just unimpeachable,
but perfect.
He has said it dozens of times,
including multiple times just in the last week.
-The level of unfairness for a perfect conversation
with the president of Ukraine.
This was a perfect conversation.
But this was a perfect conversation.
It's one conversation that I had
with the president of Ukraine
that was perfect. [ Laughter ]
I had a perfect conversation with the president of Ukraine.
Perfect. The conversation has been perfect.
[ Laughter ] I have a perfect conversation.
Perfect. The conversation was --
was perfect.
[ Laughter ] -Stop saying "perfect"!
When you overcompensate like that,
it only makes you [laughing] sound guiltier.
[ Laughter ] Most people, if you accuse them
of robbing a bank would say, "I didn't do it."
Trump would say --
[as Trump] It was a perfect transaction.
[ Laughter ]
I filled out the slip; the teller was polite.
Perfect. [ Laughter ]
Perfect.
[ Fresh laughter ]
Trump is just a weird, weird man.
He's like an alien who learned to mimic human behavior,
[ Laughter ] but didn't do all the homework.
Like when he was givin' out Halloween candy
at the White House and, for some reason,
[ Laughter ] decided to put some
on top of a kid's head.
[ Fresh laughter ] What's wrong with you?
Are you -- Is this your first Halloween on Earth?
[ Laughter ] [as Trump] On my home planet,
you place the candy up on the head of the minion,
[ Laughter ] where it waits.
until all seven moons are in alignment.
If Trump's gonna do that, he should have to put candy
on the head [laughing] of all his minions.
We're joined now by White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller.
Is that a Hershey Kiss on your head?
[ Laughter ] [as Miller] It is.
The president put it here and I, for one, am happy
we finally have a leader with the courage
to put candy on the heads of the American people.
[ Laughter ] But Trump's insistence
that the call was perfect is actually a huge problem
for his fellow Republicans.
Those Republicans are reportedly dreading having
to actually cast a vote in the impeachment inquiry,
if it gets to the Senate because, on one hand,
they know what Trump did was wrong,
but, on the other hand, Trump won't admit it was wrong.
So they have no wiggle room.
They're basically parents
sitting in the principal's office, saying,
"I promise our son won't pull the fire alarm again,"
while the son is sitting next to them, saying --
[as Trump] Oh, yeah, I'm gonna do it again.
[ Laughter ] And they have to say,
"He's not gonna to do it again.
He's not gonna pull it.
He knows what he did was wrong." And he's saying --
[as Trump] It wasn't wrong. It was perfect.
[ Laughter ] It was super loud
and it was super funny.
[ Laughter ]
And, on top of that, Republicans are also afraid
of what else might come out during the impeachment inquiry.
According to The Washington Post,
Republicans voiced exasperation at the expectation
that they defend the president
against the troublesome picture that had been painted,
with neither convincing arguments from the White House
nor confidence that something worse will soon be discovered.
One veteran Republican senator said,
"It feels like a horror movie."
Yeah, every minute with Donald Trump
feels like a horror movie.
[ Laughter ] That's why Rudy always looks
like he just closed the medicine cabinet
and saw the reflection of the killer behind him.
[ Laughter ] And, I'm sorry, but you guys
don't get to complain that you're in a horror movie
[laughing] when you're the ones
who invited the Babicrook into the White House.
[ Laughter ] But Republicans were right
about one thing: It does keep getting worse
as more information comes out about the quid pro quo
Trump and his team tried to orchestrate with Ukraine.
For example, you might remember that the memo from the call
that was released from the White House specifically said
it was not a verbatim transcript of the discussion,
but that didn't stop Trump from insisting it was, anyway.
-You had stenographers,
you had people that took it down exactly.
It was a perfect call.
All you have to read what they wrote down, the stenographers.
They wrote down an exact call.
We had stenographers on the phone,
takin' it down, word-for-word.
This is an exact, word-for-word transcript
of the conversation, right?
Taken by very talented stenographers.
-First of all, they must've been talented
to make sense of what the hell you are saying.
[ Laughter ] In fact, we know --
we know it's hard to transcribe Trump because, one time,
Trump could not say the word "origins,"
so the White House literally had to make up a new word,
spelled "oranges," [ Laughter ]
which appeared in an actual White House transcript
because that's how Trump kept pronouncing it.
-I hope they now go and take a look at the oranges,
[ Laughter ] the oranges of the, uh,
investigation, the beginnings.
The Mueller Report, I wish, covered
the oranges, how it started. [ Laughter ]
-Remember when the president of the United States
couldn't even say the word [laughs] "origins"?
Like a college freshman
who accidently took too big of a rip off a bong.
[ Inhaling raspily ]
You know what's a funny word?
[ Laughter ]
Orange-ins.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Orange-ins.
Also, it definitely seemed, at the time,
like the memo of Trump's call was not, in fact,
a complete transcript because there were
multiple ellipses throughout
and those were definitely not pauses
because Donald Trump does not take pauses.
He just yammers until he runs out of oxygen
and then inhales like he's about to go pearl diving.
[ Laughter ] [ Huffing and puffing ]
[ Fresh laughter ] This week, we found out
that the transcript Trump claimed was word-for-word
was not, in fact, word-for-word.
The top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council,
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman,
who listened to the call, testified on Tuesday
that the notes from the call had some missing phrases
and that he tried to correct the transcript.
Now, to be clear, the phrases do not fundamentally change
lawmakers' understanding of the call, but nonetheless,
this makes clear that Vindman is an extremely credible witness
who offered a firsthand account of critical episodes
in the quid pro quo and was so troubled
by Trump's July phone call with Ukraine's president
that he reported his concerns to his superior.
The behavior was so troubling that Trump's allies
can't actually defend it, so, instead,
they're attacking the process
and the witnesses themselves,
like Vindman, a decorated Iraq War veteran
who received a Purple Heart.
Trump allies in Congress and the media have suggested
that Vindman might have an affinity towards Ukraine
because he emigrated from there when he was three.
-So, he's got a Purple Heart and he is from the Soviet Union.
He emigrated here
and has an affinity to the Ukrainian people.
We also know he was born in the Soviet Union,
emigrated with his family, young.
He tends to feel simpatico with the Ukraine.
-Simpatico? What are you,
[ Laughter ] a right-wing beat poet?
That cat wigged out.
Because he's simpatico, daddy-o, you dig it?
[ Laughter ]
Republicans can't defend Trump's corrupt abuses of power
because they are indefensible.
There's nothing they can say.
In fact, they're so at a loss to defend him that,
even when it comes up in private,
they quickly move on to other topics.
Here's how Democratic Senator Chris Coons explained
his private conversations with Republicans in the Senate
about impeachment.
-I've worked hard to develop
some meaningful friendships
with my Republican colleagues,
in order to be able to legislate on a wide range of issues.
We are having no meaningful conversations
-Hm. -about what's the path forward
about the president's conduct with regard to Ukraine.
When I've tried to open conversations about this,
my friends changed the subject.
-How do you just change the subject?
Let's talk about impeachment.
"Speaking of peaches, would you like some fruit?"
[ Laughter ]
I got a bowl fulla --"
-Oranges.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Trump allies
[ Whistling ] have run out of defenses,
so, now, they're just whining about the process
and smearing a witness simply because he was alarmed
by the president's corrupt behavior.
Republicans have nothing left to say,
so all they can do is repeat Trump's lies
and some of them are doing it...
-Word-for-word.
[ Laughter ] -This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]