-Rudy Giuliani admitted in a deposition
that he didn´t try to verify his insane voter fraud lies,
and Ted Cruz decided to pick a fight with Big Bird.
For more on this, it´s time for "A Closer Look."
♫♫
If you have opened Twitter or flipped past cable news
on your TV in the past week,
you´ve probably heard that Democrats
lost an election in Virginia
and won an election in New Jersey,
where Governor Phil Murphy became the first Democrat
to win reelection since the 1970s.
So of course, on cue, the usual suspects are once again
claiming there was fraud.
-In New Jersey, I -- Now, the guy hasn´t conceded, right?
Because we´re going to do a big foren--
I think they´re going to do a big audit
is what I´ve been hearing on the ground
because these votes came in, 40,000 votes,
they´re not real.
They´re not real.
We´ve been getting flood.
I´ve been getting floods of texts on my phone
and e-mails going, "They did it again.
They did it in New Jersey."
Now remember, they still cheated in Virginia,
even though the Republican won.
But for some reason there,
they didn´t do the big jump in the middle of the night.
Maybe it would have been too obvious to steal two horses
at the same time.
You know, I don´t know.
-Lindell really comes to you with the energy
of a sugared-up kid on Halloween telling you about his day.
"We saw a ghost and a skeleton, and then there was --
Wait, wait, another ghost and Kevin was there,
but he fell down and cried,
Everybody, we got so much candy!"
But, okay, a couple of things.
First of all, thanks for clearing up
that you´ve been getting flooded with texts on your phone,
you know, as opposed to texts that you get in the mail
or the ones you can get it Marshalls
and put up on your wall.
Second, these guys love audits,
not to be confused with "aw dis," which is what people say
when Mike Lindell enters a room.
"Aw, dis ass[bleep]."
"I thought two horses dumped ballots in the road,
but it was just regular horse dumps."
Also, what do you mean they cheated in Virginia,
but not enough to win?
Why would they do that?
That would be like if the Jets hacked the scoreboard
so instead of losing to the Colts 45-30 last Thursday,
they lost 45-32.
And that´s right, this is important.
The Jets did lose on Thursday, which stopped them
from having a two-game win streak,
which is good for "Late Night"
because we need easy punch lines about the Jets sucking.
Though, it is bad for our crew, almost all of whom
are Jets fans, and that´s not by accident.
If you want to surround yourself with loyal people
who aren´t going to bail when things get tough,
get people who are still sticking with the Jets.
They are so easy to please.
For crew snack yesterday,
we just put out loose slices of ham,
and I heard one of them say,
"Still better than Mark Sanchez."
Anyway, we´ve long known from all the court cases
the lack of evidence, and, you know, reality
that the people who keep insisting
there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election
are unhinged maniacs and liars.
But now, thanks to a new court case,
we know from their own words that they knew
what they were saying might not be true
because in a newly released deposition,
former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani
essentially admitted he had no evidence for his voter fraud
claims because he didn´t have time to verify them.
-New video exclusive to CNN shows Donald Trump´s
allies saying under oath that they put very little effort
into verifying debunked claims of election fraud
before spreading them on the national stage.
-Before the press conference,
I was told about it.
Sometimes I go and look myself on line when stuff comes up.
This time I don´t have the time to do it.
It´s not my job in a fast-moving case to go out
and investigate every piece of evidence that´s given to me.
-No, of course not. That´s what lawyers are for.
As everyone knows, you´re just the events coordinator
for a landscaping company.
Oh, Rudy. Rudy, sweet Rudy, that is your job.
I mean, it was supposed to be your job.
Although in fairness, Rudy looks less like a guy
who would investigate a crime
and more like the guy sitting on a park bench
who just tells the cops what they´re doing is wrong.
"You think the pickpocket went that way?
Well, then best of luck to you.
If I were the pickpocket,
I´d sit right here on this bench.
Whoa, what´s with the cuffs?"
And it doesn´t surprise me that he didn´t do any vetting
right before his infamous press conference
with fellow crazy person Sidney Powell
since during that press conference,
he was sweating like a guy who knew his facts
might not be rock solid.
My man is perspiring like he just bet his life
savings on a horse called The Three-Legged Rocket.
You really don´t think it´s your job to verify information
before you announce it to the world?
Is this how you operated when you were mayor?
"Thank you for coming to this press conference, everyone.
I have huge news for the city of New York.
Today, I received an e-mail with the subject line
´FWD: FWD: FWD: Free Boner Pills for Life!´
And that´s not just for me,
it´s the life of this entire city.
And in return, all I had to do
was give them our Social Security numbers,
but only the first nine digits."
Rudy seems so tired in that deposition.
And I get it.
It´s exhausting just watching
someone be that crazy.
I can´t imagine what it´s like to live a day to day.
That´s the thing about the modern Republican Party.
They just make everything exhausting.
It´s so hard to follow their insane voter fraud claims
or their latest culture war obsessions.
Every day, it seems like we have to endure one dumb culture war
controversy after another.
And that´s before we even get to the war on Christmas
because, you know, it´s coming.
When Trump was president,
they claim Christmas was saved,
but now the Democrats are in charge again.
You know they´re going to find some school district
somewhere that calls them "holiday decorations"
instead of Christmas decorations.
And Jeanine Pirro is going to spend the entire hour
on her show rage guzzling two bottles of Charles Shaw.
She probably calls them Chuck.
And while we´re on the subject we brought up for no reason,
I´m not pro war on Christmas,
but I wouldn´t mind negotiating a peace treaty
that gets it to stick to reasonable calendar borders.
I mean, it´s encroaching on the other holidays.
There are people out there who start putting up
Christmas decorations the day after Halloween.
The other day I saw an animatronic skeleton
on someone´s porch wearing a Santa hat,
and now my kids think Santa is dead.
[ Laughter ]
Anyway.
Oh, which reminds me
tonight´s "Closer Look"
is brought to you by the word "Anyway."
Need a way back to the political stuff
after a long tangent?
Try "anyway."
[ Laughter ]
Anyway, we had to endure one nauseatingly stupid culture
war controversy after another, like when conservatives started
whining about Potato Head pronouns
or said Joe Biden was going to steal your hamburgers.
And when they lost their minds over the Dr. Seuss estate
voluntarily pulling a few books from publication
that no one cared about anyway.
-Say goodbye to your burgers
if you want to sign up for the Biden climate agenda.
-Americans would have to cut red meat consumption
by a whopping 90%.
-He wants to cut out 90%
of the red meat that you all eat.
-First, they outlaw Dr. Seuss,
and now they want to tell us what to say.
-Look out, Mr. Potato Head, you´re next.
-They want to cancel the Muppets.
They want to cancel Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.
-You see, last week they tried to cancel
Kermit the Frog and Mr. Potato Head?
You see that? -This week alone,
they canceled Mr. Potato Head.
You know, this week alone, they canceled the Muppets.
You know, they´re canceling Dr. Seuss.
-Alright. First of all, Mr. Potato Head isn´t canceled.
He was just on TV.
Oh!
[ Laughter ]
Whoa, hold on a second.
Can´t we change his mouth?
Okay.
[ Laughter ]
Horrifying, but also a little bit better.
Obviously, none of that stuff was canceled or outlawed,
but they have to keep the culture wars burning
because they have nothing else to talk about.
So every week it´s something new.
Potato Head, Dr. Seuss, "Looney Tunes."
Next, they´re going to claim the left is canceling Sandra Boynton
because she refused to include the hippopotamus
and now the hippos are so mad
they´re showing up to school board meetings going berserk.
Any Sandra Boynton fans in the house?!
[ Scattered cheers and applause ]
[ Laughter ]
Wish I had a way out of this. Oh, I do.
Anyway...
And now, like clockwork, the right has come up
with their next culture war target -- Big Bird.
-Big Bird and the backlash that the "Sesame Street" character
is getting from some Republicans
after tweeting he got the COVID shot over the weekend.
-The "Sesame Street" character,
who is six years old on the show,
posted about getting the vaccine
after the Pfizer shot was approved
for kids as young as five.
-Big Bird is literally hawking
an unnecessary vaccine for children.
Big Bird is literally encouraging children
to take a vaccine scientifically that they do not need.
-A lot of propaganda about the vaccines
being not directed to the parents,
not information given to parents so they can make that decision,
but really getting it directly to the kids
in some really creepy ways, including "Sesame Street."
-Texas Senator Ted Cruz responded to Big Bird´s tweet,
saying, "Government propaganda for your five year old."
-Oh, my God. So in the end,
it turns out they were the ones who
-...canceled The Muppets. [ Echoing ]
[ Sinister music playing ]
♫♫
-But seriously [laughs] I have to admit, it´s a tough one.
I mean, who are you going to side with?
The beloved and iconic children´s character
widely celebrated for over half a century
by people of all ages and backgrounds
from all parts of the world, or a widely disliked
wannabe werewolf with the charm of a serial killer
and the voice of a dying barn owl who was once called
"Lucifer in the flesh" by one of his fellow Republicans
after another fellow Republican
joked he was so unpopular you could murder him
and get away with it?
Uh...could be either -- I don´t know.
These people´s brains are so weird.
They wake up in the morning and think it´s a good idea
to go to war with Big Bird.
Next, they´re going to claim Moderna
is how the Swedish Chef says "my dinner."
[ Laughter ]
Oh, I´m going to do it.
[ Laughter ]
[ Clears throat ]
"Hey, Swedish Chef, what are you doing?"
"I´m-a makin´ moderna."
And that -- Yeah, yeah. [ Cheers and applause ]
No, I mean, can´t --
Can´t stop that.
And that´s today´s topical joke for kids.
We want "Closer Look" to be something you can safely watch
with your whole family.
Now where was I? Oh, right.
This [bleep] guy.
Seriously, though, that´s what Republicans
are focused on -- stoking dumb culture war controversies,
fanning anti-vaccine sentiment,
and spreading false claims about voter fraud.
And now we know that even they knew those claims were lies.
It turns out they were so full of it they had to take a...
-...big dump in the middle of the night.
[ Laughter ]
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♫♫
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