-Amid a torrent of national outrage
and widespread protests over the Supreme Court's
grotesque decision to shred abortion rights,
Republicans are shamelessly claiming that it's Democrats
who are staging riots by peacefully protesting.
And, on top of that,
they're trying to gaslight everybody into thinking
nothing has been banned as a result of this decision.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]
Tens of thousands of outraged Americans poured
into the streets over the weekend
to channel their grief and indignation
over the fact that the right to bodily autonomy
of women and pregnant people was incinerated
by a corrupt gang of unaccountable,
right-wing theocrats who definitely think
"The Scarlet Letter" was a comedy, including --
[ Laughter ] the racist neighbor who calls the cops
when your leaves blow on his lawn,
Mike Pence's son...
or dad...
[ Laughter ]
...and the sniveling rich kid who buys the town rec center
and bulldozes it to build a luxury condo.
[ As Kavanaugh ] You can hold all the fundraisers you want!
You'll never raise enough money
to save your precious indoor pool!
[ Laughter ] Poll after poll after poll
has shown that a large majority of Americans
are opposed to overturning Roe,
and that majority showed up in large numbers
over the weekend in a series of nationwide protests.
-The decision sent tens of thousands of people
into the streets this weekend to protest.
-There were nonstop demonstrations over the weekend
and they're expected to continue.
-All day long, the crowds have been steadily building here
at Washington Square Park.
Across the nation,
at least 100 demonstrations are planned in the coming days.
-I'm most worried about what comes next
because Roe v Wade was a precedent
for Obergefell v Hodges, Loving v Virginia,
Irving v Texas -- gay marriage,
interracial marriage, and privacy in the bedroom.
And those, as Clarence Thomas came out yesterday,
they're going to be falling like dominoes.
-Yeah, that's right. And let me just note,
for a moment, the difference between the protesters
at a pro-abortion rights rally, who are deeply familiar
with the jurisprudence and have read the text
of Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion
and, say, the dinguses who showed up
to the Capitol on January 6th, hopped up on forwarded emails
and Reddit threads, to jack lecterns
and dress like werewolves from a crappy role playing game
that came out on Sega Genesis in 1994.
[ Laughter ]
[ Laughter and applause ]
And, yeah, I made sure
to call it a lectern, this time,
because a bunch of jackals in our YouTube comments section
[ Laughter ] lost their [bleep] every time I called it a podium,
because I guess that's the real crime from January 6th.
[ Laughter ]
And let me just say, as a general rule, that --
and this is just me speaking --
it feels like a bad sign when we have to know
this many names of Supreme Court cases.
I open Twitter. I see some new,
horrifying case trending, like
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen,
in which the court magically invented
a constitutional right to concealed carry;
or Carson v Makin, in which the court forced
local governments to fund religious schools;
or Wally v Spell Check,
in which the court found that our cue card guy, Wally,
is not required to double-check the spelling on the cue cards.
[ Laughter and applause ]
-It -- It looks right to me, Seth.
-It's wrong and you know it's wrong.
-Sorry. Take it up with the court.
[ Laughter ] -Ugh!
This is, suffice it to say,
a radical court just mowing down precedents they don't like
and selectively reading
whatever they want in the Constitution
to further their brazen, ideological agenda.
They literally just pick and choose the clauses they like
and ignore the ones they don't.
Like the one that prohibits the government
from respecting an establishment of religion
or the one that says guns are for a well-regulated militia
or the one that says,
"Oh, no, citizen shall ever be denied the right
to use a teleprompter."
Oh, interesting. Did you ever notice that one, Wally?
-Uh, um, uh --
Expand the court!
-Wally!
[ Laughter ]
So, Americans are understandably outraged
that a rogue court just decided, on a whim,
to shred abortion rights, purely because it could,
and went even further, essentially announcing,
through Thomas's concurrence,
that it would target contraception,
marriage equality, and privacy next.
And, yet, the shameless weirdos on the right,
instead of confronting the reality
for millions of Americans who just lost
a fundamental constitutional right,
putting their health at risk
and relegating them to second-class status,
chose, absurdly, to accuse proabortion activists
of staging riots.
-When you look at the Democrats, if they do not get their way,
what do they do?
They go out and they riot.
-The left doesn't know how absurd they look.
They're fighting, they're having these hissy fits.
Every time they don't like something, they hit the streets.
They become violent.
-Protests, vandalism, erupting across the country,
from Portland to Washington, D.C.
immediately following
the Supreme Court's abortion ruling Friday.
-I don't think anything's going to calm down the far left.
They're always looking for something
to scream about and burn buildings over.
-Whenever a news story happens that Fox knows is bad
for Republicans politically, like overturning
an overwhelmingly popular constitutional right,
Fox tries to pivot by convincing your grandparents
that antifa is currently outside their house, right now,
[ Laughter ] threatening to steal their flagstones
and take their lawn gnomes hostage.
[ Laughter ] "Hello, 911? There's a socialist
outside my house, attacking my mailbox.
Yes, I know he's a liberal
because he's wearing short shorts."
[ Laughter ]
They love to do this childish thing where they accuse the left
of doing the thing they actually did.
Like they're the ones who fomented a violent coup
to overthrow the government.
Today, we literally found out, from shocking testimony,
that Trump wanted his supporters to march to the Capitol armed
and said security should let them through with weapons.
But if someone holds up a sign that says, "My body, my choice,"
right-wingers lose their [bleep].
"These liberal protesters just march wherever they want!
At least, when we tried to hang Mike Pence,
we were courteous enough to give him a five-minute warning,
by chanting, 'Hang Mike Pence!'
[ Laughter ]
We gave him a head start!"
And, when they're not lying and calling the left violent,
they're lying and calling the left hysterical
because, again, they're aware
that this could be bad for them politically,
so, they're trying to have it both ways.
They want to celebrate the victory,
while also gaslighting everyone into thinking nothing
has actually been banned.
-The Supreme Court didn't outlaw it.
What they did was move it back to the states.
-What is so interesting to me --
calls coming into our office, when they would say,
"Oh, we don't want a ban on abortion,"
we would say, "Well, it's not."
-This is not a ban on abortions across the country.
This puts this back in the hands of the people.
-The liberals are misstating this.
Abortion is not banned in all states.
-I don't think we can emphasize enough --
abortion is not illegal.
It's not been outlawed.
-If you watch some of these tweets and you see some
of this reporting, you think abortion's been banned,
nothing's been banned.
-Nothing's been banned? Are you insane?
This is the [bleep] Jedi mind trick I've ever seen.
[ Laughter ] Of course, with a Jedi mind trick,
you usually need to be able to project calm,
and Hannity is incapable of that.
[ As Hannity ] These are not the droids you're looking for!
[ Laughter ] They are Hunter Biden's droids.
Rudy Giuliani got them at a junk market
from Jar Jar Binks. Rudy joins us now.
[ As Giuliani ] Sean, yousa not gonna believe
what meesa gonna tell you.
[ Laughter ]
Thirteen states have trigger laws,
that either made abortion instantly illegal,
as soon as the decision was handed down,
or will make it illegal very soon.
And there are several more states that are likely to join,
meaning all or most abortions
could soon be illegal or severely restricted
in at least 20 states, if not more.
This ruling was not theoretical.
It put millions of women
and people who can become pregnant
in jeopardy immediately.
These guys don't issue hypothetical rulings.
It's a rogue court hell-bent on remaking America
as an authoritarian, right-wing theocracy.
Conservatives have shattered the court
and shredded whatever remaining legitimacy it may have had.
This is an institution that counts, among its members,
two who have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct;
several who lied to Congress
to get the gig, in the first place;
at least one whose seat was stolen;
another whose family made money from right-wing groups
and didn't report it,
and who ruled on cases implicating his spouse,
who was directly involved in a coup
to overthrow the United States government;
and another who, during his confirmation hearing,
claimed there was a shadowy plot to destroy him
orchestrated by, among other people,
the Clintons.
-This whole two-week effort
has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit,
fueled with apparent pent-up anger
about President Trump and the 2016 election,
fear that has been unfairly stoked
about my judicial record,
revenge on behalf of the Clintons.
-Remember that? Talk about hysterical.
[ Laughter ] Are we all just supposed to go back to pretending
this guy could be a fair-minded judge
who puts partisan politics aside,
after he essentially accused Hillary Clinton
of sneaking into his closet and writing,
"Beers with PJ and Squi" on his high school calendar.
[ Laughter ]
Not to mention the fact that
a majority of the conservative justices on the court
have been appointed by Republican presidents
who lost the popular vote, including three by Trump,
who lost twice, by a combined 10 million votes.
One of his appointees even posed with him
on the White House balcony for a political photo op
eight days before the election,
like they were ushering in the 75th Annual Hunger Games.
[ Laughter ] [ As Trump ] May the odds be ever in your favor.
We love the Hunger Games, don't we, folks?
[ Laughter and applause ] We love. Everybody loves --
Everybody loves Katniss Everdeen,
but for my money, the king of the Hunger Games?
Joey Chestnut. Joey Chestnut --
[ Laughter ] when it comes to the Hunger Games,
you can't beat Joey. I met him once at Coney Island,
[ Laughter ] the great Joey Chestnut.
He walked up to me.
I'll never forget. Tears in his eyes.
He walked up to me.
I'll never forget what he said.
He said -- [ Mumbling ]
[ Laughter and applause ] The Supreme Court
has been revealed as a corrupt and anti-democratic institution
whose conservative majority has shredded
whatever legitimacy it may have had
by dismantling a widely popular constitutional right
to bodily autonomy, purely because it could.
It's a rogue court that just cherry-picks the precedents
and the parts of the Constitution they like
and discards the ones they don't.
That's it. Their opinions aren't serious legal documents.
They're just wordy, judicial...
-Hissy fits.
[ Laughter and applause ] -This has been
"A Closer Look."
♪♪
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