-President Trump traveled to Texas today
to make the case for his border wall
as the government shutdown dragged on.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
This is now the second-longest shutdown in history,
and the effects are very real for millions of people,
from federal workers about to miss paychecks
to potential cuts to housing subsidies and food stamps.
Even our National Parks are not immune.
And now park visitors are resorting to desperate measures.
-16,000 of our 19,000 park employees
are no longer on their jobs.
Along with all the others,
they've been deemed nonessential.
That means roads are left unplowed,
garbage is left uncollected,
bathrooms no longer work or are being maintained.
Trash is piling up, there are health hazards,
and park visitors, in some places,
are taking care of business, shall we say,
along pathways or in the woods.
-Great. Now when someone says,
"Does a bear [bleep] in the woods?"
you can say, "Yeah, and so does Kevin."
[ Laughter ]
The reality is that Trump is subjecting millions of people
to unnecessary pain and suffering
to get his wall and hoping Democrats will blink first.
Reporters asked him if he could empathize
with people who, right now, are literally having to choose
between food and medicine, and he insisted that he could.
-Mr. President, can you relate to the pain of federal workers
who can't pay their bills?
-I can relate.
And I'm sure that the people that are on the receiving end
will make adjustments. They always do.
And they'll make adjustments.
People understand exactly what's going on.
But many of those people that won't be receiving a paycheck,
many of those people agree 100% with what I'm doing.
-I don't know. It's hard to imagine
someone sitting at their kitchen table,
choosing between food and insulin, saying,
"I'm just glad Trump's getting his wall.
Now off to take a dump in the park."
[ Laughter and applause ]
And also, no. No, you cannot relate.
You got a million dollars from your dad,
you lived in a golden tower for most of your life,
and you've never even been to a supermarket,
which we know, because you once told a crowd
you need I.D. to buy groceries.
-You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries,
you need a picture on a card. You need I.D.
-No, you don't.
[ Laughter ]
If you need an I.D. to buy your groceries,
you're an alcoholic.
[ Laughter ]
And --
[ Cheers and applause ]
And if you're a worker going without pay,
it probably stings all the more knowing Trump has no idea
what's actually happening at the border.
All he has are his delusions,
and those delusions are getting weirder and weirder.
Here he is yesterday describing how he thinks migrants
get across the southern border.
-The fact is that if we don't have barriers,
walls, call them what you want,
but if we don't have very strong barriers,
where people can not any longer drive right across --
They have unbelievable vehicles.
They make a lot of money.
They have the best vehicles you can buy.
They have stronger, bigger, and faster vehicles
than our police have and than ICE has
and than border patrol has.
-What are you talking about? [ Laughter ]
They have unbelievable vehicles that are faster than our police?
Did you try to watch the news and accidentally watch
the "Transformers" movie instead?
[ Laughter ]
"These immigrants, they have unbelievable vehicles, folks.
They can fly. They can talk.
They're friends with Shia LaBeouf."
[ Laughter ]
This is actually a new obsession for Trump.
For the last week or so, he's been telling
very bizarre stories about how migrants
are supposedly driving across the Southern border.
Here he is last week trying to explain the route they take
to cross into the U.S.
See if you can follow any of this.
-They get off the road, and they drive out into the desert,
and they come on, they make a left turn.
Usually it's a left, not a right.
They make a right turn before they get to the port of entry.
They go as far as the wall is, or as far as the barricade is,
and then they make a left.
Welcome to the United States.
-He sounds like Google Maps
after you drop your iPhone in the toilet.
[ Laughter ]
"Hey, Siri, can you give me directions to 30 Rock?"
-Get off the road. Drive out into the desert.
Make a left turn.
Usually it's a left turn, not a right.
Make a right turn.
Go as far as the wall, then make a left.
-Yeah, never mind. [ Laughter ]
And that's not the only delusion Trump has had about the wall.
In that same press conference last week,
he claimed that previous presidents
had privately confessed to him
that they wished they had built the wall.
-This should've been done by all of the presidents
that preceded me, and they all know it.
Some of them have told me that we should've done it.
-Now that's an obvious lie,
and every living president has denied it.
But here's what's so weird to me.
Why didn't he just pick a president who was dead?
It would've been so much easier to get away with.
"You know, right before he died,
Ronald Reagan told me he wished he'd built a wall.
Now, you can't ask him because he's dead,
but he totally said it.
It was at a secret meeting in a National Park
where we both took dumps."
[ Laughter and applause ]
It's impossible.
Fully impossible to negotiate with someone
who doesn't operate on the same plane of reality that you do,
which is why his trip to the border today made no difference.
On his way there, he stopped by reporters
to once again argue that only a wall would stop immigration,
adding that technology alone would not work.
-We need border security, and have to have it.
And the only way you're gonna have border security --
there's only one way.
You can have all the technology in the world.
I'm a professional in technology.
[ Laughter ] -No, you're not, no.
You don't know how to operate --
You don't even know how to operate an umbrella.
[ Laughter, cheers, applause ]
So, I mean...
Look at how he's dressed.
He looks like the only technology he's familiar with
is a stair lift.
[ Laughter ]
He shouldn't be in the White House.
He should be at the self-checkout aisle
in the grocery store, yelling at the computer,
"Oatmeal! Oatmeal!"
[ Laughter ]
"I have I.D.!"
[ Laughter and applause ]
And when Trump finally --
finally got to Texas this afternoon,
he held a roundtable
where he made a new argument for the wall.
Trump said, "Walls can't be bad because cars have wheels."
-They say a wall is medieval.
Well, so is a wheel.
A wheel is older than a wall.
And I look at every single car out there,
even the really expensive ones that the Secret Service uses,
and believe me, they are expensive.
I said, "Do they all have wheels?"
"Yes." "Oh, I thought it was medieval."
The wheel is older than the wall.
You know that?
And there are some things that work.
You know what? A wheel works and a wall works.
-I'm sorry -- you had to look at all the cars...
[ Laughter ]
...to confirm they had wheels?
[ Laughter ]
Man, I take it back.
You are a real... -Professional in technology.
-But, seriously, what is wrong with your brain?
Did someone replace your Diet Coke with Nyquil?
I mean, honestly,
how long until he just starts reciting nursery rhymes?
"The buses, they all have wheels, folks.
And the wheels on these buses, they go round and round."
[ Laughter and applause ]
"Round and round. Round and -- All!
All through the town.
All through -- That's why we need a wall."
Trump is frustrated because he's not winning the argument,
and even he knows it.
He spent three years making the wall
the signature promise of his campaign and his presidency
and it got nowhere.
A majority of Americans are against it.
Democrats are now in charge of the House.
And as we saw in November, when voters go to the polls...
-They make a left turn.
Usually it's a left, not a right.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]