President Trump's ex-National Security Adviser
is trying to cash in with a tell-all book after refusing to
testify in Trump's impeachment trial.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
We all know the president is a venal, corrupt,
self-serving maniac.
This much is plain to everyone.
Hell, it was the original title of this show.
You don't have to peel back the layers with Trump.
There's one layer.
It's a thick epidermis
of botox-infused pancake skin
wrapped around a dark howling void where a soul should be.
Yesterday, for example, he called in for yet another
televised therapy session with Sean Hannity,
where he once again repeated his insane lie
that the coronavirus pandemic, which has now killed more
Americans than World War I,
which is growing in about 20 states,
and which is spiking at alarming levels in places
like Arizona and Texas, will just magically disappear.
-It's fading away.
It's going to fade away.
Nobody knew that it was going to be that contagious.
Nobody had any idea it was going to be this kind of contagious
-Honestly at this point, who's the audience for this?
I mean, obviously these two guys will TiVo it
and watch it back later that night while they talk
on the phone, but who else?
Mr. President, you crushed that answer.
Well, you crushed that question.
Not only is this a flagrant and reckless lie,
it's not even new.
When you buy the new Steely Dan album,
do you really want the track list to say,
"Reelin' In The Years Remastered" 12 times?
And full disclosure, if they were remastered as 12 different
versions of "Reelin' In The Years," I guess I'd buy it.
Wait, are Fox News viewers just Steely Dan fans but for Trump?
Trump has repeated a version of this same lie dozens of times.
He's like a Big Mouth Billy Bass of bull[bleep].
-It's going to disappear one day, it's like a miracle.
It will disappear.
-Look, I know Trump's diehard supporters
will never budge from supporting him,
but are they really sitting there
watching the TV saying, "He's right.
No one new how contagious it was.
My buddy told me you could only catch it
by licking a toilet seat under a full moon."
So we all know who Trump is.
Every tell-all book written by a former Trump aide
about their time in the administration
is the exact same.
Some of the details differ,
but they all say the same thing,
the most powerful man in the world
is a mentally incontinent man-toddler
with farina brain who only cares about himself.
The one exception is Sean Spicer's book,
which I think is called, "The Beefing?"
No, no, wait, it was called "Tales From A Podium Pud."
You know what I think it was, "Stinky Tailor, Stupid Guy."
And yes, that was a tortured
"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" joke that almost worked.
You know what, if you think that joke worked,
why don't you text "one" to your grandmother.
And if you think it didn't work, text "two" to your grandmother.
Either way, I think your grandmother
will be happy to hear from you.
Point is, if you're looking for Sean Spicer's book,
you can find it at Barnes & Noble
in the "Door Stop" section.
Anyway, every tell-all Trump book confirms again and again
how uniquely cretinous our president is.
And they are all equally pointless.
We don't need tell-all books. We have a tell-all president.
What he does behind closed doors,
he also does behind open doors.
And windows, into microphones,
and his executive orders.
It would only be interesting if behind closed doors
he was eloquent and curious and not racist.
Then there would be some all to tell.
And the same thing is true of ex-National Security Adviser
John Bolton's new book, except Bolton's book also proves
how loathsome and duplicitous its author is.
You might remember Bolton as the lunatic who's called for
bombing, like, half a dozen countries,
who enthusiastically cheered on the Iraq War
as a member of the Bush administration,
and who helped dismantle the Pandemic Response Unit
as a member of the Trump administration.
Bolton has been a key figure in some of the biggest disasters
of the last 20 years.
I'm pretty sure he was Mr. Moustachelees
in the movie "Cats."
At least before they air brushed out the [bleep].
Ya burnt.
Bolton hasn't expressed
so much as a scintilla of regret
for all the horrific stuff he's been involved in.
In fact, he repeatedly went on TV for years
and claimed that the Iraq War, which killed
hundreds of thousands of people, was actually a success,
and said the only thing he would have done differently
in hindsight was leave the Iraqis on their own sooner.
-I think the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,
that military action was a resounding success.
I think the mistakes that were made subsequently,
setting up the coalition provisional authority
and others that followed from it, are lessons about what to do
after a regime is overthrown.
What I would have done differently is much earlier,
much sooner after the overthrow, given it back to the Iraqis --
and I'll exaggerate for effect here --
but given them a copy of "The Federalist Papers"
and said "good luck."
-Spoken like a true psycho.
You're like a guy who goes to a house party, gets drunk, vomits,
passes out in his vomit, [bleep] his pants, wakes up,
then gives you an Emily Post book of etiquette
and says, "You might want to read this."
So Bolton has never faced consequences for any of the
calamities he helped bring about.
And now rather than answer the call
when his country needed him, he's cashing in
with a $2 million book deal.
And in that way, he is exactly like Trump
and all the other ghouls in the modern Republican Party.
He burned everything down, stuffed his hands in the till,
grabbed as much cash as he could,
and left everyone else to clean up the mess.
Honestly, Trump should be proud.
[ As Trump ] A man after my own, enlarged heart.
And I think if we listen closely
we're going to have a beep coming up.
[ Gasps ] Did you hear that?
It could be a few more minutes.
[ Normal voice ] And sure enough, Bolton's tedious
and condescending book does, in fact,
confirm every bad thing you already thought about Trump,
including the impeachment case
Bolton could have helped with months ago.
-Bolton says Trump did not want to send funds to Ukraine
until they sent him dirt on Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden,
just as he was accused of doing
and acquitted by the Republicans in the Senate.
Bolton says Trump told the Chinese premier
to go ahead and build concentration camps
for the country's Muslim minority.
He also says Trump pleaded explicitly face-to-face
with Xi, China's premier, to, quote,
"Ensure he would win the coming election."
-So not only did the President of the United States
extort multiple countries to help him cheat
in the 2020 election and encourage a totalitarian regime,
to engage in ethnic cleansing against a persecuted
religious minority, but Bolton witnessed it all
but did nothing.
I pray that one day these two
get to share a cell together in the Hague.
It would make for a great buddy comedy.
These guys are a real Turner and Douche.
It would be like a modern day "Perfect Strangers."
And yes, in this situation Trump would be
the Balki Bartokomous character.
[ As Trump ] In my country, we drink water with both hands.
Don't be ridiculous.
[ Normal voice ] So let's see, we got "Perfect Strangers,"
in there today, "Steely Dan," "Turner and Hooch,"
and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy."
So I think we've more than taken care of our teen viewers
this evening. Also, I can't wait
for all the fake China hawks in the GOP like Ted Cruz
and Marco Rubio to pretend they haven't read Trump's comments.
Cruz is gonna grow a beard so thick
reporters won't be able to find him.
And yes, Bolton's book is also full of the typically
embarrassing details you'd expect to hear about life
in the Trump White House.
For example, you might remember
that Trump coined -- coined -- the nickname
"Little Rocket Man" for Kim Jong-un.
But then after their summit in Singapore, Trump pretended the
name was a compliment and tried to send Kim a gift.
"In the months following the summit, Bolton described Trump's
inordinate interest in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
delivering an autographed copy of Elton John's 'Rocket Man'
on CD to Kim during Pompeo's follow-up visit to North Korea.
Trump had used the term 'Little Rocket Man' to criticize
the North Korean leader but subsequently tried to convince
Kim that it was a term of affection.
'Trump didn't seem to realize Pompeo hadn't actually seen
Kim Jong-un during the trip,
asking if Pompeo had handed the CD, wrote Bolton.
'Pompeo had not.
Getting this CD to Kim
remained a high priority for several months.'"
Okay. First of all, I love that it was a CD in the year 2018.
Knowing Trump, his plan was to get Kim Jong-un to pay a penny
for that and 11 other CDs and then have him on the hook
for the rest of his life. "Classic, Columbia House."
Second, it's so weird to give someone an autographed copy
of a CD that isn't yours.
For Christmas one year I gave my mom "Wolf Hall"
but I didn't sign it.
So a con artist warmonger is cashing in by detailing horrific
abuses of power by a con artist president
subverting our democracy,
and all the while the Republican Party is just standing by,
letting it happen.
We're all watching right now
as our institutions fail us in a time of acute crisis.
Police are beating protesters with impunity,
a deadly pandemic is ravaging the nation,
and unemployment is higher than it's been in a century.
And many people who thought the government
would be there to protect them are learning that it's not.
It's like being on an airplane and assuming the oxygen mask
will be there in an emergency, and then you hit some turbulence
and the only thing that comes down is a voucher that says,
"We know you have many choices when you fly.
Thank you for choosing us, and please, rest in peace."
And in many ways, the various crises we're experiencing
right now are connected in at least one sense.
The structural inequality and the institutional failures
laid bare by the coronavirus pandemic helped set the stage,
in part, for the unprecedented mass demonstrations
against systemic racism and police brutality.
-I think we were primed for this moment by the coronavirus.
By a lot of the American mythology being laid bare.
One, the idea we can be relentlessly upwardly mobile
and that white folks have sort of their grasp
on the American dream.
When the economy shut down
and people realized they were
two paychecks away from destitution
and the government may not be there for them,
there was a sense of vulnerability
and a physical vulnerability.
And then as we saw, the coronavirus made people
lean into their neighbors.
Once you tap into that source of vulnerability, interdependence,
humanity and and awareness of inequality
that the coronavirus has exposed,
you're primed for something big.
-She's right. The pandemic made the
failures of our institutions very real
for tens of millions of people.
And in turn, it led to a deep sense of community solidarity.
People had to look out for each other
because they realized the government wouldn't,
by checking on neighbors, supporting local businesses,
and liking your friends' Instagram pics
of their janky banana bread,
even though they have already posted half a dozen
banana bread pics, and they are not getting any better.
You're over-mixing the batter, Steven.
[ Sighs ]
Your bananas aren't ripe enough.
It [bleep] breaks my heart to tell you that, Steve.
Your bananas aren't ripe enough, bro,
and you're embarrassing yourself on social media.
People are discovering that their government just isn't
there for them, thanks in part to years of concerted efforts
by the moneyed class
and the corporate elite to hollow it out.
If every year you pump trillions into corporate tax cuts
and the military and cut everything else,
you're gonna end up with a country where millions of
people don't have jobs or healthcare,
billionaires are doing great, and everyone else
is met with tear gas and riot gear.
I mean, think of what else we could be spending money on
right now instead of tanks for local police departments.
And even if you really want to spend the money on tanks,
the least you could do is give them to nurses
and postal workers instead of the police.
If instead of a tiny little mail car, every postal worker
had a tank, they would make damn sure
you got that Pottery Barn catalog.
In fact, one small thing we could keep spending money on
are the additional unemployment benefits provided by
the coronavirus stimulus package.
As you might recall, the bill added $600
to unemployment benefits, which Republicans
tried to get rid of at the time,
a move that enraged Bernie Sanders.
-And now I find that some of my Republican colleagues
are very distressed. They are very upset
that somebody who is making 10, 12 bucks an hour
might end up with a paycheck for four months
more than they received last week.
Oh, my God, the universe is collapsing.
Imagine that.
Somebody who's making 12 bucks an hour,
now like the rest of us, faces an unprecedented economic crisis
with the 600 bucks on top of their normal,
their regular unemployment check
might be making a few bucks more for four months.
Oh, my word.
Will the universe survive?
-Say you what you will about Bernie, but we really missed
An opportunity for some grade A old man sarcasm
in the debates with trump.
Oh, the media is mean to you?
How will the universe survive?
You know what we used to do
when someone was mean to us back in my day?
We didn't tweet. We rode our bikes
down to the sandlot and challenged them
to a game of baseball.
On Sunday, Trump economic adviser
Larry Kudlow said the Trump administration would cut off
the additional $600 because it somehow disincentivizes
people from going back to work.
-The federal government program for unemployed Americans
gives them an extra $600 a week in benefits.
But it's slated to run out in six weeks.
Now, obviously the health effects and economic effects
are going to last longer than that.
Should American families that are receiving these extra
$600 checks right now expect that money to stop in August?
-Well, unemployment benefits will not stop in August.
What may well stop -- and this reform is necessary -- almost
all businesses, frankly, on both sides of the aisle,
or mostly both sides of the aisle,
understand that the $600 plus up, that's above
the state unemployment benefits that they will continue
to receive is, in effect, a disincentive.
I mean, we're paying people not to work.
It's better than their salaries would get.
-I don't know. I think that says less about unemployment benefits
and more about how little we pay workers,
you senile business egg.
Also, I love that he thinks all these people are on a salary.
Oh, so you're a driver for Papa John's?
What is that, 100k a year in stock options?
I bet you get stock options, I presume.
So you think we're paying people not to go to work?
We're paying them because our sociopathic government failed
to protect them from a deadly disease,
and our barbaric capitalist system
has rendered them expendable.
Not everyone can spend their day golfing
and watching TV like the guy you work for.
if we're paying anyone not to work, it's him.
The only way Trump could watch more TV is if golf courses
started putting tiny screens in the bottom of the cup.
The people at the top are stuffing their hands
in the till, trying to cash out before everything burns down.
And meanwhile, they won't even let you keep an extra $600 bucks
a week during a pandemic they failed to stop.
I've got to be honest, sometimes it really does feel like --
-The universe is collapsing.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
As New York struggles to re-open,
remember that we're still a city in crisis,
and City Harvest has been
stepping up to meet the increased need.
If you're watching this online, you can hit the donate button.
Stay safe, wash your hands, we love you.