-Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the captain's quarters.
We've been having a lot of fun with our new
wordplay-loving sidekick, the sea captain.
But some of you have registered your displeasure
with his time-killing, often humorless interjections.
-Oh, Seth. That reminds me.
How many beers can a tropical bird drink?
-I don't know, sea captain. How many?
-"Two cans"! [toucans] [ Laughs ]
-Oof. Sea captain, you are not helping your case.
-Okay. -Others of you wondered
what happened to the wonderful bits we used to do
with my copy of "The Thorn Birds,"
in which the books would change
over the course of "A Closer Look."
Well, the reality is I would have to personally change them
myself while I was recording, and I don't know,
I just felt a little bit ridiculous knowing our crew
had to watch those videos every day.
So while "The Thorn Birds" is there,
there will sadly be no more book switchery.
So you can just ignore the book
because you're not missing anything.
Just...ignore it.
And speaking of ignoring things,
the president today suggested delaying the November election,
which would be a flagrant violation of the Constitution
and the law, but hey, that hasn't stopped him before.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
Well, here we are.
We're less than 100 days from the presidential election.
The economy just had its largest contraction in history.
There were more than a million jobless claims
for the 19th week in a row.
States are reporting increases in deaths
from an out-of-control pandemic.
And a lawless aspiring autocrat
who I guess also believes in demon sperm,
is sending secret police to American cities
to round up protesters while gutting the Post Office
to delay mail-in voting,
ignoring Supreme Court decisions,
signaling that he'll refuse to accept the outcome
of the election, and now calling for that election to be delayed,
even though he obviously doesn't have the power to do that.
-He tweeted this morning, "With universal mail-in voting,
not absentee voting, which is good,
2020 will be the most inaccurate
and fraudulent election in history.
It will be a great embarrassment to the USA.
Delay the election until people
can properly, securely, and safely vote.
-Oh, great, so not only is he casually suggesting
incinerating American democracy,
he's doing it like he's offering hors d'oeuvres at a party.
Why does he always end tweets like this?
Would you like some delay the election?
Arrest for treason?
Obama Netflix?
Everybody seems to love Obama Netflix.
Now to state the obvious,
Trump does not have the legal power to do this.
The Constitution gives Congress, and only Congress,
the power to set the election date.
Congress passed a law more than a century and a half ago
setting that date, and the 20th Amendment
says the president's term expires in January
no matter what.
All of which, of course, would be news to Trump.
If you locked him in a room and told him to read
the Constitution, you'd come back five minutes later
to find it tucked into his shirt like a bib
while he wolves down a bunch of uncooked Goya products.
[ As Trump ] These beans are like tiny BB pellets.
Oh, you have to cook them? Oh, in what?
Water? What's that?
Oh, it's like Diet Coke
without the chemicals and food coloring?
Where do you get it? The sink?!
[ Normal voice ] Look, it's not enough to just consult
your pocket Constitution, shrug off the president's tweet
and move on, satisfied
that we've outmaneuvered him with a fact check.
Otherwise, we're just like AV club nerds
explaining to the school bully why it's illegal
to steal our lunch money while
he repeatedly dunks our heads in the toilet.
Because the craven husks around Trump
are already laying the groundwork for Trump
to do exactly what he wants to do, law be damned.
They were already doing it
before Trump's psychotic tweet today.
On Tuesday, the Attorney General,
William Barr, was asked if the president had the power
to move the date of an election.
Now this is as straightforward
a legal question as you can possibly get.
It's in the Constitution and in federal law.
There is no ambiguity,
but Barr acted like it was one of the great unsolved mysteries
of the universe.
-Can a sitting U.S. President move an election date?
-Actually, I haven't looked into that question
under the Constitution.
-Well, 2 US Code Section 7 says federal election day
is the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
So if you take that as a correct statute,
is there any executive action by a president to delay?
-I have never been asked the question before.
I have never looked into it.
-Oh, you haven't looked into whether the president
can just unilaterally move the date on an election.
Maybe that's worth doing since Petulant Paddy over here
is our current president.
I don't know what a rhino eats, but if I were pet sitting one
for the weekend, I'd Google it.
Or don't look into it.
Because it is a thing that is clearly prohibited
by the Constitution and federal law
and which has never been done in the history of the country,
including through depressions and wars.
It's not up to you to look into it, you fascist Garfield.
This guy is just willfully ignoring the law.
Barr clearly doesn't care what the Constitution says,
and he doesn't care if Democrats disapprove of his answers.
He's like a high school [bleep] who knows he is not going to
get suspended by the principal
because his father owns the town quarry.
Oh, property damage is against school policy, principal?
I'll make sure to tell Scooch and Mando that
while we're keying your car.
And then today, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
suggested the same thing.
When asked about the president's tweet,
he acted like it was an open question
that would be decided not by the Constitution or Congress,
but by Trump's justice department.
-Can a president delay the November presidential election,
Mr. Secretary?
-I am not going to enter a legal judgment on that
on the fly this morning.
-Can a president delay a presidential election?
-Senator, in the end, the Department of Justice,
others, will make that legal determination.
-No, they won't. It's in the Constitution and federal law.
It's as clear as it could possibly be.
It's not some unsolvable mathematical equation
you have to scratch out on a chalkboard like a janitor,
especially since if Trump were the janitor,
the answer would be, "I can do whatever I want."
It's obvious that these guys are softening the ground
for Trump to contest the election
or even delay if necessary,
and even if he loses, to call the result illegitimate.
Democracy stands in the way of autocracy and oligarchy,
so the autocrats and oligarchs want to get rid of it,
which is what they're doing.
And the GOP, the party of autocrats and oligarchs
are once again solemnly furrowing their brows
and then ducking behind plants
and into elevators like they always do.
Lindsey Graham said, "I don't think
that's a particularly good idea."
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst said, "Not answering any questions."
Texas Senator John Cornyn said, "I think it's a joke, I guess,
I don't know how else to interpret it."
And North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer said,
"I think that if you guys take the bait
he'll be the happiest guy in town.
I read it. I laughed.
I thought, 'My gosh, this is going to consume
a lot of people, except real people.'
And it was clever."
[ Laughs haughtily ] Yes, t'was clever!
T'was clever indeed!
A bit of whimsy to brighten the day!
A bawdy little wise crack.
He's a quick ribald!
Trump isn't clever, and he certainly doesn't joke.
He floats things and then he sees if he can get away with it,
and only if everyone freaks out, he suddenly claims it's a joke.
He's like a husband who tells his wife and her sister,
"We should have a threesome! That's funny, right?
Unless, maybe you guys -- maybe you guys are into it?
Maybe it's not that funny?
Maybe it's a real thing that we should talk about?
I know the room we do it in."
And by the way, media, yes, there are some Republicans
saying the election will happen on time.
Stop giving them credit for that.
That's not a courageous stand. It's just the bare minimum.
Just because the bar is all the way on the floor
doesn't mean we have to give 'em credit for stepping over it.
It's like if your burnout son gets an F on a history final
and you say, "Look who showed up and took the test!
I'm so proud of you, Scooch!"
We can all see what is happening here.
Trump and the GOP are laying the groundwork
to contest the election results in November.
The president is spreading conspiracy theories
about mail-in voting,
openly defying Supreme Court orders,
slowing down mail delivery, and slashing post office hours,
sending secret police to American cities
to crackdown on protesters, and signaling that he'll refuse
to accept the outcome of the election if he loses.
-In general, not talking about November,
are you a good loser?
-I'm not a good loser. I don't like to lose.
I don't lose too often. I don't like to lose.
-But are you gracious?
-You don't know until you see. It depends.
I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election.
I really do.
-Are you suggesting that you might not accept
the results of the election? -No. I have to see.
-Can you give a direct answer you will accept the election?
-I have to see. Look, you -- I have to see.
No, I'm not going to just say yes.
I'm not going to say -- and I didn't last time either.
-Why are we even asking him? We know what he's going to do.
He won the last election, and he still contested the results
and claimed that three million people
illegally voted for Hillary.
Poor winners almost always turn out to be poor losers, too.
-If he loses this time, he's going to say five billion people
voted illegally, and the media was unfair to him
and Hillary snuck into a voting booth
with a crowbar to hack the election
and Obama should be arrested for looking better than him
in an unbuttoned shirt.
And then he's going to tell his lasagna gargoyle over here
to file a lawsuit in every court in the country
while sending his shock troops to kidnap protesters
in a Chrysler Pacifica.
[ As Trump ] We're using American cars, folks.
They wanted to use a Kia Sorento, and I said no,
use the Pacifica.
They just got air conditioning.
[ Normal voice ] And then he'll say something insane like,
you know, this --
-There'll be a time when they're gonna want us
to go in full blast.
We are ready, willing, and able to go in there with great force.
As soon as the cities and states call to ask for help
on a very large basis, we will be there with full force
and we will stop up this horrible situation very quickly.
-So in Portland, they either clean out their city
and do the job and get rid of the anarchists and agitators
which is what they are. They're not protesters.
They're anarchists and agitators.
We have many in jail. Many of them have been put in jail.
It's going to be a long sentence.
They either clean out their city and do it right,
or we're going to have to do it for them.
-Think of the language Trump is using
to talk about Americans in American cities.
"Full blast, full force, clean it out."
Those sound like the settings on a Guy Fieri line of bidets.
That's how dictators talk.
I'd tell him to start wearing a tunic,
but instead of Chairman Mao, he'd look more Ernst Blowhole.
-You know, I've seen a blow hole, Seth.
-Oh. You have? -Yeah.
I'm looking at it right now! [ Laughs ] Har-har-har!
-Sea Captain! I almost tear a muscle
stretching to make a Blofeld reference,
and this is how you repay me? -Love yeah, Seth!
-[ Scoffs ] All right.
The Republican Party is a deeply unhinged
political movement opposed to democracy
if it gets in the way of their goals.
And there have been some high profile examples
over the past few days
that capture the sociopathic incompetence of the GOP.
For example, there was Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert
seen here waiting for the good and the bad.
-Ya burnt! -What are you doing, man?
The only way you're allowed to wear a bandana like that
is if you're a yellow lab in the back of a Jeep.
Gohmert tested positive for coronavirus
and chose to inform his staff about it in person.
-Congressman Gohmert told his staff in person in a room
in the Rayburn House Office Building at the Capitol
that he had just tested positive for the virus.
Yes. In person. Inside.
He got his staff together to tell them
he presently had coronavirus.
-He called them together in a room to tell them in person
that he had a highly infectious respiratory disease.
Did he also ask them to lick the doorknob on the way in?
That's like organizing an orgy to tell everyone you have crabs.
-What? -It just seemed like crabs
was a tee up for you.
-Oh, oh, oh, yeah! Yeah!
-So do you have anything? -Um...
-If you don't, just say you don't.
-Uh...
I don't.
-This is your last show.
-Okay! -And Gohmert, mind you,
notoriously refuses to wear a mask.
In fact, a Gohmert aide told Politico that staffers
are often "berated for wearing masks"
and that "Louie requires full staff to be in the office,
including three interns, so that 'we could be an example
to America on how to open up safely.'"
-Well, you nailed it, dawg!
This is like if in the first 30 minutes of "Jaws,"
the mayor told everyone the water was safe
from inside the shark.
-The president and his administration
are laying the groundwork to contest or delay
a presidential election for the first time in our history
while the Republican Party largely stands around idly,
letting it happen. A pandemic is raging,
our economy is collapsing,
and they're using it as cover to shred our democracy.
We can't just settle for fact checks and finger wags.
We have to do something now.
Otherwise Trump's going to wake up the day after the election
and tell us he's not leaving because he's...
-Not a good loser.
-See? Same book.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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