-Donald Trump apparently stashed highly classified documents
about the nuclear capabilities
of a foreign nation at his country club
and reportedly bragged to friends he had intelligence
about the French president's sex life.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
Before we get to the story
about a deeply compromised ex-president
with various connections to international criminals
and shady financial entanglements
who apparently stole highly classified documents
about nuclear capabilities and left them lying around
the basement of his fake marble golf lair --
you know, normal politics stuff --
there's also been an intense heat wave
happening in California and much of the West right now.
Which, first of all, should be yet another wake up call
to the imminent dangers of climate change,
but it's also one of those stories
that comes along every so often that neatly captures
just how craven and ghoulish the modern GOP
has become under Donald Trump.
You see, California Governor Gavin Newsom
asked residents of the state to conserve energy
for a few hours to avoid blackouts,
and so far, it's worked.
Californians banded together
and kept the power grid running without issue.
But then this mid-November Jack-o-lantern
who sounds like Urkel swallowed a kazoo
decided to chime in on the whole thing
in a way that revealed a complete lack of shame
and self-awareness for no other reason
than he's apparently just a glutton for humiliation.
-I love that Gavin Newsom was wearing his fleece,
obviously in cool air conditioning,
saying, "Let them eat cake. Let them sweat.
You don't get air conditioning."
It's like John Kerry who flies his private jet
all over the planet, lecturing people
that you poor, gritty working class
with dirt under your fingernails,
you need to go without an automobile.
You need to turn your air conditioner off.
In fact, you need to just stay home and eat worms.
-Now, if he has worms on the brain,
it's probably because there was one in the bottle
of the tequila he drank in Cancun after he fled his state
while his constituents froze in a deadly winter storm.
Do you guys remember that? Is it bad?
Is it bad when your senator looks like Harold Hill
trying to catch a train out of town?
Now, aside from the Cancun hypocrisy
from zombie Danny Zuko over here,
I would also like to point out that, unlike California,
Texas's deregulated power grid
actually did fail during that deadly snowstorm in 2021,
and remains so fragile that Texas officials
basically did the same thing as California earlier this year.
Texas's grid operator urged electricity conservation
as the heat wave drove up demand.
In fact, the state's power grid operator asked Texans
to turn up their thermostats
and postpone running major appliances
between 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., 6 hours.
That's just enough time to book a flight to Cancun
and then have your neighbors, who apparently all hate you,
rat you out to "The New York Times."
Remember that?
When Cruz invited his neighbors to come to Cancun with him,
and instead, they immediately called the newspapers
to complain about how much of [bleep] he was.
Imagine how much you have to dislike
someone to call a newspaper about it.
I don't even know how to call a newspaper.
What was that conversation?
"Man, Cruz stinks. You gonna tweet about him?"
"No, I'm calling the newspapers.
I want every single person
staying at a hotel to hear about this."
Anyway, Cruz is just one of the more noxious examples
of the GOP's many shameless liars and Trump toadies.
There's also Florida Senator Marco Rubio,
who has been one of Trump's most vocal defenders
throughout the intensifying criminal investigation
into all the classified documents
Trump apparently had stashed away
at his off-brand Marriott
for disbarred personal injury lawyers.
Rubio had already dismissed the investigation
as a storage issue last week,
and now he's complaining about leaks to the media.
-If true, this "Washington Post"
report highly classified documents
at Mar-a-Lago that only a cabinet-level officer
or higher could even look at.
That doesn't seem like the kind of thing
you should have in your post-presidential desk drawer.
-Well, let's break this down.
First of all, again, we really don't know,
'cause let's go back and understand
that all of this information
is coming from one side and one place,
and that is sources with knowledge of the investigation.
Who are the sources with knowledge of the investigation?
The FBI and the Justice Department,
and they are leaking to the media.
And the only reason to leak to the media
is to influence the narrative,
which tells you this is being politicized,
which is doing damage to the FBI,
the Justice Department,
to important institutions to our country.
-What do you think does more damage
to our country's institution?
Leaking information about an investigation
of a great public interest,
or Donald Trump bringing home national secrets
on his last day at work like Henry Winkler
taking home the Fonzie jacket when they wrapped "Happy Days"?
And I know the Fonzie jacket is in the Smithsonian now,
but that's only after the Feds raided Henry's house.
Oh. Oh, he seems sweet, ol' Henry Winkler,
but he almost never leaves a room
without a stolen prop in his pocket.
[ Laughter ]
But you know, I just have to say I'm so surprised to hear
Rubio change his tune on the Trump document scandal,
because before this recent revelation,
he was actually very vocal about the importance of being careful
with classified information.
-Apparently, this is a level of intelligence classification
that goes beyond top secret.
Now, am I wrong in my reading of the law
that this would be multiple felonies,
a felony in every case?
I mean, isn't this indictable?
-Yeah, this is very serious. This is very serious.
Number one, obviously, there's a legal element to it.
And again, we're going to leave that to the FBI
and to the Justice Department.
Yeah, but moving forward, there's legal issues here.
But let me just say, how can the next commander in chief
be someone who inappropriately stashes
highly classified information?
-And the risk of that is?
-The risk of that is that we're giving opponents
of this government or adversaries
insight into our thinking, into our decision making,
and it provides most certainly an advantage
in the national security realm.
-Thank you, Senator Rubio.
Honestly, it's just so refreshing to hear
a Republican finally muster up the courage to state the obvious
and take on Trump's various abuses of power.
In fact, to celebrate his honesty and consistency,
we had an ice cream cake made just for him that says on it,
"Thank you for your bravery, Senator Rubio --"
Oh, crap. I forgot we...
We had to turn off the fridge all day
to conserve power.
Well, it's...
You guys, it's the thought. It's the thought that counts.
Anyway, congratulations to Marco Rubio
for showing the courage --
What's that?
The clips we showed were from 2015 and 2016?
And he was talking about Hillary Clinton's emails,
and we just edited out the parts where he said her name
to demonstrate the shameless hypocrisy and self-debasement
in service of Donald Trump?
Well, then, you know what?
I'm glad the cake melted!
We'll just give it to the crew.
Like, blend it up.
Tell them it's milkshakes.
And let them know it's my idea.
Put a note on it that says it from me.
That'll finally tap the brakes on their bullying.
[ Laughter ]
Anyway.
So Rubio, like the rest of them,
continues to brush this off like it's no big deal,
despite the fact that Trump
apparently had some of the government's
most closely guarded secrets in his possession,
which we now know included materials
about a foreign country's nuclear capabilities.
-We're following some breaking news
on the Justice Department investigation to the documents
Donald Trump had stashed away.
"The Washington Post" has just reported that,
"a document describing a foreign government's military defenses,
including its nuclear capabilities,
was found by FBI agents
who searched Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence."
The Post previously reported that nuclear documents
were among those sought by investigators.
-Also from "The Post" reporting, some of the seized documents
detail top secret U.S. operations
that are so closely guarded,
many senior national security officials
are kept in the dark about them.
-Okay, but in fairness, Trump was probably
also kept in the dark about them.
Technically, I guess they had to show him classified documents
when he was president, but they probably distracted him
the same way you gave your kid
an iPad on an airplane to shut him up.
"Alright, sir, here are those nuclear documents
we are required by law to show you.
But also we DVR'd Rudy's latest appearance on Hannity for you.
You can watch that, or an episode of 'Paw Patrol'."
"Maybe. We do --
We do love 'Paw Patrol.' We love law and order.
We love paws and laws and order.
Plus, Rudy does kind of remind me of Wally the Walrus."
[ Laughter ]
Well, let's just take a step back
and let it soak in how insane this is.
The president just had a bunch of highly classified materials
lying around the basement of his country club
about extremely sensitive global affairs
that affect the safety and security of the entire world.
And no, I'm not talking about
Harry Styles spitting on Chris Pine,
although, although I will say this right here is one of those
extremely rare pop culture moments where I do wish
Trump had his Twitter back, just for a minute,
so we could see what would almost certainly be a psychotic
and likely very funny take on the whole thing.
"Many people are saying, Harry No-Styles spit
(drooled?) on one of our great American Chris's
at the Venus Film Festival.
Could it have been gum or mint (Tik Tak)?
Lots of germs.
Not nice! Sleepy Joe should act!
#WheresHunterslaptop
[ Applause ]
I would say the man knew how to tweet, but he clearly didn't,
and that's what made it so special.
I do think, all things considered,
it's probably not ideal that an ex-president
with a bunch of corrupt foreign entanglements
to mobsters and dictators,
not to mention various indicted henchmen,
had a bunch of classified information about weapons
that could eliminate all life on earth
just lying around his country club
where spies or Botox salesmen could just easily find them.
But don't you worry.
Trump's very normal son, Eric, would like to assure us,
contrary to the photo the Justice Department released
as part of its affidavit in the case,
Trump kept his country club very organized.
-You literally have the FBI
spending more time leaking stuff to the press.
I mean, these pictures -- you think my father happened
to just leave documents all over his office floor?
-No, I think when the FBI found them,
they laid them out and took a picture of them.
I also don't think drug dealers keep all their money and cocaine
neatly stacked on one table.
[ Laughter ]
"Hey, you sure we shouldn't hide this stuff somewhere, boss?"
"Nah, I like the way it brings the room together.
Yeah, make them neat. Make all the money neat."
[ Laughter ]
Also, I love how these guys suddenly complain about leaks
now, after supporting Donald Trump,
arguably the biggest and messiest gossip on the planet.
He reportedly bragged to some of his closest associates,
both during and after his time in the White House,
that he knew illicit details about the love life
of French President Emmanuel Macron.
I'm sorry, you think it's scandalous
that a French politician had an illicit love life?
You know what would be way more scandalous?
A French politician with a boring love life.
You think an illicit love life
would be bad for Emmanuel Macron?
I'm pretty sure his official campaign slogan
was Macron a trois?
[ Laughter ]
There's no simpler, more straightforward example
of how brazen and shameless the Republican Party
has become in its acceptance of lawbreaking
and abuses of power when it comes to Donald Trump.
They will support or apologize for anything he does,
no matter how egregious, because they are fully in thrall
to his authoritarian cult.
When it comes to Trump,
guys like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio
have the spines of...
-Worms.
[ Laughter ]
-This has been "A Closer Look"!
♪♪
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