-The committee investigating the January 6th insurrection
has subpoenaed another round of Trump allies,
as multiple investigations of Trump
and his inner circle intensify and Republicans
continue their attempt to take control of our elections.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
Guys, tomorrow is a big day.
No, it's not just Thanksgiving, it's the deadline
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell set for himself to file
his supposedly blockbuster Supreme Court case,
proving definitively that there was fraud in the 2020 election.
-I cannot wait to drop this Supreme Court case
the Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. before Thanksgiving,
and the whole world is going to be watching all this unfold
over Thanksgiving.
-You are saying that on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving,
which I think is four weeks away,
you're going to drop a lawsuit.
So you can go back and have fistfights?
The family squabbles. Lindell, your genius.
Only you could've thought of this.
-Steve, Steve, I wanna say this --
-The country's going to go back at --
your holidays are ruined again, okay?
-And when I say before Thanksgiving, we are bringing
the case to them down before Thanksgiving, everybody.
Getting all these states on board,
we've got right now upwards of nine.
I want to get at least 25 on board.
-"Upwards of nine" already sounds like a problematically
vague wording for a Supreme Court case.
"And how many states are on board, Mr. Lindell?"
"Upwards of nine." "So 10."
"There's about 10 for sure, that ballpark, yeah."
"Why won't you tell us the exact number?"
"It's not important, just please make my friend president again."
And, I'm sorry, Steve Bannon thinks Americans
need a lawsuit from Mike Lindell
to have a reason to fight at Thanksgiving.
My Uncle Ron needs to drinks and he turns into Mike Lindell.
One minute, he's telling Aunt Debbie she's his light,
and the next minute he's screaming,
"You pretend to be a loyal wife, but I know about the affairs!"
And again, I know Lindell's from Minnesota and not Chicago,
but I don't care.
Still, good news for families trying to avoid conflict.
Lindell has failed to file his lawsuit, as promised,
and he's blaming it on the Republican National Committee.
Lindell accused the RNC of calling state attorneys general
and pressuring them not to sign the complaint.
He also said he was flying to five different states
to get attorneys general to sign the document.
Holiday travel is stressful enough as it is.
Imagine being in a boarding area with this guy
who is definitely going to stand up when Group One
is called, no matter what group he's sitting in.
Plus, you know, he carries his ticket in some weird
Ziploc travel pouch. He forgot how to open.
It's tricky because you got to pull it while you squeeze it.
There are two things happening on parallel tracks
right now, in American politics.
On the one hand, Republicans like Lindell
are still spreading the big lie that the election was stolen,
making it easier to overturn future results
they don't like. And on the other hand,
several major investigations of key Trump allies
who tried to steal the last election
are getting more serious.
For example, the congressional committee investigating
the January 6th insurrection has subpoenaed
five more Trump allies,
including disgraced right wing conspiracy theorist
Alex Jones, who always looks like he's trying to hulk out,
even though he wasn't exposed to gamma rays.
And Roger Stone,
the guy who famously showed up to Trump's inauguration
looking like an 18th century oil baron
who makes his own meth at home.
Quick aside, we've use that photo
so many times over the years, I honestly
can't remember which jokes we made about it
and which ones we haven't. Here's a bunch anyway.
This guy looks like Willy Wonka's mortician.
Is Quentin Tarantino remaking "Lincoln"?
He looks like a fella who just made his first million
in the Zeppelin business.
Dude looks like he's trying to sneak into the Met Gala
to sell cocaine.
"Hey, Chalamet!
Chalamet.
Care to partake in the Devil's dandruff?"
Now, you might remember that Stone was already convicted
as part of the Russia investigation,
but his sentence was commuted by Trump,
and he ended up right back in the middle of Trump's
inner circle, helping hatch their next scheme.
-Stone was convicted of seven felony counts
stemming from the Russia investigation,
including obstruction of the investigation,
lying to investigators and witness tampering.
That then only resulted in President Trump
commuting his sentence in July 2020,
just in time for Stone to help plan
the January 6th insurrection.
Stone appeared at multiple Stop the Steal events
in the days leading up to the attack.
-Stone is part of this constellation
of far right media personalities,
perhaps more than anybody else. Roger Stone is fluent in Trump,
and he knows how to produce slogans and commentary
that fit into his vernacular.
-What does it mean to be "fluent in Trump"?
You only use words with one syllable.
You talk like a cab driver from Queens,
or you know how to stretch a single sentence
into a rambling, hour long monologue.
Can you imagine one of those
French-to-English travel dictionaries?
Except it was Trump-to-English?
Alright, let me translate.
So, Trump said, "A man came out to me, tears in his eyes."
He said, 'Sir, you're bringing America back, sir.
We're living in the golden age of America, sir.
They're just like the golden age of television.
Lucille Ball. 'I love Lucy.' You love Lucy. We all love Lucy.
Don't we folks?
She ate all that chocolate and got paid for it.
What a deal. I said to my team.
'We need more chocolate eating jobs,' and that's what we did.
We opened more chocolate factories
under my administration than any previous administration
in history. Witch Hunt."
Okay. And that translates to "I am sad inside."
So investigators are closing in on more Trump allies,
the investigation has already subpoenaed
former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik,
a close ally of Rudy Giuliani,
who is part of a so-called command center
set up by Trump cronies like Steve Bannon ahead of the Jan.
six insurrection, where they hatched plans
to steal the election from Biden.
-The headquarters for some key figures in Trump's effort
to overturn the 2020 election. Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon,
former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik
and conservative lawyer John Eastman
holed up in Washington's Willard Hotel.
Walking distance from the White House
in a suite of rooms they called "The Command Center."
-It's just fun to imagine Rudy Giuliani
running a command center in a hotel room.
"Let's get started.
Bernie, you split up the free toiletries,
I call the tiny shampoo.
Steve, ordered me a Cobb salad, but six rows of eggs.
They know how to do it." It's also important to remember
these people only hang out with each other
because there is no one else who will hang out with them.
If Bernie Kerik had other options,
do you think he would still roll with Rudy Giuliani,
who publicly implied a few months ago
that they all partied with disgraced
royal Prince Andrew.
-I told this to the Queen of England. She said
[As Queen Elizabeth] "You did, you did a wonderful job
on September 11,
And therefore I'm making you an honorary knight
commander of the royal, something or other.
[ Normal voice ] I turned down a knighthood
because if you took a knighthood,
you had to lose your citizenship.
I know Prince Andrew is very questionable now.
I never went out with him.
Never, never, never had a drink with him.
Never was with a woman or a young girl with him ever, ever.
One time I met him in my office,
and one time when we had the party right party, right Bernie,
you were there.
You weren't there? Oh [bleep]
"You weren't there? Oh, now I remember, Bernie.
You said if anyone ever asked, I wasn't here.
And then you said, wink wink."
Oh, just say what you will about my impressions,
but they're way better than Rudy's.
I mean, is that is that what he thinks the queen sounds like?
Who does he think played her in "The Crown," Al Pacino?
[ As Pacino ] "Whoa, nothing makes me smile like a Corgi
running across a well-manicured lawn.
Low to the ground and fast like a rocket ship.
Let's get a round of crumpets.
Out here.
It is always crumpet o'clock.
At Buckingham Palace.
And of course, Rudy is already facing
his own criminal investigation
for trying to cheat in the 2020 election
before the results came in.
Investigators are focusing on his attempts to dig up dirt
on Joe Biden in Ukraine.
And as you might recall, his home and office
were raided by the feds earlier this year.
Last night, he was on Newsmax and claimed
that only Trump cronies are targeted by the feds.
-[ British accent ] I have to get your reaction to the breaking news.
These five new subpoenas from the January 6th
committee of Nancy Pelosi.
The idea that we've had Roger Stone subpoenaed
Alex Jones, three other individuals
add to that Mark Meadows and Steve Bannon.
Are we seeing the collapse of of the rule of law
at the highest levels in the United States, Mr. Mayor?
-Yeah, Sebastian, we watched
that all through the Trump presidency.
I mean, the Democrats handled themselves like fascists.
They -- there were no constitutional rules.
Why is it that the only lawyers whose law offices
get broken into are Donald Trump's lawyers?
Remember, they went and got my iCloud account.
I'm a lawyer. -Alright, but not really.
I mean, your law license was suspended
and you lost every case you brought after the election.
The only thing you succeeded at doing
was drumming up publicity for a landscaping company.
I mean, it looks like he's shooting
a local commercial for them, [As Giuliani]
Come on down to Four Seasons Total Landscaping,
our prices are so crazy you'll be screaming, "Why God?"
"Why?"
[ Normal voice ] But hey, at least he's not the kind of guy
who puts his thumb on the front-facing camera.
More importantly, let's go back to this
penetrating question.
-Why is it that the only lawyers law offices get broken into
are Donald Trump's lawyers?
-Yeah, why is it such a mystery?
It's like asking why the only rats
who go viral are pizza rats.
What about all the other everyday working class rats?
When is their time in the sun?
The Command Center, the lawsuits,
the Ukrainian scheme?
All of it was part of the Trump team's
attempt to cheat in or steal the election.
And as part of that effort, they produced memo after memo
laying out a detailed plan for Vice President Mike Pence
to reject the Electoral College count.
There were a bunch of memos from several Trump lackeys.
In fact, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn
even tried to get the Pentagon involved
in their attempted coup.
It wasn't just an impulse, or Trump randomly lashing out,
they had a detailed plan.
and a Command Center to pull it off.
And believe me, I'm as shocked as you are
that these misshapen potato chips had a plan.
It's much easier to think of them
as a bunch of easily distracted doofuses
who get caught trying to steal a pen from a bank
without realizing it's chained to the desk.
But they did have a plan
and they came close to pulling it off,
which means they're almost certainly going to try it again.
Except this time they're trying to do it
by changing the laws to make it easier,
and they have Republican officials in states
across the country helping them. They've already started
passing new voting laws in at least 17 states,
and now they've landed on their next target, Wisconsin.
-In a stunning new piece of reporting in The New York Times,
Ron Johnson and other Republicans in Wisconsin
have now launched an all out assault
on their state's election system
to ensure Republicans have full control over its voting process.
From that reporting "the Republican effort broader
and more forceful than that in any other state,
where allies of former President Donald J. Trump
are trying to overhaul elections,
takes direct aim at the bipartisan Wisconsin
Elections Commission."
Last month, a report ordered by Republican state legislators
and performed by Wisconsin's nonpartisan
Legislative Audit Bureau, found, big surprise here
no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
But the report did make dozens of recommendations
for the Election Commission, and Republicans pounced.
-Think about how insane that is. They conducted an audit
that found no evidence of fraud
but made a bunch of recommendations anyway.
It's like if you went to the doctor
for a physical and he said,
"Alright, everything looks perfect.
We'll take the leg off on Monday.
Not sure how many bones are in there,
but it's got to be -" -Upwards of nine.
[ Laughter ]
-Dah, callback!
This is the single greatest existential threat
to our democracy right now,
and it's hanging over every aspect of our politics,
one party wants to take control
so they can never lose power again.
From Steve Bannon to Roger Stone to Rudy Giuliani,
it seems like everyone around Trump
was involved in the attempted coup.
And now that they're all getting subpoenaed,
they're saying -- -Oh, [bleep].
[ Laughter ]
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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