-We got yet another disturbing glimpse
of where the GOP is headed this week when Donald Trump
endorsed Sarah Palin for a seat in Congress
and Matt Gaetz accused the military
of focusing too much on wokeism.
Meanwhile, President Biden proposed a new billionaire tax
aimed at reining in America's massive wealth gap.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]
There is obviously a lot going on in the news this week.
Trump's slow-moving coup is continuing apace.
The U.S. and its allies announced new sanctions
on Russia's barbarism in Ukraine.
A new report says it's now or never
to avert irreversible climate catastrophe.
There's a new variant of a highly contagious
respiratory virus swirling around out there.
And, on top of all that,
-Former Alaska governor and one-time
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin
announced that she's running for Congress.
Former President Donald Trump
has already endorsed her.
-When you get there, assuming you get there,
you understand that the media jackals
are going to descend on you
and you're going to be walking down the halls
to the cafeteria to go get a Pepsi
and you're just going to be swarmed
by these reporters sticking these little microphones
and recording devices in your face.
Governor Palin, Palin, Congresswoman,
are you prepared for that onslaught?
Because it's going to be pretty vicious.
-You know, I would never be so cocky as to say bring it on...
-[ Laughs ] -...but, yeah.
I anticipate that, when I walk down that hall
to get my Diet Dr Pepper, sure,
the jackals are going to be there doing their jackalin'.
[ Laughter ] -So, if you've ever stood
in front of a Coke machine and wondered,
"What kind of lunatic drinks Diet Dr Pepper?"
[ Laughter and applause ]
But, yes, yes, jackals
will do their jackalin'. [ Laughter ]
And, by the way, if you want to know what a jackal does,
I'm the guy to ask.
What they do is leave nitpicky complaints
in the YouTube comments section that I then respond to
in our Emmy-nominated series "Corrections."
[ Fanfare plays ] [ Laughter ]
Which you can see every Monday at 8:00 pm right here on NBC.
No? What's that? Oh, is it on --
Is it on Peacock? It's not on Peacock either?
Oh, it's just on YouTube every Friday morning?
Alright, well, I guess the network hates money.
[ Laughter ] It should be noted
I think Palin is in for a rude awakening
if she thinks she's still in the vanguard
of wild and crazy Republicans.
Palin showing up in Congress now would be like
me telling a bunch of high school kids
about my wild days of sneaking out
and drinking wine coolers in the woods
and then realizing I was talking to the kids from "Euphoria."
They'd be like, "Cool, old man.
I put Molly on my oatmeal."
[ Laughter and applause ]
In fact, as if to prove that Sarah Palin, somehow,
would not be the craziest Republican in Congress,
if she won, Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz,
who looks like he wished on a monkey's paw
he'd make it to Major League Baseball
and, instead, got Mr. Met's head,
[ Laughter ] leveled
a bunch of unhinged conspiracy theories
at Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin yesterday,
claiming the military cares more about critical race theory
and wokeism than national defense.
-What in the $773 billion that you're requesting today
is going to help you make assessments
that are accurate in the face of so many blown calls?
[ Laughter ]
-You've seen what's in our budget.
You've seen how the budget matches the strategy
and so I'll let that speak for itself.
-Everyone else in the world seems
to be developing capabilities and being more strategic.
We got time to embrace critical race theory at West Point,
to embrace socialism at the National Defense University,
to do mandatory pronoun training.
Do you assess -- -You know,
again, this is the most capable,
the most combat-critical, force in the world.
It has been and it will be so going forward.
-Not if we continue down this path. -And this budget helps us
to do that. -Not if we embrace socialism.
You guys said that Russia would overrun Ukraine in 36 days.
You said that the Taliban would be kept at bay for months.
You totally blew those calls.
And maybe we would be better at them
if the National Defense University
actually worked a little more on strategy
and a little less on wokeism.
-Has it occurred to you that Russia has not overrun Ukraine
because of what we've done and our allies have done?
-It seems the Biden administration is trying
to destroy our military by force, feeding it wokeism.
-What is wrong with these people?
In their fever swamp brains, do they genuinely believe
our soldiers no longer know how to fire a rifle
because they are buried in homework from pronoun class?
[ Laughter ] Does he think they arrive on the battlefield
and the sergeant barks out, "Alright, Bravo Team,
go around the left flank and tell the enemy
they're beautiful just the way they are.
[ Laughter ] Charlie Team, circle those drums.
The rest of you, into the Prius"?
[ Laughter ] Also,
I would just like to point out
I have no problem with tough questioning
of our national security officials
and I'm all for cutting the defense budget.
It's massively inflated and we can
absolutely spend it better elsewhere.
But that's not even what the scam artists,
like Gaetz, are asking for.
They just want to whine about wokeism
and critical race theory.
They don't actually want to cut defense spending,
as Gaetz made clear in this part of the exchange,
where he claimed we were behind on a certain type
of defense technology, without providing much proof.
-We're behind in hypersonics.
We failed to deter Russia.
Last year -- -What do you mean,
we're behind in hypersonics?
-Okay, who's ahead in hypersonics?
-How do you make that assessment?
-I don't know.
-Is it one-for-one? -I make that assessment
because China is fielding
hypersonic weapons systems
and we are still developing them.
-How do you know we're behind in hypersonics?
"I don't know." Do you know what hypersonic is?
"I know that, according to Sarah Palin,
they do a lot of hypersonickin'.
[ Laughter and applause ]
These people -- Trump, Palin, Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene --
are very much the present
and the future of the Republican Party,
which is terrifying for many reasons.
For one thing, they all try to pass themselves off
as pro-worker populists,
while the left is actually going after elite wealth
and trying to redistribute that money to better uses
that would benefit poor and working Americans.
For example, the Biden administration is proposing
a new minimum tax on billionaires.
-Today, the Biden administration expected to announce
a new tax for billionaires.
The minimum income tax would require households
with more than $100 million
to pay a rate of at least 20% of their full income.
-A 20% minimum tax that applies only to the top 1/100 of 1%.
1/100 of 1% of the Americans will pay this tax.
I'm asking you one simple -- just pay your fair share.
Pay your fair share, that's all.
That's it.
Just your fair share.
And no one can argue that 20% for a billionaire is unfair.
-I love when Biden stares down the barrel of the camera
and goes into his whisper voice.
It feels like your future self time traveled here
to warn you about something. [ Laughter ]
[ As Biden ] I'm telling you, you got to dump all your Peloton stock.
[ Laughter ]
Go get that mole looked at.
[ Laughter ] Now, I haven't spoken to any myself,
but I can't imagine billionaires are happy about this.
-Damn right we're not. -What?!
[ Laughter ] Wally, you're a billionaire, how?!
-Seth, 20 years ago, I was visited by my future self
and he told me to buy Amazon stock.
[ Laughter ] -Why don't you tell me?
-Well, my future self told me you couldn't be trusted.
[ Laughter ] -Well, I'd like to have a few words with your future self.
-That's me. Present day Wally is the future self
[ Laughter ] that talked to me 20 years ago.
-I don't want to waste another "Closer Look"
-[Both] talking about time travel with you!
[ Laughter ] -I told me you'd say that.
[ Laughter ]
-Alright! Anyway.
[ Laughter ] Billionaires and their allies in Congress
get so emotionally wounded at even the suggestion
that maybe our tax system favors the wealthy,
like during Biden's State of the Union,
when he said Trump's $2 trillion tax cuts
largely benefited the top 1%, which is true.
And Republicans audibly booed, leading to an awkward moment
where Chuck Schumer preemptively stood up to clap the next line,
but was interrupted by the Republican booing.
-Unlike the $2 trillion tax cut passed
in the previous administration,
that benefited the top 1% of Americans,
the American Rescue Plan --
[ Booing ]
[ Laughter ] the American Rescue Plan
helped working people and left no one behind.
[ Cheering and applause ]
-It's like a dance mom who gets up to applaud for her daughter
before the daughter misses a step and falls off the stage.
[ Clapping ] "You got this, Becky!"
[ Clattering ]
[ Thudding ]
[ Clattering, thudding ]
[ Clattering, thudding ] [ Laughter ]
[ Clattering, thudding ]
[ Laughter ]
[ Clattering, thudding ]
[ Laughter ]
[ Clapping ] [ Laughter and applause ]
Now, this new billionaire tax
would essentially be a tax, in part, on unrealized gains
on things like stocks you own, but haven't sold yet.
It may sound a little complicated, but don't worry.
CBS News has hired a very knowledgeable
and truthful new analyst to explain it to all of us.
-President Biden has announced a $5.8 trillion budget proposal
for the 2023 fiscal year, which includes a wealth tax
for the richest people in the country.
Households with assets of more than $100 million
would face a minimum tax of 20%.
So, here to discuss is Mick Mulvaney.
He's a former Office of Management and Budget director
and today I am pleased to welcome him
as a CBS News contributor.
So happy to have you here.
Thank you so much.
You're the guy to ask about this.
-No, he's not!
[ Laughter ] He's Donald Trump's
former chief of staff.
He's not just some budget wonk who's giving nonpartisan advice.
Calling him a former
Office of Management and Budget director
and leaving out the Trump part is like saying there were
a lot of jokes at the Oscars that Will Smith did like.
[ Laughter and applause ]
We're facing a litany of serious existential crises right now,
from impending climate disaster
to the pandemic, to wealth inequality,
and one of our two major political parties
is consumed by imagined moral panics
and unhinged conspiracy theories.
There are so many of these crazy people,
it's hard to keep track of their names,
whether it's Matt or Sarah or Marjorie or...
-Jackalin'. [Jacqueline]
[ Laughter and applause ]
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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