-There is no sign that the government shutdown
will end any time soon,
and now the president wants a primetime address
to repeat his lies. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Our political system feels like it's at a breaking point.
It was always fragile, but then Donald Trump
came along and wrecked it.
He's like the guy at a party
watching a game of "Jenga,"
going [ As Trump ] "Take that one! No, that one!"
[ Normal voice ] And then finally, someone says,
"You know what -- if you think it's so easy, you try it."
And then he just lights the "Jenga" tower on fire.
[ Laughter ]
[ As Trump ] Boom, now I collect the insurance money,
build a bigger tower. [ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] There is no more basic test
of a political leader than this --
Can you keep the government running?
And Trump is now again failing that test
for the third time in his presidency.
In real life, you don't get rehired after that.
He's like a stoner working at a pizza place.
"Hey, Kevin, how was business today?"
"Oh, yeah, it was really slow, man."
"Did you unlock the front door?"
"Ohhhhh, maaan!"
[ Laughter and applause ]
"I'm sorry, Kevin.
You have given me no choice, Kevin
You're going to get the Cecil B. DeMille award."
[ Laughter ]
And the government shutdown that is now in its third week
isn't just a political fight over a useless border wall
that Trump repeatedly said Mexico would pay for.
It's having real world consequences
for millions of people from federal workers
going without pay to anyone who flies on an airplane.
-15 Federal Agencies are affected by the shutdown.
420,000 federal employees are working without pay,
and 380,000 employees are now on unpaid leave.
-Federal Tax refunds will be delayed.
Food stamps for 38-million Americans will be cut.
Millions of people will lose rental assistance payments,
and union leaders say hundreds of TSA workers
are already off the job.
-Already hundreds of TSA employees have missed work
at major airports across the country.
It's fueling concerns of possible security risks
and travel disruptions.
-Can you imagine what a nightmare that'll be?
It's a major disruption when one TSA agent
has to go get more plastic bins.
[ Laughter ]
Think about that -- Donald Trump is such a bad president,
he found a way to make air travel worse
than it already was.
By the end of his term, the only airline will be Spirit.
The only in-flight movie will be "Dirty Grandpa,"
and every seat will be a middle seat.
[ Laughter and applause ]
We are a self-inflicted crisis over a government shutdown
because the president is incompetent and unhinged.
He's virtually incapable of uttering
a truthful or coherent thought about almost anything.
Just take one of the most basic responsibilities of his job --
national security.
Here's Trump from last week
describing a meeting with generals at the Pentagon
who tried to brief him
on dangerous spots around the world.
-When I became president,
I had a meeting at the Pentagon with lots of generals.
They were like from a movie.
Better looking than Tom Cruise and stronger.
[ Light laughter ]
And I had more generals than I've ever seen.
And we were at the bottom of this incredible room.
I said, this is the greatest room I've ever seen.
I saw more computer boards than I think that they make today.
[ Laughter ]
-Why -- why does he always sound like a co-worker
telling you about a dream he had?
[ Laughter ]
[ As Trump ] There were -- There were generals,
and we were in this room with computer boards, right?
And you were there, but you weren't you. You know?
[ Laughter ]
You had your head, but my body!
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] At that same meeting,
Trump rattled off a bizarre and incoherent explanation
of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Now the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was condemned
at the time and since.
Only Russia has tried to justify it
until last week, when the president of the United States
publicly stated for the first time that Russia was right
to invade and occupy Afghanistan.
-Russia used to be the Soviet Union.
Afghanistan made it Russia,
because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan.
Russia. The reason Russia was in Afghanistan
was because terrorists were going into Russia.
They were right to be there.
The problem is it was a tough fight.
And literally they went bankrupt.
They went into being called Russia again,
as opposed to the Soviet Union.
-Look, sometimes you get involved in something
that goes so badly, you have to change your name.
For example, you take a job as Donald J. Trump,
and you leave it as Prisoner 567891.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Although, let's be honest. Let's be honest.
Best outcome, Trump cooperates with Mueller,
rolls on everyone else, and goes into witness protection.
[ As Trump ] Hi, I'm your new neighbor, Ronald Bump.
[ Laughter ]
I don't want to say why I moved here,
but it was Obama's fault.
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] Also, I love how Trump thinks
it's an amazing insight
to say Russia used to be the Soviet Union.
He thought it was so impressive, he said it twice.
-Russia used to be the Soviet Union.
They went into being called Russia again,
as opposed to the Soviet Union.
-Wow! Really, Dr. History?
Russia used to be the Soviet Union?
This sounds like when the gym teacher
has to cover social studies for a week.
All right. All right, everybody, settle down!
We're going to watch "Red Dawn."
[ Laughter ]
And that was nothing compared to the stream
of incoherent nonsense Trump reeled off at a press conference
at the White House on Friday after a meeting
with Congressional leaders on the shutdown.
The press conference got crazier as it went on,
including a point in which Trump tried incoherently
to explain how migrants cross the Southern border.
-We've already built a lot of the wall.
We have renovated a tremendous amount of wall.
I just told you, we did a lot of wall in San Diego.
Steel is stronger than concrete.
So if I have a steel wall
or you could call it a steel fence --
We're not talking about games.
And I called up.
I said, "Hi, it's President Trump.
What's going on?" They said, "President Trump,
we don't know who that is."
They come in through these vast, open areas.
They get off the road,
and they drive out into the desert,
and they come in, they make a left turn.
Usually it's a left, not a right.
These coyotes and these human traffickers,
they make a right turn before they get to the port of entry.
They go as far as the wall is, or as far as the barricade is,
and then they make a left.
Welcome to the United States.
-The coyotes drive across the border,
they make a right, then a left, they go as far as the wall,
and then it's welcome to the United States.
That idea is so insane and incoherent,
there's a good chance he got it from watching cartoons.
[ As Trump ] These coyotes, they're strapping themselves
to rockets and shooting themselves over the border,
so we have to build a wall and we have to paint a tunnel on it.
[ Laughter ]
That's how you get 'em, with the tunnel.
[ Cheers and applause ] You get 'em with the tunnel.
[ Normal voice ] Trump started out the press conference
by inviting Congressional leaders to speak,
and just to give an idea of how fried his brain is,
watch how he thanks house Republican minority leader
Kevin McCarthy after his comments.
Once again, this is Kevin McCarthy speaking.
-We will stay in the room and get this job done.
And there was progress today. I look forward to solving it.
-Thank you, Steve. -I mean...
[ Laughter ]
Now, now...
in fairness to Trump,
if you forget an old white guy's name,
you have a decent chance if you just throw out a Steve.
[ Laughter ]
But maybe the wildest thing Steve said on --
[ Chuckles ] Steve.
[ Laughter ]
[Bleep] this guy.
[ Laughter ]
This guy. [Bleep]
Hey! Hey, you got a glass house over there?!
[ Laughter ]
Oh, it's good to be back.
[ Laughter ]
But maybe the wildest thing Trump said on Friday
was when he threatened to start building the wall unilaterally
by declaring a national emergency.
-Have you considered using emergency powers
to grant yourself authorities to build this wall
without Congressional approval? And second --
-Yes, I have. -You have?
-Yes, I have. And I can do it if I want.
-So you don't need Congressional approval to build the wall?
-No, we can use them -- absolutely.
We can call a national emergency
because of the security of our country, absolutely.
No, we can do it. I haven't done it.
I may do it. I may do it.
But we could call a national emergency
and build it very quickly.
-Just a side note here -- reporters,
stop asking questions like that.
[ Laughter ]
There's a good chance that Trump
never thought about using emergency power
until that reporter brought it up.
He is very suggestible. A reporter could say,
"Mr. President, have you thought about wearing
a military uniform everywhere and executing your enemies
in the rose garden?" And he would go,
[ As Trump ] "We're looking into that very strongly.
Did you get that? Write that down, I like that."
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] Apparently, that performance
wasn't crazy enough, because today Trump announced
he wants to address the nation on Tuesday night,
and even in his tweet announcing the speech, Trump lied.
He tweeted, "I'm pleased to inform you that I will address
the nation on the humanitarian and national security crisis
on our Southern border Tuesday night at 9:00 P.M. Eastern."
Okay, first of all, just because Trump wants to address
the nation doesn't mean networks should air it.
Otherwise they're just passing on his lies unfiltered.
They should either reject him outright,
or if he insists on speaking in primetime,
make him do it as a contestant on "The Masked Singer."
-They get off the road,
and they drive out into the desert and they come in,
they make a left turn.
Usually it's a left, not a right.
[ Laughter ] -Second...
[ Cheers and applause ]
...there's no national security crisis at the border.
Trump and his aides keep repeating the debunked lie
that terrorists are sneaking in from Mexico.
Yesterday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders tried it
on Fox News and got fact-checked by Chris Wallace.
-We know that roughly,
nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists
come into our country illegally.
And we know that our most vulnerable point of entry...
-Wait, wait, wait. -...is at our Southern border.
-Because I know this statistic.
I didn't know if you were going to use it,
but I studied up on this.
Do you know where those 4,000 people come --
where they're captured?
Airports. -Not always.
-Airports. -But certainly a large number --
-The State Department says there hasn't been any terrorist
that they've found coming across the Southern border from Mexico.
-It's by air, it's by land, and it's by sea.
It's all of the above. -No, it's not.
It's only by air.
As soon as they fact-check her, she turns into Paul Revere.
It's one if by land, two if by sea, and 4,000 by air!
[ Laughter ]
Also, look at her face.
She has literally never heard a reporter use the words,
"I studied up on this before."
[ Laughter ]
That's her "Oh, [bleep] face."
She can't -- cannot believe...
[ Cheers and applause ]
She cannot believe she is being fact-checked
by someone on Fox News.
As soon as that interviewed ended,
she stormed off the set and screamed,
"Who let them have Google?!" [ Laughter ]
Trump is totally incoherent and incapable of telling the truth.
He shouldn't get to address the nation just to repeat his lies.
If he calls up the networks asking for air time,
they should pick up the phone and say...
-President Trump? We don't know who that is.
[ Laughter ] -This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪