-Former President Donald Trump
ended an interview with NPR
by abruptly hanging up after he was fact-checked
on his lies about the 2020 election.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
Well, we got two more days in our undisclosed location
before heading back to the studio
and I want to say how nice it was
that so many of you asked me if I was okay.
It was less nice,
how many of you asked me if Wally was okay,
since Wally didn't test positive,
but since you're so concerned,
here's a shot of him right now in the studio.
So there you have it, everyone, your precious Wally is okay.
You can all breathe easy,
something I can't do because, unlike Wally,
I had [bleep] COVID.
I'm joking, of course.
I had no symptoms,
thanks to my two vaccines and a booster
and no thanks to this --
this horse pudding that I accidentally bought
when my corner bodega/ livestock supply store
ran out of horse paste.
It is not good.
Has no medicinal value.
Plus, it's giving me high blood pressure
because it's so packed with sugar
to cover up the taste of horse.
What's that? Today's flavor?
Seabiscuits and gravy.
And, while I'm alone in this apartment,
I want to, once again, thank artist Mary LaGarde
for my Sea Captain and Rihanna painting,
which has been keeping me company.
I'm sorry I forgot to mention you guys yesterday.
-Well, it didn't bother me,
but Rihanna did think you were being a...
-♪ Rude boy, boy ♪
-Well, won't happen again.
Now, to the news at hand.
-Hey, uh, Seth. -Mm-hmm?
-Sorry to be a pail, but just want to ask again.
I know I record my line every day for "A Closer Look,"
but I still can't shake the feeling
that you're just taking her lines
from previously recorded songs.
-Why do you say that?
-Well, you know, there's like
music underneath it.
-Oh, that's just a coincidence.
-Okay.
-The real "Closer Look" is going to start
now.
Donald Trump has, of course,
done many phone interviews before,
during and after his presidency,
many with the Fox & Friends,
who tend to sit there with blank looks on their faces,
like they're Boston Dynamics robots
who haven't been switched on yet.
There was even that one time he said, out of the blue,
that he was going to come on once a week
and even they did not seem super psyched about that idea.
-President Trump, welcome back to "Fox & Friends."
-Well, thank you very much.
Good to be here.
Great to be with my friends.
I think we're going to do this, we've agreed to do it
once a week in the morning and I look forward to it.
We're going to do it every week, every Monday, I think they said,
and, if we can't do it on a Monday,
we'll do it on a Tuesday, like we did today.
-Alright. -Sounds good.
-Okay. -Mr. President, thank you very much.
You may want to do it every week,
but Fox has not committed to that.
We're going to take it on a case-by-case basis.
-I love how Trump offered Monday as an option
and Tuesday as a backup, if Monday didn't work for them.
The president should never be the one
who's flexible on schedule.
[ As Trump ] Look, you guys are the ones doing a TV show every day.
I'm just watching one.
But, for some reason, he decided to forgo
both his Fox and his Friends to call into NPR.
NPR?!
How is that even possible?
Are their microphones even calibrated
to capture sounds at his decibel level?
Their most popular show is...
I mean, a good way to describe the timbre and pitch
of Donald Trump's voice is reverse Terry Gross.
[ As Gross ] We're joined now by the author
of "The Art of the Deal," Donald Trump.
Welcome to the show, Donald.
[ As Trump ] Thanks for being --
Great to be here.
Ee oo ee oo ee oo oo ee!
Also, I'm pretty sure it's a rule
that you have to whisper on NPR.
Otherwise, you'll wake up the kindly old man
whose house they broadcast out of.
His name is Bert Wilson.
He lives in Minnewaska, North Dakota,
where he recently retired after 50 years
as a teller at the old community bank
and, now, he sits upstairs in his rocking chair,
watching "The Guns of Navarone" on LaserDisc,
while the kids from NPR
record their little show out of his living room.
Anyway, Trump calling in to NPR is like Ric Flair guest hosting
an episode of BBC's...
[ As Flair ] We're going to see some snakes.
We're going to see some parrots and you can bet your ass
we're going to see
some mother[bleep] flying squirrels.
Slick Ric, whoo!
The point is, for some reason,
Trump thought it would be a good idea to call in to NPR,
where he seemed to be caught off-guard
when he was grilled about his 2020 election fraud lies
by host Steve Inskeep.
It's clear Trump forgot the first rule of NPR.
Steve plays for Inskeeps.
This is nice.
Like I miss the studio, but it's nice to --
be here with my horse pudding and tell a joke like that.
Because let's be honest -- if I'd
done the play for Inskeeps joke in front of an audience,
they'd be looking at me like this --
Point is, instead of listening, mouth agape,
to Trump's answers while giving no pushback,
Inskeep came prepared with basic facts to debunk Trump's claims
and Trump clearly had no idea how to handle it.
To start with, he didn't even seem to know
the details of how the interview was going to work.
According to the transcript, Trump asked Inskeep,
at the start of the interview...
Trump should write a book called...
...with tips like, "Always find out the interview specifications
after it's too late to change them."
He's a former president calling in to a well-known news program
and he acts like he just got stopped on the street
by Jay Leno.
[ As Trump ] Whoa!
Oh, I'm on TV right now?
So, it was not an auspicious start
to the interview for Trump
and it quickly went downhill from there
when Inskeep presented him with some very basic facts
that contradict his lies about the 2020 election
and Trump clearly did not know how to respond.
For example, when Trump brought up Arizona,
where even a GOP-backed sham audit
conducted by his own allies confirmed Biden's win,
Inskeep fact-checked him and Trump was really flustered.
-If you look at the numbers,
if you look at the findings in Arizona,
if you look at what's going on in Georgia, Pennsylvania,
and Wisconsin, by the way, and take a look at Wisconsin,
they're finding things that nobody thought possible.
This was a corrupt election.
-Doug Logan, who ran the audit in Arizona
that was set up by your allies, didn't find serious problems.
This is a quote -- "The ballots that were provided to us
to count in the Coliseum very accurately correlate
with the official canvass numbers."
He raised a bunch of administrative issues,
but didn't find a problem
that would've changed the result at all.
-The ballots may correspond,
but look at the ballots themselves.
The number of ballots doesn't mean anything.
-[ As Trump ] Look at the numbers.
"I'm looking at the numbers
and they're the opposite of what you say they are."
[ As Trump ] Then you got to stop looking at the numbers.
They're going to drive you crazy.
They're just numbers and a number has never --
Steve, a number's never going to love you back.
You got to get outside. You got to look at the clouds,
look at the sky.
You got to live.
Don't look at the numbers.
Also, I love this shift
to "Look at the ballots themselves."
That's what they did.
That was the whole point of this bogus audit
with their dumb UV lights and all their insane theories
about secret watermarks and bamboo fibers.
They looked at the ballots.
What do you think they were doing,
looking at the stamps on the envelopes?
"Flag, flag, moon landing, flag.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Jimi Hendrix.
Shred that one."
And then, when Inskeep brought up the fact that,
even the people who backed and conducted the audit
accepted the conclusion that Biden won,
Trump dismissed them
as Republicans in name only, or RINOs.
-Why did Republican officials in Arizona
accept the results, then?
-Because they're RINOs and, frankly,
a lot of people are questioning that.
-Apparently, a RINO is now
anyone who doesn't show full obedience to Trump.
It's a label so scary to Republicans that,
in order to avoid it, Ted Cruz, who helped lead the effort
to overthrow the results on January 6th,
had to grovel and beg for forgiveness
for the simple act of calling the insurrection
a violent terrorist attack.
In order to prove he wasn't a RINO
and that he was extreme enough for Trump and his base,
Cruz had to perform an act of self-humiliation
live on national television
even Steve-O wouldn't have subjected himself to.
But, Steve-O, you stapled your ass.
[ As Steve-O ] And I'd steal it shut with Super Glue
before stooping to that level.
Well, you know what?
We respect you, Steve-O.
Now, let's get you into that exploding Porta Potti.
Anyway, as we've pointed out many times on this show,
even pro-Trump judges and lawyers have admitted
that there was no evidence for his claims,
which is why all of his court challenges failed.
And, when Inskeep brought that up directly
to the former president, he, again, had no response.
-Let me read you some short quotes.
The first is by one of the judges,
one of the ten judges you appointed who ruled on this.
And there were many judges, but ten who you appointed.
Brett Ludwig U.S. District Court in Wisconsin,
who was nominated by you in 2020.
He's on the bench and he says,
"This court allowed the plaintiff the chance
to make his case and he has lost on the merits."
Another quote, Kory Langhofer,
for your own campaign attorney in Arizona, November 12, 2020,
"We are not alleging fraud in this lawsuit.
We are not alleging anyone stealing the election."
And also Rudy Giuliani, your lawyer,
November 18, 2020 in Pennsylvania,
"This is not a fraud case."
Your own lawyers had no evidence of fraud.
They said in court they had no evidence of fraud
and the judges ruled against you every time on the merits.
-It was too early to ask for fraud
and to talk about fraud.
Rudy said that because of the fact it was very early
with the -- because that was obviously
at a very, very -- that was a long time ago.
-What do you mean, it was too early for fraud?
Like the fraud groundhog emerged from his hole
and saw his shadow,
meaning you had to wait six weeks for fraud?
Also, is this the fraud groundhog?
Because that would make a good amount of sense.
And, if it was too early for fraud,
then why were your lawyers even in court at all?
What was the point of all that?
Was Rudy Giuliani just getting in
a few last lawsuits before his neck implant surgery?
[ As Giuliani ] Good news, boss.
They found a donor for me.
He lives at The Bronx Zoo.
You wouldn't like it there.
They got rhinos. [ Laughs ]
And then, of course,
the interview came to its inevitable conclusion
when Trump abruptly hung up
after one too many uncomfortable fact-checks.
-People have no idea how big this issue is
and they don't want it to happen again.
It shouldn't be allowed to happen
and they don't want it to happen again.
-I want to -- -And the only way it's not going
to happen again is you have to solve the problem
of the presidential rigged election of 2020.
-Mr. President, if I -- -So, Steve, thank you very much.
-Whoa, whoa, whoa! I have one more question. -I appreciate it.
-I want to ask about a court hearing yesterday
on January 6th.
Judge Amit Mehta -- He's gone. Okay.
-Wow. That's the most impolite thing to happen on NPR
since Ira Glass farted
during an episode of "This American Life."
In fairness, they are running out of topics.
[ As Glass ] Farts -- they're part of our lives,
albeit an unsavory part.
It can be grim.
Sometimes they're funny.
Sometimes they linger.
And farts -- our topic today.
Ira Glass, Terry Gross, Steve-O, and Ric Flair?
It's called range. Look it up.
It's not easy fitting all those references under one...
-♪ Umbrella ♪
-Oh, you know what? I do think --
I do think those lines are from songs.
You know it's bad when Donald Trump,
who will drone on endlessly for as long as you let him,
willingly ends an interview before it's supposed to be over.
When these deranged lies are subjected
to even a modicum of scrutiny,
they collapse because they're absurd on their face
and, yet, an entire political party,
an ideological movement, including the likes of Ted Cruz
and the right-wing media apparatus,
are all devoted to repeating those lies
and anyone who balks at them even slightly
is attacked, purged from the ranks.
As for us, we'll be back in the studio next week,
starting on Monday and...
-If we can do it on a Monday, we'll do it on a Tuesday.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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