-It's becoming clear
that President Trump has no way out
of the government shutdown he's boxed himself into.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Suspenseful theme plays ] [ Cheering and applause ]
The shutdown is having real effects for millions of people
and that includes law enforcement officials
going without pay.
Yesterday, in his confirmation hearing,
Trump's pick for attorney general, William Barr,
was asked about the effect on law enforcement
and said the shutdown was the fault of both sides.
- People would like to see the shutdown ended
and that's why people wanna see some kind of compromise
and, you know, you call it the Trump shutdown,
but, I mean, it takes two to tango.
-Okay, but this is not a tango.
Trump is the only one dancing.
[ Laughter ] And, judging from how
he moves his hands, he's doing some off-brand version
of the Macarena. [ Laughter ]
I mean, look at 'im. He looks like a grandpa at a wedding.
[ Laughter ] ♪ Hey, macaroni ♪
[ Laughter and applause ]
It's not both sides.
We all remember the meeting in the Oval Office
where Trump literally said he was proud
to shut down the government and, yet,
despite the fact that he is on camera,
saying the shutdown would be his fault,
Trump actually thinks he's winning the argument.
CNN reported yesterday that Trump has been
telling aides and allies that he believes
he is winning the battle for public support.
Well, of course he believes that.
He watches more Fox News than all the residents
of a Texas senior center, combined.
[ Laughter and light clapping ]
Trump always thinks he can win any fight.
He can be in the Octagon with Conor McGregor,
takin' a kick to the face, and he'd say, "Did you see?
I just head-butted his foot with my face."
[ Laughter and light clapping ]
Trump also thinks his Oval Office speech
on the wall last week
really moved public opinion to his side.
Now, you might be asking yourself, "Wait,
Trump gave a speech from the Oval Office last week?"
And that's because everyone has already forgotten about it.
[ Laughter ] That speech was only a week ago
and it's already been eclipsed by several insane news stories,
from Trump's trip to the southern border
to the fact that the FBI thought he was a Russian asset,
to the fact that the White House
is serving so much fast food, they've added a drive-thru.
[ Laughter and applause ]
What's next, is he gonna --
[ Applause ]
[ Cheering and applause ]
Is he gonna try to achieve peace in the Middle East
with a summit at Chuck E. Cheese?
[ Laughter ]
[as Trump] No quarters for anyone 'til you sort this out.
[ Laughter ] So, yes, Trump really did
give a primetime address on the wall last week
and he thinks it helped sway public opinion to his side,
but the actually polling says something very different.
-Within the last half hour, Quinnipiac has come out
with a new poll, asking, "Did the president's speech
last week from the Oval Office
[ Laughter ] change your mind
about the wall?" Only 2% said yes.
-2%?!
Maybe the speech only polled at 2%
because Trump's eye was only 2% open.
That's why he thinks he can win any fight.
He's Popeye, except, with bacon, instead of spinach.
[ Laughter ] Trump's argument is not working
'cause it's detached from reality.
It's also very hard to follow.
For example, Trump has recently found a new favorite line
that he keeps repeating at all of his public appearances:
"Walls work because cars have wheels."
-They say a wall is medieval.
Well, so is a wheel.
A wheel is older than a wall.
[ Laughter ]
And I looked and every single car out there,
even the really expenses ones,
[ Laughter ] that the Secret Service uses --
and believe me, they are expensive.
I said, "Do they all have wheels?"
"Yes." Oh, I thought it was medieval.
The wheel is older than the wall, you know that?
And, uh, there are some things that work.
You know what? A wheel works and a wall works.
They say it's medieval.
Well, so is the wheel, medieval.
I looked at all the vans and all of the serious equipment
that they surrounded me with yesterday.
-Mm. -The Secret Service, the police,
the Border Patrol, ICE.
Every one of those had the wheel.
Well, they say wheels are medieval, too.
But some things don't change.
Wheels and walls.
[ Laughter ]
-Hey, um,
I'm worried about Grandpa.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah, no. It's, uh --
[ Applause and cheering ] Yeah.
[ Whistling ]
[ Applause ]
No, it's a wheel wall. Yeah, it's a wheel wall.
[ Laughter ] I gotta go.
He just keeps saying the same things over and over.
In other words, he's hitting a wall
and it's his brain is going around like a wheel.
[ Laughter ]
But I guess, now, we know what Trump's been doing all day
in the Oval Office during the shutdown:
Just starin' out the window,
countin' all the wheels on the car.
[ Laughter ] One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
Oh, no, a bus! This isn't gonna be easy.
[ Laughter ]
Now, as dumb as Trump's argument is, he was actually going
to get another chance to make it later this month,
to yet another primetime audience,
for his annual State of the Union address.
But presidents technically have to be invited
to give the State of the Union by the speaker of the House
and, today, because of the shutdown,
Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Trump to reschedule
his State of the Union address or deliver it in writing.
[ Laughter ] That's such a great burn
because, you know, when Trump heard reschedule,
he thought, [as Trump] "Yes!"
But when he heard deliver it in writing, he thought,
[as Trump] "No-o-o-o-o!" [ Laughter ]
I would love to see Trump write down his State of the Union.
I can imagine what that would look like.
[ Laughter and applause ]
It's fun!
It's fun.
[ Cheering, whistling, and applause ]
Fun, picturing Trump sittin' down at a typewriter,
punchin' the keys one at a time with his sweaty hand paws.
[ Laughter ] [as Trump] Is wall spelled
with one L or four?
[ Laughter ]
I'll just use all the L's.
[ Laughter ] What we're witnessing right now
are the desperate gasps of the Trump agenda.
The wall was the signature promise
of his campaign and presidency.
He's been talkin' about it for three and a half years,
but, now, it's slipping away,
with Democrats in control of the House,
and, in his desperation to save face and get a deal,
Trump is throwing everything he said about the wall
out the window.
For example, he said Democrats didn't even have
to call it a wall and offered one very strange suggestion.
-This is where I asked the Democrats to come back
to Washington and to vote for money for the wall,
the barrier, whatever you wanna call it's okay with me.
They can name it whatever.
They can name it Peaches.
[ Laughter ] I don't care what they name it.
-They should call his bluff and name it Donald Trump's BO.
[ Laughter ]
Then, his supporters would have to say,
"Donald Trump's BO has been very effective
in keeping immigrants out of the country."
[ Laughter ]
And that isn't even the weirdest suggestion
for what the wall should be called because, last week,
Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy said,
"You can call it a barrier.
You can call it a wall.
You can call it a wang doodle,
[ Laughter ] for all I care.
Wang doodle and peaches don't sound like names for a wall.
They sound like a euphemism for a guy's junk.
[ Laughter ] Did you hear about Rudy?
He accidentally sat on his wang doodle
and banged it into his peaches
and that explains why he looks like that.
[ Applause and cheering ]
So, now --
[ Applause ]
Now, Trump is throwing out all of his campaign promises
about the wall and saying Democrats can call it
whatever they want, but one thing he guaranteed,
the one thing that was crucial to the whole idea
was that it would be impossible to get through.
-So we're gonna build a wall and it's gonna be impenetrable.
We will begin working on an impenetrable, physical,
tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall.
-Physical, powerful, and beautiful.
Was he building a wall
or setting up a Tinder profile for it?
[ Laughter ]
[as Trump] Physical, tall, powerful, beautiful,
works hard, plays harder.
[ Laughter ] And, as dumb as the wall is,
literally the only point to building one
is to make it impenetrable and Trump repeatedly promised
he could do it because that's what he does.
He's a builder!
-Look, as a builder, nobody in the history of this country
has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump.
I build infrastructure.
Do I know how to build a wall?
Our nation's in such trouble.
That's why being a builder, and a great builder,
and a very successful builder, I think, will greatly help.
Donald Trump, another great builder in New York,
now a politician.
I can't stand this. A politician!
I don't wanna be called a politician.
-Oh, don't worry.
No one -- [ Laughter and applause ]
No one thinks you're a politician.
We think of you as a politician
the way we think of Shaq as a movie star.
[ Laughter ]
So, the only point in building a wall is
to make it impenetrable and, yet, last week,
it was reported that testing of a prototype proved
it could be cut through with a saw.
And they even got a photo of the wall
after it had been sawed open.
Last week, Trump was asked about that report
and the guy who repeatedly promised
an impenetrable wall said this --
-What good is a steel wall if they can saw through it?
-Well, that's a wall that was designed
by previous administrations.
There's nothing that can't be penetrated, but you fix it.
But it's a very difficult thing to do.
But that's a wall, and they have other walls.
We have many walls under consideration.
[ Laughter ] -I love how you can tell
when Trump is lying, because he circles
through every explanation he can think of in five seconds.
[as Trump] It was Obama's fault.
Nothing is impenetrable. We have other walls.
[ Laughter ] Next, he's gonna say,
[as Trump] They can't saw through the new one
because we made it out of saws.
[ Laughter ]
All right, but so what? Maybe they can just find a new,
stronger material and make sure the wall's impenetrable.
Problem solved, right?
I mean, it's not like there's some other,
superobvious way to get around a wall.
-During a roundtable discussion with law enforcement officials,
Mr. Trump was told some border crossers
had been digging tunnels
under areas where walls are already in place.
-Here, this is just a couple miles from here,
from where we're standing.
This is a tunnel.
This is the second tunnel that, recently, we have located.
This is an area that we actually have wall.
- That's right. They already had a wall there
and someone just tunneled under it.
[ Laughter ] Trump's wall is so stupid that,
not only can it be beaten by a saw;
it can be beaten by Bugs Bunny.
[ Laughter ]
In fact, if you listen to Trump explain
how he thinks migrants sneak across the southern border,
he might actually be thinking about Bugs Bunny.
-They get off the road and they drive out into the desert
and they come on. They make a left turn.
Usually, it's a left, not a right.
-I knew I shoulda taken that left toin at Albuquerque.
[ Laughter and applause ]
-Every day, we find out more about how useless the wall is
and that's why public opinion is against it.
Every time Trump sees a new poll about the shutdown,
it's like a kick,
in the wang doodle and... -Peaches.
[ Laughter ] -This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]