-President Trump declared a national emergency on Friday,
and then spent the rest of the weekend
lashing out at critics.
For more on this, it's time for
"A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
After Trump unilaterally bypassed Congress
by declaring a fake national emergency
to build his border wall, he spent the rest of the weekend
calling the media the enemy of the people,
demanded retribution against TV networks,
and called Justice Department officials
who investigated him treasonous.
It's more obvious every day that Trump's natural inclination
is to be a dictator.
He could even try to grow a dictator mustache,
but based on the rest of his hair situation,
I'm not sure.
[ Laughter ]
And Trump would be even scarier
if he weren't so easily distracted.
For example, he couldn't even make it 24 hours
after declaring his national emergency
before he escaped to Florida for a weekend of golf
and lounging around at his private club in Palm Beach,
where he was spotted on Saturday waiting for breakfast.
-President Trump spending his first day
following that emergency declaration
at the Trump International Golf Club down in Palm Beach,
and this photo of President Trump
at the club's omelette bar went viral,
getting retweeted thousands of times over.
-There's no clearer sign this is not a real emergency
than the fact that he is at an omelette bar.
In real emergency, no one goes to the omelette bar.
"The building is on fire!"
[ As Donald Trump ] "I'll be right there! Oh, yeah!
Onions, green peppers, ham -- Do you have ham?"
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
"Put it in a to-go box!"
[ Normal voice ] Also, it's good to see your emergency wear is
the official uniform of golf grandpas everywhere.
Look at him.
He looks like a 6-foot-tall Band-Aid.
[ Laughter ]
I'm shocked that he wasn't wearing a fanny pack
and trying to get them to take an expired coupon.
I'm sorry, but that is not how a president should look ever,
but especially during an emergency.
When President Obama got Bin Laden,
he was in the situation room surrounded by generals.
Can you imagine Trump overseeing that mission
from the omelette bar at his golf club?
[ As Donald Trump ] Navy SEALs, this is your president.
Give me full situ-- Wait. Hold on. What's that?
Yeah, yeah, hash browns."
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] And even when he's not in Florida golfing
and eating soft foods,
it's clear we've elected as our president
an adult grandpa who has trouble forming coherent sentences.
For example, during his press conference on Friday,
Trump explained that he expected a protracted court challenge
to his national emergency declaration,
although it was less of an explanation
and more of a sing-song ramble.
-I'll sign the final papers
as soon as I get into the Oval Office.
And we will have a national emergency.
And we will then be sued.
And they will sue us in the ninth circuit,
even though it shouldn't be there.
And we will possibly get a bad ruling.
And then we'll get another bad ruling.
And then we'll end up in the Supreme Court.
And, hopefully, we'll get a fair shake.
And we'll win in the Supreme Court,
just like the ban.
They sued us in the ninth circuit,
and we lost.
And then we lost in the appellate division.
And there we went to the Supreme Court,
and we won.
-he sounds like a 5-year-old
telling you what he saw at the zoo.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ As Donald Trump ] "And then we saw the monkeys,
and they were eating bananas,
and Todd said, 'We used to be apes,'
and I said that's not true,
and Todd said, 'Yes, it is!',
and then a bird crapped on his head.
[ Normal voice ] Of course, it's true that Trump's
national emergency declaration
will be challenged in court,
given that it's very likely unconstitutional.
If Trump has any chance of winning in court, at all,
He has to insist that this was his only choice,
that he had one thing, one thing he had to say.
This is a real emergency. We had to do it this way.
-I could do the wall over a longer period of time.
I didn't need to do this.
But I'd rather do it much faster.
-You didn't need to do this -- then it's not an emergency.
That's the exact opposite of an emergency.
That's a choice.
That's like saying, "I'm having emergency surgery
to get butt implants."
[ Laughter ] "I didn't need to do this,
but I hate doing squats."
When he heard that, even Rudy Giuliani said,
"Oh, no. You shouldn't have said that."
[ Laughter ]
Trump might even know on some level
that his national emergency stands no chance
of surviving a court challenge,
and he very likely doesn't care,
because he's doing this entirely
to please a very narrow set of right wing pundits
who hectored him into building the wall,
like Rush Limbaugh, who Trump actually namechecked
during his press conference on Friday.
-Mr. President, could you tell us to what degree
some of the outside conservative voices
helped to shape your views
on this national emergency? -I would talk about it.
Look, Sean Hannity has been a terrific, terrific,
uh, supporter of what I do.
Not of me.
If I changed my views, he wouldn't be with me.
Rush Limbaugh, I think he's a great guy.
He can speak for three hours without a phone call.
Try doing that sometime. For three hours, he speaks.
He's got one of the biggest audiences
in the history of the world.
I mean, this guy is unbelievable.
Try speaking for three hours without taking calls.
Taking calls is easy.
Okay, I'll answer this one, I'll answer that one.
He goes for three hours,
and he's got an audience that's fantastic.
-My God, that answer took three hours.
[ Laughter ]
Also, if he's talking for three hours without taking calls,
maybe nobody is calling him. [ Laughter ]
[ As Rush Limbaugh ] We're gonna open the phone line!
[ Applause ]
[ Laughter ]
And even if you put aside the chaos
this is causing here at home, it definitely seems like
all of this is hurting our image around the world, too.
Vice President Mike Pence discovered that over the weekend
when he mentioned President Trump
in his speech in Munich.
He clearly thought it was gonna be an applause line
and it definitely was not.
-I bring greetings from the 45th president
of the United States of America,
President Donald Trump.
[ Laughter ]
Last August...
-Say what you want about Mike Pence,
the man knows how to hold for silence.
[ Laughter ]
Never thought I would say this, but Pence might have
to hire Jeb Bush as his hype man.
-I bring greetings from the 45th President
of the United States of America,
President Donald Trump.
-Please clap.
[ Laughter ]
-But a reaction like that... [ Applause ]
A reaction like that must really sting for Trump,
who craves validation and praise.
In fact, over the weekend, we learned that Trump asked
the prime minister of Japan
to nominate him for a Nobel Prize.
A Japanese newspaper reported
that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe nominated Trump
for the Nobel Peace Prize last autumn
after receiving a request from the U.S. government to do so,
which is especially embarrassing,
given that on Friday, Trump bragged about the fact
that Abe had nominated him for the Nobel Prize
and claimed he had no idea he was about to do that.
-Prime Minister Abe of Japan
gave me the most beautiful copy of a letter
that he sent to the people
who give out a thing called the Nobel Prize.
He said, "I have nominated you,
or respectfully, on behalf of Japan,
I am asking them to give you the Nobel Peace Prize."
I said, "Thank you."
-Oh, really? You said thank you?
Did you also bribe him? "Here you go, Shinzo.
This is for one free omelette.
[ Laughter ]
It is expired. [ Cheers and applause ]
So, maybe just frame it."
Somehow I doubt that Trump will get that Nobel Peace Prize
after unilaterally declaring
a nonexistent emergency at our border with Mexico.
For weeks, Trump has gone back and forth
on the possibility of declaring an emergency,
while also insisting he was already building the wall,
as he did right before the State of the Union address,
although he was very coy about it.
-Are you saying now you expect to declare a national --
-I don't want to say, but you'll hear
the State of the Union, and then you'll see
what happens right after the State of the Union, okay?
-You'll hear the State of the Union,
And then you'll see what happens after the State of the Union.
Trump is so out of his depth,
he's dodging questions by explaining how time works.
[ Laughter ] "Mr. President,
didn't you say Mexico would pay for the wall?
[ As Donald Trump ] I said Mexico will pay for the wall
in the future, not the present.
And everyone knows the future comes after the present,
as opposed to the past, which is before the present.
And we can't go back to the past.
We can only go back to the future,
which I learned from that documentary
about Bernie Sanders.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ] The reason...
The reason Trump spent so many weeks
seesawing back and forth is
because Republicans were reportedly
urging him not to declare the national emergency,
knowing the move would be unpopular and unconstitutional,
and yet as soon as Trump did it,
Republicans either supported him
or were muted in their criticism,
like Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley,
who only said, "I wish he wouldn't have done it."
But Grassley was much angrier when GOP Senate majority Leader
Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor last week
to announce that Trump would declare a national emergency.
Grassley was talking about something totally unrelated
and got mad when McConnell interrupted him.
-Allowing these tax credits incentives to lapse
has created uncertainty for investors,
and the industry about the availability
of these credits... -Will the Senator yield?
-...jeopardizing the long-term investments
necessary for the development of these biofuels.
I hope the next time
I get a chance to have the floor,
I won't be interrupted.
I yield the floor and put the rest of my statement
in the record.
-Mr. President? -Leader McConnell.
-You know you're old when the young one
disrespecting you is Mitch McConnell.
[ Laughter ]
That's how loud Grassley yells
when Trump cuts him in line at the omelette bar.
[ Laughter ]
We're at the whims of angry old men
screaming about stuff they hear
on talk radio or see on Fox News.
Trump just rambles aimlessly from one topic to the next,
and his alternate reality is reinforced
by the right wing pundits, who support him.
Trump is obviously unfit to be president.
And if someone beats him in 2020,
that person's going to get...
-A thing called the Nobel Prize.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]