-The President's allies are flailing
as they try to defend him in both the impeachment inquiry
and the controversy
over his decision to abandon the Kurds.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
As he faces an intensifying
impeachment inquiry in the House,
the President is also dealing with nearly unanimous backlash
from both Republicans and Democrats
over his decision to abandon our Kurdish allies in Syria
who helped American soldiers fight ISIS.
And, yet, even after being accused of a tragic betrayal
by our Kurdish allies, yesterday, Trump patted himself
on the back during a speech in which he announced
that he was lifting sanctions on Turkey.
-Today's announcement validates our course of action...
with...Turkey...
that only a couple of weeks ago was scorned,
and now people are saying, "Wow.
What a great outcome. Congratulations."
-No one is saying that.
But if they did, judging from your cadence,
they were super-high.
"Wow."
He sounds like a local mattress salesman.
"Wow. What a great deal."
Second, any time Trump says "people are saying,"
those people do not exist.
Trump uses "people are saying" the same way guys use
"my friend has a problem"
when they ask their doctors for Cialis.
Trump says he doesn't think
we should be fighting wars in the Middle East,
but let's just be clear about something --
Donald Trump has not and has never been
an anti-war president.
He just pretends to be one. All he cares about
is what you can do for him personally.
And reporters who actually talked to the Kurds
on the ground yesterday confirmed that they definitely
were not saying, "Wow. What a great outcome."
-They're not listening to President Trump anymore.
He has totally broken their trust.
They think that President Trump has betrayed them
and that he is effectively a joke,
that he doesn't keep his word.
The one people they did trust was the United States,
but now U.S. troops have been forced to leave.
They're seeing signs from the Kurds saying, "We love you.
We still appreciate the role that you, the U.S. troops, did,
but your president betrayed us."
-And that's what Trump does. He betrays everybody.
It doesn't matter who you are or what you do for him.
As soon as you're not useful to him, he'll discard you.
I mean, just look how many of his former aides
he's attacked or thrown under the bus.
In fact, I'm pretty sure Steve Bannon still lives under one.
And just take Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer
and perhaps his most vocal and consistent defender.
After two of Rudy's associates, Lev and Igor,
were arrested, and it was reported --
that's their real names -- it was reported
that Rudy, himself, was under criminal investigation,
here's what Trump had to say
about his longtime relationship with his friend and ally.
-Is Rudy Giuliani still your personal attorney?
-Well, I don't know. I haven't spoken to Rudy.
I spoke to him yesterday briefly.
He's a very good attorney.
And he has been my attorney. Yeah, sure.
You know -- You know it's bad when you keep changing tenses.
"Was he my lawyer? I don't know.
Is he? I mean, yeah, he has been.
Will he be in the future? Yeah. Sure."
But this is what Trump does.
The minute you're a burden on him, he'll dump you.
In fact, now that Rudy is under criminal investigation,
Trump makes him sit outside when they fly on "Air Force One."
[ Laughter ]
Because Trump in his essence,
everything with him is a transaction.
The Trump who betrays his allies
as soon as they're no longer useful for him
is also the same guy who tried to orchestrate
a corrupt quid pro quo with Ukraine
for his own personal political benefit.
This behavior is obviously corrupt and illegal,
and we already have all the evidence.
In fact, Trump and his aides
have basically confessed to all of it.
So Republicans are running out of ways to defend it.
For example, earlier this month, Trump insisted
that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
had personally assured him that his phone call
with the president of Ukraine, in which he famously said
the words, "I would like you to do us a favor," was perfect.
-I read Mitch McConnell's statement yesterday,
and he read my phone call, and as you know,
he put out a statement that said
that was the most innocent phone call he's read.
And I spoke to him about it, too.
He read my phone call with the president of Ukraine,
Mitch McConnell. He said, "That was the most innocent
phone call."
-Once again, he can't even mimic
actual human syntax when he lies.
No human talks like that.
And for our purposes, just go along with the idea
that Mitch McConnell is a human, even though he is clearly
at least 60% dried apple doll.
[ Laughter ]
Seriously, just imagine... Just imagine...
if you can,
the most innocent phone call you've ever witnessed.
You've never watched your spouse order takeout and said,
"Wow, honey. That was the most innocent
phone call I've ever seen.
You ordered that pizza without murdering anyone."
But, still, Trump said he spoke to McConnell
and McConnell told him it was an innocent phone call.
There's just one problem.
McConnell doesn't seem to remember it that way.
-The President has said that you told him that his phone call
with the Ukrainian president was perfect and innocent.
Do you believe that the President
has handled this Ukrainian situation perfectly?
-We've not had any conversations on that subject.
-So he was lying about that? -You'll have to ask him.
I don't recall any conversations
with the President about that phone call.
-Wow. Even Mitch McConnell won't back him up now.
By the end of this whole thing, Republicans are just going to
start pretending they don't even know who Donald Trump is.
"Uh, that man was the president?
I just assumed he was a Halloween decoration
meant to scare away pranksters on mischief night."
Problem for the Republicans is that the facts are so clear
that there's nothing they can say or do to defend them.
For example, those words Trump said on the phone call,
"I would like you to do us a favor,"
would seem like a classic quid pro quo, but this week,
Trump booster Sean Hannity
tried out a new, even dumber defense.
"It's not a crime because that's just how Trump talks."
-By the way, it's important to remember
one more thing about the President's phone call
with Ukraine, and the President said,
"I'd like you to do us a favor."
Okay. It's a favor. Okay. There were no strings attached.
Zero quid pro quo.
And let's be clear -- the term, "do us a favor,"
well, we all have go-to phrases.
You know. I say "you know" a lot.
The President uses them all the time.
-That's your argument?
That saying "do us a favor" to a foreign leader
is equivalent to you saying "you know"?
"You have to understand, Trump says 'do us a favor'
the way Valley girls say 'like'
or how Jesse Pinkman says 'bitch' all the time.
It doesn't mean he's a criminal. That's just how he talks.
Also, he's a criminal."
Republicans have also tried insisting
that there was no quid pro quo because the "quo" in this case
would be the military aid Trump was holding up,
and it would only be a quid pro quo if Ukraine
knew that aid was being delayed.
Here's one Republican Congressman
responding to shocking testimony from a key witness
in the impeachment inquiry this week on Fox News.
-Neither he or any other witness has provided testimony that the
Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld.
You can't have a quid pro quo with no "quo."
-That's how dumb these guys are.
They've gone from "There was no quid pro quo"
to "There was a quid pro but no 'quo.'"
Soon, they're going to try,
"There was a 'quid,' and there was a 'quo,'
but we are definitely not pros."
But then that argument also --
[ Cheers and applause ]
It also fell through when it was reported
that Ukraine did know the aid was being held up.
So then Trump's allies tried yet another new argument --
"it might have been wrong, but it wasn't a crime."
Here's Trump's former acting attorney general Matt Whitaker
making that argument on Fox News this week.
Again, this is a man
who was in charge of the Justice Department.
-I'm a former prosecutor, and what I know
is this is a perfect time for preliminary hearing
where you would say, "Show us your evidence.
What evidence of a crime do you have?"
I mean, the Constitution --
You know, sort of abuse of power is not a crime.
-Yeah, it is.
Also, you look like Abuse of Power
should be your wrestling name.
"Please welcome to the ring Abuse of Power!"
[ Cheers and applause ]
"He's ripping up the Constitution!"
So because they've totally run out of arguments,
Republicans have now been reduced to physically
obstructing the impeachment inquiry.
For example, yesterday, we told you that House Republicans
had orchestrated the dumb stunt in which they held
a press conference and then stormed into
a secure hearing room in order to interfere
with the deposition. The Congressman who led
the stunt, Matt Gaetz, compared it to the movie "300."
Now, in case you forgot, here's what that movie was like.
-This is Sparta!
-Okay, so now let's see those Republicans storm the hearing
in the way they described was like the movie "300."
-We're going to go and see if we can get inside.
-Let's do it. -So let's see if we can get in.
[ Laughter ]
-We're going in.
[ Laughter ]
-"This is Sparta!
So..."
[ Laughter ]
That wasn't "300." That was, like, "3."
Makes your publicity stunt a lot less dramatic
when you have to shuffle along
like you're in a crowded mall at Christmas.
Look at these guys. They all look like they're headed
to the bathroom during an intermission at a Broadway show.
So it turns out Trump, himself, had advanced knowledge
of this stunt and approved of it,
but it turns out the stunt was even dumber than we thought
because a lot of those Republicans were actually
allowed to be in the room they were supposedly storming.
-A bunch of them made a big show of storming the secure facility
in the Capitol where impeachment investigators
are deposing witnesses.
We should note that some of these folks
are on the committees doing the investigating,
so they don't need to storm the proceedings because some were
already allowed inside and had been inside before.
-Guys, you can't "storm" a room you're allowed to be in.
That's not storming. That's entering.
You STORM the beaches of Normandy.
You GO to the Jersey shore.
"We've taken Point Pleasant, boys!"
Even Republicans are having trouble defending
Trump's corrupt behavior now because the facts are clear,
and support for impeachment is rising in the polls.
If the House completes its investigation
and officially impeaches Trump, I bet at least a few Americans
will take a rip off a bong and say...
-Wow. What a great outcome. Congratulations.
-This has been "A Closer Look."