-Well, it's 2022, and believe it or not,
all of our problems are solved,
the pandemic is over and our democracy is saved.
Wait, I'm sorry. Hold on. That doesn't sound right.
-See, I told you.
Seth, I bet Bryan 100 bucks
that you read anything I put in the cards.
Pay up, Bry.
-Damn it, Wally.
If you ever pull anything like that again,
I'll give you a raise and buy you a car!
What? -Hoo-ho!
Yes! I did it again.
-Can I just have the real cards now, Wally?!
[ Clears throat ]
[ Laughter ]
COVID is more widespread than ever,
and our democracy is on the brink.
Yes, that is more like it.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
One of the biggest mistakes we as human beings make
is thinking next year will be better than last year,
even though the best indicator of how things are going to go
is how they've been going.
It's not like Father Time pulls Baby New Year aside
and says, "Go easy on him, kid,
because I was a real ass ache.
Remember when 2020 ended and we all thought
we were in the clear, only to make it six days
until the Capitol storm?
And if you thought that was crazy,
we only made it two days into 2022
before the worst thing at a Jets game
was somehow not Jets related.
[ Laughter ]
And I have to say this year's New Year celebrations
did not inspire a lot of confidence that 2022
is going to be a much more cheerful year.
For example, at one point they played
John Lennon's "Imagine" per tradition
while a smaller-than-usual crowd danced in giant
hats branded with the Planet Fitness logo.
-♪ Imagine no possessions ♪
-Now, in fairness to those people,
the Beatles were wearing those same hats
in the "Get Back" documentary.
Who can forget that incredible moment
when John turned to Paul and said,
"Hey, Paul, wouldn't it be great if there was peace on Earth
and a gym with no enrollment fees?"
"Well, that would be Super, John."
"And what are they gave you the first month free?"
"Oh, now you're giving me the giggly wigglys, John.
[ Siren blaring ]
Whoa, you know what that siren means.
New impression alert.
I spent the holiday break at a special two-week
impression camp seminar
where we learned how to do what's called a two-hander,
where you impersonate two people at once.
It's like they say at Impression camp,
"Do you want to be life of the party
or would you rather go to impression camp?"
[ Laughter ]
Point is, I didn't know him personally,
but I'm fairly confident that is not what
John Lennon wanted us to imagine when he wrote the song.
Otherwise, the lyrics would have been a little different.
♪ Imagine there's a planet ♪
♪ Where you can exercise ♪
♪ Everybody's into fitness ♪
♪ They're are beefy guys ♪
[ Laughter ]
I feel like by doing that, it's like a favor to Gal Gadot.
And by the way, if that bizarre scene didn't give you
a sense of how we're entering 2022,
then how about this drunken rant from CNN New Year's Eve co-host
Andy Cohen, who absolutely went off on former Mayor
Bill de Blasio after the ball dropped?
I don't know what Andy's specific complaint is,
but it doesn't matter because this is pretty much
how New Yorkers talk about every mayor,
regardless of who they are or what they do.
-Let me tell you something.
-Please tell us something, Andy.
-Watching Mayor de Blasio...
-Don't go on a rant. -...do his "victory"
lap dance after four years... -Don't -- don't do it.
-...of the crappiest term as the mayor of New York.
-That's how you want to start the new year?
-The only thing the Democrats and Republicans can agree on
is what a horrible mayor he has been.
So sayonara, sucka.
2022, It's a new year.
Because guess what?
I have a feeling of I'm going to be standing
right here next year.
And you know I'm not going to be looking at
dancing as the city comes apart.
...you!
-I mean, I think he's been
spending too much time with those "Real Housewives."
Even Jennifer would be like you should have a club soda.
I mean, look at him.
Anderson Cooper is holding him back by the jacket
the way you hold back your friend
who is over served at SantaCon.
Look, forget it, Chase.
Let's just go harass some outdoor diners.
Given the choice between those two,
I just want you to know you want Andy to be the belligerent one.
Because when Anderson Cooper wants to fight you,
you're already dead.
[ Laughter ]
And as for the rant itself, agree or disagree,
but if you've ever been on the F train
or in a bar at 3:00 A.M., you've probably heard
that exact thing, word for word. It's nothing personal.
It's just a bargain you make as mayor of this city.
In return for getting to live in a mansion,
you serve as a sponge for everyone's rage.
It's the only way we can live together in this city.
We have to have a common enemy
in the form of the mayor, whoever they are.
Otherwise, we turn on each other in the streets
and you'd see Spider-Man and Buzz Lightyear
just wailing on each other in Times Square while a cabbie
runs over the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
The same was true for Bloomberg and Rudy.
It'll be true for Eric Adams as well.
Angry rants against the mayor
is such a standard part of New York life
they've been incorporated into the subway announcements.
-Stand clear of the closing doors, please.
And remember freaking de Blasio can kiss my ass.
Oh.
Next stop, 42nd Street.
-Yeah.
So that kind of gives you a good sense
of the state of things as we enter 2022.
That's not to say there aren't reasons for optimism,
or at least reasons for us
all to be motivated to work together toward a better future.
We can't give in to the fatalism,
and we have to keep pushing forward together in solidarity
for a more just and brighter world.
But along the way, we're going to do some shots
and they're going to be times where we need Anderson Cooper
to hold us back.
So just, you know, where your puffiest coat
because it's easier for him to get a grip on it.
For example, that Andy Cohen New Year's Energy
is pretty much how I felt when Florida Senator
Marco Rubio flippantly dismissed the most recent COVID surge,
which is setting new records for daily case numbers
and fueling rising hospital admissions.
On New Year's Eve, Rubio tweeted, "Record numbers
testing positive for a sore throat
isn't a crisis, and people in the hospital
for car accidents testing positive isn't surge.
The real crisis is the irrational hysteria,
which has people with no symptoms
waiting hours for a test or missing work for 10 days."
Irrational hysteria?
Anderson hold me back!
First of all, you haunted ventriloquist dummy,
It's only a sore throat, that's likely
because you're boosted or at the very least,
double vaccinated, which would be a far better
message for you to be pushing,
especially since you got your shot before most Americans
even had access to the vaccine.
Do you remember that, or did you block it out
because you were, you know, being so hysterical?
Also, you think missing work for 10 days is the real crisis
instead of letting people stay home
to take care of themselves and slow the spread?
That's pretty rich coming from a senator
who once had one of the worst attendance records in Congress.
And it's the true fact.
One of the few true facts I learned,
from of all people, Donald Trump who brought it up
in a GOP primary debate amid a chorus of boos.
-This guy number one --
the number one absentee record in the United States.
He doesn't show up to vote.
-Just a reminder, the guy getting booed became president,
and those were Republicans booing him.
Also, you know it's bad when Donald Trump of all people
slams you for not working enough.
The guy spends most of his time wandering around his Palm Beach
golf course like the ghost of Haggard Vance.
By the way that clip is a reminder
if you ever want dirt on any major Republican,
you can just rewatch the 2016 debates.
Trump went through those guys like Don Rickles
at the Copacabana.
Rubio's attendance record was so bad,
Trump didn't even have to lie about it.
Trump lies about everything, even stuff that's good for him.
If he won the Nobel Prize, he'd tell everyone
it was their best golfer, big penis category.
Can you imagine the conversation
with his staff when Trump found out
he didn't have to make something up?
"I'm going to lie and say it doesn't show up to vote."
"Well, it's not a lie, sir. It's true."
"Okay, well, then I'm going to lie
and say his real name is Marcus Rubiokoski."
"Well, what if, sir, and this is just a suggestion,
what if you didn't lie at all this time?"
"No, can do.
I have to lie once every five minutes
or my brain explodes like the buss from 'Speed'.
'Speed,' we love 'Speed,' don't we, folks?
A young -- a young Sandy Bullock and a breakthrough role.
But I can't watch it anymore.
I can't watch the film 'Speed' anymore.
It's very sad. It's bad.
I can't watch it anymore because it reminds me
of the 'Access Hollywood' bus where I was treated very --
I was treated very unfairly, very unfairly on this.
But do you guys remember that?
You barely do, don't you?
Like the whole thing was a dream.
But it's true.
It's one of the many true things that I did,
and everybody forgave me and I became president."
[ Laughter ]
I hope this is a reminder that Republicans like Rubio
pretend to be normal statesman above the fray
are arguably just as reckless and unhinged
as the far right weirdos like Marjorie Taylor Greene,
who has repeatedly lied about the vaccines
and who recently called for a "national divorce,"
which is, I guess, the sequel to "National Velvet."
How -- how would a national divorce even work?
Who would get the White House? Who would pay alimony?
Who would get custody of Eric?
It would probably just be the two sides
pushing him back and forth.
He's a Republican, so he should go with you.
But he's a New Yorker, so he should go with you.
And then one critic said it sounded like
she was calling for a civil war, Greene defended the tweet
by writing that "Divorces happen in court
or perhaps for a country can happen in Congress.
Happy marriages are the result of two committed people
working together, resolving differences
and changing behavior that hurts the other."
And by the way, this person who said happy marriages
required two sides to compromise is also the same person
who tweeted a truly depraved lie about Democrats
and COVID last week when she said
"The vaccines are failing and the Democrats are tyrants.
The entire effort should be focused
on life saving treatments and returning life to normal.
Wide open, no mask, no mandates, no discrimination,
and lifesaving treatments widely available."
We all want to get back to normal.
You are the ones who want to live
with this endless cycle of misery and death
and just let a highly contagious respiratory virus
ravaged the country. That's not normal.
The rest of us just want to slow the spread of COVID
and get back to something that's actually normal.
You know how badly I love to go back to my old life
of eating indoors at restaurants without a mask on so the waiters
would recognize my face and comp my mail?
[ Laughter ]
They always said the same thing.
"Oh, my God. I loved you in 'The Office.'"
[ Laughter ]
Hey, whatever.
Whatever!
Free cheesecake is free cheesecake.
Well, not surprisingly, after all that,
Greene's personal account finally got kicked off Twitter.
-Twitter is permanently suspending the personal account
of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
According to the social media company,
it's because Greene repeatedly posted false information
about COVID-19.
-The Georgia Republican just releasing a statement
bashing the social media site, writing,
"Twitter is an enemy to America and can't handle the truth."
-Oh, it looks like you finally got that divorce you wanted.
And regardless of how you feel
about the ethics of kicking politicians off Twitter,
it's just a huge quality of life improvement.
Like when Trump got kicked off Twitter,
trying to live in a world where people like Trump and Greene
are constantly screaming and saying
[bleep] Twitter is like trying to have a conversation
with a friend on the street next to a jackhammer.
Wow, it's great to see you! [ Jackhammer hammering ]
I said it's great to see you!
Ma, this jackhammer!
Freaking de Blasio, am I right?! [ Laughter ]
What? Oh, yeah, I forgot!
Freaking Adams, am I right?! [ Hammering stops ]
People are so deeply invested in the unhinged idea
that any attempt at all to curb the spread of COVID
is somehow tyranny.
For example, Congressman Madison Cawthorn
tweeted over the weekend "Our Founding Fathers
wouldn't recognize the America we live in today.
They would be horrified, and rightly so."
I mean, no one from the 1700s
would recognize anything.
I mean, Thomas Jefferson was a renowned inventor,
but he'd still [bleep] his pants if you showed him a Roomba.
On the other hand, if you want to invoke the founding fathers,
George Washington famously ordered his troops
to get inoculated against smallpox.
And if you refused,
General Washington would famously say...
-Sayonara, sucka.
-And yet, despite their obsession
with prioritizing these treatments over vaccines,
they can't even seem to get the names right,
as Fox host Brian Kilmeade recently demonstrated.
-Aaron Rodgers is saying what we've been saying.
You especially, Carley, yesterday,
where the therapeutics of that mano --
monocolonial, uh, the treatment --
-Monoclonal antibodies, yeah. -Yeah, antibodies.
-Yeah, monocolonial.
You know the thing Mr. Peanut wears.
[ Laughter ]
It's almost like they're not monomaniacally monopolizing
the monologue about monoclonal molecules,
and that was today's joke for your SAT prep course,
[ Chime plays ]
Study up, kids, or don't.
It's your future. I don't care.
Anyway, Brian, do you know any preparation at all
before you go on TV, or do they just pull you
out of bed, dump cold water in your face
and throw it in front of the camera like a hostage?
"Oh, God. Where am I? Why are the lights so bright?"
"Just read the card, Yankee!"
"Monocolonial antibodies."
[ Laughter ]
2022 is arriving with a fresh set of challenges,
along with the ones we were already facing,
and the time is now to band together in solidarity
and do something about them, whether it's saving democracy
or keeping people healthy and safe
from a highly contagious respiratory virus.
We should be working together to solve these problems.
We can do it.
To quote the song, imagine all the people
living life in peace.
-...you!
[ Laughter ]
This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
God's Love We Deliver cooks and brings over
two million meals a year to men, women and children
living with HIV, AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses
and need your help now more than ever.
If you're watching this online, you can hit the donate button.
Stay safe, get vaccinated. We love you.