-Donald Trump called on Republicans
to defund the FBI and DOJ after he was arrested
and arraigned on 34 felony charges Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Republicans are threatening retaliation
by openly admitting
they'll use the justice system to go after Joe Biden.
For more on this, it's time for A Closer Look.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Donald Trump's allies have spent the last few days claiming Trump
is actually enjoying the media spectacle around his indictment
and even the process
of surrendering himself for arrest.
-Trump, for his part, is reportedly
downplaying his predicament behind closed doors,
according to a new story in The New York Times,
the former president has told friends and associates
that he welcomes the idea of being paraded around
by the authorities, surrounded by the media.
Trump has also reportedly mused openly
about whether to smile for the cameras
during a possible perp walk
and described the potential situation as a fun experience.
-Oh, it's going to be a fun experience is definitely a lie
you tell people when you were scared [bleep].
That's 100% what I would say right before skydiving.
This is going to be so great.
I just can't decide if I'm going to smile or not.
[ Laughter ]
The only way you could possibly find the experience
of getting arrested fun is if everything about your life
is absolutely miserable,
which I guess applies to Donald Trump.
I mean, look at him. That was taken right after
someone said they were free donuts in the break room.
The man is constantly enraged,
and I know I'm wasting my time saying this,
but I think a person describing a perp walk
as a fun experience is disqualifying
for the office of president.
So put that on my list that nobody gives [bleep] about,
right after stared at an eclipse and right before called
Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tim Apple.
Nothing -- Nothing involving the criminal justice system is fun.
Oh, sure. Oh, sure.
You might think -- you might think it's fun to be
one of the guys they bring in to fill out a police lineup.
Well, I used to do that
for a little extra money back in the day,
and it was fun till the day I got fingered
for the liquor store that B.J. Novak knocked over.
[ Laughter ]
Should have known it was him, because you know
what he did to the security camera?
[ Laughter ]
Donald Trump thought it would be fun
to be arraigned in New York City.
Nothing involving the criminal justice system is fun,
especially in New York.
If they told me I won the lottery,
but I have to go to the Manhattan courthouse
to pick up the check I think,
"I don't mind working."
But here's one thing I could tell you.
Just as an outside observer who has watched Donald Trump
for many years now, the man is not having fun.
For one thing, he wasn't paraded around by authorities.
He mopped through the hallways of the criminal courthouse
surrounded by officers who didn't even hold
the door open for him.
He had to hold the door open,
and that's probably the first time in his life
he's had to do that.
If Trump walked up to a door
without anyone else around to help,
he'd be totally stumped.
"Oh, boy. Okay, now, what are we looking at here?
I should remember this from my real estate days.
Rectangular, little shape, tiny metallic pumpkin.
Not sure what the little pumpkin does.
You know what? I'm just going to try.
Door open. Let's see if that works.
Excuse me. Excuse me, door. You're being a very nasty door.
You're a biased -- you're a biased left wing door.
They gave me a Hillary door.
Hashtag fake door."
But when you actually look at
Donald Trump's face sitting down in that courtroom,
you can tell this is not a man who's having fun.
I mean, look at him. That's how I look
when I fall asleep on the couch and wake up after dark.
Again, it's worth taking in this image
because whatever else you want to say about it,
it's definitely historic.
This is a former president sitting in a criminal court
as a defendant surrounded by his legal team.
The only thing that was missing was a record scratch,
followed by an internal monologue.
[ Record scratches ]
"Yep, that's me.
You're probably wondering how I got here.
Well, sit back, because it's a pretty crazy story."
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
So Trump and his team wanted us all to think
he was enjoying the experience, that it was fun
and that it would benefit him politically, which is BS.
This is all part of the shtick.
Trump wants us to think everything he does is by design,
that it's all part of his master plan,
that he's playing four dimensional chess
and he's always getting the best of us
and he's loving every minute of it.
But it's not true. I mean, look at him.
He's used to sitting with kings and CEOs,
and now he's sitting in a chair that five minutes
before he walked in was used by a guy who pled not guilty
to one charge of exposing himself
to a squirrel in Central Park.
"Sorry, Your Honor. I just thought that squirrels liked --"
"No. Will you please advise the defendant to refrain
from making jokes about his nuts?
I assure you, this being the Manhattan Criminal Court,
we've heard all the nuts jokes before.
Alright, Bailiff. Next [bleep] case."
That's just how judges talk in New York City.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah, we're on the next card, Wally.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something.
Wally -- Wally Feresten, best in the biz.
When it comes to cue cards.
[ Cheers and applause ]
But [bleep] crapped out here there hard.
It was a real brain freeze by Wally.
-It sounded like an ad-lib.
-It sounded like an ad-lib?
-Yeah, so it was so good.
-All those words were on the card, Wally.
-Yeah,I know. -You know, I don't come up
with my own ideas, Wally.
[ Laughter ]
Sal puts them in my head.
[ Laughter ]
But that's why this image is so important.
It shows that even a guy who is not too long ago,
the most powerful man in the world,
the guy who controlled our nuclear arsenal
and rode around in a presidential limo
and entered every room to hail to the chief,
had to sit in that courthouse in front of a judge
just like everyone else accused of breaking the law.
In fact, if you ask me,
they should have made a real New York experience
and towed his plane while he was inside.
"Rudy?
Rudy, what the [bleep]?"
"Sorry, boss. I could have sworn I put enough
quarters in the meter.
Although they might have been my buttons.
Was getting arrested as much fun as you thought it would be?"
[ Laughing ] In fact, he's been freaking out --
"I know you were really excited."
[ Laughter ]
In fact, he's been freaking out so much that today
he wrote in an all caps social media post...
It's going to be so funny the next time a Republican tries
to pretend this never happened and claims
Democrats are the ones who want to defund the police.
Joe Biden should have this post printed out
and wear it like a sandwich board wherever he goes.
"Donald Trump wants to defund the police,
and $5 footlongs, they're back.
They were gone and I brought them back now.
They're back.
They're back, Jack.
$5 footlong. $5.
I brought them back.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Chips are extra."
Now, as for the merits of the case,
we did learn a lot more from the charging document yesterday,
like the fact that Trump finalized the details
of the scheme with his fixer,
Michael Cohen in the Oval Office,
or the fact that Trump
also thanked another key player in the scheme,
former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.
During his presidential transition,
invited him to both the inauguration
and dinner at the White House.
Those revelations make clear that this is not just a case
about Trump having an affair or even paying hush money,
which, if done right, is not a crime.
Despite the fact that Trump's allies on Fox
have all tried to make it sound like this
was just a silly bookkeeping error,
or that it's something that happens all the time.
You're going to break 200 years of U.S. precedent
about indicting your political opponents
over a business records charge?
-We were told by the Democrats in the media
that your private life's your private life.
Everything was consensual.
Now, all of a sudden, consensual is a felony
and they're literally prosecuting
the former president over sex?
-In fact, settlements like this, whatever you think of them,
are common, both among famous people,
celebrities and in corporate America.
The result is usually known as an NDA,
a non-disclosure agreement.
In this case, you can believe
whatever side you want to believe,
but paying people not to talk about things,
"hush money," is ordinary in modern America.
-This must have cost the taxpayers of New York
tens of millions of dollars,
the security coverage for this situation.
And you just said it. over what?
Over $130,000, completely legal
non-disclosure agreement payment.
You know, these things happen all day,
every day in the United States of America.
-That's not a defense. That's a confession.
If you think -- if you think illegal hush money payments
happen all the time, you're telling us an awful lot
about how the wealthy elite in this country operate.
"Come on, who among us
has an accidentally strangled the butler
and buried them in the garden?
It happens all the time.
I'm on my third butler this month."
But think about that, though.
They went from saying Donald Trump
is a champion of the working class,
he's fighting the establishment, taking on the elites to saying
his hush money scheme was no big deal
because rich celebrities do it all the time.
I hope Trump starts incorporating
that at his rallies.
"You normies wouldn't understand, but rich,
famous guys like me,
we have sex with porn stars all the time.
All the time.
That's why I'm introducing a bill to make it legal,
and we're calling it the Concealing Relationships
and Monetary Enterprises Act, aka the Crime Act.
Oh, dang it. I've -- I've done it again.
Donald, you got to pay attention to the letters.
They make an acronym. They make an acronym."
But in the charging document yesterday,
the district attorney made it clear
that this case is about a lot more
than just bookkeeping or a sex scandal.
Trump funneled money from his business
to a fixer to silence an adult film star weeks
before an election to help his campaign
and become the most powerful man in the world.
It was a plot to hide information from the public
and affect the outcome of an election.
And by the way, who knows if it would have?
Probably not. He probably could have done a campaign event
in the lobby of the hotel where he had the affair
and his supporters would have still lined up to take selfies.
"I'm going to head up to the room now any minute,
and then any minute after that,
I'll be right back down to tell you how it went.
I don't think you'll have time to run to the bathroom.
I'd stick around."
After his court appearance yesterday,
Trump flew back to Mar-a-Lago to give a speech to supporters
where he whined about the usual bull[bleep]
and only briefly mentioned the indictment.
-This fake case was brought only to interfere
with the upcoming 2024 election,
and it should be dropped immediately.
-Say whatever you want about the charges,
but it's not a fake case, I assure you.
You were really there in a very real courtroom
facing very real felony charges, although Trump is insane
so maybe he does think the case is fake.
Maybe he thinks it's just a "Truman Show" situation.
He's on a giant -- "It's a fake case,
and all I have to do at the end
is walk up those stairs and out that door."
But instead of just letting this case play out, as it should,
Republicans are threatening retaliation and revenge.
GOP Congressman James Comer has said on Fox today
he's gotten multiple calls from prosecutors in red states
looking for ways to go after Joe Biden.
-I had two calls yesterday,
one from a county attorney in Kentucky
and one from a county attorney in Tennessee.
They -- they were Republican, obviously.
Both states are heavily Republican.
They want to know if there are ways
they can go after the Bidens now.
-I don't know. Did Joe Biden pay hush money
to a porn star in Tennessee?
Because if not, you're [bleep] out of luck, bud,
because that's not how it works.
Trump's businesses are in New York.
He committed the alleged crime in New York,
New York has jurisdiction.
That's why Trump is being charged
with falsifying business records in Manhattan
and not, say, street racing a Stingray in Chattanooga,
which if Joe Biden did, by all means, arrest him.
If you can catch him.
Oh, those Biden boys!
We're gonna catch them Biden boys.
[ Muttering ]
[ Laughter ]
Also these guys are -- they're just such morons.
You went on TV and confessed that Republicans
are looking for ways to manipulate the justice system
to go after Biden as political revenge.
If those prosecutors in Kentucky and Tennessee
ever do bring a case,
all the defense has to do is play this clip
and the judge will say the court rule is that you are,
and this is the legal term, a massive [bleep].
Whatever, whatever else you may think of this case,
the image of Trump in that courthouse
sent a message a former president
had to face the criminal justice system
the same way anyone else would under the same circumstances.
Trump may be pretending he's enjoying all of this,
but I assure you, when he was in that courthouse hearing
the charges read out loud, his stomach...
-Dropped immediately.
-This has been A Closer Look.
[ Cheers and applause ]