-Senate Republicans, joined by Democrat Joe Manchin,
blocked a bill called the Women's Health Protection Act
that would codify abortion rights at the Federal level.
Also, we found out yesterday that when he was president,
Donald Trump asked his advisers if China had a hurricane gun
that it was using against the United States.
Are those two things related?
I guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Every time you think you're heard the dumbest thing
Donald Trump said or did as president,
he somehow finds a way to shock you.
I didn't even know I still had
the capacity to be shocked by Trump.
It's like how, even after seven seasons of shocking deaths
on "Game of Thrones," I still gasped when Littlefinger died.
Oh, I mean, or he lived?
I should have said "spoiler alert,"
but if you couldn't guess that Littlefinger was going to die,
then maybe "Game of Thrones" isn't for you.
I mean, he had a goatee, and he talked like this.
[ Droning ] "Lady Sansa.
You can trust me, Lady Sansa."
[ Normal voice ] Now, it might seem weird to be referencing
"Game of Thrones" now, but there is a prequel coming out,
and baby Littlefinger is in it. Littlerfinger.
Anyway, this has been "The News Is Super Depressing
So Seth Put A Goatee On A Baby."
[ Chime plays ]
The point is, I was still shocked yesterday
when "Rolling Stone" reported that Trump kept asking
his advisors if China
was shooting us with a hurricane gun.
According to "Rolling Stone," near the beginning
of Trump's time in office, he had a pressing question
for his national security aides and administration officials --
does China have the secret technology, a weapon even,
to create large man-made Hurricanes and then launch them
at the United States?
And if so, would this constitute an act of war
by a foreign power, and could the U.S. retaliate militarily?
Trump repeatedly asked about this, according to two former
senior administration officials and a third person
briefed on the matter.
And this was at the beginning of his presidency,
and somehow his presidency still had a middle and an end.
Can you imagine if you went to Starbucks and ordered
and the barista said, "Uh-huh. Now, what exactly is coffee?"
And then you went back four years later,
and that barista was the manager.
[ Laughter ]
Also, Trump is so [bleep] crazy that he doesn't just ask,
does China have a hurricane gun.
He's got a bunch of follow-ups, assuming the answer
is gonna be yes.
[ Laughter ]
How does he even get to the follow-ups?
"Does China have a hurricane gun? And if so --"
"Actually, we can just jump in right now
and save you some time.
They do not have a hurricane gun."
="Right, but if they did --" "They don't."
"Sure, but if they were to develop one --"
"They won't."
It's never just one question.
It's a series of questions.
I imagine him sitting in a leather chair
with a smoking jacket in the study,
Sherlock style, pondering the implications of his discovery.
[ As Sherlock Holmes ] "Is it possible that China
is using a hurricane gun to attack us?
If that is the case, would the use of such a weapon
not constitute an act of war against a sovereign country?
And if, as international law stipulates, a sovereign nation
has the right to defend itself when attacked
by an aggressor nation, does that not then imply
that the logical response would be to respond
with a weapon of our own?
Perhaps, and I am merely brainstorming here,
a tornado cannon."
[ Laughter ]
Maybe this explains why he was so obsessed
with how much water there was in Hurricanes.
He thought China was making them extra wet on purpose.
-This is a tough Hurricane, one of the wettest
we've ever seen, from the standpoint of water.
It's tremendously big and tremendously wet.
-Tremendously big and tremendously wet.
I think that's playing at the art house cinema
near my apartment.
[ Laughter ]
It's French, though, so I'm not sure.
Trump's unhinged conspiracy theories matter,
because they are the core of the modern GOP,
a party that has repeatedly said Trump is their leader,
and if they get their way, will put Trump back in power in 2024,
either by winning or finishing
off the coup they started in 2020.
One of our two major political parties is more concerned
with conspiracy theories and putting this guy
back in the White House than the actual crises we're facing
right now, from impending climate disaster
to the pandemic to massive wealth inequality,
among many other things.
Senate Republicans are holding up urgent
COVID relief money, which could lead to a shortage
of tests and medicine.
And there's even a baby formula shortage,
due in large part to monopolistic
control of the market, and yet shockingly,
several Senators told "The Huffington Post"
they were unaware of the crisis on Monday.
I think all these guys are unaware of the baby formula
shortage 'cause they're, like, 90 years old.
I guarantee if there was a Werther's Original shortage,
Charles Grassley would be on the floor of the Senate every day,
calling on Biden to declare a national emergency.
They'd immediately pass a bill 100-0 requiring Boeing
and Raytheon to switch from making planes and missiles
to making hard candy, which, incidentally,
we could then use instead of missiles.
There's no Kevlar in the world that could stop a barrage
of Werther's Originals and ribbon candy,
which would make a great scene in an action movie.
"Firing Werther's missiles!
Suck on that!
[ Laughter ]
For a long time."
-♪ Highway to the danger zone ♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
Double props.
[ Laughter ]
It's got to be really good for NBC to pay for two props
in "A Closer Look."
They signed off on pipe and then we said, "We need glasses."
And they're like, "You've got to choose."
And we're like, "Trust me,
you're gonna want both."
[ Laughter ]
So if senators are too busy to pass COVID relief
or address climate change or read up on
a baby formula shortage, what are they doing?
Well, they're apparently very concerned about a nationwide
crime spree involving chalk on sidewalks.
-Messages in support of abortion rights
are showing up outside the home of Republican Senator
Susan Collins of Maine.
-Over the weekend, someone used chalk to write on the sidewalk
outside of the senator's home in Bangor.
-Maine Authorities say the Senator called police
after the message was drawn.
It says, "Susie, please Mainers want WHPA.
Vote yes, clean up your mess."
-A spokesperson for Bangor Police says
no crime was committed
because the chalk message was not threatening.
-That's right. [ Laughter ]
Susan Collins called the cops
because someone wrote with chalk on the sidewalk
outside her house.
Does she freak out when there's a yard sale in her neighborhood?
And the note wasn't even threatening.
It said please.
Although, I'm not sure how chalk
on a sidewalk could ever be threatening.
Oh, my God. It must be a note from the Zodiac Killer.
Fair warning, Detective. If you step on a crack,
you will break your mother's back.
[ Laughter ]
Of course, Susan Collins claims she's pro-choice,
but in reality, she and her fellow Republicans
would much rather spend their time freaking out
about polite chalk messages or the identity of the person
who leaked the Supreme Court opinion
than the actual substance of what's happening,
that the Supreme Court is on the verge of erasing
a woman's right to bodily autonomy,
and that states are already pushing forward
with severe new restrictions on reproductive rights,
despite the fact that it seems very possible
a conservative leaked the draft opinion
to freeze the majority in place.
Republicans like Texas Senator Ted Cruz have been insisting
it must be a liberal in order to shift the story away
from abortion rights and stay focused on the leak.
Obviously, Cruz doesn't have any evidence, though.
-There has never been a leak like this,
and can only, in all likelihood, have come from a justice
that I think is less likely.
Perhaps one of the clerks, and the leading --
leading theory is a conservative cleric
who was afraid that one of the conservatives
might be persuaded by Chief Justice Roberts
to join in much more moderate opinion.
-Do you have the -- Yeah.
-Because I'm not a moron.
Because I live on planet Earth.
-Yeah, you might live here,
but clearly you're not from here.
I refuse to believe that voice is actually human.
You sound like you swallowed a kazoo,
and that beard definitely looks like a disguise
you'd see in "Men in Black."
I'm -- I'm simply asking why the Biden administration
refuses to do anything about the rising price of sugar water.
So, we don't know who the leaker is.
[ Coughs ] Ginni Thomas.
[ Coughs ] But Republicans would much rather focus on the leak
than the substance of the bill they blocked today
because preserving Roe v. Wade is massively popular.
In fact, they're so desperate to distract from the fallout
of what the Supreme Court is about to do
that Cruz went on Fox News this week to claim ludicrously
that protests against the Supreme Court's action
were somehow worse than the violent coup attempt
Trump and Cruz fomented on January 6th.
-On January 6, 2021,
you had tens of thousands of people peacefully protesting,
and yet the corporate media and Democrats slander them
with the made up term insurrectionist.
And yet, in this instance,
they are not willing to call off their goons.
Yeah. Why is the corporate Democratic media
slandering all those patriots
who peacefully smashed windows and stormed the Capitol
but refusing to crack down on the thugs
and goons who are violently writing coded messages in chalk?
Has the world turned right side up?
By the way, Ted Cruz knows what he's doing here.
He originally called the insurrection
a violent terrorist attack,
but then the extreme pro-insurrection wing
of his party, led by guys like Tucker Carlson,
got mad at him so he had to reverse himself
and go on Fox News to grovel for forgiveness.
And now to please Trump and the MAGA base,
he's doubling down on calling January 6th a peaceful protest.
Next, he's going to claim he was just flying to Cancun
to escape the hurricane gun.
They had it aimed right at Texas,
but thankfully we were able to neutralize it
with President Trump's hurricane wall
made out of Werther's. You can't get through it.
You can't get through a Werther's wall.
We're facing a series of major crises,
from the rising cost of living, to extreme wealth inequality,
to impending climate disaster, to a deadly respiratory disease
that's still spreading to a Supreme Court
that's poised to erase reproductive rights
and the bodily autonomy of tens of millions of women.
And yet Republicans would rather whine and throw tantrums
about leaks and sidewalk chalk.
These people talk about leaks so much,
you think their pants were...
-Tremendously wet.
[ Laughter and applause ]
It's been "A Closer Look," baby.
♪♪
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