-While the Biden administration
is doing everything possible
to counter Russia's invasion of Ukraine,
while avoiding a direct military confrontation
that could spiral out of control,
Republicans and right-wing pundits
are pitching increasingly reckless ideas
that would drastically escalate the conflict.
Oh, and Donald Trump is blaming it on windmills.
[ Laughter ] For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]
Russia's brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine
set off a dire humanitarian crisis
and united virtually the entire world in opposition.
Even fast food chains
are pulling their business from Russia.
-Several more big-name companies announced
they're ending at least part of their operations in Russia.
McDonald's, Starbucks, Coca-Cola,
Pepsi, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Unilever
are scaling back or ending their sales
of their product in Russia.
-Even Pizza Hut!
Putin tried to outpizza the Hut, but he learned the hard way,
in Russia, Hut outpizzas you.
[ Laughter and applause ]
And KFC, too. KFC, too.
What a bummer for the Russian Colonel Sanders,
or, as he's known in Russia...
[ Laughter and applause ]
So Russia lost its Pizza Hut and KFCs
and, as a form of further punishment,
a Sbarro's in Red Square just opened.
[ Laughter and applause ]
There are no good outcomes
for anyone here, including Russia.
The regime is under intense sanctions
or, in the case of the Sbarro, sbanctions,
[ Laughter ] and facing nearly universal global condemnation
and, on top of that, they're encountering
brave resistance from the Ukrainian people
and their president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy,
who said, in a new interview this week,
that this war can only end with dialogue.
-Can you make a compromise with Putin?
Can you trust Putin?
-Trust?
Oh, no.
I trust only my family.
-How can you make a deal
with somebody you don't trust, then?
-We have to. We have to.
Because, to stop this war, how to stop this war?
Only dialogue.
-What would be your message
to President Vladimir Putin right now?
-Right now?
Right now, stop the war, begin to speak. That's it.
--And what if he doesn't?
-I think he will.
I think he will.
I think he sees that we're strong.
He will.
-That's really incredible.
Even a guy who is being hunted
by one of the world's most barbaric autocrats
still believes in the power of dialogue.
And let's not forget -- this guy,
who is now courageously leading his people
in defense of their homeland
was once Ukraine's top comedian,
[ Laughter ] which makes it even more incredible
because the comedians I know do not believe in dialogue.
They believe in monologue.
[ Laughter ] Every conversation
between my comedian friends
is just two people performing at each other.
[ Laughter ] And you know when one of them says something funny
because the other one says,
"That's funny."
[ Laughter ]
Also, can we go back to this?
-Can you trust Putin?
-Trust?
Oh, no. I trust only my family.
-I mean, that's even more impressive to me
because I don't trust my family, even a little bit.
[ Laughter ]
Especially my kids.
Couple of nights ago -- true story --
our oldest threw up, so we brought him in bed with us
and we got him a bowl, in case it happened again.
Twenty minutes later, the three-year-old
started screaming that he's also going to puke
and I said, "I think you're faking it
and I think you just want to get in bed with us, too."
And he said, "No, I'm really, really sick."
So we got in bed, he got his own bowl,
and tell me, based on this photo,
if you think he was telling the truth.
[ Laughter and applause ]
So, while I know it can't be easy to talk to Putin,
at least you don't have to negotiate
with Axel at 3:00 am.
[ Laughter ] The point is,
if even Zelenskyy still believes in the power of dialogue,
then the rest of us should, too, because he's right --
that's the only way this horrific conflict can end.
Reckless escalation will only make things worse,
which is why irresponsible GOP politicians and pundits need
to stop floating crazy ideas
that would only heighten tension between nuclear powers.
Like, for example, when we told you earlier this week
that Donald Trump had come up with an insane idea
to bomb Russia, but pretend it was China that did it.
-According to CBS, Trump says we should,
"Put the Chinese flag on some F-22 fighter jets"
and "bomb the [bleep] out of Russia."
[ Laughter ] Now, Trump reportedly made the suggestion
to top GOP donors at a retreat in New Orleans this weekend.
The crowd apparently laughed when he said this, so,
let's just assume it was a joke.
-No, let's not assume that.
[ Laughter ] I mean, a lot of us assumed that he was joking
when he said he was going to run for president
because, you know, he was
a famously broke game show idiot.
[ Laughter ] But Trump is always joking, until he's not.
He's like a husband pitching a three-way
to his wife and her best friend.
[ Laughter ] "I mean, that would be so funny,
the three of us, right?
Would it be funny?
Should we do it, though, as a joke?"
[ Laughter ]
That's how Trump gauges reaction,
by pretending he's not serious.
Remember when he was supposedly joking, in 2016,
that Russia should hack Hillary's emails
and then they actually did it?
Or when he looked one of his science advisors dead in the eye
and suggested we should inject people
with disinfectant to cure coronavirus
and then later claimed he was joking?
If that was a joke, then why did her face look like that?
[ Laughter ]
She looks like she just heard
they opened a Sbarro in D.C.
[ Laughter ]
That's what Trump does -- he floats crazy [bleep]
and sees how far he can take it.
If one idea gets rejected, he just tries another one.
[ As Trump ] Alright, how about this? Instead of putting
the Chinese flag on the jets,
we give them a fake nose and a mustache.
[ Laughter ]
Or we stack three jets on top of each other in a trench coat
and pretend they're a businessman.
[ Laughter ] Out-of-town businessman.
It could work. Would that work?
Let's remember -- no one seriously thought
Trump would stage a coup, either,
and then he ended up siccing an angry mob of insurrectionists
and werewolves on the Capitol.
[ Laughter ] Or how about Trump's obsession with windmills?
You might think that's all a big joke, too, but it's not.
He's still obsessed with them.
In fact, this week, Trump was asked about the Russian invasion
and used it as a jumping-off point
to start ranting incoherently, once again,
about how much he hates windmills.
-What do you see happening next, then?
Because it seems like the tensions are high.
How does this all end?
Is this going to be like a long-term thing?
How do you see it unfolding? -Well -- and I said this
a long time ago -- if this happens, we are
playing right into the hands of green energy.
The windmills, they don't work.
[ Laughter ] They're too expensive.
They kill all the birds.
They ruin your landscapes.
[ Laughter ] And yet, the environmentalists
love the windmills.
And I've been preaching this for years.
The windmills. And I had them way down,
but the windmills are the most expensive energy
you can have and they don't work.
And, by the way, they last a period of ten years
and, by the time they start rusting and rotting
all over the place, nobody ever takes them down.
They just go on to the next piece of prairie or land
and destroy that.
-First of all, I feel like you should like windmills
because you both just go in [bleep] circles all the time
[ Laughter ] and make a giant sucking sound.
I mean, seriously, how does he get
from Russia's invasion of Ukraine
to windmills in one sentence?
[ Laughter ]
Trump's favorite game is One Degree of Windmills.
[ As Trump ] Give me any topic and I'll tie it to windmills in one move.
"Uh, I don't know.
Inflation."
[ As Trump ] And, with inflation,
people are paying twice, maybe three times
what they paid for a windmill last year.
[ Laughter ] I'm really good at it.
I'm really good at One Degree of Windmills.
[ Laughter ]
This is the leader of the Republican Party.
He's their most likely nominee in 2024
and, whether he runs or not,
he still wields tremendous power over the party.
Republicans are all desperate to lavish praise on him
and do whatever he orders them to do.
Even his supposed critics,
like his former Attorney General Bill Barr,
who has a new sham book out
supposedly criticizing Trump's behavior
and who said, on Fox News this week,
Trump is unhinged.
-What do you think was the most alarming
or unsettling moment for you in the administration?
-It was certainly unsettling when I went in
to talk to the president about the election and,
you know, he was livid and shaking
and, you know, showed a lot of temper
and yelling.
That was a little unsettling.
But the other thing that was actually unsettling is later,
when I went in to actually give him my letter of resignation,
he started talking about how he had actually won the election
and how the machines were rigged
and that he was actually going to be there for another term
and he was very confident of that.
And I just felt this showed a detachment from reality
that was stunning to me.
-That's what's in your book?
You know he didn't just say that [bleep] to you, right?
[ Laughter ] He said it to all of us,
all the time.
Wait, are we all supposed to be writing books?
[ Laughter ] Am I going to walk into Barnes & Noble
and see a tell-all from my neighbor Bob?
[ Laughter ]
And also, you were stunned, really?
That's the moment it finally sunk in for you
that maybe this guy was a little off, right at the end?
[ Laughter ] You're like a person who stopped watching "Game of Thrones"
because it was too violent in the second-to-last episode.
"I don't know, when The Hound was fighting The Mountain,
I just thought, 'That's enough for me.'"
[ Laughter ]
But just to illustrate the point
that Trump is still very much the leader of the GOP,
even Barr, who is now trying to cash in
with a [bleep] tell-all,
said, in an interview this week, that, despite Trump's
supposedly stunning detachment from reality,
he'd still vote for Trump over a Democrat in 2024.
-If he is the nominee and your choice is
Donald Trump or whoever's running on the Democratic side,
would you vote for him?
-Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country
is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party,
it's inconceivable to me
that I wouldn't vote for the Republican nominee.
-So, even if he lied about the election
and threatened democracy, as you write in your book,
better than a Democrat?
-It's hard to project what the facts are going
to turn out to be three years hence,
but as of now, it's hard for me to conceive
that I wouldn't vote for the Republican nominee.
-So then, why should we care about anything you have to say?
Trump's detached from reality,
but you'd still support him for president?
You're like a cop who gets a fax from the Zodiac Killer
and says, "This guy's a sicko,
but he'd be a great math teacher."
[ Laughter ]
Interviewing this charlatan is such a waste of air time.
Don't help him plug his dumb book.
There are any number of other books
that deserve more attention. If I had a book,
that'd be a better use of your time.
Oh, wait, I do. I have a brand-new
children's book called...
[ Laughter ] My son Axel said it was great
and it's not like he ever lies.
[ Laughter and applause ]
[ Bleep ]
[ Laughter and applause ]
On the one hand, Biden is handling the situation
very much how you'd hope and expect --
soberly and with restraint.
On the other hand, Trump and his supporters
are just randomly pitching crazy ideas
for escalating the conflict, like Fox host Jesse Watters,
who had a retired lieutenant general on his show
and started just spitballing reckless ideas
for how other countries could get involved militarily.
-See if you think this is a proper idea.
What if we started distracting the Russians
and made them a little nervous?
What if we had the Japanese
stir up a little trouble on their eastern flank?
What if we sent some naval assets into the Black Sea?
Just say, "Hey, you know, we're protecting Turkey,
our NATO ally." What if, you know,
we scrambled a few jets in the Baltics or something?
Something to make the Russians, maybe, think twice
and take their eye off the ball a little bit.
-Do you think you're in a pitch meeting
for the new Steven Seagal movie?
[ Laughter ]
[ As Seagal ] Tell me what you have, Jesse.
[ As Watters ] Eastern flank, scramble jets,
naval assets, stirred up trouble.
[ As Seagal ] That's very good, Jesse.
[ Laughter ]
The only problem is the budget for this film
is only $45.
[ Laughter ]
In what possible world does anyone think
the best path forward with Vladimir Putin is
to just [bleep] round with him?
[ Laughter ] If you have a rabid raccoon in the corner of your garage,
you call animal control,
but I bet you could get someone on Fox News to say --
[ As Watters ] "No! What you want to do is set up a bunch of firecrackers
to freak it out! [ Laughter ]
And then, when it's all confused,
you run in dressed like a giant squirrel and say,
'Come with me if you want to live!'
[ Laughter ] And then, when it runs out, surprise,
you got a second rabid raccoon you bought on the black market
and now, they have to fight.
Bang, boom, problem solved!
[ Laughter ]
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is an unfathomable tragedy
that has resulted in a dire humanitarian crisis
and what we need to do right now to help the Ukrainian people is
find a path forward toward dialogue and de-escalation
to end the conflict as quickly as possible.
What we don't need are reckless ideas
that would escalate the conflict,
from people who have no idea what they're talking about,
like former presidents whose brains are...
-Rusting and rotting.
[ Laughter ] -This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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