-A Senate report provides
damning new details about Donald Trump's attempts
to get the Justice Department to overturn the election
and, yet, former Trump allies
who criticized him for the attempted coup,
like Nikki Haley and Mike Pence,
are pathetically falling back in line.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
If you recall -- and I know it's hard to remember,
since it happened approximately 78 years ago --
Donald Trump whipped up a violent mob
to attack the Capitol and stage an insurrection,
in order to overturn the results of a free and fair election.
I'm no lawyer, but that, alone,
seems to me like a crime worthy of jail time.
And by the way, when I say I'm not a lawyer,
that doesn't mean I don't know lawyers.
I feel like everyone I know is a lawyer.
The other day, I was at the dentist's office,
getting a cleaning, and, when I mentioned a parking ticket,
my hygienist said, "Do you need representation?"
and gave me his card. Although,
I should be clear, my dental hygienist
is Rudy Giuliani.
I'm sorry. He's just cheaper.
I think it's because he uses helium, instead of nitrous.
I say that because it always hurts a ton
and, when I scream in pain, it sounds like this --
[ Donald Duck voice ] No! Dad, no!
[ Laughter ]
Alright.
And, yet, it seems like,
not only is Trump likely to avoid jail,
but, according to a report from earlier this week,
he wants to run for president again.
-New reporting on Donald Trump's
future presidential ambitions.
Three sources tell The Washington Post
that Trump asked advisors whether he should announce
his 2024 bid for the White House
after the chaotic exit in Afghanistan
and those advisors urged "patience."
That's the quote, patience.
But, behind the scenes, there's concern
that Democrats could benefit during the 2022 midterms,
if Trump decides to jump
into the presidential race before that.
-It says a lot about how unpopular Trump is,
that his advisors had to tell him to wait
to announce his candidacy, or it would help Democrats.
But would anyone really be shocked if he ran again?
He tried everything, in and out of his power,
to stay in the White House, even though he lost.
He begged the Georgia secretary of state
to find some votes, like he was Jack Lemmon in a phone booth.
Assuming he's not going to run again
is like hitting Michael Myers with a car
and thinking the movie's over.
"Oh, he fell down.
Okay, we're all safe now.
We can turn our backs on him."
Trump probably understands the place he'd be safest
from his current legal troubles is the White House,
so, it makes sense he'd want to get back there.
He treats the job less like a massive responsibility
and more like a safe base in a game of middle school tag.
[ As Trump ] I'm touching the Oval Office wall.
I'm safe when I'm touching the wall.
You can't arrest me. I'm touching the wall.
So Trump is reportedly considering running again
and other aspiring Republicans have said
they'll wait until he makes the decision
before they decide to run themselves.
-Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
now says the Republican Party needs former President Trump
and she'll consult with him,
if she makes a bid for the White House.
-She called Donald Trump a friend
and said she would consult with him
before launching a run for the White House.
-"We need him in the Republican Party.
I don't want us to go back to the days before Trump."
-You don't?!
What was wrong with the days before Trump,
too many alive people?
Not enough breaking news alerts?
There was so much insanity during Trump
that the breaking news banner
was seared into my flatscreen even when it was off.
But that tells you everything right there.
They want the Trump years back again.
That's what happens when you're a boring, soulless hack
who's dedicated your life to pursuing power above all else
in a place like official Washington,
where everyone around you is
a balding weirdo with no interests,
aside from raising money and running for things,
or maybe writing one of these airport terminal dust catchers.
The Nikki Haleys of the world used to spend their time
at boring think tank cocktail parties
where the hot topic was who's getting invited
to the Heritage Foundation Christmas party, then, suddenly,
an amoral reality show psycho like Trump comes along
and uses dirty words and they think they're in Hollywood now.
It's like when you go to Times Square
for the first time and think you're meeting
the real Iron Man.
"He said he was going to use his jet boots to fly away,
but then, I saw him smoking a cigarette on the F train."
[ Laughter ] That's what happened to Lindsey Graham.
He started out hating Trump,
like Trump was a slick out-of-towner dating his meemaw,
but then, Graham realized he could be in show business,
and everything changed.
[ As Graham ] Meemaw, Mr. Trump says
he's going to get me a job in the pictures.
I just need to give him $200 for new headshots.
What do you mean, how am I going to get $200?!
We're going to sell the farm, you old coot!
[ Laughter ]
That's why Nikki Haley wants Trump days back
and why she suddenly considers Trump her friend again,
after telling Politico, earlier this year,
that he was no longer welcome in national politics.
Let's be honest -- these people
were always going to forgive him.
Republicans are like the rich housewife
who finds lipstick on her husband's collar
and tells her friend, "He says he got it
because he slipped and fell into a makeup counter.
And you know the floor of Bloomingdale's
is like an ice skating rink." [ Laughter ]
So the Nikki Haleys and Lindsey Grahams of the world
briefly distance themselves from Trump
and then quickly fell back in line,
despite the fact that he repeatedly tried
to overturn the results of a free and fair election
and destroy our democracy.
And it isn't like January 6th
with just some protest that got out of hand
after an impulsive Trump vented his frustrations.
They had a plan. In fact, they had multiple plans.
As we've explained before, one of Trump's lawyers,
a guy named John Eastman,
even wrote an instruction manual for Mike Pence,
laying out exactly how
to overturn the election results,
which he did not have the power to do.
Trump even brought them together in the Oval Office
to try to convince Pence to go through with it.
-Stunning new details on Donald Trump's efforts
to overturn the 2020 election
from the new book "Peril,"
by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
The authors report on a two-page memo drafted by John Eastman.
John Eastman is a conservative lawyer
who was working for Trump's legal team.
It amounts to a blueprint for a coup.
NBC News has later obtained the memo.
It outlines how Pence was to have disrupted
the certification of the Electoral College results
and handed the election to Trump.
Trump tells Pence this about Eastman --
-But even weirder are the juvenile tactics Trump used
to try to persuade Pence to go through with it.
The following day, on the morning of January 6th,
he reportedly called Pence and taunted...
So he uses the same tactics as a 14-year-old trying
to convince his friend to steal a KitKat
from a convenience store.
"Just hide it under your shirt."
I can't do that.
"But wouldn't it be like cool,
if you did? [ Laughter ]
I don't know if I can be friends with a wimp, Mike."
Also, I love that Trump was the most powerful man in the world,
with virtually unlimited resources at his fingertips,
and, yet, he thought his biggest leverage
was threatening not to be Mike Pence's friend anymore.
You're a terrible friend.
I doubt Mike Pence was thinking,
"Oh, no, now who's going to help me with my sofa
next time I have to move?"
Also, we know about all this.
Can you imagine what we don't know about?
So far, Bob Woodward's Trump books
have been called "Fear," "Rage," and "Peril,"
but, at this rate, he's going to have to call the next one...
Yet, Pence is now doing
the same song and dance as Nikki Haley,
and acting like that whole mob riot thing was no big deal.
-The president and I sat down a few days later
and talked through all of it.
I can tell you that we parted amicably
at the end of the administration
and we've talked a number of times
since we both left office.
But, I believe that our entire focus today
should be on the future.
I know the media wants to distract
from the Biden administration's failed agenda
by focusing on one day in January.
-"One day in January"?
If there was a day where a violent mob was chanting,
"Hang Seth Meyers," I wouldn't call it "one day in January."
I'd call it "the day I moved to Portugal and grew a beard."
[ Laughter ] "One day in January"
sounds like a sports movie starring Al Pacino
as a past-his-prime football coach.
[ As Pacino ] Boom! Alright!
[ Laughter ] Let's pick a play.
We got a passing play.
We got running plays.
How about this --
we just hang the opposing quarterback.
[ Laughter ] That's hard-nosed football, muchacho.
[ Laughter ]
Last day to do my Pacino.
Oh, I meant last day to do my Pacino
without a standing ovation.
[ Laughter ]
And that wasn't the only Oval Office meeting
where Trump tried to pressure a senior government official
to help him overthrow democracy.
We also know that one of his henchmen
in the Justice Department, a guy named Jeffrey Clark,
had a detailed plan for getting the Justice Department
to interfere and declare
there was fraud in the election, which there was not.
And, now, thanks to a new report
from the Senate Judiciary Committee,
we have more details about that plan and that meeting.
-After an eight-month investigation,
the Senate Judiciary Committee today will release a report
on how the Trump administration
attempted to subvert the law,
in an effort to keep the president in office.
The report provides new details on the efforts
of then-Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark,
as he attempted to do the bidding of President Trump.
-The president of the United States decided
to put full court pressure
on the new acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen.
And, as I said before, he was relentless.
When you look at the number of contacts --
we're still waiting for even more evidence
to come in on that subject --
he was really pushing the Department of Justice
to bend to his political will and I will tell you,
just, I don't think I'm overstating the case.
We were a half step away
from a full-blown constitutional crisis.
-Now, of course, half a step is still a lot for Trump,
given how he takes steps. [ Laughter ]
I've never seen a person as confident as him
walk as gingerly as he does.
He walks down a ramp like a deer on a frozen pond.
If you couldn't see his shoes, you'd think
he was wearing roller skates for the first time.
But that's how close we came.
Trump tried every avenue he could think of --
the courts, the states, the vice president,
the Justice Department. He's like the guy
in gridlock traffic who keeps switching lanes
and then throws his hands up when it doesn't work.
We're on the FDR at 5:00 in the afternoon.
There's no secret way out, buddy.
In the end, the only thing that stopped Trump, apparently,
was a threat from senior DOJ officials to resign.
As The New York Times reported yesterday,
just days before the insurrection,
Trump held a meeting in the Oval Office
about his plans for a coup.
Pretty dramatic language. Woodward's going to have
to up the ante on the next book even more than I thought.
Although, "murder-suicide pact" probably
sounded good to Trump when he first heard it.
[ As Trump ] So I murder you and then, you commit suicide?
[ Laughter ] I think I --
I think I saw something like that once on "SVU."
[ Laughter ] "SVU."
We love "SVU," don't we, folks?
A great, a great American program.
We love Mr. Ice-Lemonade
and Richard Seltzer.
[ Laughter ] A real original.
Detective John Munch!
[ Laughter ]
Richard Seltzer started as a comedian.
People don't know that.
But I remember I saw him in 1983
at Catch a Rising Star.
[ Laughter ]
Nice guy. Good guy. Hated my guts.
The GOP has fallen back in line behind a guy
who did everything he could to overthrow democracy
and absolutely will try again, if given the chance.
A chance he, apparently, very much wants.
The details in the Senate report are damning
and there are almost certainly more to come.
There's enough material in here --
in here -- excuse me -- for ESPN --
Wow, this is a real tee-up.
I don't know where this is going.
You guys, I never know what the last clip's going to be.
That's something, you know, we're just going to share it.
You know, this is our last night without an audience.
Let's just talk to the people at home
[ Laughter ] and let them inside,
behind the curtain, so to speak.
There's enough material here for ESPN
to do a four-part "30 for 30" and call it...
-One day in January.
Hm.
[ Laughter ]
This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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