-President Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin
in Finland today, and delivered
one of the most surreal performances by a president
in modern American history.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
Even before he got to Finland,
Trump's foreign trip was one of
the more disastrous ones in recent memory.
He was in the U.K., where he met Queen Elizabeth,
and he immediately embarrassed himself
by breaking royal protocol,
and wandering aimlessly in front of her.
♪♪
[ Laughter ]
The Queen just disappeared behind Trump.
It's like a royal eclipse.
[ Laughter ]
The only thing missing was Trump staring directly at it.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Although, seriously, you're telling me
this guy only weighs 239 pounds?
[ Laughter ]
He's so wide, he completely covered a monarch.
[ Laughter ]
He's David Copperfielded the Queen.
[ Laughter ]
Trump was also asked during his trip about negotiations
between Britain and the European Union over Brexit.
In particular, he was asked about the prospect
of a hard Brexit, which would involve the U.K.
completely leaving the E.U. single market,
and it was clear from his answer
that Trump had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
In fact, it almost seemed like he had never even
heard the term hard Brexit before.
-Because you are going to the U.K.,
what will be your message on Brexit?
-Well, Brexit is...
You know, I've been reading a lot about Brexit
over the last couple of days,
and it seems to be turning a little bit differently,
where they're getting at least partially involved
back with the European Union.
-Is it heartbreaking?
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, hard Brexit, I see.
I thought you said it was heartbreaking.
I said that might be going a little bit too far.
Heartbreak?
Is it heartbreaking?
A lot of things are heartbreaking.
No, I would say that, you know, Brexit is Brexit.
-Oh! [ Laughter ]
Well, he's not wrong. Brexit is Brexit.
Although I beg reporters at his next press conference --
someone ask him where the word "Brexit" comes from.
I bet he has no idea.
"Brexit, I think everyone knows,
is the most important meal of the day."
[ Laughter ]
"You gotta have your Brexit.
Some mornings, I have two Brexits."
[ Laughter ]
If Trump weren't so irredeemably awful,
his stupidity would almost be... -Heartbreaking.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
It would be hard Brexit. [ Cheers and applause ]
But Trump -- Trump's answer managed
to make even less sense after that.
Watch as he somehow manages to ramble from the topic of Brexit
to protesters to how many electoral votes
he won in the 2016 election,
while also making clear that he doesn't even know
which countries are a part of the U.K.
-I just want the people to be happy.
They're great people, and I do think I have --
Sure, there'll be protests,
'cause there are always protests,
but I think there were --
There were protests the night of the election, both ways.
So, you know, we had a great night.
Uh, protests. There might be protests.
But I believe that the people in the U.K. --
Scotland, Ireland --
As you know, I have property in Ireland.
I have property all over.
I think that those people -- they like me a lot.
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, my God. Ireland is not part of the U.K.
They famously fought, like, a ton of wars over it.
Seriously, if you don't believe me, Donald,
I dare you to go into any pub in Ireland
and tell them that they are part of the U.K.
[ Laughter ]
Then -- Then you can use their free healthcare
to get the pint glass removed from your rectum.
[ Laughter ]
But if you thought --
[ Cheers and applause ]
If you thought all of that was bad,
it was nothing compared to Trump's performance
today with Putin.
Before and during the summit,
Trump was obviously very eager to impress Putin.
At a press conference in Brussels last week,
for example, Trump said, "Hopefully someday,
maybe he'll be a friend."
Now compare that to what Trump had to say
about our European allies yesterday
during an interview in Scotland.
Trump was asked who his biggest foe is.
Now, you might expect that the country
that invades its neighbors, interferes in our elections,
and uses nerve gas on foreign soil
might be the first to come to his mind,
but, of course, Trump had a different answer.
-Who's your biggest competitor,
your biggest foe, globally, right now?
-Well, I think we have a lot of foes.
I think the European Union is a foe,
what they do to us in trade.
Now, you wouldn't think of the European Union,
but they're a foe.
Russia's a foe, in certain respects.
China is a foe economically, certainly, they're a foe,
but that doesn't mean they're bad.
-No, that's exactly what that means.
[ Laughter ]
If you call someone a foe, that means you think they're bad.
You never heard Batman say "The joker is my greatest foe,
but other than that, he's a really good dude."
[ Laughter ]
Also, the real foe is whoever said,
"This is the best hat for your interview."
[ Laughter ]
"Are you sure?
Are you sure it's not too giant and white?"
[ Laughter ]
And once Trump got to Finland, the charm offensive continued.
Trump made clear that he was desperate
to get in Putin's good graces by repeatedly offering
nothing but gushing praise
for Russia's hosting of the World Cup.
-I also want to congratulate Russia
and President Putin for having done such an excellent job
in hosting the World Cup.
It was really one of the best ever,
and your team also did very well.
It was a great job.
I'd like to congratulate you on a really great World Cup.
One of the best ever, from what everybody tells me.
One of the best ever.
And also for your team itself doing so well.
I watched quite a bit in the United States.
We call it soccer.
[ Laughter ] -Everyone --
Everyone knows we call it soccer in the United States.
Trump's like a college sophomore on his first trip abroad.
"You know, in America, we call the loo a toilet."
[ Laughter ]
But that doesn't even begin to capture
how surreal this summit was.
However low your expectations were,
Trump managed to go much lower.
Because just three days after the Justice Department
issued an indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officials,
offering some of the most specific evidence yet
of Russian meddling in the 2016 election,
the President of the United States
twisted himself in knots to take Putin's side.
-Our relationship has never been worse than it is now.
However, that changed as of about four hours ago.
Our militaries do get along very well.
I think that the United States has been foolish.
I think we've all been foolish.
There was no collusion at all.
It came out as a reason why the Democrats lost an election.
There was no collusion.
I didn't know the president.
What happened to Hillary Clinton's e-mails?
33,000 e-mails gone, just gone.
I think in Russia, they wouldn't be gone so easily.
President Putin was extremely strong
and powerful in his denial today.
He just said, "It's not Russia."
I will say this -- I don't see any reason why it would be.
I'm sure we'll be meeting again in the future, often.
-Can someone get Trump a glass of water?
'Cause he thirsty.
[ Laughter and applause ]
It's only a matter of weeks --
It's only a matter of weeks
before he "Single White Females" Putin.
[ Laughter and applause ]
"Do you like my haircut, Vlad?"
So, just to recap, Trump blamed the U.S.
for Russian aggressions,
attacked the FBI and the Special Counsel's investigation,
took Putin's side on election meddling,
attacked Democrats and Hillary Clinton
with Putin standing next to him,
and said Putin was strong and powerful.
Can you imagine what their private meeting was like?
I'm worried he let Putin annex one of the 50 states.
"Here's an electoral map. Pick one of the blue ones."
[ Laughter ]
Seriously, Trump gushes over Putin
like a flustered 12-year-old who just met Mickey at Disneyland.
[ Laughter ]
and Putin treats him like a 12-year-old,
as evidenced by the gift he gave the President.
-President Trump has just mentioned
that we've successfully concluded the World Futbol Cup.
Speaking of the futbol, actually...
Mr. President, I'll give this ball to you,
and now the ball is in your court.
[ Laughter ]
-That's right -- Putin got a propaganda victory,
and we got a soccer ball.
Do you really think Trump's gonna play soccer?
Look at him. The only way Trump would ever get near
a soccer pitch is if he could stay in his golf cart.
[ Laughter ]
And it got worse from there, because Trump went on
to peddle an insane conspiracy theory
by implying something fishy was going on with the DNC server
that was hacked by the Russians.
-You have groups that are wondering
why the FBI never took the server.
Why haven't they taken the server?
Where is the server?
I want to know, where is the server,
and what is the server saying?
But I really do want to see the server.
I really believe that this will probably go on for a while,
but I don't think it can go on without finding out
what happened to the server.
-Oh, my God. He sounds like your uncle
trying to get the waiter's attention at a restaurant.
[ Laughter ]
"Where is the server? I want more bread,
and I don't have any ketchup for my crumpets!"
[ Laughter ]
Of course, Trump's behavior would be bizarre
and suspicious on its own, but we also know,
thanks to Mueller's indictment
of 12 Russian intelligence operatives on Friday,
the Russian hackers were not only helping Trump
during the election but responding directly to him
when he issued that infamous plea
in the summer of 2016 to hack Hillary Clinton's e-mails.
You know, this one.
-Russia, if you're listening,
I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.
-Remember when everyone was like
"Ha ha! Russia's not actually listening, right?"
-It now appears that Russia was listening.
Because on that very same day,
Russian officials named in the indictment
began hacking into Clinton's server.
-Not only were they listening, they were taking orders.
Everyone acted like it was a joke,
but Trump acted like he was at a drive-through.
"Uh, yeah, can I get 30,000 missing e-mails,
illegal dirt on my opponent, and as many Big Macs
as you can fit in this giant white hat?"
[ Laughter ]
Now, even if we put aside the mountains of evidence
pointing toward collusion or Trump's financial ties
to Russian oligarchs or the possibility that Russia
has compromising information on him,
there's also the fact that Trump has a very clear
personal affinity for authoritarians like Putin.
Yesterday, his National Security Advisor,
John Bolton, was asked specifically
about Trump's attacks on the media
and deflected by talking about World War II.
-Doesn't that contribute to exactly the kind of undermining
of the free press that we see out of Russia?
-No, I don't think that has anything to do with it.
And let's just be clear -- Franklin Roosevelt
met with Joseph Stalin at a time
when activity in Russia was a lot worse than it is today.
So, let's try and have some historical perspective here
and not act like we have the attention span of fruit flies.
-We have the attention span of fruit flies?
The dude you work for thinks Ireland is part of the U.K.
And even a fruit fly can remember
to let the Queen go first.
[ Laughter ]
And on top of everything else, today a Russian woman
who tried to broker a pair of secret meetings
between Trump and Putin
was charged and accused of working with Americans
to carry out a secret Russian effort
to influence American politics.
So while that was happening, Trump was doing
everything he could to ingratiate himself with Putin.
He's selling out our democracy,
and there's only one word for it.
-Heartbreaking.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]