-After lying and claiming he was unhappy
with the racist chants he inspired last week,
the President is back to attacking
four Democratic Congresswomen of color.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Last week, after he incited
a crowd at his rally to chant "Send her back"
about Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar,
an American citizen and Somali refugee,
Trump initially claimed to be unhappy about the chant
he inspired, which was obviously BS.
It's like if Mr. Met started pumping up a crowd at a game,
and then when they chanted "Let's go, Mets,"
he said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys!
That is uncalled for!"
Donald Trump is not known for disavowing racism.
In fact, he won't disavow anyone who supports
or praises him because he's a raging narcissist.
He rails against communism,
but if Mao came back from the dead and endorsed him,
Trump would start wearing tunics the next day.
[ Laughter ]
We've been here before countless times.
Like the time he repeatedly refused to disavow
the support of former KKK leader David Duke,
and then later lied and said
it was because he couldn't hear the question.
-He says, "I'm just talking about David Duke
and the Ku Klux Klan here," and you said,
"Honestly, I don't know David Duke."
-Let me tell you. Okay. So, let me tell you.
I'm sitting in a house in Florida
with a very bad ear piece that they gave me,
and you could hardly hear what he was saying.
-Even when he lies, he sounds like an addled grandpa
FaceTiming with his grandkids from a nursing home.
[ As Trump ] I'm here in this house in Florida.
I can't hardly hear what you're saying.
My ear trumpet is on the fritz."
[ Laughter and applause ]
[ Normal voice ] And then there was Trump's reaction
to Charlottesville when he refused to condemn
neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Two days later, Trump's advisors again had to wrangle him
to issue a statement disavowing the white supremacists,
and it was against Trump's wishes.
Aides tried to convince the president
he needed to clarify his remarks,
but Trump appeared to resist repeatedly saying,
"I don't know about this. This doesn't feel right to me."
And then after he gave the speech,
Trump told his aides,
"That was the biggest [bleep] mistake I've made.
That's the worst speech I've ever given."
You think that's the worst speech you've ever given?
Dude, you've given speeches that technically
don't even qualify as human speech.
-There's another crucial election
in North Carolina's Nith Conge--
You know, right?
10,000 known or suspested gang members.
God bless the United Shtates.
[ Laughter ]
-Trump has repeatedly refused to disavow racism
because he's a racist and the core of his world view
is that citizenship for nonwhite people is conditional.
If you don't praise him, you're not a legitimate citizen,
which is why he can't stop mounting racist attacks
on the four Democratic Congresswomen
known as the Squad,
repeating those attacks in unhinged tweets on Sunday
and again today.
-The President tweeting, "I don't believe
the four Congresswomen are capable of loving our country.
They should apologize to America and Israel for the horrible,
hateful things they have said.
They are destroying the Democratic Party,
but are weak and insecure people
who can never destroy our great nation."
-"The squad is a very racist group of troublemakers
who are young, inexperienced, and not very smart."
-All right, first of all, you're calling them troublemakers?
Are you trying to sound like a Scooby-Doo villain?
[ Laughter ]
I mean, it would make sense
since your face looks like a Halloween mask.
His presidency should end with the gang tieing him up
in an abandoned amusement park.
[ Laughter ]
Second, it never stops being amazing to me
how much he projects onto other people.
He called them weak, insecure,
racist, inexperienced, and not very smart.
What's next?
[ As Trump ] "They can't even pronounce basic words.
That's why they hate the -- -United Shtates.
[ Laughter ]
-[ Normal voice ] But while Trump...
[ Cheers and applause ] While Trump was waging
his racist attacks last week,
we found out about yet another potential crime
that almost certainly would have landed Trump in a courtroom
if he were not the president.
First, let's just remember that right now,
one big reason Trump hasn't been charged with a crime
is the fact that Justice Department guidelines
say a sitting President cannot be indicted,
and that's not explicitly written
in the Constitution or anything.
It started with a memo that's more than 40 years old.
-We have that policy thanks to a man named Robert Dixon
who was the head of the Department of Justice's
Office of Legal Counsel way back in 1973
when they authored a memo that says a president
cannot be indicted while sitting in office.
-That's right. Trump can't be indicted
because of a memo written in 1973.
People ignore memos every day.
We sent out 15 memos,
but Devon's still microwaving fish in the break room.
[ Laughter ]
Those guidelines are part of why Robert Mueller
didn't charge Trump with obstructions of justice.
In fact, Mueller will testify on Wednesday in Congress
where he will surely be asked point blank by Democrats
if Trump would have been indicted had it not been
for those guidelines, and today in the oval office,
Trump pretended like he wouldn't be paying that much attention
to the hearings.
-No, I'm not going to be watching.
Probably. Maybe I'll see a little bit of it.
I'm not going to be watching Mueller
because you can't take all those bites out of the apple.
He still ruled no collusion, no obstruction,
and this thing should have ended a long time ago.
This has been going on for 2 1/2 years.
-No, I agree with you that this thing
that's been going on for 2 1/2 years
should have ended a long time ago.
Also, no one believes you
when you say you're not going to be watching.
All you do is watch TV.
If the Mueller hearings weren't on,
you'd be live tweeting "Days of Our Lives."
[ As Trump ] "Jessica's evil twin is back from the dead.
Not nice!"
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] And it's not just Mueller.
Last week, we also found out
that the Justice Department guidelines
might be why Trump wasn't charged with a crime
in the hush money schemes he orchestrated
during the 2016 campaign to cover up affairs,
which ultimately resulted in his personal fixer,
Michael Cohen, going to jail.
Last week, we found out that investigators
said that Trump was the one who was directly involved
when a court unsealed documents detailing Trump's communication
with Cohen to coordinate the illegal hush payments.
-Breaking news. New documents released last hour
prompting a very big and very uncomfortable question
for the White House.
Did the president commit a crime?
Today, a judge unsealed search warrant materials
in connection to the Michael Cohen case
and the effort to buy the silence of women
who say they had affairs with the president.
The documents mentioned the president by name.
-According to the documents, then-candidate Donald Trump
whose former attorney and former aide, Hope Hicks,
may have discussed ways to stop adult film star
Stormy Daniels from going public
about an alleged affair with Trump.
According to an FBI special agent
who wrote in the affidavit,
a series of phone calls took place in October 2016
just before the election.
-A lead FBI investigating agent writes in the documents,
"Based on the timing of these calls
and the content of the text messages and emails,
I believe at least some of these communications
concern the need to prevent Clifford,
a reference to Stormy Daniels, from going public,
particularly in the wake of the "Access Hollywood" story.
-The President was allegedly involved in the cover-up
of a crime in the last weeks of the presidential election,
and it wasn't even like in the top ten news stories last week.
This is how he wears us down.
It's like being in a zombie movie.
Anybody can outrun one zombie.
But when your city is crawling with zombies,
you're like, [bleep] it. Just eat me.
[ Laughter ]
I don't want to not be -- I'll be a zombie, too.
We'll all be zombies.
This is the core of Trumpism.
He marries racism with corrupt plutocracy.
It's not just his cabinet that's been riddled with scandal.
He doled out tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations,
slashed environmental regulations,
and gutted consumer protections.
And, of course, he's been personally profiting
off the presidency, himself.
-"Washington post" reports that lobbyists representing
the Saudi government paid for an estimated 500 rooms
at President Trump's D.C. hotel
in the months after his election.
The total bill for those trips -- more than $270,000.
-T-Mobile executives booked dozens of nights
at the Trump hotel last year once their merger
needed Trump administration approval.
-NBC news has obtained documents
showing that Trump International Hotel
billed the secret service $215,000 for the period
between September 2016 and February 2018.
-President Trump's golf habit has cost the American people
some $102 million and counting.
-So not only has the presidency allowed Trump to commit
indictable offenses with impunity, it's also allowed him
to personally profit off the presidency.
I wouldn't be surprised if he just started selling off pieces
of the oval office on Craigslist.
"Good desk made of wood. Has light ketchup stains."
[ Laughter ]
So Trump's base gets to revel in his open racism
while he plunders the government and doles out favors
and tax cuts to his rich buddies.
Who knows if he'll ever be held accountable for his crimes?
When it comes to the Trump presidency,
one thing is clear --
-This thing should have ended a long time ago.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪