-Republicans have spent the last few days
spreading the baseless claim that mass cancelations
and delays by Southwest Airlines
were due to President Biden's
vaccine and testing requirements.
For more on this, it's time for a closer look.
♪♪
There was a big milestone today in the pandemic,
19 months after the U.S. closed its borders
to the north and south, they're opening back up again.
-The U.S. set to announce plans to reopen the borders
with Canada and Mexico, but only to certain travelers.
-This morning America is signaling it's open for business
from across the border again.
The White House says it will lift a 19 month ban
for foreign travelers crossing land borders
from both Canada and Mexico,
but only for visitors who can prove they're fully vaccinated.
-Huge news for tourists, migrants, and the one guy
who was on spring break in Cancun in March 2020
and didn't make it back out in time.
"Hey, it's me, Brad.
Hey, can you forward my mail to Señor --
What was your last name again? Frog's?
No, it's not the bar! It's also a popular last name!
Just forward my mail!
And I, for one, miss Canadian tourists.
They were so polite.
If one was standing in Times Square,
takin' up the whole sidewalk
with their giant ass goose down coats.
You could just give them a big ol' shove
and they'd apologize to you!
"Oh, sorry for goosin' the sidewalk, eh?
I just never seen so many Legos."
So tourism is starting to come back.
Although I will say one of the many strange things
about lockdown life is that after a year
of not going anywhere, I forgot how to travel.
You know how, in the old days, you'd be kind of bummed
if your Uber driver wanted to make small talk the whole time.
Now it's the other way around --
the Uber driver is annoyed
because I won't stop talking to them.
"So where are you from?!"
"Uh, you know, around." "You like driving?!"
"Yeah. Sor-- I just can't hear you with the mask on."
"But the mask doesn't cover your ears.
We had audiences back this week!"
I've com--
[ Cheering and applause ]
I've completely, completely forgotten how to pack
for vacations: the first time I flew post-lockdown,
TSA did a check in my suitcase
and found 10 pairs of underpants,
a monkey wrench and 100-ounce container of mustard.
The agent asked me, "Where are you going?"
And when I said LaGuardia, he said, "This is JFK,"
to which I said, "I don't remember how this works!"
I used to get to the airport by the skin of my teeth
45 minutes before takeoff,
just enough time to skate through pre-check,
chug a Bloody Mary at the bar next to the Hudson News
and then by the coldest chef salad ever made
at a Fridays To Go, you know, ham chunks like ice cubes.
Now I'm so desperate to get out of the house,
I show up four hours early and get so bored
I end up browsing those luggage stores at the airport,
which I've never understood, who shows up to the airport
needing luggage.
"Hey, you got anything I can put all these clothes in?"
An airport trying to sell you luggage
is like Taco Bell trying to sell you weed.
"Oh, yeah, we're good, Taco Bell.
We, like, already thought of that."
I'm not the only one
reacquainting myself with travel etiquette.
Remember when Rudy Giuliani got caught shaving in an airport?
-Rudy Giuliani was caught using an electric shaver --
okay -- out in public at the airport.
But here's the thing,
he was sitting at the table eating while he did it!
So Jeanne Moos shows you, a guy who saw him,
had to get it on video, and now millions see it.
-First, he had lobster bisque.
Then he began grooming.
-Stars -- they're just like none of us.
[ Light laughter ]
Yeah, they really happened -- this dingus used to be the mayor
of New York and personal attorney
to the president of the United States.
And now he's at Pat LaFrieda's in Terminal B,
getting chin hairs all over his table.
"Excuse me, waiter, there's hair in my soup!
I demand a refund!"
"Well, you are shaving." "Fair point;
what do you say we go halvsies?"
And not only have people forgotten
how to act in airports,
the same is true on airplanes
because suffice it to say,
it's been a rough year for the friendly skies.
-The newest problem facing pent-up demand for travel
is pent-up frustrations in the sky,
with federal agencies citing a serious surge
of in-flight fights.
-The number of fights between passengers
and airline workers are on the rise.
-We've had to deal with almost riot like incidences.
-Fist fights, drinking, verbally and physically assaulting
flight attendants.
2,500 cases so far this year.
-2,500 reports already from the airlines of passengers
engaging in fights, arguing over the masks, drinking.
-Damn. I mean, usually when I get drunk on a plane,
I just pass out watching a movie I've never heard of,
like "Naughty Grandpa" or "Crazy Christmas,"
starring Owen Wilson as a college dropout
who gets hired to be the real Santa Claus.
"We got to make all these toys ourselves?
Gee whiz, man. Wow! Wow!"
And just to be clear, now that an audience is back,
I will not be doing my Vince Vaughn impression.
Truth be tro-- truth be told,
I just don't have the confidence
to do it in front of people.
Although, you know, if Vince Vaughn were here...
[ Laughter ]
I feel like he'd probably say something like, uh...
[ Cheering and applause ]
"Buddy, buddy, buddy, what are you talking about?
That impression is money! Seriously, though..."
Oh boy.
"How'd it go?" They applauded before.
[ Laughter ]
Seriously, though, what is wrong with people?
Flying is stressful enough without drinking,
fist fights and riots.
Air travel is turning into a soccer match
at Wembley Stadium -- one time, I accidentally
cut a dude in line and he screamed,
"You [bleep] wanker," and then head-butted me.
Then he bought me a pint; point in soccer's a weird sport.
Things are getting so out of hand,
United just added a section after first class and coach
that's just an MMA style octagon
and your boarding pass looks like this.
[ Laughter and applause ]
[ Laughing ] The point is...
We should have gone with the Old Scottish Detective --
we should call back that gold!
Once again, if you're watching "A Closer Look" online,
wait eight hours
and then watch the monologue that we post later,
and then you'll get that sweet callback
to Old Scottish Detective.
[ Laughter ]
The point is, air travel
has already been bad enough this year,
but over the weekend it got even worse for thousands of travelers
who are stranded thanks to a meltdown at Southwest Airlines.
-The travel nightmare for thousands of passengers
after Southwest Airlines
canceled more than 2,200 flights in just the past three days.
Stranded passengers again today, hours-long lines
at the Denver airport just to reschedule flights.
-About 90 more flights canceled today
as Southwest Airlines struggles to get back to normal
after days of chaos and cancelations.
-Tonight, travel chaos and confusion.
Southwest Airlines cancels thousands of flights,
leaving passengers stranded.
Lines were long and tempers were short at airports
in several cities as passengers were forced to wait hours
and in some cases, days --
yes, days -- to get on other flights.
-Can you imagine waiting days to reschedule a flight?
That's not rescheduling anymore?
You just live in the airport now.
"Welcome to Cinnabon. What can I get you?"
"I don't know, a job application?"
I'm just kidding.
No one has ever said "Welcome to Cinnabon" at an airport.
The best you're going to get is, "Let me guess -- 2?!"
And it's especially bad for Southwest
because a lot of their passengers
are flying to places like Florida on vacation.
It'd be one thing if you were stuck in the airport
on your way to a business trip,
but if you're going to Disney with your family
and you're three days late?
"All right, everyone, we made it.
We got 45 minutes inside the park,
then we got to turn around and go home.
Why don't you kids go wait in line at Space Mountain
while your mother and I go get divorced?"
Now, the company, the pilots' union and the FAA
have all attributed the chaos to various factors,
from weather to air traffic control
to antiquated scheduling technology.
The airline and the president of the Southwest Pilots' Union
have said repeatedly the meltdown has nothing,
nothing to do with vaccine mandates,
but that hasn't stopped some on the right
from spreading the baseless claim anyway.
-Some congressional Republicans said it's a sick-out
in response to the vaccine mandates.
Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs
tweeted, "I stand with Southwest Airlines employees
who are fighting against these mandates."
The union president for Southwest pilots
told Fox News there is no sick-out.
These issues are because of poor management."
-Senator Ted Cruz blaming President Joe Biden's
"illegal vaccine mandate" for the shortage."
-We can tell you that the shutdown of Southwest Airlines
over the weekend was a direct consequence --
it was a reaction to Joe Biden's vaccine mandates.
There were more cancelations at Southwest Airlines today;
no doubt there'll be more to come --
and not just of airline flights.
At least two Amtrak train routes in the Northeast
were canceled over the weekend,
and so is a regularly scheduled car ferry in Washington state
out to the San Juan Islands.
In all cases, the employees in question who have been told
to get the shot did not show up.
Were these also protests against the Biden shot mandates?
We can't say for certain.
It certainly wouldn't surprise us.
-You can't say for certain?!
Well, then, please, by all means,
put it on television.
We all know that's how journalism works.
Who can forget the famous Woodward and Bernstein headline
"Did Nixon do Watergate?
Seems like the kind of thing he'd do! But who knows?"
I'll just never, personally,
I'll never tire of Tucker's just-asking-questions routine.
"Where are these protests against Biden's vaccine mandate?
Did Joe Biden secretly replace all the real pilots
with communists, antifa woke-inistas?
Or we're the delays caused because the flight attendants
refuse to give you a second bag of Biscoff cookies
when you ask for one,
because, according to them, the plane was taking off soon.
And when they asked you to put up your tray table,
you said no because you still had one Biscoff cookie left
that you were saving for later, and if you put it in your lap,
you'd get crumbs on your nicest travel slacks.
And when they threatened to remove you from the plane
and you said it was your God-given right
under Article 67, sections C,
of the United States Constitution,
part 9, to do what you wanted with your Biscoff cookie,
the guy next to you said
loud enough for everyone on the plane to hear,
'Biscoff? More like jerk off!' and everyone laughed.
Even the pilots laughed
because you can hear them chuckling over the intercom.
And when you then lie down in the aisle
as means of protest and scream, 'I'm not moving
until everyone on this plane gets unvaccinated,'
only to be told that wasn't possible, then you yell,
'It is possible, you can poop it out,
I read it on Facebook,' but before you could provide
the link for everyone to read,
did a large man lift you up and shove you into
the overhead compartment while everyone cheered?
Could that be why the plane was delayed?
Well, we can tell you that it is.
Because it happened to me yesterday."
[ Cheering and applause ]
And that wasn't the only example --
another show on Fox found a way to tie it all the way back
to -- what else? The war on Christmas.
-The left's war on Christmas could continue with delays
and shortages of pilots right around the holidays.
-Yeah. Mayor Pete's going to have his hands full.
I mean, he is really in charge of that.
-Where is he, anyway? -Where is Mayor Pete?
If you have all this labor action
happening right before the holidays, Christmas?
-Okay, first of all, it's October,
you don't get to start with the war on Christmas yet.
We're still in the middle of the war on Halloween.
I'm talking to you, people with
the motion-sensor skeletons on their porches.
When I walk my children to school,
they shouldn't have to hear their father
yelp like a Chihuahua, because he thinks
an army of the undead are coming for him.
Plus, my kids are still mad at me
for using them as human shields.
"Take the boys!
I have no quarrel with you, Skeleton King!"
But seriously, Fox News, take it one holiday at a time,
at least come up with a fake conspiracy theory
about Halloween first -- "The left wants to cancel
Jack-o-lanterns, faces are too scary for their snowflakes,
so now they've changed the name of Halloween
to All Gourds Day."
Also -- true story -- I ordered a pirate costume online
for my son to trick or treat in, and they emailed back saying,
"Should be there by October 28th.
What's the date of your event?"
[ Laughter ]
What's the date?
I need a pirate costume for a three year old --
"Oh, uh, November 23, we celebrate
Swashbuckler Thanksgiving!"
Again, both the airline
and the president of Southwest Pilots' Union
have said repeatedly that the Southwest meltdown
had nothing to do with the vaccine mandate.
In fact, the president of the Southwest Pilots' Union
said it on Fox News.
-Seeing a lot of people invested in this idea
that this is somehow related to vaccine mandates.
-There's just no evidence of that.
-You say it was not an issue, but to what degree
did it contribute to this problem at all?
-Zero. -You're saying
this was not because of a sick-out.
This was not an organized job action,
had nothing to do yet with the vaccine mandate.
-Absolutely not, the two are mutually exclusive.
What we've seen now that we're at Monday
and looking back at the data,
our pilots' sick rates were right in line
with where they were this summer.
We also see our pilots picking up even more than normal now.
So our pilots are out there serving our customers.
They're out there picking up extra time.
So it is absolutely false that our pilots
are engaged in any sort of job action.
-That last clip was on Fox News.
I mean, do you guys even watch your own network?
That'd be like if I came out here and said,
"Chicago doesn't have fires!"
Or if I said, "In the criminal justice system,
the people aren't represented by two separate
but equally important groups." [ Double tone ]
Look -- [ Cheers and applause ]
It's especially rich for Fox hosts to applaud employees
standing up against vaccine or testing requirements
when their own company has much stricter requirements.
-Fox's vaccine policy actually goes further than Biden's.
Remember, Biden is calling for weekly testing
of many private sector workers who don't get vaccinated.
In a newly revealed internal memo,
Fox outlining a vaccine policy that is stricter,
involving daily COVID testing.
-Fox management is mandating that employees
disclose their vaccination status.
-Fox has a strict policy of demanding all their workers
be vaccinated or face daily testing.
90 percent of the FOX workforce
reports that they are now fully vaccinated.
-That's right, they have to get that swab
shoved up their nose once a day.
I'm vaxed, but I still get tested three times a week,
and it sucks -- remember in the early days
when they had to shove it really far up
and it made you cry?
One time they shoved the swab so far up my nose,
I forgot three years of college and I had to get my degree back.
The only swabbing I like is when I use a roll
to soak up the remaining gravy on my plate.
during Swashbucklers Thanksgiving --
we call it swabbing.
And, yeah, when the first Swashbucklers Thanksgiving joke
didn't work great,
I was aware...
I was aware that a callback was coming,
and there was no way to get out of it.
This is this sort of new gambling you do
with an audience.
[ Laughter and applause ]
I hope it was worth it for all you people at home!
The hypocrisy here is brazen,
and it's something that President Biden
seems to enjoy pointing out, as he did last week.
-Even -- this I always get a kick out of -- Fox News!
Fox News requires vaccinations for all employees.
Give me a break. Fox News.
-Oh, damn, he busted out the Biden whisper.
The one where he sounds like he's doing ASMR.
Next time he does that, he should crinkle a bag
of potato chips.
[ Crinkling ] "Even Fox News requires
vaccination of all their employees.
Crisp, cringley crackers,
crackling cranky crazies."
Biden wasn't entirely precise there.
Fox requires employers to report their vaccination status,
and if they're not vaccinated, they get tested daily.
Biden's policy is to get vaccinated or get tested weekly.
So Fox's policy is actually stricter.
And yet Republican politicians across the country
have decided to rail against vaccine mandates.
You know what would really ruin the holidays?
Another COVID spike.
Oh, my God, does that...
Does that mean Republicans are part of the --
-War on Christmas.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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