-All eyes are on the Manhattan grand jury
as we await a possible indictment of Donald Trump
which would make him the first president in American history
to face criminal charges.
Trump's allies in the right-wing media
have been in hysterics over the news,
and Trump himself used a rally this weekend
to attack the district attorney investigating him.
Trump also warned that if he's arrested,
there will be "death and destruction,"
which is, to use the words of George Washington,
not cool, dude!
[ Laughter ]
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Okay, so, we were just on hiatus for a week,
and the whole time, I was stressed out
because when news breaks while I'm on vacation,
no one else in my life will listen to me.
My kids are the age where if it's not about "Paw Patrol,"
they don't want to [bleep] hear it.
This show is my main, my only outlet.
When we're on break, my only other option
for conversations about the news
is to call one of those phone sex hotlines
and tell them, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I just want to talk about Trump getting arrested."
[ Laughter ]
And then when it comes time to pay for the phone sex line,
I use a check from the appropriate bank account
because I don't want to end up like Donald Trump.
Normally, hiatus is supposed to be a vacation from the news,
but I spent the entire week scrolling on my phone
waiting to see a picture of Trump getting hauled
out of Mar-a-Lago in handcuffs,
mainly because I think
his arms are too inflexible
to reach that far behind his back.
[ Laughter ]
That's why he always stands with them straight down at his sides
like a dollar-store G.I. Joe.
It would be super funny
to watch the cops try to get the cuffs on him.
"Alright, sir.
Put your hands behind your head."
[As Trump] "Sorry, fellas, they only go forward
and out like this.
This is the best I can do for you."
[Normal voice] They're gonna have...
[ Laughter and applause ] They're gonna have to get him
a pair of Slinky handcuffs he can wear
while he's yelling at reporters.
[ Laughter ]
[As Trump] It's fun for a girl and a boy!
[ Laughter ]
[Normal voice] But here we are.
We're back, and once again,
we're all on Trump indictment watch.
It could happen at any moment,
or knowing Trump's luck, maybe never.
Somehow, Trump always escapes accountability.
At this point, I wouldn't be surprised
if Merrick Garland just put himself in jail.
Merrick!
Merrick, why?!
"I don't know, it just...
It just seemed easier."
[ Laughter ]
Of course, the funniest and worst timing
for Trump to be indicted
is between when we tape this show in the afternoon
and when we air at 12:37 or whatever ungodly hour it is.
[ Laughter ]
If that happens, that means
you're living in a very different world than I am.
How does it feel? Is it satisfying?
Or do you just feel empty?
I'm worried I'm gonna feel empty.
Anyway...
[ Laughter ]
The grand jury is still doing its work.
In fact, they met once again today.
As far as we know as of this taping,
a Trump indictment has not happened yet,
but could come at any day now.
-A grand jury is expected to reconvene
in Lower Manhattan this morning
on potential charges against former President Donald Trump.
-The grand jury here is investigating
former President Trump and the hush-money payments
that were made to Stormy Daniels.
That grand jury is set to meet again today.
What remains unclear as of this morning
is if and when they may vote on what would be
a historic indictment.
-It's possible, we're told, that they may hear
from one witness, at least one witness.
But all of this is taking place in secret,
so we don't have a lot of sense of what exactly is going on
behind the scenes.
You know, this process is normally secretive.
This is a normal course of events,
but there's just such a big spotlight on this
as we wait to see whether District Attorney Alvin Bragg
will move forward and ask this grand jury
to indict the former president.
-Look, I'm not a prosecutor,
but how many more witnesses do they need to hear from?
Are they also interviewing the groundskeeper
at the golf course where Trump and Stormy met?
"Uh, yeah, I was reseeding the grass on the ninth hole
when, uh, Mr. Trump came over, dropped his ball in the cup,
screamed 'That's a hole-in-one!' then he winked at me and said,
'Let's keep this between us, Rusty.'"
[ Laughter ]
"Uh, which I should note, is not my name.
Then his phone rang and he said, 'I gotta take this.
It's an adult film star I'm gonna go have sex with.'"
[ Laughter ]
As far as criminal cases go, this one seems
pretty open and shut to me.
We have testimony from Trump's ex-fixer,
who already went to jail for the same crime.
We have a physical copy of the check itself,
which we know is Trump's because it has that signature on it
that looks like he's drawing on the deck of a fishing trawler
trapped in a hurricane.
[ Laughter ]
"This is what the waves look like!"
[ Laughter ]
Trump's signature looks like they did an EKG
while he was having sex with Stormy Daniels.
[ Laughter ]
I mean, it wouldn't be that long.
It would probably look more like this.
[ Laughter ]
[as Trump] Not sure that was worth 130K.
[ Laughter ]
[Normal voice] And then, of course, we have
that infamous clip of Trump's own lawyer at the time,
Rudy Giuliani, admitting to Fox host Sean Hannity
exactly what Trump is being accused of.
And in case you don't remember, well, here it is again.
-That money was not campaign money.
Sorry, I'm giving you a fact now that you don't know.
It's not campaign money.
No campaign finance violation. So...
-Because they funneled it through the law firm?
-Funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it.
-Oh, I didn't know -- He did? -Yep.
-There's no campaign finance law.
-Zero.
-So the president -- -Just like every -- Sean --
-So, this decision was made by...?
-Everybody -- Everybody was nervous about this
from the very beginning. I wasn't.
I knew how much money
Donald Trump put into that campaign.
I said, "$130,000?
He's gonna do a couple of checks for $130,000."
When I heard Cohen's retainer of $35,000
when he was doing no work for the president.
I said that's how he's repaying --
that's how he's repaying it, with a little profit
and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael.
-Yeah, that's the crime, ya doink!
[ Laughter ]
He had his fixer secretly pay hush money
weeks before a presidential election
to cover up an affair, and then he repaid the money
and lied about what it was for.
And hey, maybe Trump doesn't think that should be illegal,
but it is. He was president for four years.
He should have changed the law.
Instead of talking about his dumb wall
or his fake infrastructure bill that never came,
he should have walked up to the podium and said...
[As Trump] When you have an affair, you should be able
to pay your illicit partner
for their silence however you see fit.
[ Laughter ]
Which is why today I'm signing the Paying Off Rights Now Bill,
a.k.a. the PORN Bill.
That happened -- that happened by accident.
It happened by accident.
I came up -- I came up with the name first,
and then they showed me the acronym.
I was -- I was shocked.
The acronyms will always get you.
[ Laughter ]
[Normal voice] Of course, the best part of that clip
has always been Hannity's reaction.
-Funneled through a law firm, and the president repaid it.
-Oh, I didn't know -- He did?
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
That's how you know something is actually news,
when a Fox host [bleep] their pants like that.
Can you imagine Walter Cronkite reacting to major news that way?
[As Cronkite] We have a bulletin from our Washington bureau.
The president's lawyer has just admitted
that he paid hush money...
to an adult film star.
Well, [bleep] me.
[ Laughter ]
[Normal voice] Also, again,
I'm no lawyer, but generally speaking,
if you're using money for something aboveboard,
you never have to "funnel" it.
[ Laughter ]
If you went to a charity's website
and it said "click here to funnel"...
[ Laughter ]
...you probably wouldn't.
Now, just to remind you why that was such a stunning confession,
it's because Trump paid hush money
just weeks before a presidential election
to cover up an affair and hide it from the electorate,
which allegedly broke multiple laws.
-There's a potential misdemeanor crime here
for falsification of business records.
The thought would be if they falsely classified
these hush-money payments as attorney's fees,
that could satisfy the misdemeanor.
Also, this could become a felony if they falsified those records
in order to commit some other second crime.
So, what could that be? What second crime?
It could be a violation of campaign finance laws.
-He adds on extra crimes
the way the rest of us add on guac at Chipotle.
"Yeah, I mean, why not? I'm already here."
[ Laughter ]
There's a good chance when he heard the first crime
was a misdemeanor, his plan to dodge it
was to commit a felony to distract them.
[As Trump] They're not gonna care about falsification of records
when I throw Rudy out the window.
I am gonna need you to throw yourself, though, Rudy.
I'd never be able to lift you with my G.I. Joe arms.
[ Laughter ]
[As Giuliani] Sure thing, boss!
[Normal voice] By the way, I've said before,
I feel like it would definitely be better
to charge him with other stuff first.
You know, like the coup. I mean, don't get me wrong.
The hush-money payment is also against the law,
and he should be held accountable,
but it'll be a bummer
if this is the only thing he gets indicted for.
On the other hand, it's also a bummer
that we have a former president
who's under multiple criminal investigations.
I honestly don't even know how many crimes Trump has committed,
but let's just say it's definitely higher then...
-Zero.
-And again...
[ Laughter ]
It's not like Trump did this decades ago
and it's just being dredged up now.
He broke campaign finance laws and defrauded the electorate
in the final weeks of a presidential campaign
in order to become the most powerful man on Earth.
And the crazy thing is, he probably didn't even have to.
Knowing what we know now about his loyal fan base,
Trump probably could have gotten up on a stage
at a rally in October 2016 and said...
[As Trump] I banged a porn star!
I banged one, and if you vote for me,
you'll all be banging porn stars.
Porn Stars For All, I call it.
[ Laughter ]
[Normal voice] Now, Trump, predictably,
has been doing his usual thing where he panics
and throws a bunch of nonsense against the wall
just to see what sticks.
For example, at a rally in Texas this weekend,
he blasted prosecutors for using his former fixer, Michael Cohen,
who made the payment to Stormy Daniels,
as a key witness.
-They took the word of a proven liar...
...a convicted felon and a disbarred lawyer.
All the same person, believe it or not.
[ Laughter ]
You wouldn't think that could go to one person.
It would be three, four, five.
-First of all, he almost sounds jealous.
[ Laughter ]
Proven liar, convicted felon, disbarred lawyer --
as they call it, the Trump Triple Crown.
[ Laughter ]
And yeah, he's a convicted felon because of you.
The lies he told and the felonies committed were for you.
He got convicted for making the hush-money payment,
the thing you're being investigated for.
You don't get to use that against him now.
Next thing we know,
Trump's gonna start attacking Mike Pence
for being his vice president.
[As Trump] You can't trust that guy.
He worked for me, and I'm a real son of a bitch.
[Normal voice] At the same rally over the weekend,
Trump also lied and claimed prosecutors
resigned from the Manhattan DA's Office
because they opposed the Trump investigation,
which is not true.
In reality, prosecutors resigned
because they felt the DA was not moving forward
with criminal charges fast enough.
-They even had numerous prosecutors who resigned
because I was being treated unfairly.
That made me feel so good when I heard that.
Think of it, people actually in a Democrat area,
a Democrat office, they resigned.
Did you know that? They resigned.
A lot of them resigned the office
because they said, "You can't treat a man like this.
He didn't do anything wrong."
-That is definitely not what they said.
[ Laughter ]
Trump just makes up fake dialogue
like a middle school drama teacher
who couldn't get the rights to "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Alright, the play we're gonna be doing today
is an original piece I wrote
called "To Wound a Toucan."
[ Laughter ]
The climactic scene comes at the end
when a lawyer named Amicus Funk and his daughter Scoot --
it's very important
we call her Scoot --
[ Laughter ]
...befriend the neighborhood recluse named Bruce Ripley.
And when the sheriff confronts old Bruce,
they tell the sheriff, "You can't treat a man like this.
He didn't do anything wrong!"
Then Bruce pays off a porn star.
[ Laughter ]
It also won't surprise you to learn that Trump
has been trying to menace everyone into backing down
by essentially threatening violence.
On Friday, he warned that there would be, quote,
"death and destruction" if he was indicted,
which is dangerous and unhinged, of course,
but also, I'm not so sure,
because when Trump first claimed he was about to be arrested
and told his supporters to take to the streets in his defense,
the turnout was -- well, it was underwhelming.
-Despite Trump's calls on social media to protest,
demonstrations across New York
barely brought out 100 people, and crowds dissipated
as the day went on.
-Take a live look behind me right now.
You can see a handful of supporters are here
on behalf of former President Trump.
-I'm sorry, those aren't protests.
Those are tourists.
It's midtown Manhattan.
I've seen bachelorette parties larger than that.
And louder than that.
You know, some people live in this city, ladies!
[ Laughter ]
Seriously, it doesn't count as a protest
if you're outnumbered by the Times Square Elmos.
[ Laughter ]
So, we don't know what's gonna happen,
but I'll tell you one thing we do know for sure.
The only source of information we definitely can't trust
is Donald Trump himself.
First, he said he was gonna be arrested last Tuesday,
which didn't happen.
Now he's apparently claiming the case has been dropped.
-We got new information this morning
from our Washington bureau on the plane with Trump last night.
Asked about the Manhattan DA's investigation,
he said, "I think they've already dropped the case.
From what I understand, I think it's been dropped.
But I believe that if anything ever happened with the case,
it's a fake case. It's just a fake case."
-So, in one week, he went from saying
he's about to be arrested to telling his supporters
to take to the streets,
threatening death and destruction,
to saying the case has been dropped.
He talks about getting arrested like he's choosing
between chicken and fish at a wedding.
"I'll have the chick-- No, wait.
I'll have the fi-- Never mind. I'll have the chicken.
If I have the fish, there's gonna be some death
and destruction in the bathroom,
if you know what I mean.
You all -- You all knew exactly what I meant.
I shouldn't have -- Okay.
And of course, it's not just Trump who's been freaking out,
but his toadies over on Fox News --
you know, the same network where all the hosts
were texting behind his back about how much he sucks.
Well, they spent the last week
pretending to be mad about the possibility
that Trump might finally be held accountable for his crimes.
-They'd better not put my president in prison.
He represents 74 million Americans,
and if he's the nominee,
you're putting 74 million votes in prison.
-Settlements like this,
whatever you think of them, are common,
both among famous people, celebrities,
and in corporate America.
The result is usually known as an NDA,
a non-disclosure agreement. In this case,
you can believe whatever side you want to believe.
But paying people not to talk about things,
hush money, is ordinary in modern America.
-Well, you know, years back, famously, or infamously,
a well-known New York judge said
in New York, you can indict a ham sandwich.
So that's what Alvin Bragg may be doing.
He may be indicting a ham sandwich.
-Well, especially if the ham sandwich is named Trump.
-You know, in every other parallel universe but this one,
Donald Trump's nickname is Ham Sandwich.
[ Laughter ]
This is the only timeline where he made a billion dollars
and got elected president. Everywhere else in the cosmos,
Trump's walking around Queens with a broom,
offering to sweep your sidewalk for loose change
while people mutter, "Oh, look at that ham sandwich."
[ Laughter ]
"It's just sad."
Again, we have no idea what's gonna happen.
But if we're gonna call ourselves a genuine democracy
that actually respects the rule of law,
then it's obvious that Trump should be
held accountable for his crimes.
It would be nice if, in addition to this crime,
he was also held accountable for the coup attempt
or any of his other crimes.
I don't know how many there are, but if you ask Rudy,
it's probably in the ballpark of...
-130,000?
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪