-Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the attic.
I want to take a quick second to address something
that was pointed out to me over the weekend.
According to some eagle-eyed Internet sleuths,
the title of my trusted copy of "The Thorn Birds" changed
over the course of "A Closer Look."
Obviously the last thing we want is for any book nonsense
to distract from the content of "A Look."
So to make sure it doesn't happen this week,
I will be placing a book on top of my copy
of "The Thorn Birds" to keep it in place,
and that right there should be the end of that.
Also I want to note that it has now been 70 days
since my last haircut, and while it looks tame enough now,
I assure you that over the weekend,
this thing is a hot mess.
So thank God for Monday and a reason to comb it.
Speaking of hot messes, segue, it's clear.
The president desperately wants to pretend the coronavirus
will just go away, and now he's trying to distract
from his own poor job performance
by calling for his predecessor to be investigated
for a made-up scandal he can't even define.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
One of the most frustrating parts of this pandemic
has been watching countries around the world from Australia
to Iceland to Taiwan to New Zealand
successfully suppress their outbreaks
with competent leadership
and slowly begin to safely reopen their economies.
Meanwhile, we have a president who won't even wear a mask
at a mask-distribution facility
while surrounded by people wearing masks.
Oh, sure, when he was trying to get everyone excited about coal,
he happily put on a miner's helmet.
But at a time when experts are begging people to wear masks,
he stands there like a science experiment being unveiled
by a bunch of doctors at a conference.
As you can see, we successfully implanted the brain of a pigeon
into a giant potato and then sewed on some limbs
and shocked it with electricity until it came to life.
So, you know, still working out some kinks.
Dude, seriously, just wear a mask.
I promise it won't make you look less presidential
because there's no way you could look
less presidential than you do now.
Do you think we're going to be bummed out to be deprived
of this part of the face?
Not only have many countries suppressed their outbreaks,
they've also avoided the worst-case economic scenarios.
Meanwhile here in the U.S.
we now account for 30% of the world's cases
despite having less than 5% of the world's population.
36 million people are out of work.
We have the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression.
And last week the Fed reported that a staggering
40% of households making $40,000 or less
lost their jobs in March,
or as the president put it last week...
-We have met the moment and we have prevailed.
-Mr. President, you said in your comments earlier,
"we have met the moment, we have prevailed."
To you, sir, is the mission accomplished?
Even with 1.4 million -- -No, we've prevailed on testing
is what I was referring to. That was with regard to testing.
-[ As Trump ] Sorry, I read that wrong.
I didn't mean to say "prevailed."
I meant to say "pre-failed."
We failed before we even knew what we were failing at.
That's vision.
[ Normal voice ] You can't make a big statement like
"We've prevailed," then say it's just on testing.
It's like if George W. Bush's infamous banner had an asterisk
that said "Mission Accomplished, specifically the mission
of printing and hanging this banner."
Also, we have not prevailed on testing.
I mean, it's good that we're ramping up testing now,
but we needed it three months ago.
Bragging about testing now is like showing up to a house
that already burned down and offering to water the grass.
Other countries are putting in place rigorous programs
of testing, contact tracing, and isolating cases.
That's why they've been able
to slowly reopen and avoid the worst.
We've fallen behind not just countries like South Korea,
Australia, and Germany, but others you might not expect.
-This is what the graph looks like for the U.S.
You see a sharp rise in cases
that hasn't really tapered off yet, right?
It's trending down.
But to put that in context, that curve you see there,
here's how some other places are doing.
The first group is the countries that appear
to have successfully suppressed transmission of the disease.
That curve has come all the way down
so that they are barely registering any new cases.
We have Andorra, Australia, Austria, Bhutan, Cambodia,
China, Croatia, Cuba, Djibouti,
Estonia, Greece, Iceland,
Jamaica, Jordan, Kosovo,
Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta,
Mauritius, Monaco, Montenegro,
New Zealand, Slovakia, Slovenia,
South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand,
Tunisia, and finally, Vietnam.
-We're worse than Liechtenstein, Slovakia, and Latvia.
I don't even know enough about those countries to make a joke.
I'll just assume everyone there is named Gustav
and they chug Fanta while riding mopeds?
Let us know if we got close.
We even did worse than Bhutan.
Just a side note here about Bhutan --
What's up with their graph?
Everyone else has a nice bell curve,
and their chart looks like the opening credits of "Frasier."
I guess Bhutan figured out that the cure for coronavirus is...
♪ Tossed salads and scrambled eggs ♪
No, you're doing a show in your attic!
Anyway, the point is, there are lots of countries
that have suppressed their outbreaks.
And now some of them are safely reopening
in ways that are still far off for us.
Like Germany, where professional soccer returned this weekend,
although with a slight twist.
-Germany could help provide the playbook
for the future of sports in the United States.
Today, the Bundesliga will make a return to the soccer field.
It's the first major sports league in the world,
along with Korean baseball,
to return during the coronavirus pandemic.
The move comes as Germany eases nationwide restrictions
after seeing a drop in new cases.
-Cheers like these will also fade away, along with fans,
banned for the rest of the season.
Still, there will be some fans in the stands
with supporters paying to have cardboard cutouts of themselves
sitting in the stadiums.
-That's right, German soccer fans are paying to have
cardboard cutouts of themselves in the stands.
It's such a German solution,
because it's so much more efficient
than actually going to a game yourself.
[ German accent ] Sport is merely a diversion
from the ceaseless march of time.
[ Normal voice ] Angela Merkel is going to start doing that
for meetings with Trump.
[ As Trump ] You've been a lot more amenable today.
I like the new Angela.
[ Normal voice ] Also, true story, side note,
for mother's day, my brother sent my mom
a cardboard cutout of himself.
Oh, my God, look how happy she is.
An incredibly thoughtful gift
that made my gift of flowers with a note pale in comparison.
I don't have a photo to show you
because she didn't take one of that.
And to my brother, I would just like to say,
pandemics are not the time to curry favor with Mom,
to which I'm sure he would say,
even in non-pandemic times, I get thoughtful gifts,
and you don't, to which I would say,
"Bud, I would love to have this conversation,
but I got to get back to my "Look."
Now, obviously there are lots of factors,
and those countries are all very different,
but at least some of those countries
have made strides in part due to a national strategy
of widespread testing,
tracing the contacts of positive cases,
and isolating those cases.
Meanwhile, our president doesn't even think testing works.
-We've been doing testing at a level
that nobody's ever done it before.
We have the best testing in the world.
Could be the testing is, frankly, uh, overrated.
Maybe it is overrated.
But whenever they start yelling, "We want more, we want more,"
you know, they always say, "We want more, we want more,"
'cause they don't want to give you credit.
Don't forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world.
But why? Because we do more testing.
When you test, you have a case.
When you test, you find something is wrong with people.
If we didn't do any testing, we would have very few cases.
-That doesn't mean the cases would magically go away.
They would still be there.
You just wouldn't know about them.
If the Olympics stopped drug testing people,
there would be fewer positives, but a lot more cyclists
who looked like Dolph Lundgren, which might not be terrible.
This is clearly a theme for Trump.
He would much rather the U.S. just stopped testing people
so we could pretend we don't have any cases.
For example, when a West Wing aide tested positive
for coronavirus earlier this month,
Trump said it somehow proved his theory
that testing isn't important.
-She tested, uh, very good for a long period of time,
and then, all of a sudden, today she tested positive.
So, uh, she tested positive out of the blue.
This is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily great.
The tests are perfect.
But something can happen between a test
where it's good and then something happens,
and all of a sudden, she was tested very recently
and tested negative, and then today, I guess,
for some reason, she tested positive.
-Oh, he's so close to getting it.
Sometimes it feels like we as a nation
are helping the dumbest kid in school
with his science homework.
[ As Trump ] She tested negative every time.
[ Normal voice ] Yes, yes, yes, good, go on.
[ As Trump ] Then today, she tested positive.
[ Normal voice ] Ah, yes, yes, yes. Which means...?
[ As Trump ] Well, something changed.
[ Normal voice ] Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Now, what changed?
[ As Trump ] I don't know.
[ Normal voice ] She has the virus!
That's what changed. She has the virus now.
He thinks the problem with testing
is that you can test negative,
meaning you don't have coronavirus,
then one day, you test positive because you caught coronavirus.
[ As Trump ] Smoke detectors are useless.
They'll be quiet for years, and then you finally feel
safe enough to leave a candle on top of a mattress,
and they just start beeping like crazy.
It's clear that Trump would much rather simply pretend
coronavirus no longer exists and go about doing
all the other president stuff he used to do on Friday,
for example, as the U.S. death toll
climbed to 88,000, Trump took time out of his day
to commission a new flag for his pet project, the space force.
-So today we're here for a very important --
it's really an important occasion
because we're unfurling the flag.
So, why don't we go ahead and do it?
Let's do it, yes, please. -Thank you.
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
[ Indistinct conversations ]
-Look at that goon grinning from ear to ear.
He hasn't been that happy since Prime had a two-for-one deal
on gold toilets.
I mean, compare that face to the face he made the night
he found out he was going to be president.
I would say he looks like he just saw a ghost,
but it was probably the one he brought with him.
So amid all of this, former President Obama
decided to offer some rare public criticism
during two virtual commencement addresses over the weekend.
Say what you will about him,
he certainly had his flaws as president,
but it was so comforting just to hear a politician
capable of showing empathy and compassion
and talking in coherent sentences.
-This pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain
on the idea that so many of the folks in charge
know what they're doing.
A lot of them aren't even pretending to be in charge.
And all those adults that used to think were in charge
and knew what they were doing,
turns out they don't have all the answers.
A lot of them aren't even asking the right questions.
Our society and our democracy only work
when we think not just about ourselves, but about each other.
Doing what feels good, what's convenient, what's easy,
that's how little kids think.
Unfortunately a lot of so-called grown-ups,
including some with fancy titles and important jobs,
still think that way, which is why things are so screwed up.
-It's both revealing an d depressing that when Obama
talks about grown-ups behaving like little children,
we all know exactly who he's talking about.
I mean, there's no mystery. Even Trump knows.
It's not like his aides went to him and said,
"Sir, he was talking about you, and Trump said,
[ As Trump ] "Moi? But I was just sitting here drawing
a new logo for the space force. Adult stuff.
I think we can all agree, adult stuff."
Also I appreciate that Obama did this, I really do,
but as he himself acknowledged, isn't like one of the upsides,
maybe the only upside of having your graduation canceled
that you don't have to sit through a long boring speech?
I mean, don't get me wrong, Obama is a great speaker,
but instead of giving a speech, maybe he could have hosted
a game of virtual beer pong.
[ As Obama ] That's two. Two in a row. I get a rollback.
Hey, there was too much space between those cups.
I want a re-rack.
Better tighten that [bleep] up.
Tighten it up.
Obama's reemergence comes as Trump pushes a totally deranged,
made-up scandal that even he can't define,
but which he's already named
in an attempt to distract from coronavirus.
And that dumb name has already been parroted by the media.
-President Trump has escalated his attacks on his predecessor,
taking to Twitter, adopting the term "Obamagate,"
hashtagging it.
-President trump calls it "Obamagate."
-Obamagate. -Obamagate.
-Obamagate.
-Obamagate. -Obamagate.
-Obamagate.
-Obamagate. -Obamagate.
-Obamagate.
-Obamagate. -Obamagate.
-Obamagate.
-Obamagate. -Obamagate.
-Obamagate.
-Obamagate. -Obamagate.
-Stop trying to make Obamagate happen.
It's not a thing.
Just because the president makes up a word
doesn't mean we all have to take it seriously.
Every day Trump just tweets the word "Obamagate" in all caps.
There's a good chance it's his twitter password
and he doesn't realize he's already logged in.
It doesn't even make sense as a scandal name.
Obamagate sounds like something in a sci-fi movie
that we all have to walk through to restore the correct timeline.
The guy from "Apprentice" is president,
and the only basketball on TV
is 25-year-old Jordan highlights!
We have to find the Obamagate!
Trump is so lazy, he can't even
come up with a more specific scandal name.
It's like the boss who sees you wearing a hat one day and says,
[ As Trump ] "What's up, hat guy?"
[ Normal voice ] So the death toll in the U.S. is over 88,000
and unemployment is at its highest
since the Great Depression and the president is accusing
his predecessor of a made-up crime,
and yet the sociopaths on the right
like former Bush adviser Karl Rove, you know,
the guy who looks like you put glasses on a moldy kumquat,
are more concerned
with Obama's mild, indirect criticism of Trump.
-It is so unseemly for a former President
to take the virtual commencement ceremony for a series
of, uh, historically black colleges and universities
and turn it into a political drive-by shooting.
-Okay, I know we've all lost track of time in quarantine,
but Karl Rove being a gross [bleep] on Fox News
to get a president re-elected, is this 2004?
We went back too far!
We gotta go through the Obamagate again!
The president is just deeply incapable of
and uninterested in doing his job.
He clearly wishes he could just pretend
the coronavirus pandemic was over,
and to distract from it, he's peddling a made-up scandal
about his predecessor that even he can't explain.
That's Trump's one skill --
his ability to exploit the media's weaknesses.
From birtherism to Obamagate,
whenever he concocts some deranged new conspiracy theory,
the media responds by saying... -We want more, we want more.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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