-After the Electoral College
made it official on Monday,
some Republicans are now finally admitting
that Joe Biden will be the next president
and many in the GOP and right-wing media
are still insisting there is a way
for Trump to subvert the will of the voters
and remain in office.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
Been a tough week for Donald Trump.
The Electoral College made Joe Biden's win official;
Republican leaders began to finally admit
that Biden will be the next president,
albeit way too late;
a judge ruled that Trump's business
must turn over documents sought as part of an investigation
by the New York Attorney General's Office;
and, on top of all that, Trump's neighbors in Florida
went public with a small request --
Please do not move here.
-Trump's neighbors in Florida
are bracing for the possibility
he just might spend his post-White House days
right there alongside them.
Tonight, The Washington Post is reporting
that some of the neighbors down in Mar-a-Lago
want the city of Palm Beach
to prevent Trump from settling down there.
They argue he signed away his legal right
to live there full-time back in the '90s,
when the resort was originally converted
from a private residence to a private club.
-Just amazing. New Yorkers don't want him in New York.
His neighbors don't want him at Mar-a-Lago.
This is like one of those ironic punishments
for a racist on "The Twilight Zone."
"We do have a hacienda available in Mexico City."
[ As Trump ] No!
He's going to be our first nomad ex-president.
Remember how everyone made fun of Hillary Clinton
for taking a walk in the woods, once, after she lost?
Trump's going to have to live in the woods.
Years from now, a group of hikers
are going to find him holed up in a cave, with a long beard,
doing rallies for a bunch of polecats.
[ As Trump ] We love the ferrets, don't we, folks?
Natural allies.
But the skunks, how do we feel about the skunks?
Not nice. Not nice, the skunks.
Trump's ego has obviously taking a hit this week,
so his allies have come up
with an idea to make him feel better --
give him credit for the COVID vaccine
he had nothing to do with.
Several Fox hosts have suggested
that it should be called the Trump vaccine,
and a right-wing columnist from The Washington Post
wrote an op-ed called...
First of all, why should Trump get credit for the vaccine?
What did he do, besides say we should make a vaccine?
I mean, I think we should make dinner for the kids every night,
but I'm smart enough not to tell my wife
we should call it Dad Spaghetti.
Also, you're never going to unite this country,
and it's crazy to try.
Biden should give the same speech
my algebra teacher used to give
on the first nice Friday in April.
"I don't want to be here.
You don't want to be here.
Let's just get through this crap so we can all go home."
Trump didn't do anything.
He's like the guy standing on the sidewalk,
watching you parallel park.
"You got to cut the wheels, man."
Yeah, I know that!
For a crowd that constantly
claims your feelings don't matter,
they seem to think Donald Trump's feelings
matter a lot, and especially this week,
after the Electoral College, yet again,
confirmed that Trump had lost.
Yesterday at a rally in Georgia,
Biden joked about the fact that multiple recounts
in the Electoral College have confirmed his victory there.
-Thank you for standing strong
to make sure your voices were heard,
your votes were counted,
and counted,
and counted again!
[ Laughter ]
I'm starting to feel like I won Georgia three times.
-It's true. Biden's win in Georgia
has been confirmed three times.
And, in terms of convincing someone of the truth,
needing three times is what's known as a Scrooging.
But there you have it, three times.
Biden's win in Georgia has been confirmed more times
than a dentist appointment. And, Dr. Giotopoulos,
you don't need to call me every day
for three weeks before the appointment.
Just send me one email, two days ahead of time,
so I know it's time to start flossing.
And, yes, I've been wearing my retainer.
[ Hushed ] Honey, have you seen my retainer?
Also, if Biden's Georgia win has been confirmed three times,
that means Trump's loss has also been confirmed three times.
When you get rejected, it's pretty pathetic
to double-check once, let alone three times.
Trump has been outside Georgia's window,
holding the boom box three nights in a row
and, each night, Georgia shut the window
and turned on the sprinklers.
And that may seem like a dated movie reference, but remember,
Trump's only political philosophy is "Say Anything."
Only a true business genius like Trump
could parlay one embarrassing loss
into multiple embarrassing losses.
It's like investing in Enron
and then, when it goes bust, you jump out the window,
but, instead of the sidewalk, you land on a couch
someone was throwing out and you fart super loud,
just as a dowager countess is getting out of a town car.
Trump found a way to keep reminding people,
on a nearly daily basis,
that he's now the only president in history
to lose the popular vote, get impeached,
then lose reelection, which is worse than being forgotten.
Zachary Taylor sucked, too,
but nobody even remembers that guy,
except that he's the only president in history
named after two [bleep] toddlers.
Zachary!
Put that stick -- Because I said so!
Taylor!
Where are your pants?
You don't know?
Zachary!
Why is your stick bigger?! [ Growling ] You two!
[ Laughter ]
On the plus side for Trump, he's the president
every kid for the next 100 years
is going to want to do their oral report on.
Jason, your president is James K. Polk.
[ As Andy Samberg ] I don't want that snoozefest!
I want the guy who knew Grimace!
[ Laughing ] Samberg. [ Laughter ]
[ As Samberg ] I wanna do the Grimace president!
Nobody here gets me!
[ Laughter ]
And, yet, the deluded Trump dead-enders will not give up,
not because they genuinely think
there's a path to staying in power,
but because they're fully invested in the belief
that their opponents are illegitimate
and any votes for Democrats are fraudulent.
On Monday, after the Electoral College vote,
the far-right network Newsmax tried to brush it off
like it was some inconsequential technicality.
-There are people, right now, who are out there,
calling Joe Biden the president-elect.
Now, at this point, there is some political
and some historical justification
for them to do so, at this point.
I personally feel they're wrong.
-Oh, you personally feel they're wrong?
You don't want your controversial views
to stain the sterling journalistic reputation
of Newsmax, which, up until recently,
got less attention than a stand-up comic
opening at Ozzfest.
"How's everybody doing?!
You guys ready to thrash?!
First, first, that's great.
Where are my married guys at?
[ Laughter ]
Where are my married guys at?
Married guys?"
I don't know much about Newsmax,
but it sounds like the name of one of those fake news shows
that's really just a late night infomercial for hair plugs.
"Welcome back to Newsmax.
Our next guest is the medical genius
behind the latest breakthrough in hair science,
known as paint."
But, hey, he personally feels they're wrong
to call Joe Biden the president-elect,
just like I personally feel that the 2007 Academy Awards
were wrong to give Best Actor to Forest Whitaker
for "The Last King of Scotland,"
instead of me, for my role in" American Dreamz,"
with Hugh Grant, who said, to my face,
about my performance -- and this is real --
"I don't remember it."
We had scenes together.
[ Laughter ]
The Trump cabal is so committed to subverting democracy
and painting Biden's win as illegitimate
that some states even held fake Electoral College votes
and pretended an alternate slate of electors
would be sent to Congress to put Trump over the top
once they, you know, finally win a court case.
As we speak today, an alternate slate of electors
in the contested states is going to vote
and we're going to send those results up to Congress.
This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open.
-Alternate electors? You might be thinking
of an alternate universe.
"Not only is the president well on his way
to reelection here on Earth-C, he is also one step closer
to apprehending America's gravest threat,
Superman, the villain of Krypton."
And I'm sorry, but none of your legal remedies remain open.
You guys lost almost 60 court cases,
including two at the Supreme Court.
At this point, you're the kid at the spelling bee
who's buying time by continuing to list letters.
"We're going to stop you there, Kyle.
Pheromone doesn't start with an "F,"
and I think we both know it doesn't have 35 E's."
And, no, you didn't just lose on a technicality,
as Trump and his allies have continued to claim.
-They're winning these things
on little technicalities,
like a thing called standing.
-Standing is not a technicality.
It means you don't even have the right
to bring the case. That's like saying --
[ As Trump ] They won't let me play Little League
because of the technicality
that I'm not nine years old.
Though I do you think it's worth pausing,
while we're putting so much emphasis
on the Electoral College, to remind everyone
that the Electoral College is a terrible system
and the way you can tell it's a bad system
is the majority of Americans want to get rid of it.
And it felt that way for decades,
but it's still there.
If you're a sane, normal person,
you might have assumed that the presidential election was over
the moment it became clear
that Joe Biden would get more votes than Donald Trump.
That's how it works in most democracies,
with the exception of Norway, of course,
where the prime minister is chosen
by a mystical gnome named Lars, who emerges from his cave
once every four years and names a new leader,
in exchange for fish balls and orange soda.
And that's today's... [ Shimmering tune plays ]
Of course, in Norway, they chant...
[ Laughter ]
And that's today's...
[ Crickets chirping ]
[ Laughing ] Which still did better with the crew
than every other joke.
[ Laughter ]
We'll put in the crickets.
You won't hear it over the crew laughing.
[ Laughter ]
Although it might actually be preferable
to have a system like that because, instead,
we have the Electoral College, which, every four years,
anoints a handful of swing states as kingmakers
and has awarded the presidency
to the loser of the popular vote several times.
I mean, remember, Joe Biden got
seven million more votes than Donald Trump,
out of a total of 158 million.
But if you flip about 65,000 combined votes
in the right states, Trump would win
the Electoral College, and that's insane.
We don't do anything else like that.
When the Steelers score a touchdown,
it's not worth 47 points,
just because they're from a swing state,
although that would be very helpful, right now.
Anyway, the Electoral College is a ticking time bomb
that is inevitably going to lead
to a major crisis of democratic legitimacy one day.
Arguably, it already has.
It's just that Democrats, unlike Republicans,
accept the results of elections.
And it's not even like the Electoral College
was carefully crafted by the founders
and designed as an integral component of our democracy.
In fact, they basically left it
until the last minute of the Constitutional Convention,
then half-assed it so they could all go home.
-1787, the founders, you know,
they go to Philadelphia,
the framers of the Constitution,
create this new document,
which has a president, for the first time,
and they have to decide "How are we going
to choose the president," right?
And it is the most vexing question for the whole summer.
They fight about it for weeks on end.
And then they come up with this system
in the waning days of the convention,
primarily because they were completely exhausted.
They wanted to get the hell out of there.
And, you know, James Madison admits it after the fact.
He basically says, "Yeah, you know what?
We were pretty tired at that point."
-The founders approached the Electoral College
with all the energy of fans
at the seventh inning of a Mets game.
"If we leave now, we can beat the horse traffic.
Wait, hold on. Hold on.
I can't find my teeth."
And it's also worth noting that, almost immediately,
the founders realized our system was broken
and wasn't operating the way they intended.
They didn't think we'd devolve into a situation
where we have to pray that Florida
finally pulls it together,
like we're Zachary and Taylor's mom
at the kindergarten Christmas pageant.
"Just please behave for one night.
Zachary!
Why would Joseph have a light saber?!
What -- I'm sorry -- what part of the Bible, Taylor,
is a wise man not wearing pants?!
Zachary!
Taylor!
[ Growling ] Oh, these two!"
[ Laughter ]
The founders just wanted to go home,
so they scratched out a half-baked
Electoral College system at the last minute,
then got the hell out of there.
There's a reason there's no rap battle in "Hamilton"
about the creation of the Electoral College,
even though I thought my audition was very convincing.
♪ Sit back, everybody, as I drop, a little knowledge ♪
♪ About the E to the L to the ectoral College ♪
Shoemaker, when you raise the roof,
you go like this, and you're going like this.
[ Laughter ] Oh, you want me to stop? Why?
It's bad?
Yeah, but all raps start bad.
Well, agree to disagree.
You know what? Let's have this fight later.
The Electoral College should be abolished for the obvious reason
that, in a democracy, everyone's vote should matter
and whoever gets the most votes should win.
But abolishing the Electoral College
would also have the added benefit
of preventing future attempts to steal the election,
through Congress or state legislatures, or the courts,
just like the one we just saw.
The presidency would go
to whoever got the most votes
and that's it. It would be simple.
It would be like how a democracy works
or how any election, anywhere, works.
In high school, all the kids vote
for who they think gave the funniest speech,
and then that person is class president.
Not like the students vote and then the prom king,
a math teacher, and the kid with the pet iguana
get in a room and decide if they're right.
And, if it was a simple case and most votes win,
you wouldn't have Rudy and his gang of cartoon characters
descending on state capitals after one too many Jaegerbombs
at the local Houlihan's.
Democrats need to pursue major reforms to our institutions,
to ensure that something like this can't happen in the future,
otherwise, it will happen in the future.
Republicans made it very clear that, if given the chance,
they will do everything possible to steal an election
through the courts, Congress, or state legislatures,
and the existence of the Electoral College
makes such an outcome much more likely,
even if Republicans don't have...
-A thing called standing.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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