-A bizarre, and, ultimately,
pointless, drama
unfolded yesterday after Piers Morgan,
an on-and-off friend and ally of Donald Trump,
debuted a trailer for an interview
in which he claimed Trump angrily walked out
and then Trump later released audio
he claimed contradicted the trailer
and showed that, in reality, the ending was cordial.
Also, coup plotter Rudy Giuliani was on "The Masked Singer."
[ Laughter ] For more on this --
Wait, do we want more on this?
Alright, we do? Alright.
[ Laughter ]
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]
♪♪ [ Whistling ]
Republican politics, these days, is often so relentlessly stupid,
it generally feels like we're being punished for something.
[ Laughter ] It's like we got busted watching an episode of "Maury"
and God said, "Okay, you like that?
How about if everything is an episode of 'Maury'
[ Laughter ] from now on?
Do you like that?"
Every damn day, we have to deal with something insane,
like stories about congressional orgies
or senators writing Disney erotica
or cable hosts pitching testicle tanning,
[ Laughter ] and it always seems to come
from the same cluster of weirdos,
like Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump,
Matt Gaetz, Madison Cawthorn, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
[ Laughter ] Their names are all starting to blend together now
in one soup of insanity. Did you hear
what Muckerie Gaelor Cawthump said now?
[ Laughter ]
Did someone flip a switch or something
that unleashed all these weirdos on us?
It's like that scene in "Ghostbusters"
where the EPA guy makes them open the vault
and all the ghosts come flying out.
[ Laughter ] I mean, I could've sworn
I saw the zombie cabdriver
on "The Masked Singer" last night.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Yeah. You saw that Rudy Giuliani,
the guy who waged a lengthy and unhinged campaign
to overturn the 2020 election,
who tried to help Donald Trump steal millions of votes,
helped orchestrate a scheme to extort the country of Ukraine
to help Trump cheat in the election,
had his home and office raided by the FBI,
is currently under federal investigation
for various allegations,
and called for a trial by combat
on the day of the January 6th insurrection,
was on Fox's "Masked Singer" last night.
That's a terrible, terrible thing to do to people on 4/20.
[ Stoner voice ] Hey, man.
[ Laughter, ohs, and applause ]
Hey, man, that weed you gave me,
I think it's laced with something, man.
[ Laughter ]
I'm seeing some [bleep]-up [bleep], man!
[ Laughter and applause ]
And, when he was unmasked, everyone was shocked,
including, apparently, Rudy himself.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
-Oh, my goodness!
Former associate attorney general,
former mayor of New York City.
-Is that Robert Duval?
-No, that's not Robert Duval.
[ Cheering and applause ] -Rudy Giuliani!
-No! way!
-Oh...my... -Oh, my God!
[ Fireworks explode ] -gosh.
[ Laughter ] -Well, Mr. Giuliani,
with all of the controversy
that's surrounding you right now,
I think it surprises us all that you're here
on "The Masked Singer."
-Me too!
[ Laughter and applause ]
-I'm sure he was surprised.
There's a good chance Rudy genuinely
did not know where he was
[ Laughter and applause ] and was just as surprised
as everyone else when they opened that box.
He was probably thrilled, by the way.
[ As Giuliani ] A singing competition?
I just assumed I was going to jail.
[ Laughter ]
I bet you could trick Rudy Giuliani
into climbing into almost any container,
just by telling him there's a trove
of shredded Trump ballots in there or, I don't know,
a bottle of scotch that wasn't completely empty.
[ Laughter ] Honestly, the idea that any TV show
would help rehabilitate a key figure in an attempted coup
for entertainment purposes is so disgusting and shocking.
The only reality show I would've been okay
with Rudy being on is "Love Is Blind"...
[ Laughter ]
just to see if he accidentally
ends up marrying his cousin again.
[ Laughter ]
[ Static crackling ] So, where are you from?
32 East Flatbush Road?
That's where my aunt and uncle live!
We got so much in common.
[ Laughter ]
And I'm sorry. Whenever we make that joke,
I'm supposed to clarify that it was
his second cousin he married, you know,
as in someone who you share a great-grandparent with,
not the second time he married his cousin.
[ Laughter ] Although I could definitely
see Rudy doing that twice by accident, too.
[ As Giuliani ] Honey, I was just looking at the marriage certificate.
You accidentally put Giuliani on the line for maiden name.
Giuliani is your maiden name?!
Oh, Rudy, you done it again!
[ Laughter and applause ]
And, again, I should clarify, you know,
all jokes aside here,
when he married his second cousin,
which is a real thing he did,
her maiden name wasn't Giuliani.
I mean, this man was the mayor of New York City.
How dare I treat him like some sort of clown?
[ Laughter ] Oh, well, alright.
I guess it's fair now.
[ Laughter ] You know who probably panicked
when Rudy Giuliani appeared as a Jack-in-the-Box?
This guy.
[ Laughter ] "Yeah.
I'm going to lay low for a while."
[ Laughter ] And yet, somehow, that was not
the only incredibly stupid thing to happen
in Republican politics yesterday because one of Trump's
longtime friends and allies, Piers Morgan,
released an overly dramatic trailer
for a new interview with Trump,
where he claimed Trump angrily stormed out of the interview
when pressed about his election lies.
-Okay, Piers, I'm ready.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
-I'll be completely straight to your face.
-I think I'm a very honest man.
Much more honest than you, actually.
-Really?! -Yeah.
-It was a free and fair election.
You lost. -Only a fool would think that.
-You think I'm a fool? -I do now, yeah.
-With respect -- -Excuse me.
-With respect, you haven't produced
the hard evidence. -Excuse me.
I don't think you're real.
[ Voices overlapping ] Very dishonest.
Let's finish up the interview.
Turn the camera off.
♪♪
Very dishonest.
-I'm sorry, but who edited that trailer,
Michael Bay?
[ Laughter ]
Was there hand-to-hand combat?
Is this from the next Jason Bourne movie,
where, instead of advanced fighting skills,
Jason Bourne wakes up in a poorly tailored suit?
[ Laughter and oohs ]
By the way, Piers Morgan himself
also famously stormed off the set
of his own TV show in the UK
when he was challenged on something he said.
These guys constantly call the left snowflakes
and "get triggered," and then they
immediately melt down when confronted
by even the gentlest questioning from a friendly source.
I mean, look at Trump's face.
He's literally melting down.
[ Laughter ]
That's what a Yankee candle looks like,
if you leave it out in the sun.
[ Laughter and applause ]
I believe that one is called...
[ Laughter, ohs, and applause ] It will never not shock me
that anyone in the country looks at that guy and says,
"That's a face I can trust."
[ Laughter ]
That looks like a mask you'd rip off
to reveal Rudy Giuliani on "The Masked Singer."
[ Laughter and applause ] But then a weird thing happened,
where Trump's team released audio
claiming he didn't angrily walk out.
NBC News reported that...
Genuine fights don't end
with "Thank you very much. I really appreciate it."
You've never seen a ten-minute fight sequence
in a movie with The Rock and Vin Diesel
punching each other on top of a train,
dodging bullets, laying flat when they go through a tunnel,
popping up again, doing a windmill kick
to the other guy's face that sends him flying off the train,
leading the other guy to relax and assume the fight's over,
only to realize it's not over because his nemesis climbs back
up onto the train after having clung to a door handle... [ Laughter ]
...so they fight for another 10 minutes,
until both of them wrestle each other back and forth
and fall dramatically off the train,
across the river, and continue to punch in midair
as they plunge 100 feet into the icy rapids,
tumbling towards a waterfall,
where they cling to a rock, until they lose their grip,
and then they grab onto a tree branch,
narrowly escaping death,
and then they turn to each other and say,
"Hey, man, that was a great fight.
Thanks so much."
[ Laughter and applause ] Of course -- Of course...
[ Cheering ]
...if it was Vin Diesel,
he wouldn't say that. He would say --
[ As Diesel ] It's all about family.
[ Laughter and applause ]
That's today's in-Vin-cible impression.
[ Engine vrooms ]
[ Laughter and applause ]
That's what he said when he pitched it.
[ As Diesel ] It's all about family.
They're like, "But also cars?"
[ Laughter ]
What are we talking about?
Oh, right.
And Trump's account would make sense
because even the initial description of the interview
had this odd anecdote --
[ Laughter ]
It's so funny you can trick Trump
into sitting for an interview if you just ask him about golf.
He's so easy to checkmate. It's like how you
[ Laughter ] trick a golden retriever
into running after a tennis ball by pretending to throw it.
[ Laughter ] In Trump's case, he'd just spend hours walking
around the White House lawn, looking for it.
[ As Trump ] Where's this freaking tennis ball?
I ran all the way here.
I ran to find the tenni--
If I don't get that tennis ball,
I'm not going to get that treat and, let me tell you,
I want that Milk-Bone.
[ Laughter ] We love Milk-Bone, don't we, folks?
[ Laughter ]
It combines the flavor of milk with beef, chicken.
[ Laughter ]
What we're seeing here is that, to all these guys,
whether it's Piers Morgan or "The Masked Singer,"
it's all just entertainment.
They don't care about what's actually at stake,
which is our democracy, and, deep down,
most Republicans know it. They know the truth.
As we learned from a bombshell
New York Times report this morning
that revealed senior GOP leaders,
including Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell,
were ready to push Trump out of office
in the days after the January 6th insurrection,
before changing their tune and deciding
to stick with him for political expediency.
-This morning, we're learning that the nation's
top two Republicans had serious concerns
about former President Trump's ability to lead
in the wake of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The New York Times is reporting
that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
told other Republican leaders
that he was going to advise President Trump to resign.
The Times is also reporting that McCarthy
and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell looked
into the 25th Amendment as an option
for removing Trump from office.
-McCarthy, specifically, the reporting says
he wanted to push Trump to resign,
that he said, "I've had it with this guy."
-I feel like, in the wake
of a violent attack on the Capitol,
you should be able to muster something a little stronger
than "I've had it with that guy."
[ Laughter ] Even their strongest denunciations of Trump
behind closed doors sounds like your dad complaining to you
about the guy who does his landscaping.
"I've had it with this guy.
He keeps using the wrong mulch
and all my petunias are dying.
Alright, here's your mom."
[ Laughter ] But this has always been the case.
Behind the scenes, they all knew --
every single one of them -- how dangerous Trump was.
But they need him for the show business of it all.
Trump's like their unmanageable Broadway diva.
"Shirley stabbed the wardrobe guy with a chopstick
and he's threatening to sue.
Plus, she's drunk as a skunk
and curtain's in 10 minutes,
but goddamn it, that broad can sing."
[ Laughter ]
A good rule of thumb with these guys is,
whenever you can't tell if they're dumb or evil,
the answer is all of the above.
[ Laughter ] Republicans calculated they
could use Trump for sinister political purposes
and, once again, that's what happened
because, as The New York Times reports...
And McCarthy even flew down to Mar-a-Lago
to kiss Trump's ring and pose for that photo
where they look like two personal injury attorneys
who want to know if you have asbestos in your house.
"Do you have asbestos? Well, so do we.
In fact, we accidentally ate some.
Wait. What was this commercial about?
I don't know. My memory's not so good
since I ate that asbestos.
So call us and tell us what our names are.
We can't remember!"
[ Laughter ]
The fate of our democracy is very much on the brink
and yet, so many of our institutions,
from political parties to media organizations,
are far too willing to rehabilitate
the key perpetrators of a slow-moving coup,
all for entertainment or profit or political gain.
The rot in our political system goes deep.
These guys are all...
-♪ Bad to the bone ♪
[ Laughter ]
Is our wah-wah horn broken?
[ Laughter ]
This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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