-The select House committee
investigating Donald Trump's attempted coup
on January 6th held its second hearing today, and it was just as damning
as the first, with multiple Trump aides and advisers
on tape confirming that there was no evidence
for Trump's stolen election lies and that they had told
Trump repeatedly that there was no evidence
for those lies. Oh, also, Rudy Giuliani
was wasted on election night. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look." [ Cheers and applause ] Today's hearing was no less a
blockbuster than the first one, which is saying a lot, given
how many bombshells there were in the first hearing last week. Today, the committee laid out
in painstaking detail the degree to which virtually
everyone around Trump, from his campaign manager
to his attorney general to his own family, knew that there was
no evidence of election fraud and told Trump there was
no evidence of fraud. -They wasted a whole month
on these claims on the Dominion voting machines,
and they were idiotic claims. I told them that it was --
it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time
on that. All the early claims
that I understood were completely bogus and silly, and usually based on
complete misinformation. -Told him flat out that much of the information
he's getting is false and/or just not supported
by the evidence. We look at the allegations,
but they don't pan out. -So, this wild claim
is thrown out, which, you know,
on its face didn't seem, you know, realistic
or possible to me. -I thought
the Dominion stuff was... I never saw any evidence
whatsoever to sustain those allegations. What they were proposing,
I thought was nuts. The theory was also
completely nuts, right? I mean, it was a combination
of the Italians, the Germans. I mean, different things
had been floating around as to who was involved, Hugo Chávez
and the Venezuelans. -I told him that the stuff that
his people were shoveling out to the public were --
was bullshit. I mean that the claims of fraud
were bullshit. -Of course it was
all bull[bleep]. It's like Trump asked
for a story that explained why he lost
and his team said, "How much time do we have
to come up with it?" And he said, "Three seconds!"
And they said, "Uh, uh, a dead
Venezuelan dictator teamed with, um,
an election software company and the governments of Italy,
Germany, and China to stuff fraudulent ballots into suitcases
and shopping carts?" [As Trump] Oh, that's good.
You guys are worth every penny. [Normal voice] Actually -- uh,
actually, sir, you don't pay us. [As Trump] Exactly. [Normal voice] Everyone around
Trump knew it was bull[bleep] and told Trump
it was bull[bleep] over and over
and over again. But Trump went ahead and
declared the election stolen anyway and spent months
spreading that lie, despite hearing repeatedly
from his closest aides and advisers that what
he was saying was insane. And documenting that Trump knew
it was all bull[bleep] is important for establishing
his frame of mind. He obviously had
criminal intent. I know this is obvious,
but still, it's important to establish that he wasn't
just, like, innocently investigating credible
allegations of fraud. He was actively trying
to overturn an election he knew he did not win,
and engaged in many potentially
criminal activities to do it, including fomenting
a violent attack on the Capitol. In fact, Trump's campaign
manager, Bill Stepien, even said in one deposition that he and other Trump aides
who knew there wasn't fraud had been divided into a separate
group from all the crazy people, and the non-crazy people
even had an informal name. -I didn't mind being
categorized. There were two groups of them. We called them kind of my team
and Rudy's team. I didn't mind
being characterized as being part of Team Normal, as reporters kind of started
to do around that point in time. -That's right, they were known
as Team Normal. Now, I could tell you
the specific names of the people who were supposedly
on Team Normal. Or I could just tell you that
none of them look like this. [ Laughter and applause ] [As Giuliani] Hey, I'm here
for Team Normal tryouts. [Normal voice] Actually,
I'm sorry, Team Normal's full. [As Giuliani] Be honest.
Was it my eyes? [ Laughter and applause ] [Normal voice] Also -- Also,
in regards to Stepien, I'd argue
that despite his resistance to Trump's fraud claims, he was still just as complicit
as anyone else, given that he was managing
Trump's campaign even while Trump
was preemptively claiming the election would be rigged,
and never once spoke out to warn the public
about how dangerous Trump was. And yet, for some reason, the
photo they used of him all day made him look kick-ass. Look at my man
So-Called Life-in' it Claire Danes style. God, it' so cool that
she grew up to be in the CIA. And whatever happened
to that other guy? Aah! Fun fact -- they put him
on Team Normal before Rudy. Either way, Trump obviously decided to go with Rudy
over Team Normal. Now, early in her
opening statement, Congresswoman Liz Cheney teased that the hearing
would touch upon Rudy's role in the attempted coup
when she said this. -You will also hear testimony
that President Trump rejected the advice
of his campaign experts on election night and instead followed
the course recommended by an apparently inebriated
Rudy Giuliani to just claim he won and insist
that the vote counting stop, to falsely claim
everything was fraudulent. -I mean, that is brutal.
It's embarrassing to have a member of Congress announce on live television
that you were visibly drunk. I mean, I've been visibly drunk
on TV before, but it's for entertainment. Never once during any of
my Day Drinking episodes have I ever said to my guest,
"Hey, you wanna do a coup?" [ Laughter ] And let me make something
perfectly clear. If Rihanna had suggested it, I would have been down
at the Capitol in a heartbeat. [ Laughter ] Now, when Cheney said
Rudy was inebriated, I thought, "Damn,
that's embarrassing, But I guess
that's the end of that." What I could have never
imagined in my wildest dreams was that it was just a tease
for what was coming up, because it turns out
a significant portion of the hearing,
bolstered by witness testimony, focused on
former Mayor Giuliani, an attorney to the president
of the United States, being blitzed
out of his [bleep] mind. -Were you in
the White House residence during the sort of --
past midnight into the early morning hours
of November 4th? -Yes. Oh, sure.
It went over beyond midnight. Yes.
-Do you remember Rudy Giuliani being at the White House
on election night and into the early hours
the next morning? -I do. -What do you remember
about when he came? -Um...
[ Clears throat ] He... He was, um... They were... I had heard that
he was upstairs, you know, in that aforementioned
reception area. And, um... he was looking
to talk to the president. And it was suggested
instead that he come talk to several of us
down off the Map Room. -Was there anyone
in that conversation who, in your observation,
had had too much to drink? -Um, like Mayor Giuliani. -Tell me more about that.
What was your observation about his potential intoxication
during that -- that discussion about what the president
should say when he addressed the nation
on election night? -The mayor was definitely
intoxicated, but I do not know his level of intoxication when he spoke
with the president, for example. -It's so funny to me
how in all these deposition, Trump aides are all
hemming and hawing, pausing and taking their time
to use the most precise legal language possible
because they're under oath. But then, as soon
as someone asks, "Was anyone drunk
at the White House?" they all immediately buzz in
like the overeager uncle on "Family Feud." "Rudy! It was Rudy!" [ Laughter ] In fact, if "Who was drunk
at the White House?" was a question on "Family Feud," the top five answers
would all be the same. [ Laughter ] Also, I love the follow-up
where the lawyer says, "Tell me more about that." I wish I could have seen
the rest of that deposition. "And how did you know
Rudy was drunk?" "Well, I saw him holding
an empty bottle of Scotch and hitting on a portrait
of Dolley Madison." [As Giuliani]
Well, hello, young lady! Now, before we go any further, you have a legal obligation
to tell me if you're my cousin. [ Laughter ] Fool me twice! [ Laughter ] [Normal voice] So,
as the committee established, Trump had a choice between
Team Normal and Team Rudy, and obviously
he chose Team Rudy. In fact, Trump's son-in-law,
Jared Kushner, who looked in every clip
like he had just smelled one of Rudy's Scotch farts, said at one point that he tried
to warn Trump about Rudy, although you could tell Kushner
was definitely walking on eggshells
when he answered the question. -Did you ever share,
Mr. Kushner, your view of Mr. Giuliani? Did you ever share
your perspective about him with the president? -Um... I-I guess... [ Sighs ] Uh...yes. [ Laughter ] -Tell me what you said. -Basically, "Not the approach
I would take if I was you." -Okay. And how did he react? How did President Trump react when you shared
that view with him? -Oh, he said, you know,
"I have confidence in Rudy." -That was a very long pause. You could tell Kushner did not
want to answer the question. I'm shocked he didn't break out
into a song called "We Don't Talk About Rudy." That's definitely the length
of the pause you take when someone asks you
about a friend who was super drunk at a party, especially a friend
you invited. "Hey, uh, you know
your friend Kyle?" "Uh..." [ Laughter ] [ Sighs ] "Yeeeeah." "He just did a cannonball
in the pool with all his clothes on
and told everyone if they didn't do
a Jell-O shot with him, he'd have them arrested." "Yeah, but so what?" "Well, it's a kid's
birthday party." So, today's hearing
was laser-focused on disproving the big lie and showing the public
that everyone around Trump, except for the drunk
and/or crazy people, thought the fraud claims
were insane and told Trump
those claims were insane. And here's a key point. A lot of people
are watching these hearings. So proving that Trump
was both full of [bleep] and knew he was full of [bleep]
is important because a big question going
into these hearings last week was whether people
would watch. Republicans and right-wing media
personalities, for example, were invested heavily in
the idea that no one would watch because they had better things
to do, but they were wrong. And audience of at least
20 million people watched the first
prime-time hearing, in the ballpark
of television events like a big
"Sunday Night Football" game or the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade. And I'm not surprised
the hearing got Thanksgiving Parade ratings since so many
of Trump's inner circle look like they could be
balloons. [ Laughter ] "Oh, look, kid,
it's the Mike Lindell balloon! Oh, stop crying. It's not him.
It's just a balloon. Oh, wait. Okay. I actually do think
it actually might be him." [As Lindell]
"Yeah, it's me, alright! They just tied some strings
to me and filled me up with da air!" [Normal voice]
So, the first hearing actually ended up
scoring big in the ratings, even though one channel
conspicuously decided not to air it,
which was, of course, Fox News. Fox News stuck with
its normal prime-time shows. Not just that, they also didn't
show commercials for the entire two hours
that the hearing was on, because they didn't want their
viewers to change the channel and see the hearing
on a different network. -They didn't take any commercial
breaks for the entire two hours when the hearing
was taking place. The reason you would not
take a commercial break is because you do not want
your viewers to have a chance to click over to another channel
to see what's going on. You want to keep them
with you the whole time. Last night, Fox News eliminated
two hours of commercial breaks, at the cost of
I don't know how much money, thousands of dollars, all to keep their viewers' eyes
away from the truth that was airing on every other
news network in the country. -Think about that.
They were so desperate to keep their viewers
from seeing the hearing that they cost themselves money
by not airing commercials. You know how many Acorn
Stairlifts they could have sold? Though I don't think
that was necessary. If you've ever been in a home
where they watch Fox News, you know they're not big
on flipping around. I'm pretty sure they just buy
the TV, put it on Fox, and then bury the remote
in the backyard. But still,
just think about that. Fox went an entire two hours without airing
one of their usual commercials for some dumb scam product
aimed solely at old people like gold coins,
tactical sunglasses, commemorative plates with
Ronald Reagan's face on them, or a MAGA teddy bear
with Donald Trump's voice. "I love my MAGA teddy bear! You just push his belly and he
says the most adorable things." -Then they did dumps.
They call 'em dumps. Big, massive dumps. [ Laughter ] -It's also not surprising
that Fox would want to keep its audience
from watching the hearing because in addition
to providing damning evidence that Trump knew the election
had not been stolen and that he orchestrated
a criminal plot to overthrow the government,
the hearing was also deeply embarrassing
for the Trump family. For example,
the committee played video of Trump's daughter Ivanka
saying she accepted Attorney General
Bill Barr's assessment that there was
no widespread fraud and that the election
had not been stolen, meaning she disagreed with her
father's stolen election lies. -Many of President Trump's
White House staff also recognized that
the evidence did not support the claims
President Trump was making. This is the president's daughter commenting
on Bill Barr's statement that the department found
no fraud sufficient to overturn the election. -How did that affect your
perspective about the election when Attorney General Barr
made that statement? -It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr. So I... accepted what he was saying. -Oh, you did? That's weird.
I don't remember you mentioning any of that in the two months
after the election, when your father planned a coup and fomented a mob
of armed insurrectionists and werewolves
to ransack the Capitol like a Black Friday sale
at a Bass Pro Shop. Ivanka, just like Barr
and Stepien and all the rest, could have easily
spoken up at the time, but instead she just
quietly faded away, hoping no one would notice. She basically tried to do
the Homer Simpson GIF. [ Laughter ] Also, this is just a side note, but I do love how they always
use the [bleep] cameras for these depositions.
Ivanka Trump was the most glamorous member
of the Trump family, and now she looks like me
doing my show during lockdown. [ Laughter and applause ] Piece... Real quick piece of advice,
Vank -- Don't read the YouTube comments. Because people will have notes. But the most predictable
part of Ivanka saying she agreed with Barr was that her own father
threw her under the bus by responding the next day
on his social media site, where he essentially said
she had no idea what she was talking about. -Trump is downplaying
his daughter's involvement, writing on his
Truth Social platform, "Ivanka Trump
was not involved in looking at
or studying election results. She had long since checked out
and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful
to Bill Barr and his position
as attorney general. He sucked." [ Laughter ] -Even with his family
turning on him and millions of people watching
nationally televised hearings describing his
mental fragility, Trump still has
a way with words. [As Trump] "Mr. Barr was
derelict in his duties." No, that's too wordy. Let me say, let me think,
let me think. "When the moment called
for courage, Mr. Barr failed to answer." No, that's not quite right. Oh, it's on the tip
of my tongue. "He sucked."
That's it! [ Laughter ] These hearings have
so far been powerful, effective, and well-produced.
They've painstakingly proven that Trump and the people
around him knew what they were saying
was a brazen and dangerous lie, and that the riot was not
just some impulsive incident. It was part of a detailed plan
orchestrated by Donald Trump to stage a coup
and overturn the election. Trump's team tried
to tell him the truth, but he refused
to accept it. Meanwhile, Rudy saw
a drop of Scotch left at the bottom
of the bottle and was so desperate
to get it out... -He sucked. [ Laughter and applause ] [ Audience cheering ] -I'll accept it.
I'll accept it. -This has been "A Closer Look." ♪♪ God's Love We Deliver
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