McConnell Threatens "Scorched Earth" as GOP Attacks Voting Rights: A Closer Look

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I don't know, it's no Ocean Master.

👍︎︎ 9 👤︎︎ u/StrikingEcho 📅︎︎ Mar 21 2021 🗫︎ replies

This is a recurring bit and I love it every time.

👍︎︎ 32 👤︎︎ u/Berzerktank 📅︎︎ Mar 20 2021 🗫︎ replies

Is Nyquill OOP?

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/espinoza4 📅︎︎ Mar 20 2021 🗫︎ replies

That's hysterical

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/Acriisius 📅︎︎ Mar 20 2021 🗫︎ replies

Holy shit! He's one of us!

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/Asynithistos 📅︎︎ Mar 21 2021 🗫︎ replies

i already pledge on the kickstarter!!!

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/Mr_Donut86 📅︎︎ Mar 20 2021 🗫︎ replies

Someone should compile a rulebook for all the Ocean Master rules he outlines in various videos.

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/Jaydra 📅︎︎ Mar 20 2021 🗫︎ replies
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-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised a scorched-earth Senate if Democrats change the filibuster to pass sweeping and urgently needed democracy reforms as Republicans across the country unleash a tidal wave of draconian new voting restrictions motivated by the big lie that Donald Trump was the real winner of the 2020 election. For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look." ♪♪ Our democracy as currently constituted is simply not a level playing field. In fact, it's arguably never been a level playing field. It's heavily tilted toward a minority of voters that are predominantly white and rural, thanks in large part to anti-majoritarian institutions like the Electoral College and the Senate. Just consider that right now the Senate is evenly split 50/50 and yet the 50 Senate Democrats represent nearly 42 million more Americans than the 50 Senate Republicans. For example, Wyoming, with a population of about 580,000 people, has two senators, and New York also has two senators, even though there are 580,000 people just on my co-op board, which is why I'm still waiting on approval for the welcome mat I bought in 2002. Think about that. 42 million more Americans. That's just an insane fact. Like, if every touchdown the Jets scored was worth 42 points, they wouldn't make the playoffs, but they'd be in more close games. I mean, just consider the scope of how heavily tilted our democratic institutions are toward Republicans. They've only won the popular vote once in the last 32 years, yet they've appointed a majority of Supreme Court justices. They've lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million in 2016, lost the House by the largest margin since Watergate in 2018, lost two Senate seats in historically red Georgia this year, and yet Mitch McConnell still basically gets a veto over what the Senate can or cannot pass. The only way the Senate can get anything done right now is through a process called budget reconciliation, which has more rules than a Manhattan parking sign. Seriously, what is that? I stop in to grab a prescription, I get a ticket, but this van has actual weeds growing up through the wheel wells? Alright. The Democrats were able to pass their massively popular COVID relief bill through reconciliation, but thanks to the Senate parliamentarian and a bunch of absurd rules no one understands, they had to drop their proposal for a $15 minimum wage. Trying to pass legislation through budget reconciliation is like trying to play some obscure board game your most annoying friend brought back from Europe. It's called Viking Quest. You role-play as a Nordic sea commander searching for gold coins buried in trenches. Whenever you search a trench, you get an action card, which adds to your skill table, allowing to you trade for cargo which you can use to score victory points. And whoever scores the most victory points gets to leave board game night and go home. It's from the same company that makes Ocean Master. They also make NyQuill, with two L's. Keeps you up. So, the deck is already stacked heavily in the Republicans' favor. And yet because they still got swamped in the 2020 elections, they're trying to make it even harder for Americans to vote. State election officials across the country expanded mail and early voting in 2020 because of the pandemic. And by the way, if you judge the health of a democracy not by the results but by how many people voted, it was a huge success. Voter fraud was virtually nonexistent, as has been the case for decades, even as turnout was the highest in over a century. You know how everyone's always complaining about low voter turnout in America? 2020 showed us how to fix it. Just make voting easier. Let people vote at their convenience, either in person or by dropping off a ballot in the mail. Voting should take a few minutes, tops. Everything else has gotten easier in America. Why not voting? Remember when your mom used to have to call the Mexican restaurant to order delivery? Now there are a million apps, which is great because you don't have to hear her pronounce the L's in "quesadilla." "I'd like two quesa-dill-a with guac-ah-ma-lay." And yet to register to vote, you have to bring like three forms of I.D. to the county registrar in some government building you've never even seen before that looks like the crawl space from "Being John Malkovich." And it shouldn't be on Tuesday, our [bleep] day. Now, some may argue that Monday is worse, but would you prefer Memorial Day to fall on a Tuesday? You wouldn't, because Tuesday's [bleep] If you said to a friend, "We should get dinner soon" and they said, "How about Tuesday?" you'd say, "How about you [bleep] right off?" And don't start on Wednesday. I'd trade a hundred Tuesdays for one Wednesday. Hump day? Tuesday is chump day! Anyway, the point is voting should be as easy as possible and everyone should automatically be enrolled or have the ability to enroll on election day. Of course, if Republicans had their way, there'd be one ballot box in every state, it would be open for three hours from 2:00 to 5:00 a.m. on National We're-Not-Telling-You Day, and it would be at the end of a spooky corn maze. Ooh! No, thanks. I'll take my chances with President Ivanka. And sure enough, GOP state legislators across the country have responded to their thumping in 2020 by adopting new policies that appeal to a majority of Americans -- Sorry! I mean, unleashing an unprecedented tidal wave of voter suppression laws. -Across 43 states, more than 250 new voting laws have been proposed. They include efforts that would limit mail-in and early in-person voting, as well as election day voting, with constraints such as stricter I.D. requirements, limited voting hours, and narrower qualifications for absentee ballots. -My God. 250 laws in 43 states? Republicans are really not being subtle about it. I mean, wouldn't it be easier and more honest to propose just one bill that would replace every ballot in a Democratic precinct with a shredder? You know, I have a sinking feeling when I said that, Mitch McConnell sat up in bed and chuckled like a battery-powered Halloween doll. [As McConnell] [ Chuckles ] I like that idea. [ Slow, halting chuckle ] Back to bed. [Normal voice] All this is motivated, of course, by the Big Lie, the deranged conspiracy theory pushed by Donald Trump and his supporters that he was somehow robbed of the election by widespread voter fraud -- which, again, did not exist. In fact, on Tuesday, he dispensed with any pretense about so-called election integrity and said straight-up on Fox News that the Supreme Court should have stolen the election for him. -Our Supreme Court and our courts didn't have the courage to overturn elections that should have been overturned. -I love when Trump gets tired of a schtick and just says the thing he wants to say. It's like when you're in hour six of a break-up talk and you finally say, "Because you breathe weird, okay? You're a weird breather. And that's a problem because you do it -- as you should -- constantly." Republicans are out there pretending these voter suppression laws are about so-called election integrity and restoring faith in democracy, and Trump just blurts out the truth. He's the friend who goes with you to buy weed and as soon as you say you got the stuff, he says, [as Trump] "But not just any stuff. The marijuana stuff. Sorry! The illegal marijuana stuff. Also known as Mary Jane. Nasty woman. Mary Jane, always nice to me. I remember, she and I once spent an evening watching "The Wizard of Oz" synced up with "Dark Side of the Moon." Not my favorite Pink Floyd album. That would be "The Wall"! We love "The Wall," don't we? An album they recorded, but Mexico paid for. I should tell you guys, I'm already pretty high. Does my -- My voice is weird. Weird. I've never listened to it." [Normal voice] That's what this is really all about. Their initial plan was to have the court steal the election for them, but that didn't work because Biden won by too much in too many states. So now they're on to their fallback plan -- passing a flurry of new voting restrictions to help them steal the next election. Texas is the latest state to join in with a slate of proposed bills that would, among other things, take some of the most popular voting methods and either eliminate them entirely or make fewer people eligible for them. -Texas is now the latest state to see Republicans introduce a flurry of bills that could make it even harder to vote. -Texas Republicans are calling for measures that would impose new limits on early voting hours and added requirements on mail voting. Some of the legislation appears to be aimed at Harris County, a Democratic stronghold and home to Houston, which saw a surge in turnout last year after the county implemented methods during the pandemic such as 24-hour and drive-through voting sites. -That's right, Texas wants to ban drive-through voting. How can you be against drive-through voting? It combines the two most American things -- democracy and drive-throughs. Personally, if you ask me, everything should be drive-through. The pandemic has been a nightmare, but one thing it's taught me is I love not having to get out of my car. I had dental surgery last week. I just left the engine running. Of course, the hardest... [ Laughter ] I mean, I was there, but it's jarring to see a photo of it. [ Laughter ] Of course, the hardest part of drive-through voting is making sure they hear you right. "Yeah, I'd like to vote for Joe Biden." "So, one Doritos Locos taco supreme --" "No, I said I want to vote for Joe Biden." "So, you want the Crunch Wrap supreme?" "No, I want -- Wait. What-- What's in the Crunch Wrap supreme?" Another provision floated by Texas Republicans would shrink the period when voters could return mail ballots, while another bill would ask voters to mail back photocopies of their driver's licenses or other qualifying identification with their mail ballots. And that makes sense because if there's one thing every American has, it's a copy machine at home. We keep ours in the kids' room. And by the way, it won't shock to you learn that none of this is supported by any evidence of actual voter fraud, which, again, is virtually nonexistent. Trump tried to argue that there was voter fraud in court and he lost 60 times. In fact, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office spent 22,000 hours looking for voter fraud and uncovered just 16 cases of false addresses on registration forms. 22,000 hours. According to Malcolm Gladwell, that's enough time to become a concert cellist and a pool shark and get a decent start on becoming a roller dance instructor. Texas is just the latest state to jump on the anti-voting bandwagon. The same thing is happening in Georgia, where Trump desperately tried to steal the state's votes after losing to Biden last year. The state GOP has unleashed a flurry of draconian anti-voting restrictions on everything from mail voting to early voting to Sunday voting to offering voters snacks and water -- restrictions that are designed to target Black voters in particular, as Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock pointed out on Wednesday. -There is a move to ban line warming. And what that is is where volunteers will provide water, some snacks, even chairs to voters that are standing in line for a long time. -They're the ones making the lines longer. Through these draconian actions. And then they want to make it a crime to bring Grandma some water while she's waiting in a line that they're making longer. -That's right. Republicans want to make it a crime to give Grandma water. In fairness, none of their old dudes seem to drink any water. That's why they look like dried apple dolls. All you have to do is pour some water on Rudy and he'd immediately sprout hair like a Chia Pet. [ Laughter ] [As Giuliani] All this time, I was using gutter water. It turns out, I just need a drink. [Normal voice] Warnock delivered an impassioned speech. in favor of sweeping voting reforms and noted that the GOP assault on voting rights is the most ferocious attack on democracy since the era of Jim Crow. -We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we've ever seen since the Jim Crow era. This is Jim Crow in new clothes. -He's right. And the clothes aren't even good. I mean, look at this. It looks like he was thrown naked in the dumpster behind a Palm Beach pro shop and given five minutes to pick an outfit. It's a good Halloween costume if you want to go as "lost grandpa at Disney World." Warnock was on the floor specifically to call for Senate passage of HR 1, a sweeping package of urgent voting reforms passed by the House that are desperately needed to level what is currently a very lopsided playing field. HR 1 would combat virtually every GOP voter suppression tactic by, among other things, mandating nationwide early voting and no-excuse mail voting, instituting automatic and same-day voter registration, implementing public financing of elections, and banning congressional gerrymandering, among other things. It's also incredibly popular in polls, even among a majority of Republican voters. So, naturally, Republican politicians are losing their minds over it. House GOP Whip Steve Scalise began a tweet about the bill early this month by writing, "Every American should be outraged by this." Oh, I wonder what it's gonna be. Rising poverty? Child hunger? Surprise medical bills? I can't wait to find out. Let's read the rest of the tweet. Wait, that's what you want us to be outraged about? A bill that makes it easier to vote, that's also incredibly popular? You can't start a tweet like that and then finish with something so underwhelming. It is like getting up on a chair in the middle of your office with a bullhorn and screaming, "Attention, everyone! There is a shocking scandal in this office! I would like the announce the free pizza in the conference room does not have pepperoni." "There's free pizza in the conference room?" "That's not the important part of the announcement, Steve! Steve! Steve, come back! There's more! They also sent cheesecake!" Now, because the GOP is stonewalling, there's obviously no realistic way of passing this bill in the Senate with 60 votes. So in order to make it a law, Democrats would have to kill or make changes to the filibuster, which is something even President Biden says he now supports. And let's just remember, the filibuster as it currently exists is itself a relic of the Jim Crow era. It's not in the Constitution, and it hasn't always been like this. It's a relatively recent invention. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" would have been a lot less dramatic if all he had to do was send an email to the Senate clerk saying, "I want to block this bill. Thanks." [As Jimmy Stewart] You old so-and-so! [ Bell ringing ] Every time I do my Jimmy Stewart impression, an angel gets his wings. [ Flatulence ] And then farts a tiny bit. [ Laughter ] But Republicans are so terrified of even the prospect of modifying the filibuster rules that allow them to veto popular legislation. So McConnell took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to make a series of threats about what would happen if Democrats reform the filibuster. -Let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues. Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin -- can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like. We wouldn't just erase every liberal change that hurt the country. We'd strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies, with zero -- zero input from the other side. -Okay, first of all, we can imagine a scorched-earth Senate. It's scorched. You've done more scorching than a motel room iron. You can't do any more scorching. The Senate at this point is like an Italian restaurant in New Jersey after the Real Housewives film a scene there. There's ziti on the walls, tables have been flipped over, all the wine glasses are smashed. Also, you're the one who scorched it. You already nuked the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. You bragged during Barack Obama's presidency that you would grind the institution to a halt to sabotage his agenda. You rushed to confirm a Supreme Court nominee before the election with no support from Democrats in just 30 days. And you guys passed a tax bill along party lines in the dead of night after scribbling changes in the margins at the last minute like you were making notes on a friend's screenplay. I would focus less on the soundtrack and more on character development. And also, the bad guy should get away with it. Republicans tried to steal the last election through the courts. That didn't work. So now they're trying to steal the next election through voter suppression. Nuking or changing the filibuster to stop them is a moral necessity. We badly need sweeping reforms to make our democracy a level playing field. Make it easy for everyone to vote in person or by mail. And make sure it remains legal to... -Bring Grandma some water. -This has been "A Closer Look." ♪♪ God's Love We Deliver cooks and brings over 2 million meals a year to men, women, and children living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses, and they need your help now more than ever. If you're watching this online, you can hit the Donate button. Stay safe, wear a mask, get vaccinated. We love you.
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Channel: Late Night with Seth Meyers
Views: 1,975,005
Rating: 4.8721352 out of 5
Keywords: Late, Night, with, Seth, Meyers, Sarah Silverman, Nico Hiraga, NBC, NBC TV, television, funny, talk show, comedy, humor, stand-up, parody, snl seth meyers, host, promo, seth, meyers, weekend update, news satire, satire, Joe Biden, Biden, Kamala Harris, Kamala, White House, politics, news, current news, Trump, Donald Trump, President, Vice President, Mitch McConnell, Senate, McConnell, GOP, Congress, House, Rights, Voting, Voters
Id: qdkcPFcblHA
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Length: 15min 54sec (954 seconds)
Published: Thu Mar 18 2021
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