-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
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I don't know, it's no Ocean Master.
This is a recurring bit and I love it every time.
Is Nyquill OOP?
That's hysterical
Holy shit! He's one of us!
i already pledge on the kickstarter!!!
Someone should compile a rulebook for all the Ocean Master rules he outlines in various videos.