-After the House committee investigating
Donald Trump's coup attempt found a seven-hour gap
in his call logs on the day of the insurrection, Trump denied
ever using burner phones and then a bunch of people
immediately came out and said, "Yeah, no, he definitely
used burner phones." [ Laughter ]
Oh, and also, House Republicans
have been getting asked if they're into cocaine
and orgies. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look." ♪♪
[ Cheering and applause ] You know what?
I'm not sure I want to take a closer look
at a story about House Republicans
having orgies, [ Laughter ]
so, for more on this,
it's time for a new segment -- "A Distant Look." ♪♪
[ Laughter ] ♪♪
[ Cheering and applause ] [ Laughter and applause ] This is, suffice it to say, one of the weirdest
political scandals in recent memory,
which is saying a lot. Let's remember -- the president
drew on an official weather map with a Sharpie and tried
to pass it off as real, like a kid turning an "F"
on a test into an "A." [ Laughter ]
And yet, what I'm
about to tell you tops that. As we mentioned yesterday,
a Republican member of Congress, Madison Cawthorn,
casually accused his colleagues of inviting him to orgies
and doing cocaine. -The sexual perversion
that goes on in Washington. I mean, being kind of a young
guy in Washington, where the average age
is probably 60 or 70, [ Laughter ]
I look at all these people,
a lot of them that I, you know, I've looked up to
through my life, I always paid attention
to politics, guys that, you know. Then, all of a sudden,
you get invited to like, "Oh, hey, we're going to have
kind of a sexual get-together
at one of our homes. [ Laughter ]
You should come."
And I'm like, "What did you just ask me
to come do?" -Yeah.
-And then you realize they're asking you to come to an orgy.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-Or the fact that, you know, some of the people
that are leading on the movement to try and remove, you know,
addiction in our country and then you watch them do,
you know, a key bump of cocaine
right in front of you [ Laughter and applause ]
and it's like, wow,
this is wild. -One thing is for sure,
it Cawthorn is the first dude with a backwards baseball cap who calls it
a sexual get-together. [ Laughter ] Did you accidentally time travel
to a 1970s swinger party? And by the way,
can you imagine anything worse than a 1970s swinger party? Some weird couple
in mustard-colored turtlenecks collecting keys in a bowl, dudes with big gold medallions
nestled in their chest hair, a tray of deviled eggs just
sweating on the coffee table [ Laughter ]
while a Dave Brubeck record
plays in mono. [ Laughter ]
Gross! Almost as gross as the term
sexual get-together. Just say orgy.
That's gross, too, but at least, when you say it,
it gets over faster. [ Laughter ]
Sexual get-together sounds less like you're describing a wild,
drug fueled-orgy in a D.C. hotel and more like you're describing
the plot of "The Ice Storm." [ Laughter ]
Great movie, by the way. Weaver, Kline, Joan Allen, Christina Ricci; Tobey Maguire,
a future Spider-Man. In fact, true story -- "The Ice Storm,"
directed by Ang Lee, who also directed
the Eric Bana "Hulk," has retroactively been absorbed in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe. That moment at the end,
when Kevin Kline breaks down, sobbing in the car --
you guys remember, I can tell by your reaction -- [ Laughter ]
breaks down, sobbing in the car and Tobey watches helplessly? That's the moment
he became Spider-Man. [ Laughter ]
Anyway. Anyway, anyway, that has been
today's Tangent for Film Buffs. [ "Hooray for Hollywood" plays ]
[ Laughter ] I'm sorry about that.
The thing is, I just did some cocaine this
morning with House Republicans. [ Laughter ]
I had to. I had to. I had to.
I was exhausted. I was exhausted from the orgy. If I didn't do the cocaine,
I would've passed out in the middle
of "A Closer Look," okay? [ Laughter ]
That's what I did.
I did a little cocaine. If you want to blame me,
that's fine, just blame me, [ Laughter ]
but that's why it happened,
okay? That's why we're talking
about "The Ice Storm," okay? I did a little cocaine and now,
I want to talk about one [ Laughter ]
of my favorite movies.
And you guys haven't seen it, but that's the problem.
You should go out and see it. And I don't know why I have
to beg you to do a thing [ Laughter ]
that you're going to enjoy. Just do the thing
you're going to enjoy and then later you can come
and thank me, but right now, I don't want
to talk about it anymore. I've done talked about it.
I've talked about it enough and the problem is you're
not talking enough. And I understand I'm not leaving
any gaps for you to talk, but trust me, when the time
comes, you're going to say, "I really enjoyed
'The Ice Storm.'" [ Laughter ] That was obviously a very
bizarre and shocking allegation and it pissed off
Cawthorn's GOP colleagues because he seemed to be accusing
his fellow Republicans of being the sex-crazed
drug addicts. And, by the way, let me
just state for the record, I don't care.
Have your orgies. You're consenting adults.
If you want to roll out a tarp in a Holiday Inn conference room
and go to town on each other, [ Laughter ]
be my guest. But the funny thing to me is -- [ Laughter ] Okay, don't use a tarp. [ Laughter ] Call me in the morning
and say, "I see now." [ Laughter ] The funny thing to me is
Republicans seem to care a lot. They don't care.
They don't care about all the other insane
and horrible [bleep] people like Cawthorn say and do
because they're accustomed to a certain level of awfulness
from fellow Republicans. But they care about this
because they don't all want to be painted
as sex-crazed drug addicts. Which is why House GOP Leader
Kevin McCarthy called Cawthorn in to his office
yesterday to reprimand him. -House Minority Leader
Kevin McCarthy has rebuked
Congressman Madison Cawthorn over his eye-popping claims about sex and drugs
on Capitol Hill. The story has prompted McCarthy
to call a meeting with the North Carolina
representative. A source with knowledge
of the meeting told NBC News that Cawthorn had no evidence
backing up his allegations. -I just told him
he's lost my trust. He's going to have
to earn it back. And I laid out everything
that I find is unbecoming... -Dude, when you're trying
to tamp down orgy rumors, don't say members.
Just [ Laughter ]
say people. We know who you mean. Yeah, I'm sure they're upset. I can only imagine
how upset my staff would be if I said they were
having orgies. -[ Laughs ] Yeah, we'd be very upset because we totally
don't have them. [ Laughter ] -What? -Uh, can you imagine if we were having orgies, everyone but you? That's crazy. [ Laughter ] -Okay. -[ Nervous laugh ] [ Laughter ] -But the funniest part
of this whole thing is the uproar it's caused
within the GOP caucus among Republican members
of Congress who are now
getting questions about it, including questions
from their own spouses. -The 26-year-old claimed,
on a podcast, that people in Washington
have invited him to sex parties and used cocaine
in front of him. Several Republicans say
that they are getting questions from their spouses
about his allegations. -Yeah, I bet they are! [ Laughter ]
If you went on a trip to Vegas just to play the slots
with some of your buddies and one of them posted
on Facebook... [ Laughter ] ...you'd get some spousal follow-up questions, too. And Republicans
aren't just getting questions about the orgy accusations
from spouses. They're also hearing about it
from their constituents as well. -McCarthy spoke out
so forcefully because his caucus
is demanding it. According to Politico,
members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus
have reportedly considered kicking Cawthorn
out of the group. And Republican Congressman
Steve Womack of Arkansas, who is 65 years old,
complained he is now fielding questions
from constituents about orgies. -This is exactly
what they deserve because it's not like
Republican members of Congress can just say that's
a crazy conspiracy theory when so many of them ran
on crazy conspiracy theories. What's Marjorie Taylor Greene
going to say? [ As Greene ]
Use your head! [ Laughter ]
There are no cocaine orgies. Now, moving on,
we have some good news on the Jewish space lasers. [ Laughter ] We don't think they work
on Saturdays, so that's exciting. [ Laughter and awws ]
And it's so telling that this is the scandal
that has Republicans up in arms. Not, for example,
the bombshell revelation that there's a suspicious
seven-hour gap in Donald Trump's official
White House call logs on the day of the insurrection
he fomented at the Capitol. You know,
that thing that happened where a mob tried to overthrow
the American government, basically an orgy where the only
thing getting [bleep] was democracy, a federal judge
[ Laughter ] and a House committee
have both said there is evidence
Trump's coup was a crime. He's under investigation for trying to steal votes
in Georgia and now, it turns out,
a lot of evidence of what happened on January 6th
has just conveniently vanished. -Stunning new reporting
in The Washington Post about the January 6th
Committee's investigation into a 7-hour, 37-minute gap
in the call log, those records of calls
Donald Trump made that day. The committee is looking at the
possibility of Donald Trump, president of the United States
on the day of the insurrection, using burner phones. Trump said this -- He has "no idea"
what a burner phone even is. [ Laughter ]
"To the best of my knowledge, I have never even heard
the term." -First of all, I'm not willing
to put any faith in the best of your knowledge. [ Laughter ]
The best of your knowledge
doesn't even include the name of the CEO of Apple. -We appreciate it very much,
Tim Apple. [ Laughter and applause ]
-Remember that? Couldn't even remember the name
of the guy sitting next to him, so he just rolled the dice and hoped it was the same
as the name of his company. If he can't remember that, how can he remember if he's ever
used a burner phone? Also, I love that he claims not
just that he's never used one, but he's never heard the term. Dude, you worked in New York
real estate for decades. I'm betting every phone
Trump used was a burner phone. [ As Trump ]
Sounds like we've got
ourselves a deal and, to make it official,
I'm going to chuck this in the East River
with all my other phones. [ Laughter ] And, of course,
it probably won't shock you to learn that,
after he made that claim, at least one of Trump's
former associates immediately came out
of the woodwork and said, "Oh, yeah, absolutely, he knows
what a burner phone is." -Former Trump National Security
Advisor John Bolton says this -- "Donald Trump, unequivocally,
without a smidge of a doubt, knows exactly
what a burner phone is." He recalls Trump using the term
burner phones in several discussions and that Trump was aware
of its meaning Bolton also said
he and Trump have spoken about how people have used
burner phones to avoid having their calls
scrutinized. -I heard him use the term burner
phone a number of times. -He said, "Burner phones"
in conversation? [ Laughter ]
-He did, yes. It was a term he actually kind of liked. He'd say, "You know,
they have these burner phones." -Trump always makes it so easy
to contradict him by going overboard
with his defense. Like if he had just said, "I've
never used a burner phone," that would be harder
to disprove. But when he says, "I've never
even heard of the term," a bunch of people
are immediately like, "Yeah, no, he has." [ Laughter ]
It's like, if your parents said they found weed
in your sock drawer and your response was,
"What the hell's a sock?! [ Laughter ] And you keep them in drawers,
you say? This is all news to me. I'm an innocent man,
I tell you!" [ Laughter ]
These two episodes are deeply revealing,
for many reasons. For one thing, they show
how the Republican Party has been consumed
by its own conspiracy theories. It's also very telling
what they're outraged about. They're furious that a fellow
Republican accused them of being
into cocaine and orgies, but they don't care
that a former president tried to overthrow democracy
and is apparently concealing the evidence
about what he did on that day. We're missing seven hours of Trump's call logs,
during an insurrection. Who knows what he was doing
during those seven hours? He could've been
orchestrating the coup or calling
his various accomplices or maybe he was at... -A sexual get-together. [ Laughter ]
-We don't know. [ Laughter ] This has been "A Distant Look." ♪♪ God's Love We Deliver
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