-Fox News and the
conservative movement are still reeling from
the stunning revelations contained in the most
recent court filing from the $1.6 billion
Dominion lawsuit which showed that in private,
Fox personalities pushing the big lie
about the 2020 election knew it was a lie,
and in some cases, they even admitted that
they were disgusted by Trump and that the entirety of his
presidency was a disaster. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look." ♪♪ It feels like Republicans
in Washington and on Fox News can't go a day
without embarrassing themselves. They almost seem
to enjoy it, like when they blew their chance
to win back the Senate, thanks in part to vampire/werewolf enthusiast
Herschel Walker, when they made Kevin McCarthy
sit through a [bleep] "Groundhog Day" reboot
to become speaker, or when Marjorie Taylor Greene lost her mind
at the State of the Union in a white fur collar,
like a lady screaming at
a Little League game despite the fact that
none of the kids are hers. "You got to catch that, Timmy!" "That kid's name isn't Timmy.
Who is that lady?" "I can hear you
whispering about me! I don't need to have a kid
on the team to be here, Timmy!" "Does she think
my name is Timmy? What is...?" Yesterday, for example, Oklahoma Senator
Markwayne Mullin, a multi-millionaire
who owns a plumbing business as well as two first names, got into a tense exchange with the president
of the Teamsters Union during a committee hearing
chaired by Bernie Sanders. The hearing was about
the growing influence of unions and the importance
of allowing workers to organize without any illicit
corporate union busting. And as you can see
from this clip, I think it's safe
to say unions are done taking crap from wealthy CEOs
and their patrons in Washington. -You talk about CEOs
that are making all this money. And what do you make,
Mr. O'Brien? What do you bring
for that salary? -What do I bring?
-Yeah. What job have you committed
or have you started? What job have you created?
One job. Other than sucking the paycheck
out of somebody else that you want to say
that you're trying to provide because you're forcing them
to pay dues? -No, we don't force anybody -- -Senator, you've asked
the question. -You're out of line. -No, don't tell me I'm --
-You are out of line. -Don't tell me I'm out of line. -You frame the statement
like a tough guy. -You need to shut your mouth.
-Yeah? -Because you don't know
what you're talking about. -You're going to tell me
to shut my mouth? -Yes, I did.
-Hold it, hold it. -Tough guy,
I'm not afraid of physical -- -Hold it! -Don't sit there
and tell me I'm out of line. -As far as my salary goes,
my salary, if you follow me around,
I walk -- I actually look
at this building. I bet you I work more hours
than you do. Twice as many hours.
-That's impossible. -No, that is -- that's true. We hold greedy CEOs
like yourself accountable. -You're calling me
a greedy C.E.O.? -Oh, yeah. You are. -You want to attack my salary?
I'll attack yours. -Go ahead!
-What did you make? What did you make
when you owned your company? -When I made my company? I kept my salary down
at about $50,000 a year, because I invested
every penny into it. -Okay. Alright.
You mean you hid money? -No, I didn't hide --
Oh, hold on a second. He said that's out of line. -We're even. We're even. -We're not even close
to being even. -Oh.
-You think it's smart? You think you're funny? -No.
-You're not. -You think you're funny. -Listen... Mark, Marky-Mark, Markwayne.
Mark Wayne Gacy. I can't remember.
It's obvious... It's obvious from your accent,
you're from out of town. So as a New Englander myself,
let me give you some advice. Don't ever say,
"Do you think you're funny?" to a bald teamster
with a Boston accent. That's usually when the needle
drops on a Dropkick Murphys song and the montage starts,
if you get what I mean. And based on the face
he's making, I believe
he does think he's funny. I also think he's funny, because
I don't want trouble either. Now, CEOs in
the millionaire class are clearly terrified
of the possibility that workers might
have more power if they can organize
without interference, and you can see the terror
on Mullin's face. In fact, the best part to me is when the
multi-millionaire senator, whose net worth is reportedly
between $31 and $75 million, says he took a $50,000 salary and then is immediately told
he's hiding it. It catches Mullin so off-guard, he has to hear it twice
before he's offended. -You mean you hid money?
-No, I didn't hide -- Oh, hold on a second. [ Laughter ] -It's like watching Moe Szyslak realize there's no one
at the bar named "Mike Rotch." "Hey!" Also, I love Bernie
getting in the middle of that whole thing to
restore -- There's something very funny
about referee Bernie. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm gonna say the same thing
about this fight that I say about the big banks. Break it up!" That clip once again exposes
the right's BS about standing up for the working class
is all just a lie, just like the lies they told
over and over and over again about the 2020 election,
which they knew were lies, as we've discovered
from the nonstop avalanche of embarrassing revelations
in the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News. Take Fox host Tucker Carlson, who we learned this week
said in private not just that the stolen
election lies were insane and that he hated
Trump passionately, but that the entire
Trump presidency was a failure. -Thanks to the
$1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems
against Fox, we now know what Tucker Carlson
really thinks about Donald Trump and about
Donald Trump's presidency. Tucker Carlson said this
about the Trump presidency -- -And look, I know he was never
going to say that on camera, but it would have been so fun
to see Tucker after the election
being honest on TV like a shellshocked
basketball coach giving a post-game
press conference after losing by 50 points. "Hey, what was the biggest issue
out there today, Coach?" "Ohhh." Uh, I guess I'd say the biggest issue is we, uh... [bleep] suck at basketball?" [ Laughter ] So Tucker admitted in private
there was no upside to Trump. Now you tell me. I was still waiting for
Infrastructure Week. What about all his promises,
like great jobs or great health care
or a great big wall? What about the free hats? Oh, God, were the hats
not really free? It's such a stunning admission
that undercuts the entire premise of the Trump presidency
and the devil's bargain the conservative movement
has made with him. It exposes their entire project
as a sham and a fraud. They debase themselves for
a guy they were personally disgusted by,
and at the end of it, they admitted
they had nothing to show for it. It was all a lie
and they all knew it, and now it's all
coming out in public, they were shilling for Trump,
but in private, they were saying --
-You're out of line. -The latest example of a GOP election denier
caught lying is former Trump campaign attorney
Jenna Ellis. You might remember her from that
infamous press conference where she stood next to
Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani while he leaked hair dye
live on television. And look, I'm not saying
it's the worst thing Jenna Ellis and
Sidney Powell did that day, but how come
neither of them stepped in when their friend
started to melt? At least grab a fan or
a bucket or something. If that press conference
had gone on any longer, Rudy would have ended
in a puddle on the floor. "Quick, someone pour me in a
soda can and take me to my next press conference. Just not a Diet Coke! I don't want the boss
to drink me." [ Laughter ] In fact, Ellis followed Rudy
around on his tour of swing states where he claimed
the election was stolen, including that time Trump
called in on speakerphone and she held up that phone
to the mic so Trump could ramble incoherently. -I'm in the Oval Office
right now and it's very interesting
to see what's going on. And this was
an election that we won easily. We won it by a lot. Anybody watching television
the night of the election was saying, "Wow." I was called by
the biggest political people, "Congratulations, sir,
on a big win." And all of a sudden,
ballots were dumped all over the place and a lot
of horrible things happened. Very weird things happened. But they're not weird
to professionals and they're not weird
to Dominion and other people
that operate machines, and they're not weird
to the people that handle the ballots where
they were flooding the market. People were getting
two and three and four ballots in their home. People that were dead
were signing up for ballots. Not only were they coming in
and putting in a ballot, but dead people
were requesting ballots. -Trump always talked like he was
trying to distract bank security while Danny Ocean
broke into the vault. -"And now, if I wanted to open
a checking account, would the fees be higher
than with the savings account? Come on. Come on, Danny.
We're running out of time." As you heard there,
one of Trump's deranged claims was that dead people
were requesting ballots and the hosts on Fox
were all watching and taking their cues again,
even though they were privately complaining
about how insane it was. For example, according to
"The New York Times," about a week after the election, Tucker Carlson reportedly asked
his producers, "Do we have enough
dead people for tonight?" I will say, Tucker often has
the expression of a man who has just been told
by a child, "I see dead people." Watch. -I see dead people. [ Laughter ] -I like that. It was the first time I saw it
and I liked it. The only time the question, "Do we have enough
dead people?" is legitimate is when you're casting extras
for "The Last of Us." "Do we have enough dead people
for the shoot tonight?" "Regular dead
or mushroom dead?" "Do you think
you're being funny?" "Alright, alright! Relax." According to the "Times,"
that night, he trumpeted the evidence
borrowed from a Trump campaign
news release -- four allegedly dead Georgians
had cast a ballot. Within days, though, the
campaign's spoon fed examples began to fall apart. Three of the dead
Georgians were actually alive. In fact, Tucker had to admit
that he was wrong in a humiliating correction. In a statement, he said,
"As we reported last week, dead Americans voted
in this election. We shared a few examples. But on Friday, we began to learn some of the specific dead voters
reported to us as deceased are in fact alive." Man, no one's ever seemed
so bummed to learn that someone
they thought was dead is actually alive. He sounds like a guy who poisoned his wife
for insurance money and then ran into her
at the country club. "Oh, Deborah! You're here. Didn't Jeeves make you
your martini last night? Damn it, Jeeves! You lost your nerve, man!" They all knew this was
a ridiculous lie, but they fed it
to their viewers anyway because they were terrified
of losing their audience. Sean Hannity wrote in one text,
"You don't piss off the base." And then another, a Fox producer
wrote to host Maria Bartiromo, "To be honest, our audience
doesn't want to hear about a peaceful transition." That's the key right there.
That explains it all. Fox's audience doesn't
want to hear the truth, so Fox chose not to tell them. Fox News doesn't
deliver the news. They take requests and do
their best to fulfill them. They're basically
overpaid wedding DJs. "What? What do you want?
Crooked voting machines? Alright, I'll try to get it in
after 'The Electric Slide.'" Bartiromo was one of the key
proponents of the Big Lie. In fact, she repeatedly
hosted Ellis on her show to say stuff like this -- -We have affidavits
from witnesses. We have voter intimidation. We have the ballots
that were manipulated. We have all kinds of statistics
that show that this was a coordinated effort in all of these states
to transfer votes either from Trump to Biden
to manipulate the ballots, to count them in secret. President Trump is right that there was widespread fraud
in this election. We have at least six states
that were corrupted, if not more,
through the voting systems. We know that President Trump
won in a landslide. The outcome of this election
is actually fraudulent. It's wrong, and we understand that when we subtract
all of the illegal ballots, you can see that President Trump
actually won in a landslide. -When you subtract all the
illegal ballots, you can see that President Trump
actually won in a landslide. Just ask my colleague,
Sody Giuliani. [ Laughter ] Well, not shocking to learn
that just like everyone else at Fox, Ellis is also lying. Ellis admitted in a sworn
statement released on Wednesday that she had knowingly
misrepresented the facts in several of her public claims
that widespread voting fraud led to Trump's defeat,
and specifically, the filing lists
all of the Ellis quotes we just showed you from
Fox News. How does this keep happening? We keep getting
new court filings where everyone
from Trump's legal team to his closest allies
on Fox News all admit they were
full of [bleep]. It's only a matter of time
before we see a leaked text
from Trump himself that says -- [ Laughter ] "I look and sound
like a lunatic." [ Laughter ] It's one thing to know
that Trump, his legal team, and his allies on Fox were
lying, which we've always known. But now we know that they knew
they were lying at the time thanks to this nonstop avalanche of leaked text messages
and court filings. It's honestly impossible
to keep up with all of it. It feels like the truth
is finally being -- -Dumped all over the place. -This has been "A Closer Look." ♪♪
