-Well, after six months
of quarantine, during which I rapidly descended
into isolation-induced madness, we're back in our studio here
at 30 Rock in New York City. And, well, you guys, it's just
nice to be around people again. And, as promised, now that
we're back in the studio, I will no longer have
my old friend the Sea Captain by my side to interject
with his annoying wordplay. Although I do feel an obligation
to check in on him once in a while
as he works his way through the 1977 classic novel
"The Thorn Birds." -[ Laughs ] Oh, oh, you go,
Meggie Cleary. -Hey, relax.
I don't miss him either. The dude smelled like clams
and he had like 50 jokes with the punch line "Land, ho." Anyway, now that
we're back in the studio, I give you my solemn oath there will be no more talking
inanimate objects that interrupt the flow
of "A Closer Look" with their ridiculous
interjections. And speaking of
ridiculous interjections... -New York's hottest
club is Segue. -The president held another fake press conference-slash-campaign
rally at the White House where he pretended
everything's great as the coronavirus pandemic
continues to rage, and now he's trying to pretend
he's anti-war in response to the news
that he insulted veterans. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look." ♪♪ Now that Labor Day is behind us, we're entering
the traditional home stretch of the presidential campaign. And for some perspective,
I think it's worth stepping back two weeks to the Republican
National Convention when we were all anxiously
sitting in front of our TVs saying,
"Do people actually like this?" Kind of like how you feel
when you're watching one of those TikTok videos where someone eats cereal
out of someone else's mouth and you have to wonder,
"Is this a thing now? Will my kids do this one day? And when I tell them
not to do it, will they scream that I don't understand anything
and then run to their rooms and slam the door over this --
over this [bleep] nonsense?" Anyway, you remember the RNC when the president
flagrantly broke the law by holding a political event
on the White House lawn when the Republican Party
decided to celebrate threats of violence
against protesters by giving Mr. and Mrs.
Elmer Dudd over here a prominent speaking spot? Or how about when
a profusely sweating Rudy Giuliani mopped his brow,
then rubbed his weirdo juice all over that lady
sitting next to him? That's like when you touch
a baby bird. Now her mother's going to have
to stop feeding her. That's the way you sweat
when you wake up from a dream where you were sitting next to
Rudy Giuliani. "Oh! Oh, thank God.
Aah!" How about when
Republicans thought this would be a convincing
campaign message? -Joe Biden is basically the
Loch Ness monster of the swamp. -They'll disarm you,
empty the prisons, lock you in your home, and invite MS-13
to live next door. -We may not have realized
it at the time, but Trump is the bodyguard
of Western civilization. -Ladies and gentlemen,
leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American dream,
the best is yet to come! -Jesus, are you campaigning
or trying to scare some seagulls away
from your beach blanket? "Those Doritos are not for you!" I hope the GOP platform added
"Replace everyone's TV screens." Well, you're not going
to believe this. But according to polls,
none of it worked. A new CNN poll had Joe Biden
ahead of Trump by eight points, which matches the national
polling average. It is basically where the race
has been since June. Trump could've disappeared
for three months and it would've had
the same effect. In fact, that's basically
what he did. Dude plays golf with more
B-list celebrities than the Pebble Beach Pro Am. "This weekend on CBS, watch
Huey Lewis and the guy who voiced the Budweiser frogs miss a two-foot putt
for triple bogey." And a CBS poll out on Sunday
asked voters specifically who would do
a better job with protests and criminal justice issues,
and the answers did not support Trump's so-called
law and order strategy. -We've seen the president
try to shift what this conversation
is about in this election. He wants it to be not about
COVID-19 but about violence
in the cities. What do your numbers
tell you about that strategy? -Biden comes out better
on that measure, and particularly we asked
if each candidate seemed to be trying
to calm the situation or maybe encourage
even more tension. Well, the president
on balance is seen as encouraging more tension,
more fighting. -And of course he is. He's not exactly
a calming presence. He dresses like retired
Darth Vader. He yells like he's on the other
side of six lanes of traffic. And even his smile looks like it
was directed by Stanley Kubrick. He's the human embodiment
of tension and fighting. He's the uncle at the wedding
reception who has the rest of the family
on pins and needles because they're afraid he'll get
drunk and give a speech. "I -- I didn't want --
I never thought -- I never thought it would
work out after Tyler cheated on Tammy. Also, don't believe
what you hear. I did not have a series
of mini strokes." I mean, who wouldn't prefer
the uncle who doesn't come to the wedding because Amtrak doesn't service
Catalina Island? Second, Trump and his allies
have been open about this. They don't want to
calm things down. They actually want things
to get worse, not better. Because they think
they can blame it on Joe Biden. Kellyanne Conway came out
and said it outright. That's why Trump and his
attorney general moved to classified
Democratic cities as, quote, "anarchist jurisdictions"
in an insane and deeply
authoritarian memo last week. And it's why Trump tweeted
this last night. "The real polls are starting
to look great. We will be having an even bigger
victory than that of 2016. The radical left anarchists,
agitators, looters, and just plain lunatics
will not be happy, but they will behave." They'll behave? It's never reassuring when
the president talks about his political opponents
like a dean trying to shut down a rowdy frat
in an '80s teen comedy. "I'm outlawing toga parties. The gentlemen from Theta
Delta Psi will not be happy, but they will behave. And as this is the end of act
two of this team romp, I am confident that this will be
the final outcome of things. Hello?
Oh, it's the boys from Theta. Oh, you do? Oh, they're asking me to ride
on their homecoming float. I told you they respond
to a little bit of discipline. And just to be clear, boys,
you want me to wear pants that are loose enough to fall down
if my belt somehow came off? Well, consider it done
and I look forward to it." Look, guys,
we're back in the studio, but we're still
going to take tangents. Where were we?
Oh, right. The real world.
Trump's strategy isn't working. Poll after poll has shown that the American people
can see through it. For one thing, Trump can't
call himself the law
and order candidate when he surrounds himself
with criminal goons. Just take, for example,
Louis DeJoy, who is Trump's
postmaster general. Despite having a name
that makes him sound like a puppet
on a French children's show -- [ Speaking French ] Louis DeJoy... [ Continues in French ] This weekend --
[ Laughs ] My mother was my French teacher.
That's the best I could do. This weekend it was reported
that DeJoy, a major GOP donor
with tens of millions of dollars and conflicts of interest
may have illegally pressured employees
to donate to Republicans, then reimbursed them
with bonuses, which must've really sucked
for his employees. "Okay, honey, the good news is
I got a bonus of $50,000. The bad news is I have to
give it to Mitch McConnell. Don't be mad, honey.
Where are you going, honey?" At his press conference
yesterday, Trump was asked if he would
be okay with removing DeJoy from his post. And he quickly pivoted
to complaining about the many
investigations of him. -Would you support
an investigation, sir? -Sure, sure.
-And in -- -I think let
the investigations go. But -- but he's
a very respected man. -If it's proven to be
a campaign finance scheme, do you think
he should lose his job? -Yeah, if something
could be proven that he did something wrong,
always. -Thank you.
-Always. They've been looking at me
for four years. They found nothing. Four years.
Think of it. For four years, from the day
I came down the escalator, I've been under investigation by
sleeze, and they found nothing. -No, they did not find nothing. If anything,
they found too much. Somewhere in the FBI
there's a file cabinet labeled "Trump's crimes
we didn't have time for." I'm pretty sure I saw the room where they keep
the evidence against Trump on an episode of "Hoarders." They found among other things, two separate criminal
conspiracies to help get you elected,
at least ten instances of possible obstruction
of justice, and a whole other separate thing
you got impeached for. Just because you're
not in jail yet doesn't mean
they found nothing. Even O.J.
doesn't walk around saying, "They found none of my gloves
at the crime scene." So, clearly Trump's approach
is not working. Of course, it might not matter since we have an absurd
electoral system that lets, like,
five states choose the winner. And the winner
is often the loser. It's like when you had the
winning numbers on a scratch-off and when you looked at it,
the prize just said, "Give 10,000 bucks to the guy
standing next to you." Knowing they have an electoral
college advantage, Trump and his allies
have made no attempt to reach out
to the majority of voters that have consistently
disapproved of him since day one of his campaign. Instead, they've invested
in a two-pronged approach of distorting reality by pretending that so-called
liberal cities are in chaos. And also that the pandemic
is over and the economy is great,
none of which is true. Trump just did it
again yesterday at his press conference. -Under my leadership,
next year will be the greatest economic year
in the history of our country, I project. We're currently witnessing the fastest
labor market recovery from an economic crisis
in history, world history. By contrast, Biden presided
over the worst, the weakest, and the slowest
economic recovery since the Great Depression. It was a long, slow slog. -Listening to you read off
a script is a long, slow slog. It's like listening to Rocky
read an eye chart after ten rounds
with Apollo Creed. "A, A, A." "They're not all As, Rock!" And I'm sorry, you're calling
the Obama recovery the worst,
the weakest, and the slowest? If anything, that sounds like
an action movie franchise about your three adult children. Best thing about that joke,
you can switch them around, still works. Trump and the GOP have decided
their only choice is to spin a fantasy
alternate reality where everything is great despite the fact
that coronavirus cases are once again
on the rise in 22 states, and we've only recovered
about half the jobs that were lost in what's been
the greatest economic crash since the Great Depression. Just because some of
those jobs came back doesn't make you
an economic genius. If you gained 30 pounds
during quarantine, you can't sell
a workout tape called "How to Lose Five Pounds
& That's It!" But probably Trump's most brazen and infuriating act
of reality distortion yesterday came when he tried
to con people into thinking he's an anti-war president. Trump was reacting to
the furor of "The Atlantic's" bombshell report
that he called Americans who died in war
"losers" and "suckers," which has been confirmed
by multiple outlets including the A.P., CNN,
and even Fox News and also by common sense. I mean, it sounds exactly
like something Trump would say. He probably thinks anyone
who dies is a sucker. "I'm going to live until I'm at
least 200, just like Rudy. What's your secret, Rudy?" "You got to sweat out
the toxins, boss!" At his press conference
yesterday, Trump tried to claim
he's beloved by the troops, which is not true. Polls show active duty troops
actually prefer Joe Biden. And then he took the lie
even further, claiming Pentagon officials
don't like him because he is
against endless wars. -I'm not saying the military's
in love with me, the soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon
probably aren't because they want to do nothing
but fight wars so that all of those
wonderful companies that make the bombs
and make the planes and make everything else
stay happy. -Oh, yeah, man, totally. Everyone believes
you're an anti-war activist. I can totally see you marching
on Washington in the '60s with a beard
and teashade glasses holding a sign
and smoking a joint. "It's like Lennon says,
give peas a chance. I mean, I've already
given peas a chance. Hard pass for me.
Not a fan of the pea." Second, this is an especially
infuriating lie, coming from a guy who has
repeatedly touted billions in arms sales to
a brutal regime in Saudi Arabia, vetoed a bill
to end U.S. involvement in the horrific war in Yemen, massively expanded bombing
campaigns across the world including a record number
in Afghanistan, increased the Pentagon's budget
for the fifth consecutive year to the point where it's now
near now Iraq War levels, added billions
to a Pentagon slush fund specifically for war fighting, and has bragged about sending
U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia because Saudi Arabia
would pay for it. Or how about the time
Trump gleefully showed off all the weapons he was selling
to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince
Mohammad bin Salman? -If you look in terms
of dollars, $3 billion, $533 million, $525 million. That's peanuts for you. Should've increased it. $880 million.
$645 million. $6 billion. That's for frigates. $889 million. $63 million. And that's
for various artillery. THAAD system, $13 billion. [ Cameras clicking ] The C-130 heli--
airplanes, the Hercules, great plane, $3.8 billion. The Bradley vehicles,
that's the tanks, $1.2 billion. And the P-8 Poseidons, $1.4 billion. -You should've just worn
a waiter's uniform and brought the weapons in
on a dessert tray. "Would you like the Bradley
tanks or the Hercules rockets or perhaps
the chocolate mousse?" "You know what?
Should we be naughty? Should we get two? We're going to do the tanks
and the mousse and then just bring --
bring a bunch of spoons." But the story about Trump
denigrating Americans who died or were wounded in war
is such a perfect window into the reality distortion
machine on the right. Because even Fox News, whose own
national security reporter, Jennifer Griffin,
confirmed the story, has sought to undercut it. Here's how Fox treated
the story after Griffin confirmed it
with her own reporting. -Don't you find it the least
bit questionable that the Biden campaign, perhaps the slowest,
clumsiest entity since Joe Biden himself
already had an ad made based on this -- this hoax? -We also know that the story
is based on completely
anonymous sources and that anonymous sources
are participating in some kind of information
operation against the president. -You wrote there are no words
for how disgusting and dishonorable this is. My question to you is, how
do you know it's accurate? How do you know it's true? -Your own network confirmed it. Do you guys watch
your own channel, or do you just take naps
until Trump tweets something? "What? He said he didn't have
a series of mini strokes? All right, are mini strokes
even a thing? You know what,
it doesn't matter. Quick, get it on the air
and use this chyron. 'A Stroke of Genius.'" And there's no better
indication of the fact that Fox is a propaganda machine and not a real news organization
than the fact that they're willing
to undercut their own reporting to serve
the president's agenda. No legitimate news organization
would do that. When the "New York Times"
reports something negative about Joe Biden,
they don't use the headline "Failing 'New York Times'
spreads fake news -- sad." Just goes to show you
they can't actually campaign on their record. So instead they're trying to
concoct an alternate universe where coronavirus is over,
the economy is back, and a president who brags
about arms sales is anti-war. If that doesn't work,
Trump will probably just try to convince people
that he's Joe Biden. "You know, I was just saying
to my wife, Jill, no more malarkey. We hate malarkey,
don't we, folks? We've had it up to here
with the malarkey." I think it's safe to say that
at this point instead of hiring the best
and the brightest, the GOP or the Trump campaign
are filled with -- -The worst, the weakest,
and the slowest. -This has been "A Closer Look." ♪♪
Glad he kept the hair! And that is the best inanimate talking object yet!!!
Great to see Seth back in the studio. And great to see Wally back on the cue cards!
When you crank up the volume, it sounds like Bill Hader recorded that in his car lmao