-President Trump
picked political fights and refused to take
responsibility for his rhetoric as he visited Dayton
and El Paso today. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look." [ Cheers and applause ] After four years
of spewing racist and anti-immigrant vitriol, Trump managed to tepidly read
a script from a teleprompter on Monday condemning bigotry. Of course, we all know by now that when Trump reads something
from a teleprompter, he doesn't actually mean it. More often than not, it's the
first time he's even seeing it. -10,000 known or "suspested"
gang members. Controlled by large "derners." He has worked in both houses of
Congress advising "lawmarkers." -Yes. Lawmarkers, as in Congress
should pass gun control now. When they do, they can write it
down with lawmarker. I have a feeling Trump doesn't
even read these speeches first. You can tell because he does
this thing where he reads a line and then he reacts to it
in real time. -We know that our nation
was founded by farmers. Our independence
was won by farmers. Our continent was tamed
by farmers. So true. -I mean, it's like --
[ Laughter ] It's like your mom reading
her fortune cookie at dinner. "A faithful friend
is a strong defense." So true. [ Laughter ] And yet --
[ Cheers and applause ] And yet Trump's aides
and even some in the media are actually trying to pretend
that this is a speech we were supposed to
take seriously and that Trump actually meant
what he said, despite everything we know
about him from his campaign, his presidency,
and most of his adult life. -The accusation is that
the culture he foments at his rallies leads to
this kind of violence. How do you respond to that? -That is absolutely ridiculous. -Would it help if everyone
were more careful with their language? -Well, I think it's pretty clear that the President came forth
on Monday and was very deliberate
in what he wanted to say. -No, he wasn't. Trump's not deliberate
in anything he does. He doesn't even stand
deliberately. [ Laughter ] I mean, look at him. He looks like he's on the deck
of a ship about to tilt over. [ Laughter ] He stands like Wile E. Coyote
on those rocket skates. [ Laughter,
cheers and applause ] He looks like he's posing with
Jack on the bow of the Titanic. [ Laughter ] Not only was he not deliberate
about what he said, he didn't even get the name
of one of the cities right, when he, of course, said Toledo, even though the teleprompter
said Texas and Ohio. Now, today, Trump visited
El Paso and Dayton, where he was greeted
by protesters, and earlier this week,
ahead of his visit, the mayor of Dayton offered this
response to Trump's mistake. -He said sometime this week. I mean, I've heard that
he's coming Wednesday, but I've not gotten a call. And, you know,
he might be going to Toledo. I don't know.
-And honestly... [ Laughter ] ...maybe that's
our best hope here. Trump accidentally goes
to Toledo, gets lost, and spends the rest of his life as the announcer
for the Mud Hens. "Anderson comes into the game
batting .250. So true." [ Laughter ] In fact, Trump was once again back to insulting other people
on Twitter again today, going after El Paso native
Beto O'Rourke for calling Trump
a white nationalist and blaming him for inciting
racism, which he obviously has. If you accused a normal person
of being a white supremacist, they might be shocked
and appalled and they'd definitely want
to know why you think that. Instead, Trump has responded
by tweeting nasty insults. -Trump wrote this, "Beto -- phony name to indicate
Hispanic heritage -- O'Rourke, who is embarrassed
by my last visit to the great state of Texas,
where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed by polling at 1%
in the Democrat primary, should respect the victims and
law enforcement and be quiet." -Okay, first of all, you don't
get to follow an insane screed mocking his name
and his standing in the polls with "respect the victims
and be quiet." That's like if a librarian
got up and screamed, "Everyone keep your
[bleep] voices down!" [ Laughter and applause ] Second, he --
he should be quiet? He's from El Paso,
consoling mourners, standing up for his community. You, meanwhile,
never shut the hell up. For example, here's Trump attacking Joe Biden
later in the morning for comparing him to
segregationist George Wallace. -Joe Biden says you have more
in common with George Wallace than George Washington. -Well, you know, Joe is
a pretty incompetent guy. I've watched his interviews. I've watched what he said
and how he said it. And I wouldn't have rated him
very high in the first place, but Joe Biden has truly
lost his fastball. That I can tell you. -He's lost his fastball? I'm sorry, but you don't get to criticize
someone else's fastball when immediately after
that question you wander off, forget that your wife
is standing off-camera, and then just
stand there awkwardly in front of the cameras
while you wait for her. [ Laughter and applause ] First of all, I love
how he points to the puddle and she just walks
around it like, "I [bleep] know
there's a puddle." [ Laughter ] Second, why is his move
when he gets lost to just stand completely still
in front of the cameras? Does he not know
we can still see him? "Maybe I can change color
to match the background. Be green." In that same Q&A, Trump also refused to take
any responsibility whatsoever for his racist,
anti-immigrant rhetoric and was asked about the rise
of white supremacy. Now, just last month,
Trump's own FBI director said the FBI had recorded about
100 domestic terrorism arrests and that many investigations
involve white supremacy. But when he was asked about it, Trump made this vague comment
where he lumped together what he generally called
"any group of hate." -Mr. President,
how concerned are you about the rise
of white supremacy, and what are you going to do
about it? -I am concerned about the rise
of any group of hate. I don't like it. Any group of hate, I am --
whether it's white supremacy, whether it's any other kind
of supremacy. -What other kind of supremacy? Like, the Bourne supremacy? [ Laughter ] Trump still refused
to take responsibility for the fact that he spent
his campaign and presidency constantly repeating vile,
racist, dehumanizing language
about immigrants and riling up his crowds with paranoid fantasies
of invading caravans. -This is an invasion. I was badly criticized
for using the word "invasion." It's an invasion. People hate the word "invasion,"
but that's what it is. It's an invasion of drugs
and criminals and people. Mexico should step up
and stop this onslaught, this invasion into our country. The Democrats want to invite
caravan after caravan of illegal aliens
into our country. A large group of people,
they call it a caravan. [ Crowd booing ] Do you know how
the caravan started? Does everybody know
what this means? I think the Democrats
had something to do with it. -What is that move? He looks like one of those guys handing out free CDs
in Times Square. "Check out my album, 'Now That's
What I Call Racism.'" Anyone -- Anyone who's been paying
any attention at all can see what Trump is doing. He's been inciting
and promoting racism by using dehumanizing language about desperate migrants
seeking asylum, whipping his crowds into
a racist paranoid frenzy, and yet his allies on Fox News
continue to insist that the language Trump uses, language echoed by white
supremacists, is not racist. Here's "Fox & Friends" host
Brian Kilmeade trying to make that argument
yesterday. -When you have over 110,000
people coming a month, over a million last year and then well over a million
this year, if you use the term
"it's an invasion," that's not anti-Hispanic,
it's a fact. If the Russians were coming
through Alaska, through Canada, the President would be using
the same language. -First of all,
yes, it is racist. Second, no, Trump would not
use the same language if it was Russians. He'd probably be out there
to greet them like a limo driver
at the airport. Also, let me just say,
in your hypothetical scenario, if there were refugees
from Russia or anywhere else fleeing poverty and violence
and seeking asylum, they should be treated humanely
and with compassion, just like anyone else. Using a different country
doesn't help your argument. It just makes you sound like
even more of an [bleep] It's like if your uncle called
you a dick at Thanksgiving and then said, "So what? I said
the same thing about your dad." And then Kilmeade kept going, also trying to defend
the President's use of the word "infestation,"
another racist trope, but he couldn't seem to get
the words out of his mouth. -People want to look at the
words "efest--" "infest--" "invest--" "infested" or -- and look at what
the President's saying. -Whoa! Never a good sign when you're less eloquent
than teleprompter Trump. The President and his allies don't think he has
any responsibility at all for the racist language
he's used against immigrants who are now the targets
of white supremacist violence. Then what about guns? Are Republicans at least
any more willing to tackle the gun violence
epidemic in this country? Well, yesterday on Fox,
Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey said he's against regulating
military-style assault weapons because they are, and this is
his actual reason, popular. -You know, guns that are
described as assault weapons are almost invariably
no more powerful than ordinary hunting rifles. They look different. You know, they're painted black
and they've got features that an ordinary hunting rifle
doesn't have, but they're no more lethal,
and -- -What about magazine size? -And they're extremely popular, and so to ban
an extremely popular firearm, I'm not going to support that. -You won't ban them
because they're popular? You know what else is popular?
Drugs. Like, all the drugs. [ Laughter ] They're all pop-- Are you in favor of making
all drugs legal, too, because if you are, I would like whatever
Brian Kilmeade is smoking. -"Efest--" "infest--"
"invest--" "infested." -"Hey, you guys,
you know what's a -- you know what's a funny word? 'Infested.'" [ Cheers and applause ] [ Mumbling ] So if we can't ban popular guns, what can we do to stop
this epidemic of mass shootings that no other developed country
on earth has to deal with? Fox's Sean Hannity had an idea during a segment
with a Fox pundit, who is former
Secret Service agent -- turn every public space
into a military installation. -I'd like to see the perimeter
of every school in America surrounded, secured by
retired police, which you are, retired Secret Service,
which you are, military. And I want guys
to donate 15 hours. I think we could cover every
school every hour every day. Add a metal detector, and I think we're going to
have safer school. Have one armed guard on
every floor of every school, all over every mall, the perimeter and inside
every hall of every mall. -That's insane. These lunatics want us
to live if a police state where we're surrounded by
armed guards and metal detectors because they won't give up
their stupid assault weapons or hunting rifles
or whatever the hell Davy Crockett [bleep] over here
calls them. The bottom line here
is that the President refuses to take responsibility for the racist,
anti-immigrant vitriol he and his favorite right-wing
media outlets use all the time. And on top of that, they're blocking commonsense
gun safety measures we know work
in other developed countries. These are simple facts, or as the president would say,
they're... -So true. -This has been "A Closer Look." [ Cheers and applause ]
