-In one of the most
chilling moments of his presidency -- and there have been a few -- Donald Trump refused to commit to a peaceful
transition of power as Republicans formulated a plan to steal the election
through the courts. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look." [ Suspenseful theme plays ] We're as close as we've ever
been to losing our democracy and watching our
government transform into a autocratic regime. It's happening right in front
of our eyes, right now. You don't need to wait for Trump
to roll down Pennsylvania Avenue on a tank and green fatigues
with a long chin beard, especially since,
if he did try to grow one, he'd probably just look like
a very sick Chihuahua. "I think my dog is dying." Is he drinking water? "No, just like Diet Coke, like ten, ten a day." The president's falsely claiming
the election is rigged. The GOP chair in Pennsylvania
told The Atlantic -- on the record --
that they're considering a plan to steal the state's
electoral votes, if they lose, and Republicans are basically
announcing their intention to use the courts to overturn
the election results. And, on top of all that,
the president, last night, refused to commit to a peaceful
transfer of power, effectively
threatening violence, unless ballots are thrown out and he's allowed
to stay in office. -Well, we're gonna have
to see what happens. You know that I've been
complaining very strongly about the ballots
and the ballots are a disaster. Alright. I know. No, we wanna have -- We wanna have --
Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very transf-- We'll have a very peaceful -- There won't be
a transfer, frankly. There'll be a continuation. -Alright, I'll take it back. He probably will grow
that dictator beard. [ As Trump ]
Do you like it?
I comb it with a fork. It's a little pasta twirl. So, Trump is
threatening violence, unless we
"get rid of the ballots." He's threatening a coup d'état,
even though I'm sure he has no idea what the phrase
coup d'état means. He probably thinks it's
a lyric from "Moulin Rouge!" [ As Trump ]
♪ Voulez vous coucher ♪ ♪ Coup d'état ♪ ♪ Ce soir? ♪ [ Laughing ]
We're in a -- a truly treacherous moment, yet, we can still enjoy
a "Moulin Rouge!" joke. Our democracy hasn't been
healthy in a long time, but, now,
it's in a death spiral. The president is threatening
violence, if he loses. Armed right-wing militias
are roaming the streets in Louisville,
intimidating protesters. The president is glorifying state violence
against journalists. Just a few months ago,
he called for overwhelming force
to suppress protests, labeled democratic cities
"anarchist jurisdictions," and his campaign called
for an army of supporters to join an election
security squad. If this were happening
in any other country, you'd expect to see
pro-regime militants driving through the streets
in pickup trucks, attacking people
and waving flags and -- Ah, goddamn it! The only thing missing
from that clip is a foreign correspondent
for the BBC in a flak jacket. [ English accent ]
The scene here is tense as pro-regime forces
clash with dissidents. And I am sorry.
I'm just getting word the regime has sent its armada
of Jet Skis and party boats to blockade the port,
leaving nothing in their wake but empty aluminium cans
of Natural Light or, as it's called
in the local vernacular, Natty Light. Yes, we did go well out
of our way to say aluminium. But don't worry.
Don't worry, guys. The White House press corps
is ready to step in to its role as the guardian
of democracy in this perilous moment
for the republic. -Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
chimed in on the US election and essentially
encouraged people to vote for Joe Biden. I wanted to get
your reaction to that. -Mm, I don't have my glasses on. Was that Woodward or Bernstein? Does US Weekly have
a White House correspondent? Although, I bet even
US Weekly would drop its Harry and Meghan
coverage for this... Seriously,
if the president threatens to destroy American democracy by seizing power
through violence, maybe scrap your preplanned
question about Harry and Meghan. You need to be able to,
you know, pivot on the fly. What if, at his next
press conference, Trump takes out the red button
and threatens to nuke Seattle, unless they give him $1 billion? "Sir, I'd love to hear more
of your thoughts about nuking Seattle, but, "Keeping Up with the
Kardashians" is ending. Do you have a comment on that?"
And I gotta ask, why aren't more
elected Democrats acting like this
is the emergency it is? They're about as effective as the receptionist
on "Law & Order" who says, "Hey, you can't go in there!"
while they're going in there. Democrats should be grinding
the gears of government to a halt
until the Republican Party vows to respect
the election outcome and commit to a peaceful
transition of power. They should be holding public
televised hearings about this. The only person I've heard talk
about it is Bernie Sanders. -What do we do if Trump loses and he won't leave office? -What we have got to do is work in a number of ways and one of the ways is -- I'm working on this
right now -- is to demand that both
the House and the Senate hold hearings, right now! To educate the American people about what might happen and to develop
antidotes to that. So we've got to educate
the American people about what is in front of us and rally the American people
to tell Donald Trump that too many people
in this country have fought and died
to defend American democracy and, if and when you lose, you're getting out of office. -The best part of any Bernie
interview during the pandemic are his Zoom backgrounds. It's like when you use the computer
at your grandparents' house and their desktop still has the
default background from Windows. His background always look like
the cover of a nature sounds CD. [ As Sanders ]
Birds singing,
crickets chirping, the sound of a babbling brook as you gently
drift off to sleep. Now, go to sleep! CD over!
I got work to do. But he's absolutely right --
Democrats should be holding highly publicized hearings
about this. They should be slowing down
Senate business, doing everything possible
to force Republicans to commit to honor
the results of the election because Trump clearly will not. He said as much repeatedly
over the last few weeks and, yet, we all just kind of
sigh and move on with our lives. Whenever he screams something about mail-in ballots
or a rigged election, we're all like tourists rolling up our car windows
in Times Square. "Honey, uh, quick. Quick, Buzz Lightyear's
coming this way and, for some reason,
he has a giant sword?" But Trump has made it
very clear, for months now, that he will not consider
the election legitimate if he loses,
based on his made-up claims of mail-in voting fraud. -Universal is going
to be a disaster the likes of which
our country has never seen. It'll end up being
a rigged election or they will never come out
with an outcome. They'll have to do it again. And nobody wants that
and I don't want that. You won't know
the election result for weeks, months,
maybe years after. Maybe you'll never know
the election result, and that's what
I'm concerned with. It'll be fixed.
It'll be rigged. People oughta get smart. It'll be the greatest
rigged election in history. It'll be the greatest fraud
ever perpetrated. The only way we're gonna lose this election is if the election is rigged. Remember that.
It's the only way we're gonna lose this election. -You think "the only way" you could possibly lose
is if it's rigged? You haven't cracked 50%
in the polling average all year. That's like K.Fed
saying the only reason his album didn't go platinum
was because the Billboard charts were rigged
against "PopoZao." [ As Federline ]
We love "PopoZao,"
don't we, folks? You're hearing it more and more. You haven't a been
ahead of Biden in the
polling average once. You lost the popular vote
by three million and your approval numbers
have been underwater since you launched
your campaign. You're not even at 100%
among Trumps. You're even lagging
among old people in Florida. That's your key constituency. You are an old person
in Florida. That's like Hoda and Jenna
finding out they're losing the key demo of stay-at-home
wine enthusiasts. And, yet, Trump keeps insisting
that states are sending unsolicited mail ballots
to everyone, that could easily be
filled out fraudulently, despite the fact that this
basically never happens and would be very easy
to detect. -When you see them cheating
with those ballots, all of those
unsolicited ballots, those millions of ballots,
you see 'em, anytime you do report 'em
to the authorities. The authorities are
waiting and watching. -First of all,
they're not unsolicited. They're ballots. They send them
to registered voters. They're not AOL trial CDs. [ As Federline ]
Yo, AOL bless. Mind if I slip
a "PopoZao" in there? I'm having some [ Laughing ]
distribution issues. We thought it was very,
very important to do a lot of comedy today
about 2006's "PopoZao." Which is -- I looked at it --
it's a lyric. In Portuguese, it means, "Bring your ass on the floor and move it real fast." Guy was trying to do like
a nice Rosetta Stone to music. Here I am, [ Laughing ]
giving him a hard time. I'm assuming that it meant
the dance floor and not the Senate floor. [ As McConnell ]
We oughta -- as soon as we got
that nominee from Donald Trump, we oughta PopoZao. [ Laughter ] [ As Graham ]
I love -- I would love to -- [ As McConnell ]
Not you, Lindsay. [ Laughter ] Second, Donald Trump -- [ Laughing ] that's who
we were talking about -- [ Laughter ] [ As McConnell ]
We oughta PopoZao posthaste. Please, don't tell
your supporters to report anything
to the authorities. The last thing we need is
crazed Trump supporters sifting through our mail,
looking for fraudulent ballots. "This has foreign writing on it! This is a fraudulent ballot!" Sir, that is
an Italian takeout menu. "Yeah, but who are they
takin' out? Answer me that!" And, now, Trump is telegraphing
that, if he gets his way and installs a new Supreme Court
justice before the election, the conservative
6-3 super majority will invalidate
all those ballots and declare him the winner,
even if he loses. -I think having a 4-4 situation
is not a good situation. Now, we're counting
on the federal court system to make it so that we
can actually have an evening where we know who wins, okay? Not where the votes
are gonna be counted a week later or two weeks later. We need nine justices. You need that. With the unsolicited millions of ballots that they're sending, it's a scam.
It's a hoax. Everybody knows that and the Democrats know it better
than anybody else. So you're gonna need
nine justices up there. I think it's gonna be
very important because what they're doing
is trying to sow confusion
and everything else. Because paper ballots
are very simple, whether they counterfeit 'em,
forge 'em, do whatever you want. -What are you talking about?! What you're describing
makes no sense. How would it even work? They send one ballot per voter and most states use barcodes
to track ballots. They're election ballots,
not pages from the Burn Book. ♪♪ Who's doing this supposed
forging of these paper ballots? You think so-called anarchists are going door-to-door,
collecting ballots, so they can write in the name
of their favorite candidate, Joe Biden, because anarchists
notoriously love the 77-year-old centrist
from Delaware? Biden loves trains. That's how
you know he's not an anarchist. Trains are the opposite
of anarchy. They're literally on the rails. Try hopping on the Acela Express
from D.C. to Boston and taking a call
on the quiet car. Ten Ivy League JDs
will descend on you in a fury and stuff you
in the overhead rack. Second, Democrats?! Democrats are sowing confusion? You sow confusion just
by opening your mouth. No one can even follow
what you're saying. Here's a collection
of real things Donald Trump has said,
recently, that I guess are supposed
to be human English. -First lady,
how'd you like the crowd? "Sir, I didn't see it." Take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God. That was called action, not with the mouth,
but in actual fact. They go out and buy tuna fish and soup.
You know that, right? Tuna fish, they could
really rip it, right? And that hits you.
[ Laughter ] No, it's true. Bumblebee brand tuna.
[ Laughter ] And you can throw that sucker,
you can put a curve on it. You can do whatever
the hell you want. -Jesus.
It's like the end of "2001: A Space Odyssey," when they disconnect HAL. [ As HAL ]
Tuna fish. Not with the mouth.
First Lady. Sir, sir, sir. Why do you hurt God?
Tuna fish. You can really rip it. God, tuna God,
God, hurt the tuna. Tuna, tuna, God, PopoZao. That's it.
Hat trick. [ Laughing ] Seriously,
someone give this man
a CAT scan. If only we could look
inside his head, I'm pretty sure we'd see
his brain is mostly... -Tuna fish and soup. -And the people around Trump, the leaders of the institutional
Republican Party, have also been explicit
about their goal to have a conservative Supreme Court
super majority in place to decide a so-called
contested election, which, again, is only
a consideration, right now, because they're the ones
falsely claiming there'll be rampant
mail ballot fraud. -I think it is critical that the Senate takes up and confirms that successor before Election Day. We cannot have election day
come and go with a 4-4 court. A 4-4 court
that is equally divided cannot decide anything and I think we risk
a constitutional crisis if we do not have [ Chime ]
a nine-justice Supreme Court, particularly when
there is such a risk of a contested litigation and a contested election. -You're the ones threatening
to contest the election. Ted Cruz is like
an arsonist saying... [ As Cruz ]
We need to hire
more firefighters, as I have no intention to stop setting off bottle rockets
in the woods. Also, you're suddenly concerned about a constitutional
crisis now?! We've had four years of constant
constitutional crisis with a president
who obstructs justice, profits from his office,
asks foreign governments to help him cheat
in the election, and unilaterally declares
a state of emergency to build a dumbass wall
on the southern border without congressional approval. Just last night,
he threatened violence, if he loses,
and you were silent. Senate Republicans work less
than that rich friend who's always posting pics
on Instagram from exotic locations. "Hang gliding at Angkor Wat. #soblessed" Why do you have money again? "I started a streaming service
for skateboard fails." These guys are threatening
a totally made up crisis, then saying we need
a conservative super majority on the Supreme Court
to resolve that made up crisis. Like Vice President Mike Pence, who basically said
that we need to rush to confirm a Supreme Court
nominee to throw out all those pesky ballots from
voters who don't like Trump. -With all of the talk about
universal unsolicited mail-in balloting where we see states
around the country that are now
extending the deadline. There is a possibility
that election issues may come before
the Supreme Court in the days following
the election, and all the more reason why
we should have nine justices on the Supreme Court to
to be able to resolve any issues that may arise then
or on any other matter. -They're just coming out
and saying it. Their plan is to steal
the election through another Bush v. Gore. And Mike Pence's talent
is that he can make a plan to steal an election sound like
an instructional DVD for your new dishwasher. [ As Pence ] First, you need to
ensure that your water source is turned all the way
to the off position. [ Normal voice ]
They're not hiding it because we all know
what the game is. It's like if M. Night Shyamalan released a movie titled
"Twist Ending." Oh, I see. So Rudy was actually
dead the whole time? In fact, Republicans have been
so open about the fact that they're rushing to lock
in a right-wing super majority on the court
before the election, they're even claiming
they already have the votes to confirm a nominee
without even knowing who that nominee is. We've got the votes to confirm Justice Ginsburg replacement
before the election. We're gonna move forward
in the committee. We're gonna report the
nomination out of the committee to the floor
of the United States Senate so we can vote
before the election. We're gonna have a process
that you will be proud of. The nominee is gonna be
supported by every Republican
in the Judiciary Committee. And we've got the votes
to confirm the judge, the justice on the floor of
the Senate before the election. And that's what's coming. -Are you trying to convince us
or hypnotize us? [ As Graham ] You're getting
very sleepy, mister. Go ahead and close them. [ Normal voice ] How can you
already have the votes? You don't even have a nominee.
In fact, I'm pretty sure Trump's gonna find out
who his nominee is at the same time you guys are. Mitch McConnell
and the Federalist Society are gonna pick a name
off a list, and then Trump's gonna find out when he shows up
to the press conference like an episode
of "Love is Blind." Then in that case, sure. I mean, I hope
he nominates Jessica just because I would love to see
her confirmation hearings. [ As Jessica ] This whole thing
is a lot right now. And I do want to be
a Supreme Court justice, but I'm also overwhelmed
by all of these questions. [ Normal voice ]
Ah, "Love is Blind," you'll always be my first
quarantine show. It's not really that crazy,
though. For all you know, Trump could
nominate one of his buddies, like the demon sperm doctor
or the My Pillow guy. [ As Trump ]
He knows all about cases. He makes some of the best
pillowcases [ Chuckling ] in the world. I want to thank my friend
Sal Gentile who wrote me that joke. You know, he usually comes at me
pretty hard, but every now and then,
he writes me a zinger. Thank you, Sal. I know you're
not gonna vote for me. [ Chuckles ] [ Normal voice ]
In fact, on Monday, Trump called in for his weekly teletherapy session
with the "Fox & Friends" and joked that he would put
one of them on the court. -Well, I know you said
you're gonna nominate a woman. That's very important to women who are voting in November
for women's rights. You said you --
-How about you, Ainsley? I could nominate you, you know. You don't have to be a lawyer.
You don't have to be a judge. -Do you want to make some news?
Go ahead and make some news right now, Mr. President.
Who's it gonna be? -She would sail through
like nothing. That would be probably
a good idea. That way, at least we know
for sure she'll be approved. -Ugh. Sounds like a creep
at the yacht club hitting on a woman in front of her husband.
But sure, why not? "Fox and Friends"
is already the president. Why not make them
the Supreme Court, too? Hell, just nominate a TV
that plays Fox News 24/7. Also, it doesn't exactly
inspire confidence when the president says in order
to be a Supreme Court justice, you don't have to be a lawyer,
you don't have to be a judge. [ As Trump ] In fact,
you don't even have to be 18, which is why I'm strongly
considering "Young Sheldon." We have a lot of Sheldons
to choose from, which is why it's a great
country -- multiple, multiple Sheldons. [ Normal voice ]
This is the moment when elected Democrats
need to do everything possible to preserve our democracy,
hold hearings, slow down Senate business,
pour salt on Ted Cruz -- whatever you have to do
to get Republicans to commit to honor
the results of the election, because right now,
they're openly advertising their plan to steal it
while the president refuses to commit
to a peaceful transfer of power. There's as much chance
of Trump admitting he lost an election night
as there is of him saying... -♪ PopoZao, PopoZao ♪ [ Light laughter ] -I fully didn't know
that was coming. This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Laughs ] ♪♪ God's Love We Deliver
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This should raise red flags EVERYWHERE.