🔍
Trump Is Losing the Shutdown Fight: A Closer Look - YouTube
Channel: Late Night with Seth Meyers
[0]
-It's becoming clear
[2]
that President Trump
has no way out
[4]
of the government shutdown
he's boxed himself into.
[6]
For more on this, it's time
for "A Closer Look."
[8]
[ Suspenseful theme plays ]
[ Cheering and applause ]
[13]
The shutdown is having real
effects for millions of people
[16]
and that includes
law enforcement officials
[17]
going without pay.
[19]
Yesterday, in his
confirmation hearing,
[20]
Trump's pick for attorney
general, William Barr,
[23]
was asked about the effect
on law enforcement
[25]
and said the shutdown was
the fault of both sides.
[28]
- People would like to see
the shutdown ended
[30]
and that's why people wanna see
some kind of compromise
[33]
and, you know, you call it
the Trump shutdown,
[36]
but, I mean,
it takes two to tango.
[38]
-Okay, but this is not a tango.
[40]
Trump is the only one dancing.
[42]
[ Laughter ]
And, judging from how
[44]
he moves his hands, he's doing
some off-brand version
[46]
of the Macarena.
[ Laughter ]
[48]
I mean, look at 'im. He looks
like a grandpa at a wedding.
[51]
[ Laughter ]
♪ Hey, macaroni ♪
[54]
[ Laughter and applause ]
[55]
It's not both sides.
[57]
We all remember the meeting
in the Oval Office
[59]
where Trump literally said
he was proud
[60]
to shut down the government
and, yet,
[62]
despite the fact
that he is on camera,
[64]
saying the shutdown
would be his fault,
[65]
Trump actually thinks he's
winning the argument.
[68]
CNN reported yesterday
that Trump has been
[70]
telling aides and allies
that he believes
[72]
he is winning the battle
for public support.
[74]
Well, of course
he believes that.
[76]
He watches more Fox News
than all the residents
[79]
of a Texas senior center,
combined.
[81]
[ Laughter and light clapping ]
[82]
Trump always thinks he
can win any fight.
[84]
He can be in the Octagon
with Conor McGregor,
[86]
takin' a kick to the face,
and he'd say, "Did you see?
[88]
I just head-butted his foot
with my face."
[90]
[ Laughter and light clapping ]
[92]
Trump also thinks
his Oval Office speech
[94]
on the wall last week
[95]
really moved public opinion
to his side.
[96]
Now, you might be asking
yourself, "Wait,
[98]
Trump gave a speech from the
Oval Office last week?"
[100]
And that's because everyone
has already forgotten about it.
[103]
[ Laughter ]
That speech was only a week ago
[105]
and it's already been eclipsed
by several insane news stories,
[109]
from Trump's trip
to the southern border
[111]
to the fact that the FBI thought
he was a Russian asset,
[114]
to the fact that
the White House
[115]
is serving so much fast food,
they've added a drive-thru.
[119]
[ Laughter and applause ]
[121]
What's next, is he gonna --
[123]
[ Applause ]
[125]
[ Cheering and applause ]
[129]
Is he gonna try to achieve
peace in the Middle East
[131]
with a summit
at Chuck E. Cheese?
[133]
[ Laughter ]
[134]
[as Trump] No quarters for
anyone 'til you sort this out.
[137]
[ Laughter ]
So, yes, Trump really did
[139]
give a primetime address
on the wall last week
[141]
and he thinks it helped sway
public opinion to his side,
[144]
but the actually polling
says something very different.
[147]
-Within the last half hour,
Quinnipiac has come out
[149]
with a new poll, asking,
"Did the president's speech
[152]
last week from the Oval Office
[153]
[ Laughter ]
change your mind
[154]
about the wall?"
Only 2% said yes.
[157]
-2%?!
[159]
Maybe the speech
only polled at 2%
[162]
because Trump's eye
was only 2% open.
[165]
That's why he thinks
he can win any fight.
[167]
He's Popeye, except, with bacon,
instead of spinach.
[170]
[ Laughter ]
Trump's argument is not working
[173]
'cause it's detached
from reality.
[174]
It's also very hard to follow.
[176]
For example, Trump has recently
found a new favorite line
[179]
that he keeps repeating at all
of his public appearances:
[182]
"Walls work
because cars have wheels."
[187]
-They say a wall is medieval.
[188]
Well, so is a wheel.
[190]
A wheel is older than a wall.
[192]
[ Laughter ]
[193]
And I looked and every
single car out there,
[195]
even the really expenses ones,
[197]
[ Laughter ]
that the Secret Service uses --
[199]
and believe me,
they are expensive.
[202]
I said,
"Do they all have wheels?"
[203]
"Yes."
Oh, I thought it was medieval.
[205]
The wheel is older than
the wall, you know that?
[208]
And, uh, there are
some things that work.
[211]
You know what?
A wheel works and a wall works.
[214]
They say it's medieval.
[216]
Well, so is the wheel, medieval.
[217]
I looked at all the vans and all
of the serious equipment
[221]
that they surrounded me with
yesterday.
[223]
-Mm.
-The Secret Service, the police,
[226]
the Border Patrol, ICE.
[229]
Every one of those
had the wheel.
[230]
Well, they say wheels
are medieval, too.
[233]
But some things don't change.
[235]
Wheels and walls.
[238]
[ Laughter ]
[239]
-Hey, um,
[241]
I'm worried about Grandpa.
[242]
[ Laughter ]
[244]
Yeah, no. It's, uh --
[246]
[ Applause and cheering ]
Yeah.
[247]
[ Whistling ]
[249]
[ Applause ]
[252]
No, it's a wheel wall.
Yeah, it's a wheel wall.
[254]
[ Laughter ]
I gotta go.
[256]
He just keeps saying the same
things over and over.
[258]
In other words,
he's hitting a wall
[260]
and it's his brain is going
around like a wheel.
[262]
[ Laughter ]
[263]
But I guess, now, we know what
Trump's been doing all day
[265]
in the Oval Office
during the shutdown:
[267]
Just starin' out the window,
[268]
countin' all the wheels
on the car.
[270]
[ Laughter ]
One, two, three, four.
[272]
One, two,
three, four.
[273]
Oh, no, a bus!
This isn't gonna be easy.
[275]
[ Laughter ]
[277]
Now, as dumb as Trump's argument
is, he was actually going
[280]
to get another chance
to make it later this month,
[282]
to yet another
primetime audience,
[283]
for his annual
State of the Union address.
[285]
But presidents technically
have to be invited
[288]
to give the State of the Union
by the speaker of the House
[290]
and, today,
because of the shutdown,
[292]
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
asked Trump to reschedule
[295]
his State of the Union address
or deliver it in writing.
[298]
[ Laughter ]
That's such a great burn
[299]
because, you know,
when Trump heard reschedule,
[301]
he thought, [as Trump] "Yes!"
[302]
But when he heard deliver it
in writing, he thought,
[304]
[as Trump] "No-o-o-o-o!"
[ Laughter ]
[306]
I would love to see Trump write
down his State of the Union.
[309]
I can imagine what
that would look like.
[311]
[ Laughter and applause ]
[313]
It's fun!
[315]
It's fun.
[316]
[ Cheering, whistling,
and applause ]
[320]
Fun, picturing Trump sittin'
down at a typewriter,
[323]
punchin' the keys one at a time
with his sweaty hand paws.
[326]
[ Laughter ]
[as Trump] Is wall spelled
[327]
with one L or four?
[329]
[ Laughter ]
[331]
I'll just use all the L's.
[332]
[ Laughter ]
What we're witnessing right now
[335]
are the desperate gasps
of the Trump agenda.
[337]
The wall was
the signature promise
[339]
of his campaign and presidency.
[341]
He's been talkin' about it
for three and a half years,
[343]
but, now, it's slipping away,
[345]
with Democrats
in control of the House,
[346]
and, in his desperation
to save face and get a deal,
[349]
Trump is throwing everything
he said about the wall
[351]
out the window.
[352]
For example, he said
Democrats didn't even have
[354]
to call it a wall and offered
one very strange suggestion.
[358]
-This is where I asked
the Democrats to come back
[361]
to Washington and to vote
for money for the wall,
[366]
the barrier, whatever you
wanna call it's okay with me.
[370]
They can name it whatever.
[371]
They can name it Peaches.
[374]
[ Laughter ]
I don't care what they name it.
[375]
-They should call his bluff
and name it Donald Trump's BO.
[379]
[ Laughter ]
[380]
Then, his supporters
would have to say,
[382]
"Donald Trump's BO
has been very effective
[384]
in keeping immigrants
out of the country."
[386]
[ Laughter ]
[387]
And that isn't even
the weirdest suggestion
[388]
for what the wall should be
called because, last week,
[390]
Louisiana Republican
Senator John Kennedy said,
[393]
"You can call it a barrier.
[394]
You can call it a wall.
[396]
You can call it a wang doodle,
[397]
[ Laughter ]
for all I care.
[398]
Wang doodle and peaches don't
sound like names for a wall.
[402]
They sound like a euphemism
for a guy's junk.
[405]
[ Laughter ]
Did you hear about Rudy?
[407]
He accidentally sat
on his wang doodle
[409]
and banged it into his peaches
[410]
and that explains
why he looks like that.
[412]
[ Applause and cheering ]
[414]
So, now --
[415]
[ Applause ]
[418]
Now, Trump is throwing out all
of his campaign promises
[420]
about the wall and saying
Democrats can call it
[422]
whatever they want,
but one thing he guaranteed,
[424]
the one thing that was crucial
to the whole idea
[427]
was that it would be
impossible to get through.
[429]
-So we're gonna build a wall
and it's gonna be impenetrable.
[433]
We will begin working
on an impenetrable, physical,
[438]
tall, powerful, beautiful,
southern border wall.
[443]
-Physical, powerful,
and beautiful.
[445]
Was he building a wall
[446]
or setting up a Tinder
profile for it?
[448]
[ Laughter ]
[450]
[as Trump] Physical, tall,
powerful, beautiful,
[451]
works hard, plays harder.
[453]
[ Laughter ]
And, as dumb as the wall is,
[455]
literally the only point
to building one
[458]
is to make it impenetrable
and Trump repeatedly promised
[461]
he could do it
because that's what he does.
[463]
He's a builder!
[464]
-Look, as a builder, nobody
in the history of this country
[469]
has ever known so much about
infrastructure as Donald Trump.
[472]
I build infrastructure.
[474]
Do I know how to build a wall?
[476]
Our nation's in such trouble.
[477]
That's why being a builder,
and a great builder,
[480]
and a very successful builder,
I think, will greatly help.
[483]
Donald Trump, another
great builder in New York,
[485]
now a politician.
[487]
I can't stand this.
A politician!
[489]
I don't wanna be called
a politician.
[491]
-Oh, don't worry.
[492]
No one --
[ Laughter and applause ]
[494]
No one thinks
you're a politician.
[497]
We think of you as a politician
[499]
the way we think of Shaq
as a movie star.
[501]
[ Laughter ]
[503]
So, the only point
in building a wall is
[505]
to make it impenetrable
and, yet, last week,
[507]
it was reported that testing
of a prototype proved
[510]
it could be cut through
with a saw.
[511]
And they even got a photo
of the wall
[513]
after it had been sawed open.
[514]
Last week, Trump was asked
about that report
[517]
and the guy
who repeatedly promised
[518]
an impenetrable wall
said this --
[520]
-What good is a steel wall
if they can saw through it?
[521]
-Well, that's a wall that
was designed
[524]
by previous administrations.
[526]
There's nothing that can't be
penetrated, but you fix it.
[531]
But it's a very difficult
thing to do.
[534]
But that's a wall,
and they have other walls.
[536]
We have many
walls under consideration.
[538]
[ Laughter ]
-I love how you can tell
[540]
when Trump is lying,
because he circles
[543]
through every explanation
he can think of in five seconds.
[546]
[as Trump]
It was Obama's fault.
[547]
Nothing is impenetrable.
We have other walls.
[550]
[ Laughter ]
Next, he's gonna say,
[552]
[as Trump] They can't saw
through the new one
[553]
because we made it out of saws.
[555]
[ Laughter ]
[557]
All right, but so what?
Maybe they can just find a new,
[559]
stronger material and make sure
the wall's impenetrable.
[562]
Problem solved, right?
[563]
I mean, it's not like
there's some other,
[565]
superobvious way
to get around a wall.
[567]
-During a roundtable discussion
with law enforcement officials,
[569]
Mr. Trump was told
some border crossers
[572]
had been digging tunnels
[573]
under areas where walls
are already in place.
[577]
-Here, this is just a couple
miles from here,
[580]
from where we're standing.
[581]
This is a tunnel.
[583]
This is the second tunnel that,
recently, we have located.
[586]
This is an area
that we actually have wall.
[589]
- That's right.
They already had a wall there
[591]
and someone just
tunneled under it.
[594]
[ Laughter ]
Trump's wall is so stupid that,
[596]
not only can it be beaten
by a saw;
[598]
it can be beaten by Bugs Bunny.
[600]
[ Laughter ]
[601]
In fact, if you listen
to Trump explain
[603]
how he thinks migrants sneak
across the southern border,
[606]
he might actually be thinking
about Bugs Bunny.
[609]
-They get off the road and they
drive out into the desert
[613]
and they come on.
They make a left turn.
[615]
Usually, it's a left,
not a right.
[616]
-I knew I shoulda taken
that left toin at Albuquerque.
[620]
[ Laughter and applause ]
[621]
-Every day, we find out more
about how useless the wall is
[625]
and that's why public opinion
is against it.
[627]
Every time Trump sees
a new poll about the shutdown,
[630]
it's like a kick,
[631]
in the wang doodle and...
-Peaches.
[633]
[ Laughter ]
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[635]
♪♪
[ Cheering and applause ]
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