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  • -Hello, everyone, and welcome back

  • to the captain's quarters on the S.S. Pandemic.

  • As we've established, I found my way here via a portal

  • that connects my attic door to my in-laws' fireplace,

  • leading many of you to ask,

  • "What's happening in the attic now that you're gone?"

  • Well, according to my dear friend and attic sitter,

  • Ethan Hawke, the wasps

  • have taken over the cameras and are filming

  • their very own late night show.

  • But apparently they spend the whole time complaining

  • about this one moth who's king of the insects.

  • And, I don't know, to me it sounds like

  • that would get pretty repetitive.

  • And speaking of dumb jokes,

  • the president shook up his flailing campaign

  • as the coronavirus outbreak spirals further out of control.

  • And now, he's honing in on two key reelection strategies --

  • less testing and more racism.

  • For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."

  • ♪♪

  • Given that the country is currently on fire

  • after a once-in-a-century cataclysm inflamed

  • by the president's cruelty and incompetence,

  • he's had some trouble

  • coming up with a solid re-election message.

  • It's not a great sign when your own campaign manager

  • is advertising face masks with your name on them.

  • Each breath you take could be the one that kills you!

  • Four more years?

  • Which is why he called a fake press conference on Tuesday

  • to spin his wheels and try out yet another

  • deranged campaign message --

  • the Democrats want to abolish everything.

  • -These are actual key elements

  • of the Biden-Sanders unity platform.

  • Abolish immigration detention.

  • They're going to abolish immigration enforcement.

  • Abolish law enforcement as we know it.

  • Abolish completely the death penalty.

  • They want to abolish our police departments.

  • They want to abolish our prisons, I guess.

  • Abolish all charter schools.

  • Abolish educational standards.

  • Abolish in the suburbs --

  • You're going to abolish the suburbs with this.

  • -First of all, most of that sounds awesome.

  • All you're doing is listing a bunch of things people hate

  • and claiming the Democrats will get rid of them.

  • "Democrats want to abolish telemarketers, the DMV,

  • gate-crashing at the airport, and in-laws."

  • And of course, I would never abolish in-laws.

  • If someone else owned this house, they'd probably want me

  • to cease taping a television show immediately.

  • Also, I love how transparent he is

  • that he's just making stuff up when he says,

  • "They want to abolish prisons, I guess."

  • He sounds like your dad describing a movie he saw on TNT

  • last night as he was falling asleep.

  • "They were on a boat, I guess,

  • and Tom Hanks was in it, I think.

  • It was just a disagreement as to who was captain."

  • -I'm the captain.

  • -Oh, sorry, I wasn't talking about you.

  • -Okay.

  • -Third, when Trump said Democrats want to abolish

  • the suburbs, he was talking about a program

  • implemented by the Obama administration to desegregate

  • the suburbs by enforcing the Fair Housing Act of 1968,

  • which outlawed discrimination

  • and racial segregation in housing.

  • So not only was Trump's lie racist, it was absurd.

  • He makes it sound like Democrats are trying to ban

  • strip malls and cul-de-sacs.

  • "They want to take away your Hot Topics

  • and your Auntie Anne's.

  • But we're not gonna let that happen, folks."

  • Without suburbs, who will borrow our pruning shears

  • and not return them?

  • Where will our adorable space aliens land

  • and befriend our children?

  • Where will our fathers painstakingly restore

  • classic cars in a vein and desperate attempt

  • to recapture their youth?

  • This is all Trump has left, racist grievance politics.

  • In the middle of a raging pandemic

  • that is spiraling out of control,

  • has killed nearly 140,000 Americans,

  • and put tens of millions out of work, the president

  • took time out of his day to pose

  • with a bunch of Goya food products

  • on the Oval Office desk.

  • Well, at least he didn't have to clear anything off his desk

  • to take this photo.

  • He looks like a divorcée trying to prove he's fine

  • by posting on Facebook, "About to make dinner.

  • So sorry, Leslie, I guess I can do this by myself."

  • But at least that smile -- that smile

  • on the president's face is sincere.

  • Let's punch in on that.

  • Jesus.

  • He looks like he just took a big swig of ice water

  • and forgot he had a temporary filling.

  • The U.S. set a record for new daily coronavirus cases

  • on Tuesday, but by all means,

  • celebrate with a chocolate wafer.

  • And to anyone who would promote a product from the Oval Office

  • during a pandemic, Goya [bleep] yourself.

  • -Good one, Seth.

  • -Thank you, Captain.

  • -Thank you for the wordplay.

  • -The thing is, none of this is working.

  • Yesterday, Trump got yet another devastating poll result

  • when Quinnipiac found that he was behind by Biden

  • by 15 points, and that a stunning 60 percent of Americans

  • disapprove of Trump's job performance.

  • I guess my only question about that is, who are the other 40?

  • Do they all work at the Lysol factory?

  • And yes, I know we've been here before,

  • so we absolutely must be cautious.

  • It is by no means a given that Trump will lose.

  • But as NBC News reported this week, the Trump campaign

  • has struggled to land a punch on Biden.

  • As NBC reported, the Trump campaign feels like

  • none of the president's attacks have worked.

  • He has tried tagging Biden as untrustworthy -- "Corrupt Joe"

  • and lethargic -- "Sleepy Joe" --

  • but it hasn't dragged Biden down with voters as Trump had hoped.

  • "Sleepy sounds pretty good when you've had four years

  • of exhaustion," a White House official quipped.

  • And it's hard to tag someone else as sleepy and corrupt

  • when you look like a Mafia don

  • who falls asleep in his spaghetti.

  • But yeah, "Sleepy" sounds great, and that's Biden.

  • He's a human Ambien.

  • He's so boring that even when he starts telling a story

  • about some knife fight between rival gangs

  • at a public pool, your first reaction is to say,

  • "Don't start until I get my blanket!"

  • And that's great.

  • You know what I'd give to go one day without waking up

  • and immediately seeing six different news alerts

  • on my phone about crazy [bleep] the president did?

  • At this point, I'd vote for one of those drinking birds.

  • So now Trump is shaking up his campaign,

  • demoting his campaign manager, Brad Parscale,

  • after the campaign's embarrassing Tulsa debacle,

  • in which Trump spoke to an empty arena that somehow

  • also managed to seed a coronavirus outbreak.

  • And I'm no expert, but generally speaking,

  • things are not going great when you're firing

  • your campaign manager 100 days before the election.

  • That's like a jockey jumping off his horse in the home stretch

  • and deciding to run the rest of the way.

  • But hey, at least Parscale can go back to his old job

  • as the, I don't know,

  • drummer for a Norwegian black metal band?

  • Dude looks like an out-of-shape Conor McGregor.

  • Trump's campaign is sputtering because the coronavirus crisis

  • isn't a problem Trump can just B.S. his away out of.

  • It's a real thing with real consequences,

  • and the only way to make those go away is by governing,

  • which is just not in his skill set.

  • In fact, when it comes to actually governing,

  • Trump has had one very specific obsession

  • since the start of the this pandemic, and that's

  • his obsession with slowing down testing for coronavirus

  • so he can hide the numbers and make himself him look better.

  • And because Trump isn't just a criminal, but a dumb criminal,

  • he has openly confessed to this many times.

  • One of the first times was in back in March

  • when he said publicly that he would prefer

  • not to let American coronavirus patients off a cruise ship,

  • because it would make the numbers worse.

  • -I mean, frankly, if it were up to me,

  • I would be inclined to say, "Leave everybody on the ship

  • for a period of time and use the ship as your base."

  • But a lot of people would rather do it a different way.

  • They would rather quarantine people when they land.

  • Now, when they do that, our numbers are going to go up,

  • Okay? Our numbers are going to go up.

  • They would like to have the people come off.

  • I'd like to have the people stay, but I'd go with them.

  • I told them to make the final decision.

  • I would rather -- because I like the numbers

  • being where they are.

  • I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship.

  • I'd rather have them stay on, personally.

  • -That's right. President Jigsaw over here

  • openly said he wanted to keep Americans trapped on an infected

  • cruise ship like some sort of coronavirus-themed escape room.

  • Which, even if there was no coronavirus

  • would still be a punishment, because no one ever leaves

  • an escape room happier than when they entered.

  • In my experience, there's always a fight or whose fault it was

  • that you couldn't solve the riddle hidden under

  • the fortuneteller's crystal ball or whatever.

  • "Beth, I told you there was a clue in the tarot cards,

  • but you spent all your time rubbing the magic genie lamp!

  • Happy birthday, Beth, and go to hell!"

  • Trump has repeated this desire to hide the true extent

  • of the crisis from Americans many times.

  • At a White House event on Monday, for example,

  • a reporter asked him about the lie that more testing

  • leads to more cases, and he offered this

  • truly incoherent response.

  • -President Trump, you've said many times that the number

  • of coronavirus cases is going up because testing is increasing.

  • -That's right. -Do you acknowledge

  • that it's going up for other reasons, too?

  • For example, that it's actually spreading?

  • And what are you going to do to stop the spread?

  • -Well, you know that we have one of the lowest

  • mortality rates anywhere.

  • If you know, Biden and Obama stopped their testing.

  • They just stopped it. You probably know that.

  • I'm sure you don't want to report it.

  • But they stopped testing.

  • Right in the middle, they just went, "No more testing,"

  • and on a much lesser problem than the problem that we have,

  • obviously, with respect to

  • this is the worst thing that's happened since probably 1917.

  • This is a very bad -- all over the world.

  • It's 188 countries right now.

  • But, no, we are -- we test more than anybody, by far.

  • And when you test, you create cases.

  • So we've created cases.

  • -Okay. There's so much brain diarrhea

  • to wade through here, I might have to borrow

  • the sea captain's ship.

  • -Arrgh, she's hearty vessel!

  • But no match for that rusty chop!

  • -Gross, okay.

  • First of all, you're not "creating" cases.

  • The cases are there, whether you test for them or not.

  • You don't "create" a fire by putting a smoke alarm

  • in your house. If someone gets sick,

  • they're sick whether they get tested or not.

  • It's not like they're at home lying in bed with

  • a 104-degree fever and no sense of taste or smell

  • saying, hey, "As long as I don't get tested,

  • I don't have to get treated!

  • Now to spend the next three days crawling to my kitchen."

  • Second, why do you keep saying

  • the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic happened in 1917?

  • Trump has said this more times than I can count,

  • and apparently just no one has corrected him.

  • -We have a very unusual situation

  • where something came in that nobody has seen

  • for many, many decades,

  • probably 1917 would be the closest analogy,

  • if you look at it.

  • The likes of which this world

  • has not seen since 1917.

  • Nothing like this since 1917.

  • Last time was -- of this magnitude, 1917.

  • That's a long time ago.

  • -We haven't seen anything like this in 100 and some-odd years.

  • 1917.

  • But 1917, so that's over 100 years ago.

  • 1917, which was the greatest of them all.

  • Right? 1917.

  • In 1917, had they had the Internet and all the means

  • of communication, they could have practiced distancing.

  • 1917, the pandemic. It was something.

  • 1917. That's something.

  • You all know what happened in 1917.

  • The big one was 1917.

  • 1917.

  • Who would have thought? 1917.

  • -It's weird, because it's arguably the least offensive

  • thing he's ever done, and yet it's so infuriating.

  • Just get it right.

  • It's like if Genghis Khan kept saying "supposably."

  • But of course he got the year wrong.

  • He's probably been getting dates wrong his whole life.

  • Last year, he sent Don Jr. a birthday card that said,

  • "Congrats on turning 8 or whatever."

  • So Trump has been very clear about the fact

  • that he wants to slow down testing

  • because it makes him look bad.

  • And now, he's getting his wish.

  • Today, it was reported that the CDC had removed

  • some coronavirus hospital data from its website

  • after the Trump administration announced a plan

  • to send that information to the administration and not the CDC.

  • And I'm sorry, but the last person I'd trust

  • with any kind of data is Donald Trump.

  • The dude brags that he can drink water with one hand

  • and identify a camel on a piece of paper.

  • You'd think he just got out of a decade-long coma.

  • And on top of that, we're once again we're seeing

  • nationwide testing problems and delays,

  • with cars lined up for hours in the scorching heat

  • and a major testing company announcing that

  • the turnaround for tests is now seven days,

  • with some waiting even longer.

  • -I'm Carter Evans in California,

  • where lines just to get a COVID test

  • stretch for blocks.

  • In Arizona, one of the hardest hit states,

  • the wait is up to 12 hours.

  • -The turnaround time for our testing in Arizona

  • is really bad.

  • You can get your test and those results

  • may not come back for seven or eight days.

  • -It took eight days for Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms

  • to learn she was positive.

  • -Eight days?

  • It takes as long to get your COVID test

  • as it took Trump to get down that ramp.

  • Ramp joke.

  • If we had two cameras, that would have been --

  • we would have taken a close-up there.

  • What's the point of even getting a test

  • if it takes that long for the results to come back?

  • It's like if your car alarm went off

  • eight hours after it was stolen.

  • Trump's getting exactly what he wanted, slower testing.

  • Meanwhile, Trump and the people around him

  • are tested constantly, and their results come back right away.

  • As long as they're safe, Trump couldn't care less about you.

  • But voters see through it, which is why his poll numbers

  • are bad as they've ever been.

  • The Biden campaign must turn on the news every day

  • and say to themselves...

  • -Our numbers are going to go up.

  • -This has been "A Closer Look."

  • ♪♪

  • -So many New Yorkers are needing to turn to City Harvest

  • for help feeding their families, and they need your support

  • now more than ever.

  • If you're watching this online, you can hit the "donate" button.

  • Stay safe. Wear a mask. We love you.

-Hello, everyone, and welcome back

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