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  • -President Trump has canceled his summit with North Korea.

  • Meanwhile, he and his allies

  • are pushing a baseless conspiracy theory

  • about the Russia probe.

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

  • [ Cheers and applause ]

  • President Trump has spent weeks

  • hyping his upcoming summit with North Korea.

  • He's earned glowing praise from the media,

  • chants of Nobel from his crowds, and his government even made

  • a commemorative coin to mark the occasion.

  • And you know what?

  • I was so excited, I actually logged on

  • to the White House gift shop

  • and bought one of those coins myself.

  • Here it is. [ Cheers and applause ]

  • There it is.

  • Because I wanted to be a part of history.

  • So here's to you, Mr. President, and all your success.

  • -Breaking news.

  • -Back with our breaking news --

  • President Trump has just written a letter to Kim Jong-un,

  • the Leader of North Korea,

  • canceling the June 12th expected summit in Singapore.

  • -Damn it! [ Laughter ]

  • Although, it's my fault.

  • I should've learned my lesson after I bought

  • commemorative coins for the completed border wall,

  • "Biggest Inauguration Ever,"

  • Anthony Scaramucci's first 100 days on the job,

  • "Cleared of All Charges,"

  • and "People's Sexiest Man Alive."

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • So, Trump canceled the summit, which shouldn't surprise anyone.

  • He earned backslaps from the media,

  • desperate to praise him for something,

  • but he repeatedly made clear he had no idea what he was doing.

  • For example, when he spoke today at the White House,

  • Trump urged North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

  • -North Korea has the opportunity

  • to end decades of poverty and oppression

  • by following the path of denuclearization.

  • -There you go.

  • He wants them to follow the path of denuclearization.

  • But when he was asked on Tuesday how denuclearization worked,

  • Trump claimed he totally knew but wouldn't go into detail.

  • -I do. I have a very strong idea how it takes place,

  • and it must take place. That's what we're talking about.

  • It must take place. But I have a very strong idea,

  • and I have very strong opinions on the subject.

  • -Once again, Donald Trump is a teenager

  • who didn't prepare his oral report

  • and is now stalling for the bell to ring.

  • "I know a lot about the Louisiana Purchase.

  • It's fascinating -- a fascinating purchase.

  • And, uh, I have very strong feelings about it

  • that I want to show --

  • Will you ring, you damn son of a bitch?"

  • [ Laughter ]

  • So Trump is flailing on foreign policy.

  • Maybe, just maybe,

  • he's distracted by the Russian investigation,

  • which seems to get worse for him every day.

  • Since the investigation began, Trump and his allies

  • have tossed out one crazy conspiracy theory after another,

  • like when Trump said his wires had been tapped at Trump Tower

  • or when they said two FBI agents

  • had a secret society to undermine Trump.

  • Trump loves conspiracy theories so much,

  • I'm shocked he hasn't accused Don Jr.

  • of being a secret lizard person. [ Laughter ]

  • "Have you seen the way he blinks?"

  • [ Laughter ]

  • Now, every one of those claims turned out to be total B.S.

  • In fact, Trump's crimes are apparently so obvious

  • that his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is now trying out a new tactic.

  • Instead of denying that collusion happened,

  • he's saying if it did happen, it wasn't illegal.

  • In an interview with Huffington Post Wednesday...

  • Yeah, if somebody gives you something that's stole,

  • that doesn't make you a criminal.

  • It makes you a pawn shop.

  • [ Laughter ]

  • Also, are we sure Giuliani isn't working for Robert Mueller?

  • First, he told Sean Hannity

  • that Trump did pay off Stormy Daniels.

  • Now this.

  • If you called Rudy in for questioning,

  • you wouldn't need to do good cop/bad cop,

  • because he would confess to the good cop.

  • [ Laughter ]

  • "So, can I get you a cup of coffee?"

  • "All right, I did it -- I killed my wife!"

  • "We brought you in for a robbery."

  • "I did that, too!"

  • [ Laughter ]

  • If Rudy sang Bob Marley at karaoke,

  • he'd change the lyrics to, "I shot the sheriff,

  • but I did not shoot the deputy.

  • But even if I did shoot the deputy,

  • that wouldn't be illegal.

  • And, also, I did shoot the deputy."

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • So...

  • [ Cheers and applause ]

  • So, because they don't have a good defense,

  • Trump and his allies have instead decided

  • to go on offense, creating one fiction after another

  • to discredit the investigation.

  • A central figure in that effort

  • has been Republican Congressman Devin Nunes,

  • who in every single photo

  • looks like he just realized he brought you the wrong entrees.

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • "Oh, no.

  • Oh.

  • Oh, you said veal? I thought you said eel."

  • [ Laughter ]

  • Nunes has used his perch on the House Oversight Committee

  • to extract information about the investigation

  • and then use that information

  • to help Trump manufacture conspiracy theories.

  • And it's not just Nunes.

  • Trump's allies in the right-wing media

  • have been happy to run with his wild spying claims.

  • Just take Fox News host Maria Bartiromo.

  • She accused both President Obama and Hillary Clinton

  • of being in a sinister plot

  • to take down Donald Trump during the campaign.

  • Listen as she rambles through a list

  • of all the favorite right-wing buzzwords.

  • -In March of 2016, Sally Yates and Loretta Lynch

  • were both briefed by Jim Comey.

  • A couple of months later, we start seeing

  • all the dossier information

  • and that there's a dossier being written.

  • And then, we know that that dossier was used

  • to get a warrant to wiretap

  • and to spy on the Trump campaign.

  • We also know, based on the text messages

  • between FBI agent Peter Strzok and his girlfriend, Lisa Page,

  • that he said, "President Obama wants to know

  • everything we're doing on this."

  • So... -Right.

  • -Where was Obama? I don't know.

  • What do those texts and all of this information

  • tell us where Obama was?

  • It sounds like either President Obama

  • or Hillary Clinton were sort of masterminding all of this.

  • -Think about how insane that theory is.

  • She's saying Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

  • sent a spy to infiltrate Trump's campaign

  • so they could get dirt on him

  • and then chose not to use that dirt during the election.

  • "Mr. President, we found the pee tape.

  • Should we leak it?"

  • "No, no, save it for my Netflix deal."

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • "I got an idea for a limited series."

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • You'd watch!

  • [ Laughter ]

  • Trump and his allies are literally

  • just making [bleep] up, and because he's the president,

  • the media thinks they have to take it seriously.

  • For example, Giuliani made headlines over the weekend

  • when he claimed, out of nowhere,

  • that Mueller "hopes to finish the obstruction investigation

  • by September 1st.

  • By putting end date on the obstruction inquiry,

  • he is apparently seeking to publicly pressure Mueller

  • to stick to that timeline.

  • I'm sorry. You think you can pressure Robert Mueller?

  • [ Laughter ]

  • Look at that dude.

  • That dude plays Jenga to relax.

  • [ Laughter ]

  • He has more steel in him than Wolverine.

  • His last job was support beam.

  • They make skyscrapers out of Robert Muellers.

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • Well, this will shock you.

  • It turned out Rudy's claim about the September 1st deadline

  • was entirely made up.

  • Like Trump, Rudy just goes on TV,

  • makes stuff up, and the media repeats it

  • because they think they have to.

  • For example, Rudy also claimed recently

  • that the President could just ignore a subpoena from Mueller

  • because past presidents have done the same thing.

  • But after he said that, a clip of Giuliani from 1998

  • resurfaced, insisting that then-President Clinton

  • would have to testify if he was subpoenaed.

  • -If the president is asked to testify,

  • subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury,

  • and says, "No, not gonna do it..."

  • -You gotta do it. I mean, you don't have a choice.

  • -Well, he said in a statement that he might not do it.

  • -Well, then, there is a procedure for handling that.

  • You go before a judge, and a judge decides

  • whether or not he has a recognizable exemption

  • or privilege from testifying.

  • And if a judge decides he doesn't,

  • then you have to testify.

  • You don't have a choice about that.

  • -Wow, that interview has not aged well.

  • [ Laughter ]

  • Unlike Rudy Giuliani who doesn't look a day over Crypt-Keeper.

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • So, Rudy is obviously lying and contradicting himself.

  • And yet the media keeps talking to him.

  • Last week on CNN, Rudy insisted

  • that if Mueller were to subpoena Trump,

  • he would interfere in the investigation

  • by going to Attorney General Jeff Sessions

  • and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein

  • and telling them to stop the subpoena.

  • -If Mueller did it, the Justice Department

  • could take the subpoena right back.

  • -Or you could just litigate it.

  • He could subpoena him, and you could litigate it.

  • -I'd go right to the Attorney General,

  • I'd say, "Jeff, you know, put on big-boy pants,

  • and you go take it away. -But he's recused from this.

  • -Then I'd go to Rosenstein and say,

  • "You want to try the big-boy pants on for size?

  • You put them on, and you get rid of the subpoena."

  • -Rudy sounds like a flustered salesman

  • at a store called Big Boy Pants.

  • [ Laughter ]

  • "What about you? Two-for-one Big Boy Pants?

  • Oh, come on, Rudy. You gotta make a sale!

  • [ Laughter ]

  • And I'm sorry, but if Jeff Sessions

  • tried to put on big-boy pants, they'd go up to his nipples.

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • Now, there is no reason --

  • no reason to ever believe what Trump, Rudy or their allies

  • say about the Russia investigation.

  • They've proven time and time again

  • they have no compulsion

  • about lying and contradicting themselves.

  • The media should stop taking them seriously.

  • In other words, the media should put on their...

  • -Big-boy pants.

  • -This has been "A Closer Look."

  • [ Cheers and applause ]

-President Trump has canceled his summit with North Korea.

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