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  • -President Trump traveled to Texas today

  • to make the case for his border wall

  • as the government shutdown dragged on.

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

  • [ Cheers and applause ]

  • This is now the second-longest shutdown in history,

  • and the effects are very real for millions of people,

  • from federal workers about to miss paychecks

  • to potential cuts to housing subsidies and food stamps.

  • Even our National Parks are not immune.

  • And now park visitors are resorting to desperate measures.

  • -16,000 of our 19,000 park employees

  • are no longer on their jobs.

  • Along with all the others,

  • they've been deemed nonessential.

  • That means roads are left unplowed,

  • garbage is left uncollected,

  • bathrooms no longer work or are being maintained.

  • Trash is piling up, there are health hazards,

  • and park visitors, in some places,

  • are taking care of business, shall we say,

  • along pathways or in the woods.

  • -Great. Now when someone says,

  • "Does a bear [bleep] in the woods?"

  • you can say, "Yeah, and so does Kevin."

  • [ Laughter ]

  • The reality is that Trump is subjecting millions of people

  • to unnecessary pain and suffering

  • to get his wall and hoping Democrats will blink first.

  • Reporters asked him if he could empathize

  • with people who, right now, are literally having to choose

  • between food and medicine, and he insisted that he could.

  • -Mr. President, can you relate to the pain of federal workers

  • who can't pay their bills?

  • -I can relate.

  • And I'm sure that the people that are on the receiving end

  • will make adjustments. They always do.

  • And they'll make adjustments.

  • People understand exactly what's going on.

  • But many of those people that won't be receiving a paycheck,

  • many of those people agree 100% with what I'm doing.

  • -I don't know. It's hard to imagine

  • someone sitting at their kitchen table,

  • choosing between food and insulin, saying,

  • "I'm just glad Trump's getting his wall.

  • Now off to take a dump in the park."

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • And also, no. No, you cannot relate.

  • You got a million dollars from your dad,

  • you lived in a golden tower for most of your life,

  • and you've never even been to a supermarket,

  • which we know, because you once told a crowd

  • you need I.D. to buy groceries.

  • -You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries,

  • you need a picture on a card. You need I.D.

  • -No, you don't.

  • [ Laughter ]

  • If you need an I.D. to buy your groceries,

  • you're an alcoholic.

  • [ Laughter ]

  • And --

  • [ Cheers and applause ]

  • And if you're a worker going without pay,

  • it probably stings all the more knowing Trump has no idea

  • what's actually happening at the border.

  • All he has are his delusions,

  • and those delusions are getting weirder and weirder.

  • Here he is yesterday describing how he thinks migrants

  • get across the southern border.

  • -The fact is that if we don't have barriers,

  • walls, call them what you want,

  • but if we don't have very strong barriers,

  • where people can not any longer drive right across --

  • They have unbelievable vehicles.

  • They make a lot of money.

  • They have the best vehicles you can buy.

  • They have stronger, bigger, and faster vehicles

  • than our police have and than ICE has

  • and than border patrol has.

  • -What are you talking about? [ Laughter ]

  • They have unbelievable vehicles that are faster than our police?

  • Did you try to watch the news and accidentally watch

  • the "Transformers" movie instead?

  • [ Laughter ]

  • "These immigrants, they have unbelievable vehicles, folks.

  • They can fly. They can talk.

  • They're friends with Shia LaBeouf."

  • [ Laughter ]

  • This is actually a new obsession for Trump.

  • For the last week or so, he's been telling

  • very bizarre stories about how migrants

  • are supposedly driving across the Southern border.

  • Here he is last week trying to explain the route they take

  • to cross into the U.S.

  • See if you can follow any of this.

  • -They get off the road, and they drive out into the desert,

  • and they come on, they make a left turn.

  • Usually it's a left, not a right.

  • They make a right turn before they get to the port of entry.

  • They go as far as the wall is, or as far as the barricade is,

  • and then they make a left.

  • Welcome to the United States.

  • -He sounds like Google Maps

  • after you drop your iPhone in the toilet.

  • [ Laughter ]

  • "Hey, Siri, can you give me directions to 30 Rock?"

  • -Get off the road. Drive out into the desert.

  • Make a left turn.

  • Usually it's a left turn, not a right.

  • Make a right turn.

  • Go as far as the wall, then make a left.

  • -Yeah, never mind. [ Laughter ]

  • And that's not the only delusion Trump has had about the wall.

  • In that same press conference last week,

  • he claimed that previous presidents

  • had privately confessed to him

  • that they wished they had built the wall.

  • -This should've been done by all of the presidents

  • that preceded me, and they all know it.

  • Some of them have told me that we should've done it.

  • -Now that's an obvious lie,

  • and every living president has denied it.

  • But here's what's so weird to me.

  • Why didn't he just pick a president who was dead?

  • It would've been so much easier to get away with.

  • "You know, right before he died,

  • Ronald Reagan told me he wished he'd built a wall.

  • Now, you can't ask him because he's dead,

  • but he totally said it.

  • It was at a secret meeting in a National Park

  • where we both took dumps."

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • It's impossible.

  • Fully impossible to negotiate with someone

  • who doesn't operate on the same plane of reality that you do,

  • which is why his trip to the border today made no difference.

  • On his way there, he stopped by reporters

  • to once again argue that only a wall would stop immigration,

  • adding that technology alone would not work.

  • -We need border security, and have to have it.

  • And the only way you're gonna have border security --

  • there's only one way.

  • You can have all the technology in the world.

  • I'm a professional in technology.

  • [ Laughter ] -No, you're not, no.

  • You don't know how to operate --

  • You don't even know how to operate an umbrella.

  • [ Laughter, cheers, applause ]

  • So, I mean...

  • Look at how he's dressed.

  • He looks like the only technology he's familiar with

  • is a stair lift.

  • [ Laughter ]

  • He shouldn't be in the White House.

  • He should be at the self-checkout aisle

  • in the grocery store, yelling at the computer,

  • "Oatmeal! Oatmeal!"

  • [ Laughter ]

  • "I have I.D.!"

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • And when Trump finally --

  • finally got to Texas this afternoon,

  • he held a roundtable

  • where he made a new argument for the wall.

  • Trump said, "Walls can't be bad because cars have wheels."

  • -They say a wall is medieval.

  • Well, so is a wheel.

  • A wheel is older than a wall.

  • And I look at every single car out there,

  • even the really expensive ones that the Secret Service uses,

  • and believe me, they are expensive.

  • I said, "Do they all have wheels?"

  • "Yes." "Oh, I thought it was medieval."

  • The wheel is older than the wall.

  • You know that?

  • And there are some things that work.

  • You know what? A wheel works and a wall works.

  • -I'm sorry -- you had to look at all the cars...

  • [ Laughter ]

  • ...to confirm they had wheels?

  • [ Laughter ]

  • Man, I take it back.

  • You are a real... -Professional in technology.

  • -But, seriously, what is wrong with your brain?

  • Did someone replace your Diet Coke with Nyquil?

  • I mean, honestly,

  • how long until he just starts reciting nursery rhymes?

  • "The buses, they all have wheels, folks.

  • And the wheels on these buses, they go round and round."

  • [ Laughter and applause ]

  • "Round and round. Round and -- All!

  • All through the town.

  • All through -- That's why we need a wall."

  • Trump is frustrated because he's not winning the argument,

  • and even he knows it.

  • He spent three years making the wall

  • the signature promise of his campaign and his presidency

  • and it got nowhere.

  • A majority of Americans are against it.

  • Democrats are now in charge of the House.

  • And as we saw in November, when voters go to the polls...

  • -They make a left turn.

  • Usually it's a left, not a right.

  • -This has been "A Closer Look."

  • [ Cheers and applause ]

-President Trump traveled to Texas today

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