Trump's Bizarre Paperclip Invention Story

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As you know, we're building a big, beautiful, very, very secure ballroom in every massive bulletproof glass that's almost four inches thick. It's pretty amazing stuff. It's actually A larger room and it's much more secure. It's got It's drone proof, it'slletproof glass. We need the ballroom. And that ballroom is being built on the safest piece of property in this country. probablyrobably one of the safest pieces of land in the world. A lot of senators and representatives are now saying, this is why we need to get the ballroom back up and running. We got to build that ballroom as soon as possible. The ballroom will be a solution for this. Being more prepared means having a facility like this ballroom. This is one of the reasons why the president has been pushing to build this ballroom at the White House. The president is right about this having the ballroom on the White House grounds. A ballroom is imperative. Emily, this is very exciting. The White House has announced an initiative where five lucky Americans will each be granted a lucky golden ticket to attend the new White House ballroom and get to see all the secret military stuff in the basement below It's the most secure facility in the world. And I know you've been telling me that you are very thankful that your taxpayer dollars are going toward that as opposed to healthcare. Absolutely. You've been talking so much about it. It's beautiful. You have to see the drapes. Yeah, the China. Every day you have like a really big poster. Look at the newosts. The blueprints. Yeah how you bring them in.. Yeah ye. And you've started talking with this like low gravely voice too, which I've never heard you use before, but you're coming in and you're just like The ballroom. You're gonna love it. Beautifulallroom. It' most And I'm skeptical, of course, but I'm curious for you to make your case for why think Yeah. And you're applying for a job at the ballroom. You want to be in charge of drapes. Golden drapes. You said goold is your favorite col. Yeah. I mean, it should be everywhere. Once a week, you come and spray painted gold like one of those guys on the subway. Yeah ye ving statues. Yes. They're gonna to have those at the ballroom. They're also elite spepecial Forces guys. They're the same guys who like parachute into a jungle, except Trump has also now assigned a new military unit of guys who spray paint themselves gold and. In case you're lening to this by the way, maybe you don't live New Yorkity I don't know there's this outside of Nework City? Does anybody know what these gold guys are? They have living statues. Is that what that is Yeah just a living statues Art, performance art or something? exxactly. Yeah. in big cities. In big cities and like haunted houses. Yeah. Now that we're talking about it though, it is like absolutely insane that Trump has put gold on pretty much everything, you know, in the Oval Office that. he hasn't done it yet to like army uniforms you know, It hasn't incorporated. It's shocking he hasn't made like JD Vancer Marco Rubio be one of the gold guys. One day we're just going and it's going be unrearked upon. like you'll just turn on one of those Ov O office press conferences where he's like fall asleep at the resolute desk and like somebody's talking about him. And there's a big group of like there's like children and astronauts or whatever weird stuff's going on behind him. And then you'll just see in the corner like RFK Jror completely spray painted in gold and not moving at all. Wait, he's already getting there. He is actually. He basically is one of the gold guys ye Gold is actually really good for. Oh my gosh. Not only this past extent did Seth unveil his RFK junior impression, I didn't even know that you had. Well I wrote it in because I was because you've becoming fascinated with doing my own. Do you want do you want the floor? Do you want some more? Like you've been waiting for an audience? Yeah Yeah. Well, I already had home. I just walk around doing these impressions all the time. Like at dinner time. I was doing it home the other day and I realized I can't do it without shaking my head I don't know why. Like I have to shake like like a weird insect. You to get the timber. Yeah to get the timber. Yeah. I kind of have to Raccoon is actually very high in amino acids It t is almost as good as Komono Drag. Okay, so you're doing Harry Carey now. That's what this is. So I was gonna say this. in my mind, RFK is a cross between Harry Cy and Edgar from Men and Black The suugar water guy. So if you take sugar sugar water. So it's Harry Carey and Edgar from Menibback you combine those two. Yeah you get. And I think RFK is also The only point of his disagreement is I think he would ban sugar water if he could. Oh I think he's already started. Yeah. I feel like your entry word or phrase into the impression is raccoon It's od it's a weird raccoon or camel. Yeah Rriboflavins, peepptides. Camelat is actually very high in peptides Okay, great. Somehow this started talking about the ballroom, but we're gonna get to that and a lot more topics on this episode of a Closer Look Back. Welcome to another edition of A Closer Look Back. I am your host, Sal Gentel. I amm the supervising writerom producer for a Closer Look. and I am joined yet again by our supervising producer for a Closer Look. Emily Erotis, Emily, how are you? I'm greatreat. How are you? Your tone of voice doesn't agree with your word choice. I don't know why you ask me anymore. I don't Yeah So we've been doing this a lot in a Cosal look because I feel like it's really important to just constantly reset the backdrop of how we got here because it feels so maddening and dizzying every week to try to piece together the different fragments of our disrupted reality that we're in right now of know, Trump talking about his cognitive tests and the strait of hormz and gas prices and tariffs and congratulating RFK junior and getting sperm counts back up, like all these bizarre things that are happening on a daily basis. worse It's getting somehow more cryptkeeper like every day. And so there's all these bizarre Picasso esque like fragments of our reality that make us all feel like crazy on a daily basis. And so I try to just go back to resetting the baseline of how we got here, which was Donald Trump running, I would argue, the most shamelessly fraudulent presidential campaign in modern American history. by promising basically three things that he was going to immediately bring prices down, not just slow inflation or stop inflation dayay one. onn the very first day I make this point too because I feel like it's really important, not just to slow inflation. Inflation is the rate of price increases. So if you were to slow inflation Prices would keep going up but at a slower pace. If you were to stop inflation entirely Prices would stay the same He didn't promise either of those. He promised to bring prices Down meananing deflation, meaning stuff would actually be cheaper less expensive than it was when he took office which is, of course, not even remotely close to the reality he's created, if anything, he's kept inflation exactly where it was or sped it up in many cases tariffs and through the supply shortages we're now experiencing because of the straight oform moves So that was just one of the promises he made, of course, the other one was ending all foreign wars, ending endless wars. O of course, it was ridiculous at the time, given that Trump had bombed like eight countries in his first term to belieelve the MAGA bull that he was going to end foreign wars. But that was another one of his promises. He said we would not have any wars in the Middle East, which of course was a complete utter lie. And I keep resetting that basic reality because I just think it's important to retrace how we got to this crazy point. to remember what he promised people and how spectacularly he's failed on those promises. It helps those are the guardrails that you're setting that we can cling to when we're sorting through all his lies constantly. Yeah. I mean, I feel crazy saying it, but I just every time we talk about one of these Crazy new developments in the news. you know, gas prices soaring, supply shortages Health carere prices rising, mortgage rates rising. I just We want to reset the basic reality that Trump promised the opposite of all of this. And it was all shamelessly fraudulent at the time. But now it's especially we can all see that he was just lying. So anyway, this is all just a way of teing up the very first club. sorry for going on it. I mean Emilyily I mean I'm not sorry. I'm apologizing for Emily writing all of that Hving me recite that rant. I'm always like Emily, I don't w want to go on a rant today, okay? I just I just want to tee up the clips and have some fun. And Emily's like, Yes, I'm always saying like, let's keep it light today, Emily. She's always just like, No, I wrote this manifesto and I want you to read it. W wor. Yes. Don't leave one out. So I follow Emily's instructions, but this is a clip from a closer look a couple of weeks ago resetting the priorities Trump claimed he would have for his first year in office Trump promised a lot of stuff during the twenty twenty four campaign, you might not remember because you've permanently erased it from your brain, but I do because I have his tweets tattooed all over my body like memento. If you voted for Trump, there were probably three big things he cared about, bringing down prices, ending foreign wars, and deporting violent criminals. Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down. We're not gonna have war in the Middle East. We're gonna get the criminals, the murderers, the drug dealers. We're gonna get them out of here first. Damn, he's like me at the Emmies. O for three That's only for outstanding talk show. if you include all the other categories we're over for fifteen. And if you include all the times I lost to SL, you know I want to talk this every. Wh whyy do we put this in I'm just glad Sid' went on such a long winning streak after I left. I hope Colin Jose brings all his Emmies with him the next time he goes Bob sledding. that. deserves an Emmy. The point is Trump broke all of those promises, prices are up. He's sending more troops to the Middle East. and less than fourteen percent of IS arrests are violent criminals. In fact Trump's immigration plan has gone so bad, the White House recently told Republicans to stop talking about mass deportations altogether. That was like his whole thing. That's like telling Mr. Mett to stop talking about baseball. would be a crazy thing to tell him because Mr. Mett doesn't talk It true story, he used to talk, but they made him stop because he kept telling the Ups to get their eyes fixed By the way, if today's closer look feels underwritten at any point, it's because Mr. Mett stopped by the set and our Closer look, writer Sal checked out for like two hours And it wasn't just Sell, our whole Met Loving crew lost their minds I overheard one of them say finally, a real celebrity, so not a great day for my ego. I almost said, you know, it's just a regular guy in there, but I didn't because and I'm not joking, I don't think they know that Here's a picture of my security guards with Mr. and Mrs. Mett You're wondering what I was doing when that picture was taken, getting mugged by the Philly fanatic It's been a day It's been a real day. That's true We were all very excited when mister and Mrses Mmett came by the studio to film a promo for opening day. Normally I write a closer look the morning of the show. so it's as timely as possible But in that case, I wrote it the night before just so I would have all day. I could clear my schedule to spend time with Mr. Mrs. Mett And then when it came time to do read through, we came in and my script was like pretty similar to the draft that I sent Seth, except for this side rant that he wrote in burning me and the rest of the crew for being so excited, Mr. and Mrs. Mett We're here So he delighted in really letting us have it and we deserved it. I make no apologies. I wish I would visit every day if we could get a script that early. Yeah. I mean, you were begging, can you come back tomorrow? E just you know. Yeah. Now of course, it's the opposite I send in scripts as late as possible because I'm still depressed in the morning about the Mets from the previous night. Yeah. So that's just an example. We've tried to reset the baseline for how Trump got here He made these three promises. Of course, he completely abandoned all of them the instant he took office and has become obsessed with something else entirely. which is building a ballerom for himself at the White House His obsession is so severe that even the King of England is roasting him for it which is what this next clip from a Coser lookook is about Charles saved his bestline for Trump's obsession with building a White House ballroom, which involves demolishing the East Wing. The King referenced the war of eighteen twelve when British forces burned down the White House. I cannot help noticing the readjustments to the East wing, Mr President. Following your visit to Windsor Castle last year And I'm sorry to say that we British, of course, made our own small attempt at real estate redevelopment of the White House in eighteen fourteen. Oh, Charles, your punchlines are like sex with Melania. I don't get it The timing of Charles's ballroom jab must be especially wounding for Trump given that the entire Republlan partarty is now falling in lockstep behind Trump's ballroom demand after the shooting at the White House correspondence dinner. A lot of senators and representatives are now saying this is why we need to get The ballroom back up and running. We got to build that ballroom as soon as possible. The ballroom will be a solution for this. Being more prepared means having a facility like this ballroom. This is one of the reasons why the president has been pushing to build this ballroom at the White House. The president is right about this having the ballroom on the White House grounds. A ballroom is imperative Do the American people elected? No? No You forget that the American people elected Donald Trump to do three things, build a golden mallom Put his face on the passports I getone by a royal horse. You remember now? You remember that. How is this their biggest priority? Gas is at its highest point since the Iran War started, and a majority of Americans say their financial situation is getting worse, which is the highest ever in polling. And you think the thing that's going to solve our problems is a golden ballroom that no one else can use. The only way any of us will ever see the inside of that ballroom is if we find a Trump passport with a golden ticket inside and You a tour lucky's Willy Wonka. And this is the beeive. This is where we make the delicious honey for our chocolate party. You wantan to meet the Uoma Lompas, Marco JD. comeome out and sing. Oh yeah, that's another thing that I I had no idea about that there's a White House beehive, which I guess preceded Trump, but what's new is that now it's in the shape of the White House. They're constructing a little mini Whitehouse for the bees to live in, which I did not know Until there was a picture of Trump and Melania and King Charles and Queen Camilla Yeah posing with this little King Amed The White House. Yeah. That's pretty cute. Is mean It's just such a wild allegory to me that the people pushing for the golden ballroom are posing with literal worker bees like the rich elite standing there. they liquid gold.. We're gonna make the best honey. you never gonna believe it. actually, you, this makes absolute sense out there there Bees are high in calcium and. Yeah. bee carcasses are high in peptides. We'll be right back with more of a closer look back. Hey'sim me F and can keep home. Don't miss passwords. Last season had hilarious moments like this. U thew What And this season Kkies the password is. Fun with your favorite celebrities. Yeah, but the password is ourur bad season yet. Right, but the single password is amazing. Amazing was my name. it was great though. That was great. Yeah. Password is back. Don't miss an all new episode, Tuesday on NBC I' genuinely baffled by this new argument for the Golden Ballroom. The idea is now that the president will be safe because he'll only ever do events inside the ballroom That's what they keep saying. They're like, oh now we need a safe place for him to do events like this White House correspondence because then this would have never happened if it was in the golden ballroom. But the president still goes out into the world. I don't understand, is the argument genuinely that he'll never leave the White House. He'll spend four years being entombed inside the White House. It's definitely big pharaohs tomb energy. I mean, go all the way, justust make it a spphinx Just have it be like a big Stehven Miller that like you answer riddles and all the stuff. That's a spphinx, right? No, I mean like a spphinx in the desert, like an Egyptian spphinx. Oh I'm thinking of the Greek mythology spphinx But and what and what is the We're this part we're keeping. We've been cutting a lot of stuff today because Emily and I are, you know, it's like Monday morning. We're not operating at one hundred percent. But this part we're keeping in. Wait, so you when I said just make it a spphinx, you thought I meant like have like a guy there say a spphinx is in Greek mythology. She well it's, you know, creature she is the head of a woman because she to ask riddle. The actual not have the Egyptian spphinx not not make the grand ballroom in like the exterior, like a grand Egyptian spphinx You meant you thought I meant have like a mythological creature there.t know Just to stay Riddles to see if you could get in or out go home man. Wait, let you go home. I thought you were keeping me. Okay, but the point is Trump made all those promises, of course, the only thing he actually cares about is his ballroom Meanwhile, everything around him is collapsing, everythingthing's breaking from the government itself to individual businesses to the economy. And of course, the latest example of that is Spirit Airlines, which collapsed in large part due to the fuel shortages and fuel price increases caused by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. And so that's what this next excerpt from a closer look is about The point is Republicans are reeling from bad poll numbers on the Iran war and the economy. The situation is so bad. it's toppling major airlines. Breaking news this morning, Spirit Airlines is announcing it's shutting down the ultra low cost airline making the announcement early this morning saying all flights have been canceled, telling guests to not go to the airport. After thirty four years, Spirit Airlines is no more posting a message overnight that it was ceasing operation, all flights canceled And there is no customer service, so if you're holding a ticket, you will have to reach out to other airlines. Now the airlinees parent company is saying it has already, quote, started an orderly windown of operations effective immediately. Only Spirit could cancel all flights and tell customers not to come to the airport and also describe it as an orderly wind down But you know, compared to a normal spirit flight, that kinda is orderly Spirit flights God bless them were chaos, rununning down the jetway to get a seat in overhead space was like racing through an obstacle course on wipeout Here's the thing though, we make plenty of jokes about spirit on this show. Spirit. It's like UFC, but in the air But it was a budget airline that employed seventy thousand people and made flying affordable for millions more. But now it's out of business, due to high fuel costs caused by the Iran warar, or as Trump put it recently, Obama. is Oh An airline that' had some trouble They were going to merge with People Express or one of them A number of years ago when Barack Hussein Obama decided it was a bad idea. How did that work out? Yes, we all remember when Obama stopped Spirit for merging with People Express An airline that ceased operations in nineteen eighty seven. Rs Wait Which makes sense when you realize Trump's brain also ceased operations in nineteen eighty seven B You know sp Sirit was going to merge with People Express and then when that fell through, they almost had a deal with Panda Express, which makes sense because Panda Express is already at the airport and wouldn't get excited about a Panda pilot Beautiful banda bear with a little pilot scot, but Obama said no because Obama hates fun I genuinely had no idea what People Express was. I'd never heard of it before I toull that clip.'s insane. Trump thinks that Barack Obama stopped a merger between Spirit Airlines and People Express, an airline that actually ceased operations one year after I was born. Yeah. Before you were born Thank you. You're so welcome. wayay before I was. Okay little Yeah. Decades eons. It's actually impossible to calculate. What were the eighties? Ohso exited, what a funny name for an people express I don't like it. That could be anything. That could be like a car rental company could be Anything that's talking about the efficiency of moving bodies, I don't care for What else are you putting in that c? I don't know. That sounded like such an alien thing to say. Anything that discusses the efficiency of moving human bodies I simply cannot stomach any references to moving human bodies efficiently. Oh, it just sounds creepy. like they're mailing us or something. It sounds creepy when you put it like that. Was that the slogan for people expressing? We are efficiently moving human bodies H in the sky. you express if you wouldd like to move your human body efficiently through the sky. Well, Sally we willll never know, ' they've gone since in nineteen eighty seven. That sounds like something RFK would say. We're developing a new ways to move human bodies more efficiently. I don't like how quickly the switch from the heat on Trump to me. I really You know what? donon't worry. If you are concerned about the disappearance of a budget airline that made flying affordable for millions of Americans and employed seventeen thousand people, It's all good. because the president is making up for it by putting IC agents in airports. An idea that he came up with himself, and he explained how he came up with it in this next clip. For now, IC in airports is still Trump's idea. and he even did us the courtesy of explaining how he came up with it. That was like the paper cllip. You know the story of the paper clip? No, I I'm sorry I don't because I don't speak concussion What Sir, what exactly the hell are you talking about? one hundred and eighty two years ago, a man discovered the paperclip. It was so simple. And everybody that looked at it say, why didn't I think of that? Now, if you're thinking to yourself, is Trump right that the paperclip was invented one hundred eighty two years ago? the answer is yes, he is correct Trump went on to explain that in the year eighteen forty four, an Icelandic cobbler named Magnus Olsen invented an early prototype in the paperclip consisting of two wooden triangles, fastened with twine Of course it wasn't one hundred and eighty two years ago He's just pulling numbers out of his ass like an ice agent doing a cavity search at the airport one hundred and eighty two years ago So I have to go back to this part. A man discovered the paper cllip. Nobody Discovered the paper cllip. It was invented. Do you think Steve Jobs just found an iPod sticking out of the sand? And the beach one day, He's like, Oh, look at this lookuck. I'll have to I'll have to wear my lucky outfit the rest of my life. You're talking about it like he was a prospector digging for gold. I just like stumbled on a mindfulull of paper, like, Oh my golly, look at here This here mountain's full of small metal roots. We weed using to hold our takeout menus together. Oh You wantan tona be a millionaire That is my favorite recent clip from a closer look. That's my favorite in a long time. The lucky outfit. I really I really enjoy The lucky outfit Seth adlibed, I was about to say that I really enjoyed writing all of that because it's my favorite kind of like tone to write for Seth. And his performance of that specific sort of thing is so fun to watch. So I really enjoyed writing it and then sitting in the studio and watching it. And but he ad lied that lucky outfit thing, which was really fun. It's so insane Confidently ask somebody, oh, you know the story of this and then say something that is complete gibberish afterward. Like yeah, like, oh, you know how the microscope was invented Oh know, you don't know the story of the microscope. It was a guy named Hans in Germany in nineteen thirty two. and what happened is his dog was actually looking for crumbs on the floor and he accidentally looked through Hans's monocle And then the dog realized, oh, I can see crumbs on the floor better if I'm looking through a monocle. And then Hans saw that the dog had more success finding crumbs by looking through the monocle. And he thought to himself, oh, maybe this is a way that I can look more closely at bacteria under a microscope So that's how the microscope was invented. I'm surprised you don't know. Yeah yeah, has a dog in it.. Yeah. It's genuinely baffling to me. Trump thinks these insights are genius. Like he genuinely thinks the ballroom is like a genius idea that he's had that everyone's been demanding I mean he just constructs this alternate reality that he inhabits, this like soothing alternate reality he gets to live in where yeah, I love him singling out one thing. So whether it's the paperclips or where he did that sharpie run, whatever's in his line of It's just. But I've read the paper clip. I mean, not even to say something of like, oh, I read this interesting story the otherday about how the paper clip.s You don't know the story of the Baper club? Yeah. But how do you not know that? and then just confidently say something ridiculously wrong? Yeah. Well, Trump doesn't read, so. But where did he even get this idea? Yeah. Did he see like a truth social meme post or something