- The video discusses the refusal of President Trump to concede the election and the harm it could cause.
- It highlights the weak case for overturning the election, debunking claims of dead voters and fraudulent activities.
- The video mentions the lack of evidence of voting machines or software changing votes.
- It mentions a single case of voter fraud arrest involving a Trump supporter.
- Overall, the video emphasizes the baselessness of Trump's claims and the potential consequences of his refusal to concede.

- The video discusses a case of alleged voter fraud involving a Trump supporter in a town called 40 Fort.
- The video questions the origin of the town's name and suggests a humorous explanation for it.
- The video highlights the negative consequences of Trump's refusal to concede the election, including the hindrance of Biden's transition and pandemic planning.
- It mentions a video retweeted by Trump, in which the actor John Voight makes extreme and divisive statements.
- The video warns about the dangers of perpetuating misinformation and conspiracy theories, citing an incident of armed men being arrested outside a vote counting site in Philadelphia.
- It criticizes Trump for continuing to sow chaos and division despite knowing he lost the election.
- The video emphasizes the damage caused by Trump's presidency, including the loss of lives due to his handling of the pandemic.
- It calls for repairing the damage caused and acknowledges that there is still work to be done.

A week after Joe Biden’s win in the US presidential election, John Oliver discusses Donald Trump’s various attempts to overturn the results, why his claims don’t hold water, and the consequences of indulging him.

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Still coming to you from this blank void, which I don't think is purgatory, but I can't prove otherwise.

And we're gonna jump straight in with our main story this week, which unfortunately, for the second week in a row, concerns the election we just had.

And believe me, I'm just as disappointed as you about that.

I would much rather spend tonight talking about this rare turtle found in West Bengal.

It looks like it got into some trouble with the turtle mafia and is now trying to disguise itself as a peanut M&M.

It looks like it went to a costume party dressed as the less healthy part of the egg.

According to experts, the rare color of the turtle is attributed to the deficiency of pigment called tyrosine.

But according to me, you can go ahead and drop that little factoid in a file labeled who gives a shit, because look how fucking yellow that turtle is.

We could have done this whole show about this shiny cheddar cheese mistake, but instead, we have to talk about this asshole.

Because in normal times, the loser of a presidential election would simply acknowledge that they lost, and the country would get to move on.

But as of our taping on Saturday, a full week after the election was called, Trump is still refusing to concede.

And while that is not remotely surprising, what has been disappointing has been shit like this.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent shockwaves when he appeared to dismiss the election results.

There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.

What the fuck are you talking about, you business grimace?

You're supposed to forcefully denounce coups.

And look the other way, if the CIA does 1 in Central or South America, that is literally your whole job.

And while some have suggested that Pompeo was joking there, he also hasn't yet acknowledged that Biden is president-elect, nor have most Republicans.

Mitch McConnell not only claimed Trump is 100 percent within his rights to challenge the election results, he went on to say this.

Let's not have any lectures, no lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent 4 years refusing to accept the validity of the last election.

Okay, first, no 1 expected Trump to immediately, cheerfully accept the results.

He's incapable of cheerfully accepting anything apart from blowjobs, Nazi endorsements, and the opportunity to scream inside a stranger's truck.

I'll tell you who definitely doesn't care, this guy.

And second, while there were some on the left in 2016 who urged fighting the results.

Hillary formally conceded the day after the election, and Obama had Trump in the White House the day after that.

And yet, Republicans are trying to defend their support for Trump's indefensible behavior, with 1 senior official saying, what is the downside of humoring him for this little bit of time?

A question that never ends well, whether the ones asking it are overworked parents who need a break, or the Weimar Republic.

So tonight, let's look at just how weak Trump's case for overturning this election is, and what real harm humoring him will do.

And let's start with the case itself, because there are lots of accusations and lawsuits flying around right now.

And if you're a casual viewer of right-wing media, you might think, well, there must be something here.

They wouldn't be going to all this trouble over nothing, but the thing is, they are.

And let's start with the frequently made claim about dead voters.

If your uncle is a nightmare and you're still friends on Facebook, you might have seen this post, claiming there was a list of 14,000 dead people who voted in Michigan.

But when CNN picked out 50 of those names to do a spot check, they discovered 37 were dead and hadn't cast votes, 5 had voted but were still alive, and 8 were alive but hadn't voted.

Meaning exactly 0 were dead people who voted.

But if you were at an Oreo factory, and 50 out of 50 Oreos you picked off the line were just 2 rats squished around a used condom, you might well not risk trusting the next cookie that comes past you.

The claim of dead people voting was also advanced by Tucker Carlson, an 80s ski bully who just lost the big race.

And he went in big on 1 example in particular.

And no 1 quite embodies that story like James Blaylock of Covington, Georgia.

Blaylock was a mailman for 33 years until he passed away in 2006.

14 years later, according to state records, he was still mailing things.

James Blaylock cast a ballot in last week's election.

Ooh, that's an excellent question, you waiter's nightmare.

Now, that segment got picked up and circulated by, among others, Matt Gaetz and the Trump campaign itself.

And it does make you wonder, how did that dead man vote?

Agnes Blaylock voted using her married name, Newton County confirmed.

Her voter registration was signed as Mrs.

Blaylock Jr., and that's exactly how she signed her name when she voted in the November 3rd general election.

I guess I voted against the other 1, really.

And by the way, not so much for Biden as against the other 1.

Meaning that this 96-year-old's approach to the election was pretty much the same as that of 20-year-old progressives.

Does she also have a collection of dank memes and spend 5 hours a day calling Bill de Blasio a bitch on Twitter?

Then there were claims from numerous supposed whistleblowers.

In fact, Lindsey Graham, Leslie Jordan's absolute worst character, sent a letter to the DOJ asking them to investigate particular claims by a postal worker in Erie, Pennsylvania, who said in an affidavit that he'd heard postmarks were being backdated on mail-in ballots to make it appear as though they'd been collected on election day.

But unfortunately for Graham, that man later recanted those claims in his affidavit when talking to investigators.

And while he is now insisting that he stands by his initial statements, the really important thing to know is the total number of ballots from his post office that were postmarked November 3rd and delivered to the board of elections later.

So, the maximum number that could have had their date changed was 2.

Which is, and this is true, not the number of votes Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by.

But perhaps the strangest whistleblower accusation involved a poll worker in Nevada, who Fox gave a prime time slot to make her claims.

I went out to go for a walk on my break, and I probably had a 150, 175 foot stretch where I was walking.

Oh, sorry, I really should have mentioned, they disguised her identity by making her sound like Megan Mullally undergoing an exorcism.

Basically, she claims she saw a Biden-Harris campaign van outside the polling place with people handling white envelopes.

As I got closer, the envelopes were being torn open.

There were 2 men, or 2 people, dropping the envelopes, and 2 people ripping them open and turning and facing the van, and drawing on them, or marking them.

And as I walked by, I looked and I thought, those are ballots.

That is either total bullshit or the dumbest scheme of all time.

The Biden-Harris campaign opened envelopes and marked ballots in the parking lot of a polling place, in broad daylight, against the side of a van which had their logo on it.

That is like if in Ocean's 11, they showed up to the casino in a giant Danny Ocean robbery service van, and slowly put on their disguises in the lobby.

Also, that woman hasn't yet filed a formal complaint.

According to the Nevada AG's office, All they've received is a redacted affidavit that doesn't contain her name, signature, or contact information, meaning they have no way to begin a proper investigation.

And that has been something of a pattern here.

The Trump team making claims of widespread fraud publicly, but there then being a huge drop-off when it comes to what they're actually filing in court.

In Michigan, they submitted a lawsuit with 234 pages of affidavits from poll watchers, but those who actually read them found that they...

Instead, they're either allegations from people who don't seem to fully understand how the vote counting process works, so are questioning some pretty commonplace things, or they are petty bullshit like complaining people inside the counting room were wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, or that election workers were opening ballots with Donald Trump votes and rolling their eyes.

And if it helps here, let me just head off any future Trump campaign lawsuits.

A poll worker eating a banana is not evidence of voter fraud.

1 humming the chorus of Uptown Girl is not evidence of voter fraud.

Now, wearing a baseball cap could be evidence of voter fraud, but only if the person wearing it is putting valid votes into a paper shredder.

If it's just the hat part, that again, is not evidence of voter fraud.

And look, I could spend the rest of this show debunking stories.

The latest claim is that voting machines or software changed votes, even though this government cybersecurity agency, created by an act that Trump himself signed, released a statement saying, there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised, and that the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.

In fact, as of this taping, 1 of the few seemingly legitimate cases against anyone for voter fraud this year has been this.

LaZerne County officials say for the first time in 30 years, there has been a voter fraud arrest.

County detectives say Robert Lynn of 40 Fort signed his deceased mother's name on an absentee ballot application, and that's a crime.

Court paperwork shows the application was flagged in September, and election officials reported it to county detectives.

Yeah, that's 1 person allegedly trying to steal 1 vote that was flagged in September, and the person involved was a Trump supporter.

And this is not the most important thing, but it happened in a town called 40 Fort, which is just delightful.

Just say the words 40 Fort out loud right now.

Now, apparently, the town was named after the original 40 settlers who built a fort there.

But I called bullshit on that, because I refuse to believe that there just happened to be 40 settlers who named their fort, 40 Fort, without being fully aware of how funny that sounds.

They built the fort, Then 1 settler said, what should we call this place?

And everyone justifiably laughed very hard and agreed to do just that.

Then another settler, who no 1 really liked, said, wait, what if someone asks why we called it 40 Fort?

We can't just say we did it because we thought it was funny." And everyone quietly muttered, Oh my God, Ezekiel, you suck so much.

So then they said, okay, if anyone asks, we called it 44th because there are 40 of us.

I mean, there aren't, but who's gonna call us out on that?

It's fucking 1770 and most people can't read.

I will take that story to my gravy grave.

And for the record, I have exactly as much evidence to back that up as Republicans currently do of widespread voter fraud in this election.

So the allegations here are complete nonsense.

And who knows why Republicans are entertaining this.

Maybe it's to do with the fact that Georgia has 2 Senate runoffs coming up and they want to keep Trump happy, so we'll help rally voters for them there.

Maybe they're carrying favor with him because they're worried that he'll be a power broker going forward.

What I do know is that the answer to the question, what is the downside of humoring him, is a lot.

Because this administration's refusal to acknowledge the election's outcome means that Biden is not getting high-level intelligence reports and can't access funds meant to facilitate his transition.

President Trump's ongoing refusal to concede the race is complicating Biden's pandemic planning.

Until the Trump administration formally recognizes Biden as president-elect, outgoing Trump officials can't share critical COVID vaccine distribution plans with the incoming Biden team.

With cases spiking to a terrifying extent, you really want the new team handling the pandemic to be able to talk to the old team.

Even if, as I suspect, the old team's plan was just a single whiteboard in Jared's office with nothing on it except for, discover cure question mark, circled 5 times, and then a drawing of Donald Trump saying, good job, new son.

But the damage of indulging Trump goes even further.

Because it also plays into grim fantasies of embattled Trump supporters.

Something expressed perhaps most dramatically and stupidly by the actor John Voight in this video that Trump himself retweeted on Wednesday.

My fellow Americans, I stand here with all that feel as I do, disgusted with this lie that Biden has been chosen.

This is now our greatest fight since the Civil War.

The battle of righteousness versus Satan.

Let us fight this fight as if it is our last fight on Earth.

From doubling down on calling the left Satan, to saying, I stand here when he's clearly sitting, to that Muhammad Ali quote, which we could not find any record of him saying.

Which does make sense, because it doesn't really sound like Muhammad Ali.

It doesn't have the rhetorical flair of float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, or the wit of I'm so mean, I make medicine sick.

It's not over till the last punch you have.

Sounds less like Muhammad Ali and more like a blurb on a bootleg VHS cover of Rocky IV.

And sure, that's a ridiculous video, but the fact is, a lot of people believe stuff like that.

And when you continually insist that the election was stolen in big cities, and suggest that remedying this calls for the biggest fight since the Civil War, things start to get deadly serious.

Last Thursday, 2 armed men were arrested outside a Philadelphia convention center after police had received a tip about a threat to the vote counting site.

And 1 of the city commissioners in charge of ballot counting, a Republican, by the way, has been understandably rattled by the chaos engulfing his office.

From the inside looking out, it feels all very deranged.

It's people making accusations that we wouldn't count those votes, or people are adding fraudulent votes, or just coming up with just all sorts of crazy stuff.

Or calls to our offices reminding us that this is what the Second Amendment is for.

And Trump is playing a dangerous game here.

Because there is a huge difference between not my president and not the president.

And to be clear, people who are that angry are not riling themselves up in a vacuum.

They've been fed a steady diet of misinformation, bullshit fraud claims, and a victim narrative from outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, and most importantly, Trump himself, whose Twitter feed this week oscillated between Breitbart articles, nonsense claims that he won Pennsylvania, and 1 lone reply to Scott Baio, who you may know from Happy Days or from Super Baby's Baby Genius 2, where he starred alongside none other than Jon Voight.

I bet they had a lot of fun on set, because I guarantee no 1 else did.

And Infuriatingly, Trump has chosen to sow all this chaos around the election, despite the fact that deep down, he knows it's over.

Friday afternoon, the final states were called by most outlets, putting Joe Biden at 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232.

And during a press conference Trump held just a few hours later, he nearly acknowledged reality.

This administration will not be going to a lockdown.

Hopefully, the, whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be.

I guess time will tell, but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown.

Trump lost this election and he knows it.

And yet, just an hour after that press conference, he was retweeting voter fraud conspiracies again, which is pathetic, dangerous, and in many ways, an appropriate code to a presidency that has destroyed so many lives.

Not only of those that he's attacked, but also of those he's claimed to protect.

So many of us have lost loved ones, either because you could no longer square your love for them with their love for him, or because they fell down a mind-melting rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that he happily perpetuated, or because he let a deadly virus run wild and it fucking killed them.

And now, as a parting gift to the country, Trump is somehow managing to divide us even further, while also hobbling his successor at the worst possible time, which is absolutely unforgivable.

And yes, the fact that Trump won't be president next year is good.

But there is a lot of work to do, and at least in the short term, things are gonna suck for a while.

But we have to try and repair this damage.

In fact, as a great fighter once said, it's not over till the final fisting you give.


Speaker 0: -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Hi there. Welcome to the show. Still coming to you from this blank void, which I don't think is purgatory, but I can't prove otherwise. And we're gonna jump straight in with our main story this week, which unfortunately, for the second week in a row, concerns the election we just had. And believe me, I'm just as disappointed as you about that.

I would much rather spend tonight talking about this rare turtle found in West Bengal. Look how yellow it is. It looks like it got into some trouble with the turtle mafia and is now trying to disguise itself as a peanut M&M. It looks like it went to a costume party dressed as the less healthy part of the egg. According to experts, the rare color of the turtle is attributed to the deficiency of pigment called tyrosine.

But according to me, you can go ahead and drop that little factoid in a file labeled who gives a shit, because look how fucking yellow that turtle is. We could have done this whole show about this shiny cheddar cheese mistake, but instead, we have to talk about this asshole. Because in normal times, the loser of a presidential election would simply acknowledge that they lost, and the country would get to move on. But as of our taping on Saturday, a full week after the election was called, Trump is still refusing to concede. And while that is not remotely surprising, what has been disappointing has been shit like this.

Speaker 1: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent shockwaves when he appeared to dismiss the election results.

Speaker 2: There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.

Speaker 3: All

Speaker 2: right, we're ready.

Speaker 0: What the fuck are you talking about, you business grimace? You're the Secretary of State. You're supposed to forcefully denounce coups. And look the other way, if the CIA does 1 in Central or South America, that is literally your whole job. And while some have suggested that Pompeo was joking there, he also hasn't yet acknowledged that Biden is president-elect, nor have most Republicans.

Mitch McConnell not only claimed Trump is 100 percent within his rights to challenge the election results, he went on to say this.

Speaker 4: Let's not have any lectures, no lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent 4 years refusing to accept the validity of the last election.

Speaker 0: Okay, first, no 1 expected Trump to immediately, cheerfully accept the results. He's incapable of cheerfully accepting anything apart from blowjobs, Nazi endorsements, and the opportunity to scream inside a stranger's truck. Whose truck is that? I'll tell you who definitely doesn't care, this guy. It's his truck now.

Honk! Honk! And second, while there were some on the left in 2016 who urged fighting the results. Hillary formally conceded the day after the election, and Obama had Trump in the White House the day after that. And yet, Republicans are trying to defend their support for Trump's indefensible behavior, with 1 senior official saying, what is the downside of humoring him for this little bit of time?

A question that never ends well, whether the ones asking it are overworked parents who need a break, or the Weimar Republic. So tonight, let's look at just how weak Trump's case for overturning this election is, and what real harm humoring him will do. And let's start with the case itself, because there are lots of accusations and lawsuits flying around right now. And if you're a casual viewer of right-wing media, you might think, well, there must be something here. They wouldn't be going to all this trouble over nothing, but the thing is, they are.

This really is nothing. And let's start with the frequently made claim about dead voters. If your uncle is a nightmare and you're still friends on Facebook, you might have seen this post, claiming there was a list of 14,000 dead people who voted in Michigan. But when CNN picked out 50 of those names to do a spot check, they discovered 37 were dead and hadn't cast votes, 5 had voted but were still alive, and 8 were alive but hadn't voted. Meaning exactly 0 were dead people who voted.

And yes, that is just a sample. But if you were at an Oreo factory, and 50 out of 50 Oreos you picked off the line were just 2 rats squished around a used condom, you might well not risk trusting the next cookie that comes past you. The claim of dead people voting was also advanced by Tucker Carlson, an 80s ski bully who just lost the big race. And he went in big on 1 example in particular.

Speaker 5: In some ways, it's an inspiring story. The triumph of voting over death. And no 1 quite embodies that story like James Blaylock of Covington, Georgia. Mr. Blaylock was a mailman for 33 years until he passed away in 2006.

14 years later, according to state records, he was still mailing things. James Blaylock cast a ballot in last week's election. How did he do that?

Speaker 0: Ooh, that's an excellent question, you waiter's nightmare. Now, that segment got picked up and circulated by, among others, Matt Gaetz and the Trump campaign itself. And it does make you wonder, how did that dead man vote? Maybe his widow has an answer.

Speaker 3: He didn't vote. It was you? It was me.

Speaker 6: Agnes Blaylock voted using her married name, Newton County confirmed. Her voter registration was signed as Mrs. James E. Blaylock Jr., and that's exactly how she signed her name when she voted in the November 3rd general election.

Speaker 4: Who did you vote for?

Speaker 6: You don't have to share that.

Speaker 3: I voted for the Democrats. For Biden.

Speaker 2: I see.

Speaker 3: And so... I guess I voted against the other 1, really.

Speaker 0: Okay, so the claim was bullshit. He didn't vote, she did. And by the way, not so much for Biden as against the other 1. Meaning that this 96-year-old's approach to the election was pretty much the same as that of 20-year-old progressives. I wonder what else they have in common.

Does she also have a collection of dank memes and spend 5 hours a day calling Bill de Blasio a bitch on Twitter? I really hope so. Then there were claims from numerous supposed whistleblowers. In fact, Lindsey Graham, Leslie Jordan's absolute worst character, sent a letter to the DOJ asking them to investigate particular claims by a postal worker in Erie, Pennsylvania, who said in an affidavit that he'd heard postmarks were being backdated on mail-in ballots to make it appear as though they'd been collected on election day. But unfortunately for Graham, that man later recanted those claims in his affidavit when talking to investigators.

And while he is now insisting that he stands by his initial statements, the really important thing to know is the total number of ballots from his post office that were postmarked November 3rd and delivered to the board of elections later. So, the maximum number that could have had their date changed was 2. Which is, and this is true, not the number of votes Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by. But perhaps the strangest whistleblower accusation involved a poll worker in Nevada, who Fox gave a prime time slot to make her claims.

Speaker 3: I went out to go for a walk on my break, and I probably had a 150, 175 foot stretch where I was walking.

Speaker 0: Oh, sorry, I really should have mentioned, they disguised her identity by making her sound like Megan Mullally undergoing an exorcism. But I'll let her continue. Basically, she claims she saw a Biden-Harris campaign van outside the polling place with people handling white envelopes. Go.

Speaker 3: As I got closer, the envelopes were being torn open. There were 2 men, or 2 people, dropping the envelopes, and 2 people ripping them open and turning and facing the van, and drawing on them, or marking them. And as I walked by, I looked and I thought, those are ballots.

Speaker 0: Okay, I'm just gonna say it. That is either total bullshit or the dumbest scheme of all time. The Biden-Harris campaign opened envelopes and marked ballots in the parking lot of a polling place, in broad daylight, against the side of a van which had their logo on it. That is like if in Ocean's 11, they showed up to the casino in a giant Danny Ocean robbery service van, and slowly put on their disguises in the lobby. It's the perfect crime.

Also, that woman hasn't yet filed a formal complaint. According to the Nevada AG's office, All they've received is a redacted affidavit that doesn't contain her name, signature, or contact information, meaning they have no way to begin a proper investigation. And that has been something of a pattern here. The Trump team making claims of widespread fraud publicly, but there then being a huge drop-off when it comes to what they're actually filing in court. In Michigan, they submitted a lawsuit with 234 pages of affidavits from poll watchers, but those who actually read them found that they...

Instead, they're either allegations from people who don't seem to fully understand how the vote counting process works, so are questioning some pretty commonplace things, or they are petty bullshit like complaining people inside the counting room were wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, or that election workers were opening ballots with Donald Trump votes and rolling their eyes. Neither of which are illegal. And if it helps here, let me just head off any future Trump campaign lawsuits. A poll worker eating a banana is not evidence of voter fraud. 1 humming the chorus of Uptown Girl is not evidence of voter fraud.

Now, wearing a baseball cap could be evidence of voter fraud, but only if the person wearing it is putting valid votes into a paper shredder. If it's just the hat part, that again, is not evidence of voter fraud. And look, I could spend the rest of this show debunking stories. The problem is, it's endless. The latest claim is that voting machines or software changed votes, even though this government cybersecurity agency, created by an act that Trump himself signed, released a statement saying, there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised, and that the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.

In fact, as of this taping, 1 of the few seemingly legitimate cases against anyone for voter fraud this year has been this.

Speaker 1: LaZerne County officials say for the first time in 30 years, there has been a voter fraud arrest. County detectives say Robert Lynn of 40 Fort signed his deceased mother's name on an absentee ballot application, and that's a crime. Lynn is a registered Republican. Court paperwork shows the application was flagged in September, and election officials reported it to county detectives.

Speaker 0: Yeah, that's 1 person allegedly trying to steal 1 vote that was flagged in September, and the person involved was a Trump supporter. And this is not the most important thing, but it happened in a town called 40 Fort, which is just delightful. Just say the words 40 Fort out loud right now. 40 Fort. It feels so good in the mouth.

Now, apparently, the town was named after the original 40 settlers who built a fort there. But I called bullshit on that, because I refuse to believe that there just happened to be 40 settlers who named their fort, 40 Fort, without being fully aware of how funny that sounds. Here is what I think happened. They built the fort, Then 1 settler said, what should we call this place? And another said, who cares?

Let's just name it 40 Fort. And everyone justifiably laughed very hard and agreed to do just that. Then another settler, who no 1 really liked, said, wait, what if someone asks why we called it 40 Fort? We can't just say we did it because we thought it was funny." And everyone quietly muttered, Oh my God, Ezekiel, you suck so much. So then they said, okay, if anyone asks, we called it 44th because there are 40 of us.

I mean, there aren't, but who's gonna call us out on that? It's fucking 1770 and most people can't read. And that is how 44th got its name. I will take that story to my gravy grave. And for the record, I have exactly as much evidence to back that up as Republicans currently do of widespread voter fraud in this election.

So the allegations here are complete nonsense. And who knows why Republicans are entertaining this. Maybe it's to do with the fact that Georgia has 2 Senate runoffs coming up and they want to keep Trump happy, so we'll help rally voters for them there. Maybe they're carrying favor with him because they're worried that he'll be a power broker going forward. I don't know.

What I do know is that the answer to the question, what is the downside of humoring him, is a lot. Because this administration's refusal to acknowledge the election's outcome means that Biden is not getting high-level intelligence reports and can't access funds meant to facilitate his transition. And then, of course, there is this.

Speaker 2: President Trump's ongoing refusal to concede the race is complicating Biden's pandemic planning. Until the Trump administration formally recognizes Biden as president-elect, outgoing Trump officials can't share critical COVID vaccine distribution plans with the incoming Biden team.

Speaker 0: Yeah, and that's not great. With cases spiking to a terrifying extent, you really want the new team handling the pandemic to be able to talk to the old team. Even if, as I suspect, the old team's plan was just a single whiteboard in Jared's office with nothing on it except for, discover cure question mark, circled 5 times, and then a drawing of Donald Trump saying, good job, new son. But the damage of indulging Trump goes even further. Because it also plays into grim fantasies of embattled Trump supporters.

Something expressed perhaps most dramatically and stupidly by the actor John Voight in this video that Trump himself retweeted on Wednesday.

Speaker 7: My fellow Americans, I stand here with all that feel as I do, disgusted with this lie that Biden has been chosen. As if we all don't know the truth. This is now our greatest fight since the Civil War. The battle of righteousness versus Satan. Yes, Satan.

Let us fight this fight as if it is our last fight on Earth. As Muhammad Ali said, it's not over... Till the last punch you have.

Speaker 0: Okay. There's a lot there. From doubling down on calling the left Satan, to saying, I stand here when he's clearly sitting, to that Muhammad Ali quote, which we could not find any record of him saying. Which does make sense, because it doesn't really sound like Muhammad Ali. It doesn't have the rhetorical flair of float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, or the wit of I'm so mean, I make medicine sick.

It's not over till the last punch you have. Sounds less like Muhammad Ali and more like a blurb on a bootleg VHS cover of Rocky IV. And sure, that's a ridiculous video, but the fact is, a lot of people believe stuff like that. And when you continually insist that the election was stolen in big cities, and suggest that remedying this calls for the biggest fight since the Civil War, things start to get deadly serious. Last Thursday, 2 armed men were arrested outside a Philadelphia convention center after police had received a tip about a threat to the vote counting site.

And 1 of the city commissioners in charge of ballot counting, a Republican, by the way, has been understandably rattled by the chaos engulfing his office.

Speaker 8: From the inside looking out, it feels all very deranged. It's people making accusations that we wouldn't count those votes, or people are adding fraudulent votes, or just coming up with just all sorts of crazy stuff.

Speaker 9: Accusations like, you are cheating. Yes. You are manipulating the vote.

Speaker 8: Yes. Or calls to our offices reminding us that this is what the Second Amendment is for. People like us.

Speaker 9: You're getting calls like that?

Speaker 8: Yes.

Speaker 9: That's a not-so-veiled death threat.

Speaker 8: Yes, for counting votes... In a democracy.

Speaker 0: That's awful. And Trump is playing a dangerous game here. Because there is a huge difference between not my president and not the president. And to be clear, people who are that angry are not riling themselves up in a vacuum. They've been fed a steady diet of misinformation, bullshit fraud claims, and a victim narrative from outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, and most importantly, Trump himself, whose Twitter feed this week oscillated between Breitbart articles, nonsense claims that he won Pennsylvania, and 1 lone reply to Scott Baio, who you may know from Happy Days or from Super Baby's Baby Genius 2, where he starred alongside none other than Jon Voight.

I bet they had a lot of fun on set, because I guarantee no 1 else did. And Infuriatingly, Trump has chosen to sow all this chaos around the election, despite the fact that deep down, he knows it's over. Friday afternoon, the final states were called by most outlets, putting Joe Biden at 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232. And during a press conference Trump held just a few hours later, he nearly acknowledged reality.

Speaker 10: Ideally, we won't go to a lockdown. I will not go. This administration will not be going to a lockdown. Hopefully, the, whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be. I guess time will tell, but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown.

Speaker 0: Except no, time will not tell. Time has told. Trump lost this election and he knows it. And yet, just an hour after that press conference, he was retweeting voter fraud conspiracies again, which is pathetic, dangerous, and in many ways, an appropriate code to a presidency that has destroyed so many lives. Not only of those that he's attacked, but also of those he's claimed to protect.

So many of us have lost loved ones, either because you could no longer square your love for them with their love for him, or because they fell down a mind-melting rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that he happily perpetuated, or because he let a deadly virus run wild and it fucking killed them. And now, as a parting gift to the country, Trump is somehow managing to divide us even further, while also hobbling his successor at the worst possible time, which is absolutely unforgivable. And yes, the fact that Trump won't be president next year is good. It's really good. But there is a lot of work to do, and at least in the short term, things are gonna suck for a while.

But we have to try and repair this damage. In fact, as a great fighter once said, it's not over till the final fisting you give. Or, I don't know, some shit like that. I don't remember anymore.

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Trump & Election Results: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)