over funding for his border wall

just as he faces the most serious legal peril

of his presidency.

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

[ Cheers and applause ]

It's worth remembering that when 2018 began,

we didn't know anything about illegal hush payments

to porn stars, a secret resister inside the Trump administration,

or the fact that Rudy Giuliani

always looks like he just sat on a box of thumbtacks.

When the year began,

Republicans controlled all three branches of government

and they were celebrating the passage of a corporate tax cut

to line the pockets of millionaires.

And to take a victory lap at the time,

Trump turned to his creepiest aide,

senior adviser Stephen Miller.

[ Thunder crashes ]

[ Witch cackles ]

-You rang?

-Miller decided to go on TV and make the President look good --

A, by comparison, and, B, by calling him a genius.

-On the campaign, I had the chance to travel

all across the country with the President,

and I saw a man who was a political genius.

The reality is is the President is a political genius.

All these so-called political geniuses in Washington,

whether it be at the big lobbying firms or --

-The only person who's called him a genius in the last week

is the President.

-Because it happens to be a true statement.

-Ugh.

Stephen Miller is the only person on Earth

who'd be less creepy if he wore a hockey mask.

But, hey, maybe some of Trump's supporters

still thought he was a genius,

and yet in the almost 12 months since that comment,

Trump has rambled at length about how people in Finland

rake the floors of the forest,

left an umbrella outside

when he couldn't figure out how to close it,

got on Air Force One with toilet paper stuck to his shoe,

and said this about a hurricane.

-They haven't seen anything like what's coming at us

in 25, 30 years, maybe ever.

It's tremendously big and tremendously wet.

[ Laughter ]

-Tremendously big and tremendously wet

sounds like something Stephen Miller would say

about Donald Trump.

As we've learned this year,

the President is just a weird, weird man.

He's like a space alien with a head injury

who just took his first bong rip.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, fellow human.

I am enjoying the traditional Earth greeting of shaking hands

for exactly one full minute.

And now let us all display our patriotism

by engaging in the customary hugging of the flag.

I am normal!"

[ Laughter ]

[ Applause ]

But you'd think a political genius

could at least figure out a way

to deliver on the one thing he repeatedly told his supporters

he would absolutely do, and that's build the wall.

And yet today, Trump threatened

the very real possibility of a government shutdown

because he didn't get any money for the wall.

In fact, it's finally starting to dawn on his supporters

that the wall is never going to happen,

and they are very upset about it.

-Democrats are going to win on this.

There will be no money

for the President and his wall this time.

-Not a penny!

Forget wall. Think border security.

-I think that not funding the wall is going to go down

as one of the worst, worst things

to have happened to this administration.

Forget Mueller. The wall, the wall, the wall has to be built.

And this was a scandal that it hasn't been built.

-Well, it's very sad. We needed the wall.

-That's a real fight, and I don't know

that he minds dragging it out for a while.

-Is it something he just needs --

-...series of two-week agreements.

-It is something he just needs to give up on, though?

-Wow, man. They're talking about the wall

like they just lost a pet.

Trump's gonna have to have

a special chat with the Fox & Friends.

"Mr. Trump, where'd the wall go?"

"It went to a farm upstate

to live with all the other walls."

Because he knows he's never

gonna get any money for his wall.

Trump has been lying

and claiming he's already building it

just by putting up some fencing with existing money.

But now supporters are starting to figure out

that's also a lie.

Here's Trump lying about the wall followed by a very confused

Laura Ingraham trying to figure out what he means.

-A lot of wall has been built. We don't talk about that.

But we might as well start because it's building --

It's being built right now. Big sections of wall.

And we will continue that.

-Uh, wh-- I must have missed the wall being built.

What wall? Where's it being built, Tom?

-I think what he means is they're upgrading certain parts of the wall.

-That's not a wall. Stop saying it's a wall. There's no wall.

If you want a wall, say, "We don't have the wall."

I know it's bad because he made the promise,

but they're not building the wall.

-Wow!

She went through all five stages of grief in five seconds.

It's like watching someone

realize they're in the Matrix in real time.

"This isn't real! None of this is real!"

So, today, Trump, the political genius,

said at the last minute he would not sign a deal

to keep the government open, and in response,

outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan

scrambled to find a way to get him money for his wall,

which is a fitting end to Paul Ryan's career.

Ryan had spent all year loyally serving Trump

and ignoring his many abuses of power,

even openly admitting

he doesn't pay attention to Trump's scandals.

-Mark Sanford yesterday,

speaking on the Stormy Daniels story,

said allegations of hush money are a big deal.

I guess first question is,

do you agree with that characterization?

-I haven't put a second of thought into this.

It's just not on my radar screen.

-This must bother you.

"Access Hollywood," Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal.

At a certain point, it must be embarrassing.

-Well, look, I didn't read the article.

-Is it appropriate, in your view,

for the White House to invoke executive...and deny --

-No. I'm not familiar with exactly what happened yesterday.

I've been a little busy with some other tasks.

-Man, Paul Ryan might be a bad House Speaker,

but he'd be a great roommate.

"Hey, Paul, my friends are coming over to watch

the UFC fight, and then my punk band's gonna practice."

"That's cool. I'll be busy with other tasks."

Yesterday in his farewell address,

Ryan decried what he called our broken politics,

but Ryan is the one who spent two years

ignoring Trump's many scandals

and actively praising Trump in truly absurd ways,

like when the GOP passed their corporate tax cut.

-Something this big, something this generational,

something this profound could not have been done

without exquisite presidential leadership.

-I'm sorry. Did you just use the word "exquisite"

to describe Donald Trump?

You're talking about him like he's an art installation

at the Guggenheim.

He's not exactly a Picasso.

I mean, look at him. If he looks like anything,

he looks like he was painted by Edvard Munch.

[ Laughter ]

Although, you know what? He'd fit right in

in that Salvador Dalí painting with all those melting clocks.

Watching Ryan frantically try to scrape together money for Trump's border wall

is a fitting way for his career to end.

Ryan used high-minded rhetoric

about the importance of our institutions

while Trump degraded those institutions.

For example, Ryan had nothing to say

when the President's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani,

went on TV and literally said that truth isn't truth.

-When you tell me that, you know, he should testify

because he's going to tell the truth and he shouldn't worry,

well, that's so silly because

it's somebody's version of the truth, not the truth.

He didn't have a conversation --

-Truth is truth. I don't mean to go, like --

-No, it isn't truth! Truth isn't truth!

The President of the United States says, "I didn't --"

-Truth is a truth. Mr. Mayor, do you realize what --

This is gonna become a bad meme.

-No. No, no. Don't do this to me.

-In every interview, every interview,

Rudy sounds like a grandpa

whose adult children just put him in a nursing home.

"Don't do this to me!

I can live on my own! Just get me a stair lift!"

Also, can we go back to this part real quick?

-This is gonna become a bad meme.

-Chuck Todd, why are you talking to this guy about memes?

He doesn't know what a meme is.

Rudy probably things a meme is one of those guys

who pretends to be trapped behind an invisible wall.

Well, truth is truth, and now the truth

is starting to catch up to Rudy and Trump

like when we learned recently that Trump

and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen,

had lied about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow

during the 2016 campaign.

After insisting that he never

had any business deals in Russia,

Trump went back on all that and admitted he did try

to build a Trump Tower in Moscow

but insisted it wasn't that big a deal.

-It was during the early part of '16

and I guess even before that.

It lasted a short period of time.

I didn't do the project. I decided not to do the project.

So I didn't do it. So we're not talking about doing a project.

We're talking about not doing a project.

We decided -- I decided ultimately not to do it.

There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it.

If I did do it, there would have been nothing wrong.

That was a project that we didn't do, I didn't do.

It was just reported very well by Catherine Herridge,

who's a terrific reporter on Fox.

She talks about a letter that he signed.

I don't even remember it.

And it specifically talks about this deal.

-Trump only knows three words, and then when he runs out,

he starts drawing invisible squares with his hand.

I guess you could call him a French meme.

The Trump Tower project was apparently so serious

that there was actually an official letter of intent

signaling that Trump wanted to go forward with it.

Now, you heard Trump there say

he didn't really know anything about that letter.

And on top of that, Rudy insists that the letter

wasn't a big deal for one important reason.

He told CNN there was a letter of intent to go forward

but no one signed it.

Oh, come on, Rudy. That's your excuse?

No one signed it? What's next?

"He tried to mail it, but he doesn't know Putin's address."

[ Laughter ]

Well, you will never guess what happened.

This week, we found out that Rudy was either lying

or very wrong when he said no one signed the letter.

-This is the letter of intent

for the proposed Trump Tower Moscow.