Trump's Weird Lie About Raking in Finland: A Closer Look

-President Trump made up another

weird

thing about a foreign country while attacking a retired admiral for not catching Osama bin Laden sooner. To learn more about this, it's time for "A Closer Look." Whether you believe Donald Trump colluded with Russia or not, consider him a threat to democracy or not, one thing I think everyone can agree on is that he's

weird

. He is a strange man. Only someone who hugs a flag and gets rid of an umbrella cannot do a normal handshake. And one of the weird little things about Donald Trump's presidency is that every few months or so he makes up some weird lie about another country, and then everyone in that country has to figure out what the hell he's talking about.

Remember when he did it in Sweden last year? -Look what happened last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe it? Sweden. -Now, those words about Sweden provoked a quick reaction among officials in that country who wanted to know what he was talking about because there was no attack in Sweden the night before. -This was front page news here on Monday, it's also been the subject of a significant amount of mockery online and the people you talk to here make jokes, you know? What was Donald Trump referring to last night when he spoke on Saturday, with jokes like, "Hey, did someone take all our Swedish meatballs?" -Okay, but please don't joke about it because then Trump will think you're serious and he'll start repeating that too. -Immigrants are sneaking into Sweden and stealing your meatballs, friends.

And it's very annoying for their celebrity chefs. He called me last night. He called me on the phone last night and said, and these are his exact words, he told me: "Schmorgity, borgity, borgity, borg." And you know, it's very true. I said it is very true. Seriously, you know it's bad that even the Swedes make fun of us. This would be like Ikea changing the instructions from him to this. Then Trump did it again in September when he went to the UN and said something about Germany that was so far from reality that even the German delegation couldn't help but laugh at him. -Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.

Here in the Western Hemisphere we are committed to maintaining our independence from invasion by expansionist foreign powers. -These guys not only laugh, but they

look

at this lady's face. She doesn't know what the hell she's talking about and she's from a country where that's a real word. And then there's one of Trump's strangest recurring lines: that he has a friend in Paris who keeps telling him that Paris isn't Paris anymore. -I have a friend, every year he goes to Paris. I haven't seen him in a while. Paris, oh the city of light. He has told me for years, Paris, Paris.

I saw him about a month ago. "How was Paris this summer?" "I'm not going to Paris, are you kidding?" I have a friend who used to go to Paris and he loved Paris. I said to him recently: "How was Paris this summer?" "He said we're not going to Paris." He said: "Paris is no longer Paris." Which is obviously true. I have a friend, he is a very, very important guy. He loves the city of lights. He loves Paris. And I said, Jim, let me ask you a question. "How is he doing in Paris?" "Paris? I don't go there anymore.

Paris isn't Paris anymore." -I feel like what happened here is that Trump went to Paris, he met a mime and misinterpreted what he was saying. My friend Jim told me that the immigrants are coming up, they're coming up to Paris... they're trying to pull it out. The police are trying to get them out, but they can't, and that's why, you know, they need it, you know. They need a wall. I'd rather talk to a mime than to an American who calls him Paris. He tells me Pa-ris, Pa-ris. So if you're keeping track, Trump made up a fake terrorist attack in Sweden, claimed Germany was captive to Russia, and said Paris simply doesn't exist anymore.

And Trump did it again over the weekend when he traveled to California to assess the damage caused by the wildfires there. He made a very strange claim about how they prevent forest fires in Finland. He watches as his deeply strange president awkwardly confronts California's current sitting governors and rambles incoherently, as if he's just overdosed on SUDAFED. -I am committed to making sure all of this is clean and protected. I have to take care of the floors, the floors of the forest. It's very important. If you

look

at other countries where they do it differently, it's a completely different story.

I was with the president of Finland and he told me: "We have a very different nation: we are a forest nation." He called it a forest nation. And they spend a lot of time

raking

and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problems. And what it is, it's a very small problem. I know everyone is watching that for that purpose. And it's going to work. It's going to be fine. -Look at everyone else trying not to look at him. They all look like parents in the supermarket whose child just said, "Dad, that lady is fat." If you didn't know Trump was president, you'd think he was some weirdo who just walked up to them from his trailer in the woods.

He will be covered in leaves and holding a giant staff. You have to rake the floors! You have to rake the forest floor! That's what my friend Nutty the squirrel told me, isn't it, Nutty? Can we get back to this real quick? -You have to take care of the floors. You know, the forest floors. -Why do you call it forest floor? It's the ground. Do you also call the sky the roof of the Earth? The more he talks, the more clear it becomes that he has never been outside. In these forest fires, the ground is dirty, now we have to clean it.

We will also replace these wooden columns with steel beams. And as you can see, the roof is gone. And of course, once again... Once again it happened with Sweden, Germany and Paris, the president of Finland had to come out and publicly clarify that he did not, in fact, tell Trump that people in his country rake the floors of the forest. -The president of Finland says he talked about the California wildfires with President Trump, but he doesn't remember the conversation the same way. He said they did talk about the California wildfires and some of the ways Finland maintains the forest, but they didn't bring up the issue of

raking

. -Still going.

Trump makes up something crazy about another country and then the president of that country has to come out and say it's not true. We're about a week away from the president of Romania calling a press conference to say, "I didn't tell President Trump that vampires are real." And again... And again, just as the Germans laughed at us and the Swedes mocked us, the Finnish people are now mocking Trump's comments on social media, like this woman who tweeted "Just a any day in the Finnish forest. ". with a photo of herself vacuuming the floor outside. Are you serious?

That's pretty good. That's very good. Can we quickly see the German reaction to this? There you go. They like it. Trump has to make up lies fantastical ones like this because they reinforce his diluted view of the world and are easier to swallow than reality, and in this case the reality is that man-made climate change is making these fires more frequent and extreme, but Trump I'd rather invent a demented fantasy about firefighters raking the forest floor than admitting that climate change is having deadly real-world consequences. Just look at this exchange from an interview that "Fox News" aired over the weekend -I was watching firefighters. the other day.

And they were raking areas. They were raking areas where the fire was, right over there. And they are raking trees, little trees like this, not trees, small bushes, that you could see were completely dry. Weeds. And they are raking them. They are on fire. All of that should have been raked and cleaned. -What happens with the argument that it is climate change? That it is drier, that it is hotter and that that contributes to it? -Maybe it contributes a little. The big problem we have is management. You need forest management. Must be. I'm not saying this in a negative way, I'm just talking about the facts.

And I have really learned a lot. -No, you haven't. Although, to be fair, if you know nothing and then learn one thing, it seems like a lot. The president is a conspiracy theorist who makes up cartoonish lies about everything from wildfires to immigration. And when you call him, he attacks you. Take retired Admiral William McRaven, a Navy SEAL who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. McRaven has criticized Trump's attacks on the press, and in return, Trump decided to insult him. -Bill McRaven, retired admiral, Navy SEAL, 37 years old, former head of US Special Operations. -Hillary Clinton fan. -Special operations... -Excuse me, Hillary Clinton fan. -Whoever directed the operations, commanded the operations that overthrew Saddam Hussein and killed Osama bin Laden says that his sentiment is the greatest threat to democracy in his lifetime. -He is a supporter of Hillary Clinton and a supporter of Obama.

And, frankly...-he's a Navy SEAL. -Wouldn't it have been nice if we had caught Osama bin Laden much sooner? -Are you attacking him for not having caught Osama bin Laden sooner? Oh, because I could see you charging there in your hat and your windbreaker, brandishing a rake like it was a sword. Where are you? Osama? Osama! I'm going to... I'm going to rake your floors. Trump then claimed that it was obvious to everyone where Bin Laden was hiding, and he too found a way to work a very strange dig in Bin Laden's compound. -Think about this, living in Pakistan, beautifully in Pakistan in what I guess they considered a nice mansion, I don't know, I've seen better ones.

Hmm. You can make this idiot president and it all comes back to real estate. He is in a small neighborhood in the center of Pakistan, I call it Mid-Pac. The Mid-Packing District. Only Donald Trump. Only Donald Trump can feel better by implying that he has a nicer house than Osama bin Laden's. Bin Laden is already one of the most hated evil people in the history of human civilization. You're not burning him down by saying he has a shitty house. Who will Trump go next? You know, people make fun of my hair, but it's so much prettier than the Unabomber's.

We have a president who makes up outlandish lies, spreads conspiracy theories, and attacks anyone who calls him out, and meanwhile the rest of the world laughs at us, from Finland to Germany to... Sweden! -This has been "A

closer

look."