Transcript

(theme music)

On the 30th of September, 2007,

a man named Garry Kasparov declared

he would run against

Vladimir Putin's

hand-picked successor

in the Presidential election in Russia.

His platform was simple:

he led a coalition of anti-Putin groups

called The Other Russia,

and they vowed to establish

a democratic and just government.

Less than two months later,

Garry Kasparov,

Russian presidential candidate,

was arrested at a Moscow rally

by police loyal to

Vladimir Putin, Russian President.

Last night, on the 9th of October 2016,

in the United States of America,

on live national television,

Donald Trump,

American presidential candidate,

stared at his opponent and said, quote,

If I win, I'm going to instruct

my Attorney General

to get a special prosecutor

to look into your situation.

We're going to get a special prosecutor,

and we're going to look into it

because, you know what,

people have been,

their lives have been destroyed

for doing 1/5 of what you've done.

Secretary Clinton replied, quote,

It's just awfully good

that someone with the temperament

of Donald Trump is not in charge

of the law in our country.

Trump then erased any doubt

what he meant or who he is

or what he has planned.

He shot back, quote,

Because you'd be in jail.

Make no mistake what you heard

between the sniffs and the snorts

and the mindless wandering around the stage.

Make no mistake what you heard

amid the swirling, strutting egotism,

and the cacophony of insults.

Make no mistake what you heard,

and put aside for now

even the lie about opposing Iraq

and the mindless, heartless claim

that Captain Khan would still

be alive if Trump had been President then.

Put aside, even, the disavowal of

his own running mate's position on Syria,

and the bobbing and weaving about

the Grab them by the pussy tape.

You heard a would be

President of the United States,

the 28th different nominee

in the long history of his party,

for the most important job on Earth,

who heretofore has left

this ominous,

dire, dictatorial threat of jail

to the bleating of his ravenous rally crowd,

you heard Donald Trump threaten

to not merely defeat his opponent,

but then to put her in prison.

Instruct my Attorney General.

Special prosecutor.

Because you'd be in jail.

Make no mistake what you heard.

There are no other conclusions here, Trump,

are there?

It is not the presidency you are running for,

not at least the presidency

as we have known it since 1789.

Not at least as we have known it

as a free country.

The kind of presidency

you want to have, Trump,

already exists.

It is called a Putin-style dictatorship.

And the kind of America

you want to lead, Trump,

is not the America we live in now.

This other America already exists.

It is called

Russia.

Trump, men and women you often invoke,

but none of whom you have ever understood for a moment

have died for this country

in order to prevent

you.

They have died and others have lived

and sacrificed in other ways

to prevent exactly the kind of

one-man rule, in which a President,

or a candidate for President,

can threaten to imprison his opponent.

All the patriots of our hallowed history

have given and lost

and self-abnegated so that

you could not say that last night.

And they have also given all of themselves

so that Hillary Clinton could not

have looked at you last night and said,

You bragged about sexual assault on that tape.

If elected, I will appoint a special prosecutor

to investigate you.

So that she could not look at you, Trump,

and say, You just admitted to writing off

$916 million in losses to avoid taxes.

If I'm elected, I'll appoint a

special prosecutor to investigate you.

But she didn't say either of those things.

Because she believes in our democracy.

And our democracy rests

on the same razor's edge that has

permitted a bully and a lunatic like you

to get this close to having

the power to destroy it.

Because it is very simple, Trump.

Because you personally threatened to put

Hillary Clinton in jail last night

when you made her potential imprisonment

part of your campaign in your own words,

you killed a part of our democracy.

When you threatened to jail

one of your political opponents,

you have threatened to jail

all of your political opponents.

It is, by itself, the outskirts

of a Russian pseudo-democracy in which

the very act of opposition to the ruler

becomes a crime,

or worse yet, it becomes a reason to

fabricate evidence of an extant crime

against the opponent.

It is dictatorship.

And the power you seek might still

carry the title President,

but with the threat of the legal power

of the United States of America

being brought down on your opponents,

you might as well be Chancellor Trump,

or Chairman Trump,

or Protector Trump,

or Generalissimo Trump,

or Führer Trump.

Because you'd be in jail.

Because, Trump, if you are elected,

we would all be in jail.

Your threat last night to merge

political opposition with legal prosecution

has no place in a free country.

And you, Trump,

have no place in this free country.

That's The Closer.

I'm Keith Olbermann.

Watch this space.