While it’s easy to forget that other shows aired Sunday night with the return of Game of Thrones, Last Week Tonight was still around and as relevant and clever as ever. The main story was about the Puerto Rican debt crisis, which is, as many of Last Week Tonight‘s news stories are, something the average American doesn’t give much thought. However, John Oliver lays it out in his straightforward manner, leaving you wondering how you could have ignored something so desperate before.
Oliver points out that while Puerto Rico has long been marketed to us as a sort of island paradise and perfect vacation spot, the reality is much more grim. The American commonwealth is actually facing a $70 billion debt crisis (and a 45 percent poverty rate), with a May 1 deadline on restructuring. Unfortunately, due to an exemption in a 1984 law, Puerto Rico is unable to declare bankruptcy. According to Oliver, “We need to stop treating Puerto Rico like it’s just a tax haven or a place to have terrifying sex with a stranger in a coconut mask, and instead, we have to start treating it like an island of American citizens whose fate is interwoven with ours.”
Last Week Tonight even enlisted the help of one of the most prominent voices in America right now, Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda, to help drive his point home. Miranda, the son of Puerto Rican immigrants, went before Congress last month to make an impassioned plea for the island. He takes a more unorthodox approach here, with an original rap about “a commonwealth with not a lot of wealth, a not-quite nation, $70 billion topic of conversation.” The John Oliver Effect has elicited real change before, so here’s hoping Congress gets the picture before it’s too late for the island, just “100 miles across.”
