Last Week Tonight With John Oliver usually spends their longer segments injecting levity into customarily dull topics like gerrymandering, net neutrality, and checks and balances, but this week they delayed their segment on the TSA to focus on a much more pressing topic because this has been quite the week. After expressing regret that they couldn’t devote the whole segment to Anderson Cooper’s Trump dump comment, John Oliver announced the return of their “Stupid Watergate” segment, so-called because it’s “a scandal with all the potential ramifications of Watergate, but where everyone involved is stupid and bad at everything.”
They covered various topics from the past week, focusing on four questions: “What the f*ck is going on? How big of a deal is this? Where do we go from here? Is this real life?” Regarding Trump telling Russians code word level classified information, Oliver joked it was intel “you should not even share with your closest friends which, of course, in Trump’s case is the caddie he calls Steve even though his name is Doug, a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the ghost of Roger Ailes.”
Then Oliver spoke about Trump firing FBI director James Comey after (unsuccessfully) suggesting he drop the investigation of Michael Flynn. From there, he shot down Trump’s claim that “no politician in history has been treated worse” than him by reminding us of all the presidents who’ve been shot, including that time Ted Cruz’s dad killed JFK. From there Oliver covered topics ranging from the Trump/Russia special counsel to James Comey trying to blend into some curtains. But before the week was up, news broke of Trump telling his Russian guests Comey was a “nut job” and “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” Oliver admitted it’s “almost difficult to believe your ears when you hear something that sounds so audaciously corrupt.”
But the week wasn’t up yet. Now an unnamed senior white house official is a “person of interest” in the Trump/Russia investigation. Oliver pointed out some people suspect it’s Jared Kushner but that seems unlikely considering he’s technically a person but is also “the least interesting human on earth. He is the person equivalent of an empty room painted eggshell. He’s like a white bread sandwich where the middle is just a third slice of white bread.” Hey now, that’s called a toast sandwich, and you do what you have to when you’re broke.
White House lawyers are reportedly researching what an impeachment would entail, to which Oliver quipped, “I imagine at least part of it would involve thousands of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey.” Except in this case that would be real, unlike the completely nonexistent video of “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in Jersey City celebrating on 9/11 that Trump repeatedly claimed he saw.
It’s almost as if Trump doesn’t want to be president, about which Oliver points out another Watergate comparison: “Say what you want about Nixon, at least he wanted the f*cking job.”
