John Oliver Tackles Trump’s War on the Press (And That ‘HBO Max’ Rebrand)

It’s Been a Busy Week

John Oliver began tonight’s episode of Last Week Tonight with a speedy rundown of the week’s absurdities and horrors, ranging from Donald Trump backtracking on his China tariffs, the guy in charge of public health going for a swim with his grandkids in a sewage polluted creek, and the just concluded Eurovision Song Contest. That being the international musical cheese-fest where, this year, the entrant from the esteemed nation of Malta defended her choice of song, entitled “Serving Kant.” Kant, of course, being the Maltese expression for “singing” and no other reference to anything else, ever.

Our Main Story Tonight

Oliver was clearly in a rush to get to his main story: the rebranding of his home streaming service service. It was HBO Go and HBO Now, then HBO Max, then Max, now is back to HBO Max again. Because, reasons.

We’re joking of course. (Not about the sweaty and unnecessary game of streaming service name-roulette—that’s 100 percent a thing.) No, Oliver’s main story was about Donald Trump’s attack on the media, more specifically news outlets. Oliver showed how the Trump White House has retaliated against the Associated Press for not going along with Trump’s own unnecessary and frivolous rebrand of the Gulf of Mexico, and how he threw a tantrum recently when an ABC reporter asked him about that $400 million bribe-jet from the government of Qatar.

But those are mere sideshows to the administration’s full court press against the press. Even if Oliver couldn’t help but spotlight one Kara Castronova, one of the fringe, right-wing “journalists” credentialed to lob the puffiest of softballs at Trump, who hails from that bastion of journalistic merit, Lindell TV. Yes, that is a news outlet fronted by pillow salesman and election denier Mike Lindell, whose number one reporter pitches such incisive questions as “Donald Trump is super fit and what’s his workout regimen?”

But sycophantic, North Korea-style fawning news-clowns are the least of America’s problems right now, according to Oliver. As he laid out with customary clarity and gallows humor asides, Trump is waging a war on several fronts designed to cut off all negative (meaning factual) coverage of whatever the hell he’s doing on any particular day.

Last Week Tonight‘s greatest weapon remains sunlight, as Oliver put various complicit figures in Trump’s anti-news campaign on blast. Oliver showed how Trump’s two-pronged attacks include filing frivolous but expensive lawsuits on one flank while siccing his farcically partisan FCC after the broadcast licenses and potential financial futures of parent companies on the other.

Oliver first lambasted Trump’s FCC chair Brendan Carr for attempting to extort CBS over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. First noting that suing CBS for election interference for an election Trump won is already deeply stupid, Oliver showed side-by-side comparisons of the so-called selective editing of Harris’ non-answer on Gaza with Fox’s edited interview with Trump about him totally planning to release those Jeffrey Epstein files. (Trump’s full answer being more full of waffling than an IHOP at Sunday brunch.)

As Oliver showed, Trump’s strategy is to hold up potential mergers and sales via his supposedly impartial FCC attack dog (no joke, Carr retweeted a cartoon of him as Trump holding him on a leash like a good boy) while lawsuits pressure increasingly cowardly outlets to settle. Oliver was unsparing toward outlets like the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post and the L.A. Times‘ Patrick Soon-Shiong, both of whom not only attended Trump’s inauguration but have also ordered their newsrooms to soft-pedal any anti-Trump stories and editorials. Same goes for ABC, which settled what legal experts called a baseless lawsuit against George Stephanopoulos for $15 million, hoping to stave off Trump’s wrath. (See the second paragraph above to gauge how that went. )

But Oliver truly put the pressure on CBS parent company Paramount Global and its chairwoman Shari Redstone, who, despite a recent appearance extolling the virtue of journalistic courage and defiance, is currently exerting pressure on CBS’ venerable news program 60 Minutes while Trump pushes yet another ludicrous lawsuit. As Oliver notes, Paramount is currently trying to merge with Skydance, something that Trump’s little attack puppy Brendan Carr can hold up indefinitely. And Redstone has backpedaled so furiously on her supposed journalistic ethics that longtime 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens recently resigned, citing unprecedented network interference in the show’s award-winning coverage.

And those are just the companies with big, bulging pockets. As Oliver went on to show, local news outlets are even more vulnerable to Trump’s bullying and threats. He cited the ongoing case against California radio station KCBS, whose coverage of ICE activity in its catchment area (you know, local news) has seen Carr launch an investigation which threatens the station’s license. And, as Oliver notes, even if such lawsuits are—to use legal experts’ terminology, complete bullsh*t—the chilling effect on stations’ ongoing coverage is the point.

Oliver drew all too relevant parallels to the authoritarian crackdowns on the free press in places like Turkey and the Philippines (both of whose dictators, Viktor Orbán and Rodrigo Duterte are Trump pals). Oliver played a clip of award-winning Filipino journalist Maria Ressa discussing her courageous refusal to knuckle under to governmental threats, echoing her urging to Shari Redstone, “Don’t voluntarily give up your rights,” before continuing, “If you do not hold the line at this crucial moment —this is the moment when you are strongest —you will only get weaker over time.”

In a country teetering on the brink of Putin-style kleptocratic authoritarianism, Oliver could only urge viewers to support any and all news outlets willing to stand up to all this dictatorial pressure, and for those rich owners currently facing the choice between cowardly submission and a willingness to fight to, well, fight. As Oliver concluded, “This is where it starts, and this is also the one chance you get to stop it.”

And Now This…

But back to John Oliver beating up on his parent company for kicks. In a montage of local anchors reporting on the whole HBO Max rebrand, incredulity and scorn were the sport of the week. Taking a page from Oliver’s playbook, one anchor followed up her story about the change with a condescending, “Cool…” Another slapped his knee as if he’d heard a particularly great joke. And yet another could only exclaim, “My God, what are you doing?”

And if one anchor got sidetracked with fond reminiscences when the Max in Cinemax meant jiggling the TV knob just right so he could catch brief glimpses of that subsidiary’s scrambled soft core porn offerings, well, that’s between him and his chosen deity. The point is, John Oliver loves to make fun of the people who cut his checks.

Moving On

It seems plenty of minor league baseball teams have expressed interest in Oliver’s offer to do a much more considered (and potentially hilarious) rebrand of their always cash-strapped franchises. Even though, as Oliver explained this week’s follow-up, the terms surrounding Last Week Tonight‘s hardball makeover are pretty stringent. You know, since the team in question will allow Oliver and his team full control over the new name, and cannot give notes.

It’s a risky proposition in theory, although Oliver’s riotous piece from a few weeks ago shows that minor league clubs are already prone to outrageous promotions, such as installing a row of (non-functional) toilets for patrons to sit on or holding a tribute night to the one unsuspecting lady who gave their ballpark a two star review.

Well, the wait is over, as Oliver noted that, despite all his caveats, some 47 minor league teams applied to be Last Week Tonight‘s moniker guinea pig. And while the Iowa-based affiliate of the Chicago Cubs was considered the front runner for a time, Oliver sent forth a shower of confetti upon announcing that the team putting itself completely in the hands of a cheeky Brit with pockets stuffed full of HBO’s cash is… the Erie SeaWolves!

Yes, the Pennsylvania AA ball club, an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, will now be known as the… well, Oliver’s not telling. But he assured the club’s fans and players that he and his team are digging deep into the history of the team and its surrounding area to come up with the perfect, almost certainly not-silly new name. What was the deciding factor? Well, the fact that Erie, Pennsylvania is nowhere near the sea probably didn’t hurt, but regardless, Eastern League fans are now officially on the lookout for their beloved baseball team’s new name, look, theme nights, and promotions. Oh, and mascots. The Erie Mr. Nutterbutters does have a nice ring to it.

Cardus Endus

See above, as the final title card in tonight’s opening credits plastered all of the various HBO streaming service name changes over recent years. As one of those mocking anchors put it, that’s a lot of money spent on focus groups and new fonts and all. Not for nothing, but maybe that money could have been spent keeping Sesame Street on the air, geniuses.

Last Lines Tonight

“And honestly, you know which insult hurts the most there? ‘accounting boy.’ Because I can brush off the nut sack thing—maybe yours is exquisite. And if you saw me without TV makeup, you’d realize it is actually working. This is, unfortunately, the makeup working. But ‘accounting boy?’ I’m afraid that’s just a bullseye right there.”

on some hate mail

“Fundamental rights and freedoms are worth fighting for. And this is one of the fights that nerds who work in newsrooms can actually win. Mostly because it doesn’t require any upper body strength.”

“And, come on. That’s not just bending the knee. That’s bending both knees, arching your back, and relaxing your holes.”

on Jeff BEzos making a $40 million documentary series about melania Trump

“That’s pretty humiliating, and not just because ‘I love this guy, whoever the hell that is’ is almost definitely how Donald Trump opened a toast at Eric’s wedding.” 

on trump’s praise of a right-wing reporter’s suck-up questions

” You may remember, two weeks ago, we did a segment about the incredible institution that is minor league baseball, which is really just baseball but with a staggering amount of younger sibling energy.”