It’s Been a Busy Week
But honestly, when is it not these days? Still, as John Oliver noted in his abbreviated opening segment on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, there are bigger fish to fry than covering, say, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson being attacked by a tetchy Texas ostrich, or Education Secretary Linda McMahon getting grilled by steak sauce company A1 for confusing their product with A.I. in a public forum.
When Oliver breezes by juicy news like that, you know we’re in some deep trouble. Which brings us to…
Our Main Story Tonight
With the benefit of a weekly show to truly process last seven days’ worth of Trump-era developments, Last Week Tonight is uniquely positioned to take a good, long view of those events. And so on Sunday, John Oliver surveyed the tumultuous week following Trump’s in-progress tariff trainwreck.
The host’s customary deep dive into the whos, hows, whys, and “what the hell?”s of it all began with the who: Donald Trump, shown in a 2011 CSPAN clip playacting his now-current approach to China by putting on a tough guy voice to threaten, “Listen, you motherf*ckers…” As Oliver noted, that was back when no one took the then-Apprentice host seriously, but now that middle school bullying is official U.S. trade policy, it’s really us—and our mothers—who are well and truly f*cked.
That’s because, as Oliver showed in his signature cheeky in the face of disaster manner, Trump’s sweeping tariffs are both founded on faulty math and deeply stupid. Yes, even if Trump almost immediately walked (or rather sprinted) back his economy crippling tariff plot once the stock market lost [checks notes] everything in a matter of days. And while Trump-loving skeptics might take issue with Oliver using such terms as “turmoil,” “total chaos,” “financial chaos,” or just plain “stupid” to characterize the situation, it’s pretty telling when Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that some “75 countries” have come to “kiss [his] ass” sounds about as convincing as that girlfriend you totally have in Canada. It’s also not a good sign when Trump’s Fox News apologists keep citing The Art of the Deal to sum up Trump’s “trust me, I’m a genius” spin, since the six-times bankrupted Donald Trump in no way wrote that book.
He showed Trump’s contradictory messaging on whether the tariffs are permanent or temporary catching his own trade representative Jamieson Greer by surprise during a live hearing. (To be fair, not every country conducts complex trade policy via all caps social media posts.) He noted speculation from Wall Street insiders that Trump “might be insane” as stock prices plummeted in real time. And he even had to give it up to famously wrong financial TV host Jim Cramer (aka “what if a garbage can full of cocaine and business school pamphlets wished to be a real boy”) for noting how Trump’s tariff on the tiny impoverished nation of Lesotho ignored literally every established financial reality. “He’s right… sh*t,” Oliver stated, barely able to believe the words coming out of his mouth.
Citing everyone from an American soybean farmer lamenting the obliteration of decades of delicate U.S.-China trade negotiations in an instant to Trump’s own Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (shown sporting a “c*nty little bob,” in Oliver’s words) explaining, pre-tariffs, how Trump’s carpet-bombing approach to tariffs shouldn’t cover products that simply can’t be manufactured in America, Oliver presented a pretty airtight case that this whole debacle was as preventable as it was inevitable. He also threw in a jab at Vice President and “cursed Cabbage Patch b*tch” J.D. Vance for derisively insulting the Chinese as “peasants,” joining one Chinese social media user in turning Vance’s own “have you said thank you?” insult to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy back on him. (China owns untold billons in U.S. debt, which isn’t bad for a bunch of peasants.)
Quoting Canadian Prime Minister Carney’s stark warning that Trump’s recklessness has made “tragedy the new reality,” Oliver, while noting that would be a kick-ass title for Fall Out Boy’s new album, could only stress to viewers that this whole sh*tshow is hardly over. That’s because while Trump’s panicky “90 day pause” on some of his most egregious tariffs went into hasty place this week, vital trading partner China is still saddled with a 145 percent tariff, most other countries are still facing a 10 percent tariff, and congressional Republicans seem only too happy to hand over their constitutional oversight authority to the nutcase in charge.
Noting how Rep. Senator Chuck Grassley’s Trade Review Act of 2025 (which would put limits on Trump’s economic authority) is unlikely to garner a veto-proof majority, Oliver took aim at Louisiana Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) for dropping another of his down-home metaphors by admiringly calling Trump “a pit bull” who just caught the car he was chasing. As Oliver noted with fraying patience, that metaphor is about how dogs are dumb and impulsive creatures who have no capacity to form long-term plans about what they’ll do with that speeding 3,000-pound automobile once they’ve clamped onto its bumper.
“Your job is to stop that dog,” Oliver explained to the cartoonishly folksy Kennedy, “not to say, ‘I don’t know guys, let him cook'” while hoping for “some sort of Air Bud situation.”
And Now This…
With fellow HBO series The White Lotus having wrapped up its third season this week, Last Week Tonight showed a montage of how solidly Mike White’s perennially gripping drama has gripped the nation’s morning show news teams. Cue plenty of “no spoilers!” fingers-in-ears outbursts and literally everyone involved whipping out their approximation of Parker Posey’s clearly inimitable Southern-accented “Piper, noooooo!”
Moving On
For something that, unlike the U.S. economy under Donald Trump, is going absolutely swimmingly, John Oliver pulled out all the stops and headed over to The Netherlands. That’s where people are flocking via the internet to eagerly help some horny fish get laid.
At least that’s the underlying message behind Visdeurbel, aka the fish doorbell, a Dutch website where livestream viewers can click a link to allow fish to pass through one of Utrecht’s many canals on their way to their happy spawning grounds. Shown being introduced by gleeful WWE wrestler Shiloh Hill, the website is a truly mesmerizing watch. Now, waiting for a Dutch fish to heave into view in a canal’s murky waters to you can “wingman it to completion” might not sound like riveting TV, but, as Oliver noted, it’s preferable to watching an increasingly haggard-looking Brit explain why all your money is on fire, so why not give it a try.
To back up that assertion—and to get those f*ck-happy Dutch fishies in the mood—Oliver enlisted none other than iconic R&B mood-setter Mario to croon a brand new, original song to close out this week’s episode. Giving his new, Troy McClure-approved anthem to underwater fish-freaking his all, Mario entreated his imaginary lady love, “If you ever wanted your man to be a fish who would bust through a Dutch canal for you—well, baby, I can be that fish.”
As far as John Oliver spending HBO’s money on some goofy stunt designed to lift audience’s spirits after a particularly depressing main story goes, hiring a platinum-selling artist to do a full-on musical anthem to helping fish get busy has to be right up there. Is it “Russel Crowe jock strap” money? No one can say, but those Dutch fish are—with your and Mario’s help—about to have a really good night.
Cardus Endus
Does a sudden influx of memes featuring a block-headed Frankenstein’s Monster riding a similarly cubist chicken in your social media feed have you flummoxed? Well how about if we explain that it’s the one thing to go viral from a movie adaptation of a video game about building low-res structures while occasionally fighting terrifying (if low-res) monsters? Nothing? Well, the Chicken Jockey is from A Minecraft Movie anyway.
Last Lines Tonight
“I don’t know what’s more desperate there, the shameless sucking up or the need to put the words ‘We told you not to freak’ at the bottom of the screen. Which is funny coming from Fox News of all places, considering most of their broadcasts feature messages like ‘Why you should absolutely freak about the green M&M!'”
“And it is a perfect distillation of our current times that a steak sauce can dunk on the U.S. Secretary of Education and my honest reaction is: I am team steak sauce.”
“Yeah. I’m sure some have been pretty nice to him, the same way that you’d try to be nice if you suddenly found yourself in the same room as a monkey with a gun. ‘Hi, monkey! Good monkey. Strong monkey. Please, I’ll do anything!'”
on trump claiming countries were lining up to “kiss his ass”
“Sometimes it feels like the best way to ensure Trump does something is to tell him not to do it. He’s like a toddler, both because his brain is unable to grasp negations, but also because he has a short torso, huge head, always looks like he’s about to fall over, and won’t let anyone brush his hair.”
“Now, in the comedy world, the president of Nintendo being named ‘Doug Bowser’ is like someone gently setting a ball on a tee, handing you a bat and saying ‘Please have fun and swing away.'”
yes, that is the real name of the president of nintendo north america
Just love John’s refreshing, in-your-face, weekly wrapup, with the funnies to keep you smiling. Go fish!