It’s Been a Busy Week
This segment heading seems like more of an understatement with each passing episode of Last Week Tonight, doesn’t it? Kicking off his fourth episode of Season 12 under the second Donald Trump administration, John Oliver attempted to ease viewers into things.
There’s the technically sketchy news about a private company’s claim that they’ve made the first step toward reintroducing the wooly mammoth in the form of a strain of russet-haired wooly mice. While Oliver conceded that the whole “bring back prehistoric animals” concept has a whole franchise’s worth of reasons to be skeptical, he also looked at those damned adorable mice and stated emphatically, “Let us have this!”
Maybe that’s because the rest of the week’s news was so unremittingly bleak. The United States continuing to side with a Russian dictatorship by cutting off intelligence sharing with beleaguered Ukraine? Check. The Pentagon blanket-scrubbing all references to Republicans’ dreaded DEI, including those concerning the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki because it has the word “gay” in its name? That’s a big old, ludicrous check.
Even our most stereotypically nice upstairs neighbor is mad at us, with outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggesting that Canadians righteously angry at Trump’s saber-rattling threats and tariffs are planning to forego their annual vacations to places like Florida and Maine’s Old Orchard Beach. This last move provoked outrage from Oliver, who did a presumably unsolicited commercial for OOB’s own Jungle Adventure blacklight mini-golf, which no doubt enjoyed tonight’s broadcast more than anybody.
Has there been any good news? Well, that depends whether, in your view, the Democrats’ scattershot and sometimes embarrassing attempts to thwart Trump’s agenda count. Oliver looked askance at Dems’ dress code and auction sign protests to Trump’s divisive State of the Union speech, while lambasting the ten Democrats who voted to censure Texas Rep. Al Green for standing up and objecting to Trump’s plot to kill Social Security and Medicare. And don’t get him started on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who insisted that Democrats aren’t alone in their anger at Trump’s policies—while being filmed absolutely alone in a windy field. “What’s wrong with you?,” asked a visibly frustrated Oliver at what he termed the Dems “performative nonsense.”
Noting the historical ineffectiveness of centrist Democrats attempts to “bend over backwards” trying to placate the right wing, he also mocked official Democratic SOTU rebuttal speaker Rep. Elise Slotkin (D-MI) who cited Ronald Reagan as a heroic counterpoint to Trump’s pro-Russia leanings. As Oliver put it in all fairness, there are a few things to admire about Reagan, notwithstanding his bigoted exacerbation of the AIDS crisis. “Like he was our only president to make a movie with a chimp,” offered Oliver, “or he’s dead.” End of list.
It was on the citizen level that Oliver saw some actually effective pushback to the administration’s lawless cruelty. Showing a montage of Republican representatives being literally booed out of their own town halls, Oliver mocked Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) for complaining that people protesting Elon Musk’s rampant and random cuts to government workers were “rude,” noting, “Grow up. Your job is to listen to people’s complaints and then act on their concerns.” Oliver also moaned “back to this sh*t again” when House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) trotted out the old “paid protesters” excuse, noting that “they were paid to hate me” is only acceptable complaint if you’re on one of the Real Housewives series.
As ever, Oliver was all about solutions, however. For one, noting that elected representatives are receiving upward of 1,600 angry constituent calls a minute (up from an average of 40 when Donald Trump wasn’t in charge), he urged people to keep that up. “Make them answerable and uncomfortable,” advised Oliver, adding more bluntly, “Scream at them.” See tonight’s main story for that theme to resurface.
And Now This…
Did you know that perennially wrong, famously humiliated by Oliver’s pal Jon Stewart economic prop comic Jim Cramer once worked at financial institution Goldman Sachs? If not, he will tell you. Repeatedly. Sometimes while clanging a little bell.
Our Main Story Tonight
For this week’s main course of stomach-tightening injustice, John Oliver addressed ICE, more specifically, the expanded and cruelly arbitrary enforcement of immigration raids and detention under Trump’s second term.
And here’s where that theme resurfaces, as Oliver lauded a woman spotted during an ICE tactical raid on one Colorado housing development targeted by Trump who, brandishing a large reusable mug, screamed that the camouflage-clad, automatic weapon-toting agents were “dumb a**holes,” and added,”What the f*ck is wrong with you?” As Oliver noted admiringly, he wasn’t sure what was in that lady’s mug, but it wasn’t f*cks, since she was clearly out of those to give.
Oliver’s signature spelunking trip into the depths of the always politically motivated attacks on immigrant communities didn’t spare any recent administration. He noted that since Bill Clinton signed an order expanding the nature of offenses under which immigrants could be detained to even the most minor infractions, looking tough on immigration has been one sure way for administrations, both Democratic and Republican, to kick around a vulnerable community for political points.
Naturally, however, Oliver was unsparing in showing how Trump has really kicked that kicking into overdrive, his overtly xenophobic/racist raw meat gobbled up by his base, leading to the expansion of already unjust and cruel policies to terrible extremes. Noting how new Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s sneering pronouncement that all undocumented immigrants are now being treated as criminals ignores the difference between civil complaints and criminal ones, Oliver jabbed back that her boss should know the difference, “since he’s committed both.”
Oliver showed how the glee coming from private prison companies at the news of Trump’s expanded detention scheme is proof enough of it’s evil nature. He noted how such for-profit detention centers are deliberately put in isolated areas and restrict communication with detainees in order to prevent them from receiving due process, to avoid oversight, and to foment a feeling of helplessness among detainees and their families. He also played a chipper 1980’s local news report about the first such private immigration prison, noting that the reporter’s statement that “there’s no business like jail business” sounds like “a musical where Bernadette Peters shanks someone in their sleep.” (Would watch, honestly.)
As usual, Oliver named names to put them front and center in viewers consciousness—and activism crosshairs. Private prison execs from companies like The GEO Group and CoreCivic were singled out for essentially licking their lips at the prospect of floods of sketchily detained new prison assets for them to exploit and illegally withhold food or throw in solitary confinement past the 15 threshold that constitutes torture. He also singled out the BIONIC (“Believe it or not, I care”) slogan of private prison corporation MTC, noting that anything you say after “believe it or not” is going to provoke serious and justified skepticism. (He went on to reveal a case of a detainee dying in MTC’s care while officials dragged their feet on obtaining life-saving nourishment to find the cheapest price. Believe it or not.)
As for those solutions viewers always look forward to at the end of one of these depressing Last Week Tonight stories, um, don’t hold your breath. “Honestly, for the next few years, we’re f*cked” at the federal level stated Oliver, noting how Trump’s plan to spirit detainees off to far-flung, often formerly shut down for inhumane conditions facilities is now official federal policy.
On the state and local level, he was a bit more helpful/hopeful, noting how the state of Illinois has passed laws banning private prisons and prohibiting local jails from doing business with ICE. With New Mexico also considering similar laws, Oliver could only point to that one pissed off lady in Colorado and tell people it’s time to get on the phones to their reps with their own iterations of, “What the f*ck is wrong with you?”
And Now This…
It’s been a long few months, so let’s end this depressing episode by watching notorious wrestling badass Stone Cold Steve Austin being nice to some kitties. Sure, the infamously troubled ‘rassler calls his beloved barn cats Pancho and Macho “motherf*cker” a lot, and his assessment of them both as “solid-ass cats” isn’t the sort of slogan you’ll find on your organic cat food. But if Stone Cold can melt in the face of some very good, solid-ass kitties, then maybe there’s hope in this world.
Cardus Endus
Last Week Tonight paid tribute to voice acting legend George Lowe, who died this week at the age of 67. In a long and storied career behind the mic, Lowe is perhaps best known for his deadpan resurrection of also-ran Hanna-Barbara superhero Space Ghost in Adult Swim’s loopy talk show Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Portraying hero-turned-host Space Ghost as a clueless, belligerent weirdo interviewing celebrities often not in on the concept whatsoever, Lowe spun an infamous cartoon stiff into comic gold.
Last Lines Tonight
“Gilding is a technique where you cover things that are not gold in a thin layer of gold to make them look like gold. So you wouldn’t gild gold, because gold is gold already. It would be like J.D. Vance wearing a t-shirt that says ‘Unbearable bitch’ on it. It’s redundant.”
on Mike Johnson saying he wanted to frame trump’s SOTU speech “in gilded gold”
“I’m just saying, if you brought Reagan back from the dead and told him all the racist sh*t Trump’s managed to do in less than two months, he’d c*m so hard he’d die again.”
on elisa slotkin trotting out Ronald Regan in her sotu rebuttal
“Okay, I think relying on ‘God’s plan’ when Elon Musk is part of the equation is a little hard to swallow. Especially because, if Elon himself was following God’s plan, he’d clearly be bald by now.”
ON REP. mark alford (R-MS) claiming Musk’s hatchet job is “part of god’s plan”
“That’s ridiculous. Clearly no one should be punished for a minor mistake they made 14 years earlier. Otherwise I’d have hell to pay for playing Vanity Smurf in the 2011 Smurfs movie.”
on a jamaican man being rounded up 14 years after being busted for pot possession
“Wow, that’s not great. When a judge is likening your client’s practices to slavery, that’s generally a pretty bad sign for your case. There really shouldn’t even be a verdict at that point, a trap door should just open up beneath you while they call the next case in.”
on a judge shooting down private prison company GEO Group’s punitive policies
“The public does love things that sound tough. It’s probably why Mark Sinclair made his stage name Vin Diesel and not Reginald Chugglewums the Third.”
on the tough talk anti-immigrant posturing
