See John Oliver Explain Why Trump’s Russia Scandal Is ‘Stupid Watergate’
John Oliver attempted to recap the week of White House chaos on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, answering four important questions: “What the fuck is going on?, “How big a deal is this?,” “Where do we go from here?” and “Is this real life?”
Oliver appeared exhausted even before beginning the massive segment, asking viewers, “Can you even remember how this week began?” From there, he summarized the biggest headlines, including leaks that President Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting and that former FBI director James Comey wrote a memo after a meeting with President Trump stating Trump asked him to shut down his investigation into then-National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn.
The host also marveled over Trump’s commencement address for the Coast Guard Academy, wherein the president complained, “No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.”
“Wait, no politician has been treated worse?” Oliver asked. “Abraham Lincoln was shot by an actor. William McKinley was shot by an anarchist. JFK was, of course, murdered by Ted Cruz’s father. And James Garfield was shot, then to find the bullet, Alexander Graham Bell devised a kind of metal detector, which didn’t work, so doctors tried to fish around in his guts for the bullet with unwashed fingers, which just made his infection worse, so he died in horrible pain. But yeah, Alec Baldwin sometimes does a mean impression of you on TV. So yeah, it’s basically the same, isn’t it?”
After continuing through the week’s biggest bombshells – like Trump allegedly telling Russian officials that Comey was a “nut job” and his firing relieved “great pressure” – he highlighted some descent from Congressional Republicans.
“I think it’s reaching the point where it’s of Watergate size and scale and a couple other scandals that you and I have seen,” Arizona Senator John McCain said Tuesday. “It’s the centipede [where] the shoe continues to drop.”
Oliver concurred with, but tweaked, the analogy: “It’s like the centipede that keeps dropping shoes,” he said. “But it’s real, and people wear shoes, so the Trump administration is really more The Human Centipede in terms of the amount of shit passing through it and how nauseating watching it really is.”
Later, the comedian broke down the possible aftermath of a Trump impeachment – including the concept of a President Mike Pence, who frequently describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican – in that order.”
Finally, Oliver warned viewers that, indeed, this is real life. “I don’t know about you,” he added, “but this week has drained me.” The world concurs.
Impeaching Donald Trump is as much a political question as it is a legal one. Watch here.