John Oliver dubs Trump scandal ‘Stupid Watergate’
By Jeremy Dick
On Last Week Tonight last night, John Oliver took on President Trump’s Russia scandal, breaking it down and giving it the name ‘Stupid Watergate’.
Last night on HBO, John Oliver spent the entire Last Week Tonight talking about the last week… that night. Basically, it’s just been an absolutely insane past seven days concerning the president, leaving little time to cover anything else happening.
To start, Oliver calls this ongoing scandal with Donald Trump and Russia “Stupid Watergate”. To try to break it down a little bit for the viewers, Oliver says the night’s show is setting out to answer three basic questions: “What the f–k is going on?”, “How big a deal is this?”, and “Is this real life?”
Trying to answer that first question, Oliver goes to the start of last week with the breaking story of Trump revealing classified intel to Russian officials. He moves on to the revelation that Trump pressured James Comey to drop the Michael Flynn investigation.
It’s seriously like with each passing day, worse and worse news comes out about the president. As Oliver points out, it’s getting to the point where his own party is turning on him. Some Republicans are even bringing up impeachment, and John McCain likens it to the Watergate scandal.
But Oliver shows how much worse an impeachment could be by showing the line of succession. President Pence doesn’t sound a whole lot better. And even if he went down with Trump, Paul Ryan would be next in line. And it somehow only gets worse from there.
In any case, Oliver assures viewers that an impeachment is a “long shot” anyway. “Why would this be the end of the line for him? Trump has seemed to reach the end of the line on many occasions only for nothing to happen,” Oliver says. He then points to Trump’s hesitation to disavow David Duke, the time he bullied a Gold Star family, and, of course, the infamous Access Hollywood bus tape.
It’s as if “for him, and him alone, the end of the line is drawn by M.C. f–king Escher,” Oliver jokes. You can watch the entire take down in the video below.
Next: Sasheer Zamata is leaving Saturday Night Live
Oliver compares this fiasco to simpler times, by playing a clip of Sean Hannity trashing President Obama for ordering dijon mustard on his hamburger. “I would honestly give anything to once again live in a time where the scandal rocking the Executive branch was Fox News host implying that the president likes metrosexual mustard,” Oliver jokes.
“And maybe, fingers crossed, one day we can all get there again.”