John Oliver: Incompetence and disobedience saved President Trump

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver recapped the Mueller report and discussed how Trump’s presidency was saved.

In the immediate aftermath of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report being release, every media outlet or pundit gave an analysis. Late night shows were no different and now we finally get to hear from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

John Oliver got the benefit of not having to do a show the same night the Mueller report was released. While shows like Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert had to quickly come up with monologues based on the report, Oliver was able to wait until Sunday night to deliver his take on the report.

It is impossible to expect anyone, let alone a late night comedian, to go over every detail and major point of the 400 page Mueller report. So instead, John Oliver focused on what he considered were the two main takeaways: incompetence in conspiring with Russia and disobedience as it relates to obstruction of justice. Oliver suggests that these two factors effectively saved President Donald Trump from losing the White House.

It’s not exactly a great sign when someone is only saved by incompetence and disobedience. But there has been a long line of “bad signs” coming from the Trump White House even before the release of the Mueller report.

Oliver explains how individuals from Russia were eager to assist the Trump campaign but couldn’t due to disorganization or incompetence on the Trump side. Michael Cohen especially gets singled out as someone who was clearly in over his head.

The Last Week Tonight host then moves on to discuss how the report details Trump’s obsession with the Russia investigation but could not get his subordinates to carry out his wishes. According to the report, Trump would give orders that were either ignored completely or not followed in hopes the president would forget even giving them out.

So if that disobedience kept Trump from committing clear obstruction of justice, Oliver seems to think that more obedient people are now working in and around the White House. His primary example is Attorney General William Barr who has made sure to get a clear narrative in place before any information from the actual Mueller report gets released.

Team Trump may be on a victory lap after the Mueller report was released but John Oliver isn’t so sure they have anything to celebrate. There are still a number of other investigations going on and now the public has an ever better picture of the Trump administration. Clearly we haven’t heard the last from Oliver on this topic.