On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver dove right into the “damning revelations” Donald Trump is facing in the continuing saga of “Stupid Watergate II”, Rudy Giuliani’s butt-dialing habits as well as Boris Johnson and the looming Brexit deadline.
This week, former United States ambassador to Ukraine and career diplomat Bill Taylor connected Trump to the heart of the impeachment inquiry which caused plenty of gasps and sighs in Congress. Oliver said that this is the most disturbing day in Congress since Orrin Hatch got bangs.
He pointed out, “The information emerging in the Ukraine probe does not look good for the White House which is perhaps why Trump supporters spent the week attacking the impeachment process itself. Some House Republicans even staged an invasion of a closed-door hearing claiming they been shut out, a claim slightly undercut by the fact that 47 Republicans — about a quarter of those in the house — were already able to attend.”
Oliver then said that things got dumber in this saga on Friday when news came out that Rudy Giuliani butt-dialed a news reporter and saying non-suspicious things like “the problem is we need some money”.
“Apparently Giuliani butt-dials all the time,” he remarked. “One reporter tweeted ‘everyone has a good Rudy butt dial story’…that begs the question, ‘how is he doing this so much?’”
“I don’t know how this story is going to get any stupider but I am sure that Rudy is butt-dialing a reporter right f***ing now,” he quipped.
Oliver then pivoted to another “the fiasco of the week”, Brexit or what he referred to as: “Bad Idea, Really Bad Idea, EXtremely Bad Idea, Toodle-oo!”
The deadline to leave the EU is this Thursday, making it a “Halloween Brexit.” He joked, “It is the worse thing to be added to Halloween since Playboy magazine’s 2014 sexy John Oliver costume” — which is a real thing.
“Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister and dumb person’s idea of a smart person, has promised he will meet the deadline and has insisted that he will not ask for an extension,” said Oliver. Johnson’s hopes came crashing down when he returned from Brussels last week with a Brexit plan that was put in front of the House of Commons for a vote. As it was happening hundreds of thousands of protestors were marching against Brexit — which Oliver said can be summed up by a sign in the march that said “I Am So Tired.”
During the march, Parliament passed an amendment forced a Brexit delay which was bad news for Johnson but delighted the protestors. “What this meant was that Boris was required to request a three-month Brexit delay,” said Oliver.
In a news segment, it was said that Johnson was flirting with ignoring that law but eventually did as he was told. However, he sent one unsigned letter for the extension request followed by another letter saying the exact opposite.
Oliver explained with a huge smile that he sent an unsigned letter of what he was supposed to say and also a signed letter saying what he really thought. Oliver called it “incredible” adding, “Incidentally, how are signatures things that matter anyway? we live in a time where actual robots exist but if you want to make it official you need to write your name weird.”
The EU is weighing the extension request and Boris is trying to sell his deal to MPs, asking them to support the deal in principle which some of them are willing to do despite a considerable hurdle — which is they’re not reading it at all. “He was about to sign a monumental deal without reading it!” exclaimed Oliver, comparing it to when *Nsync signed a deal with Lou Pearlman.
Oliver said that Brexit will most likely not happen on October 31 and that Johnson is trying a different route to get support for passing a deal. “He’s asking Parliament to agree to a new election in December, but it is not clear that Parliament will even agree to that and many voters don’t have an appetite for it,” said Oliver. He then cut to news footage of UK citizens being interviewed who don’t care to vote ever again.
“For f***’s sake!” exclaimed Oliver. “This is the most consequential thing to happen to Britain in a generation and it seems the sides are ‘I’m So Tired’, ‘Haven’t Read It’, ‘I Can’t Be Bothered’ and ‘I’d Rather Be Dead In a Ditch’ — good luck Britain!”