Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (TV Series)

President-Elect Trump (2016)

John Oliver: Self - Host

Photos 

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  John Oliver - Host : Welcome! welcome! welcome! to "Last Week Tonight". I'm John Oliver; thank you so much for joining us, and let us begin with our first and only story: the 2016 election. Or as you may know it: I thought I wanted it to be over but now that it's over I wish it were still going on because it turns out the ending is even worse twenty-fucking-sixteen.

• Ted Cruz : Hi, this is Ted Cruz calling. I was calling to encourage you to come out and vote on Election Day.

  John Oliver : Wow, that is hard to watch. "Hi, this is Ted Cruz, just calling to remind you to vote for a man who insulted my wife and said my dad helped kill JFK. Anyway, life has no meaning. Thank you. I want to die."

• John Oliver - Host : While some are arguing that Trump might not have meant all those things, that leaves us with two devastating options: either we just elected a President who didn't mean a single word he said, or we elected one who did.

• John Oliver - Host : Trump is like a magic eight-ball; every time you shake him he gives you a different answer, and sometimes the answer is just 'big-league' or 'that's some body on my daughter, right?'

• John Oliver - Host : What the fuck do we do now? And for the record, the answer is not "move to Canada". Literally the only excuse to ever migrate to Canada is if you were born there originally, it's springtime and you are a goose. That's it. That is it.

• John Oliver - Host : If we don't get actively involved to at least mitigate Trump's damage, things will not be OK. And yes, the sun will rise each day, but the continuing rotation of the earth should not be your baseline expectation of American society.

• [last lines] 

  John Oliver - Host : That's our show. Thanks so much for watching. Let's all try harder next year. Good night.

• John Oliver - Host : Our president-elect has at various times said he'd bomb civilians, loot oil, and waterboard, which isn't a military strategy so much as the series of words that Donald Rumsfeld mutters so he can stay hard while he's masturbating.

• John Oliver - Host : [about Trump]  Many people are happy to see him in office. Some are voters who think he'll bring jobs back and shake up Washington; others are happy simply because he isn't Hillary Clinton, and others of course are Vladimir Putin and Scott Baio. But, for the rest of us, we are faced with the same questions as a guy that woke up the day after a Vegas bachelor party, deep in the desert, naked, tied to a cactus and a dead clown, namely: "How the *fuck* did we get here?" and "What the *fuck* do we do now?"

• John Oliver - Host : [after a list of Trump promises]  OK, OK. Stop, just stop. 'Cause it sounds like you're reading a to-do list on Satan's refrigerator. Which, of course, Satan no longer needs now that Hell has frozen over.

• John Oliver - Host : [on Trump's promise to 'clean the swamp' vs. his appointees]  That is so swampy you're going to need to swap out Air Force One for one of those shallow bottom boats with a big fan on the back.

• John Oliver - Host : As we've seen, Trump is a masterful denier of both reality and responsibility. He's a man who would kick you in the nuts and then tell you that your penis did it.

• John Oliver - Host : There is very little holding Trump back. And remember, in January he will be sworn into office. And there is another wave of nausea for you.

  [audience laughter] 

  John Oliver - Host : It hits you in small ways and large, doesn't it? For instance, had you considered the fact that portraits of Trump are going to be hanging in our airports? Uh... or that the man who disparaged a Gold Star family will now be expected to comfort the families of fallen soldiers? And maybe you've tried to make yourself feel better, fantasizing that he might Google "how much does the president get paid?", get depressed, and then resign. But that is when you remember Mike fucking Pence, who might be even worse, because he looks like he's from the 1950s, but he thinks like he's from the 1650s. "Oh, what's that, you say? Her pregnancy was terminated before birth? Well, clearly she's a witch. Hold a funeral for the fetus and throw the mother in a lake."

• John Oliver - Host : There is nothing inherently wrong with media that has a viewpoint. This show has a viewpoint; we fact-check everything we say, but I don't pretend to be neutral on things like criminal justice reform; I'm for it. Uh... Coldplay; I'm against it. Uh... or DeWalt ladders; they're a seamless blend of style and performance. Walking up one is like ascending to Heaven on a golden cloud. I'm not being paid to say that. I'm just a fan.

• John Oliver - Host : [about Trump's consideration of Reince Priebus, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, and Chris Christie for Cabinet positions]  Right, so that's the longtime head of the RNC, a former Speaker who entered Congress in 1979, a former mayor turned professional asshole, and a man whose name is more synonymous with scandal than Shonda fucking Rhimes.

• John Oliver - Host : Optimism is nice if you can swing it. But you've got to be careful, because it can feed into the normalization of Donald Trump. And he is not normal. He's abnormal. He's a human "What is wrong with this picture?".

  [audience laughter] 

  John Oliver - Host : He sticks out like a sore thumb, and frankly, he even looks like a sore thumb.

• John Oliver - Host : News is now one of the three things that we get from social media, the other two being our entire sense of self-worth and pictures of shaved alpacas.

• John Oliver - Host : [about political pundits suggesting Trump be given a chance to be president]  Now, in the broadest sense, I get that impulse: hope for the best in the face of very long odds. It's like we're on a plane and we just found out our pilot is a wombat.

  [laughter] 

  John Oliver - Host : "I don't like this. I don't understand how it happened, and I'm pretty sure we're headed for disaster, but what the hell? Come on, Batty, prove me wrong!"

• John Oliver - Host : Earlier tonight, he did his first major post-election, and he was asked about Obamacare, which, remember, he had labeled "a disaster."

  [footage of Trump's interview] 

  John Oliver - Host : Oh, okay. So, uh, get ready for a barely changed version of Obamacare called Trumpcare, which sounds like a health care plan where doctors feel your breasts for lumps whether you ask them to or not.

• John Oliver - Host : [about Trump's Cabinet considerations]  It actually makes sense for Trump to appoint people with significant experience in government. Until a few days ago, the highest office he'd ever held was on the 26th floor of a shitty building on Fifth Avenue. But some of the people he's bringing in are horrifying. His transition team includes people like Ken Blackwell, who has argued that homosexuality is a choice. And he's named Myron Ebell to lead his EPA transition team, making him a frontrunner for administrator despite this.

  [footage of Ebell calling global warming "silly"] 

  John Oliver - Host : Okay, well, just... first of all, the vast majority of scientists believe humans are contributing to climate change, and secondly, this man does not have a science degree. He wouldn't even be qualified to head the Agency of Baking Soda Volcanoes. So how the fuck did we get here? Well, clearly, there are many possible answers to that question; uh, including misleading forecasts that bred complacency, a flawed candidate who failed to appeal to white, rural, and working class voters, and - and this is worth repeating - deep racism and/or indifference to it.

• John Oliver - Host : We're gonna need to stay here and fight, and not just politically in four years when he's up for re-election, but constantly. Monitoring legislation as it moves through Congress and fucking voting when your legislators come up for re-election in two years. But that is still below the barest minimum of what is going to be needed, because for the last eight years, we've had a president we could assume would generally stand up for the rights of all Americans, but that is going to change now. So we're gonna have to actively stand up for one another, and it can't be just sounding off on the Internet or sharing think pieces or videos like this one that echo around your bubble. I'm talking about actual sacrifice to support people who are now under threat. So if you can afford the time or money...

  [cheers and applause] 

  John Oliver - Host : ...support organizations that are going to need help under a Trump administration. Uh, for instance, if you're concerned about women's health, donate to Planned Parenthood or the Center for Reproductive Rights. Uh, if you don't believe man-made global warming is a "silly issue", uh, donate to the National Resources Defense Council. If you don't think refugees are a terrorist army in disguise, donate to the International Refugee Assistance Project. Oh, and, uh, also, given these guys' track record...

  [a picture of Trump and Mike Pence is shown] 

  John Oliver - Host : ...I would also recommend donations to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Trevor Project for LGBTQ Youth, and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Because that last one would be perfect if your compassion for Latinos goes beyond, say, I don't know, occasionally eating a fucking taco bowl.

• John Oliver - Host : Fuck you, 2016. Fuck. You.