Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2014–…): Season 5, Episode 14 - Stupid Watergate II - full transcript
This was the second installment 'Stupid Watergate'. As it is not possible to indict a sitting president according the law the only way left is the impeachment and Trump knows that very well...
LAST WEEK TONIGHT
WITH JOHN OLIVER
SEASON V
EPISODE 14
Welcome to Last Week Tonight.
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you for joining us.
A quick recap of the week. We begin
with the upcoming North Korea Summit.
If you are wondering
how hard Trump has been preparing,
deep down,
you know the answer.
I'm very well prepared. I don't
think I have to prepare very much.
It's about attitude, it's about
willingness to get things done.
"It's not about preparation,
it's about attitude."
That's not a viable strategy
on RuPaul's Drag Race,
where you'd better also bring your
knowledge of wigs, makeup,
fashion and tucking technique
or you sashay away.
Trump is confident. When he was asked
how soon he would know
if talks were going well,
this was his reply.
I think within the first minute,
I'll know.
My touch, my feel.
That's what I do.
It's not a great sign for a negotiation
where so much depends on tone
and choice of words.
He's describing his strategy in
the most upsetting possible way.
I'm gonna grope
my way through this.
Or I was gonna use our mouths to bring
this summit to a satisfying climax.
Why's everyone's
looking at me weird ?
We still have
two days until the Summit,
so that's two more sunsets
at least for us to enjoy.
Let's move on to the Philippines.
The southeast Asian island,
not the teenage fan club
for Prince Philip.
He's so dreamy.
It's his birthday today.
We've talked
before about their president,
strongman and aspiring Street Fighter 2
character Rodrigo Duterte,
who's gained notoriety
for supporting extrajudicial killings
as part of his war on drugs.
He demonstrated the same level
of nuance to gender relations.
A kiss may just be a kiss sometimes.
But not when the Philippine
President is delivering it.
A spokesman for Rodrigo Duterte
says the president's kiss of a woman
was an act of endearment
toward Filipino workers.
"It was an act of endearment
towards Filipino workers"
is a more creative justification
for that sort of behavior than:
"when you're a star,
they let you do it."
That clip didn't do justice
to how uncomfortable
the build-up to that kiss was.
That felt so grotesque,
the MTV Movie Awards
have retroactively nullified
every "Best Kiss" winner, saying:
"Given Duterte's recent actions, we can
no longer condone kissing of any kind."
"Every kiss
is now the worst kiss."
Many in the Philippines were
upset by this,
but Duterte's legal counsel insisted
the incident was charming.
The kiss was an endearing kiss.
Coming from a fan
who was so tickled pink when
she had the opportunity.
She did it willingly and excitedly,
she was tickled pink !
Stop saying "tickled pink".
It's not technically a dirty phrase,
but you are making it
disgusting.
Fan or not,
she repeatedly pulled away from him.
Sometimes women
just don't want to kiss you.
I'm not speaking from
personal experience here,
I just have a deep rooted hunch
about it.
This incident is the tip of the iceberg
regarding Duterte and sexual politics.
In February,
he told a group of Filipino workers:
"Don't use condoms
because they don't feel good",
which is not great advice
in a country facing an HIV epidemic.
He gave a group of soldiers
a horrifying suggestion
for how to deal with female rebels.
Tell the soldiers, the women,
call them and tell them:
"the mayor has a new order
not to kill you,"
"just shoot you
in the vagina".
No more vagina,
you're useless.
Let's be clear about this one:
"without a vagina, you're useless"
it's a searing indictment of anyone
who's stuck walking around
with this ridiculous thing instead.
Look at it.
Does anybody find this cool ?
There's not a single person
in this room thinking;
"what a spiffy little gizmo
we're all gazing upon !"
"I hope he keeps that
image on the screen forever !"
As for the outcry
over his kissing stunt,
Duterte claimed
it was all perfectly innocent.
I can only generate an emotion
if I kiss a woman I love.
Any other stranger is pure showbiz.
Pure showbiz.
You want
to say that that's a terrible excuse,
but given all we've learned
about the entertainment industry,
"pure showbiz" might be the perfect
description of what is happening.
And now, this.
Julie Chen has a few questions for
the audience of "The Talk".
How awkward would it be
at this point in your life,
for your parents
to see you naked ?
What is the last object
you got hit by ?
At what age do you think
it's ok to scare a child ?
Do you plan for the end ?
Do rats freak you out ?
Do you think
you could do your job stoned ?
Have you ever had
to toot your own horn ?
Would you trust
a robot to cook your food ?
Has anyone ever interrupted
you in the bathroom ?
Do you think
claiming your pet peacock
as your emotional support animal
is going too far ?
No, Julie.
Moving on. We thought we'd update
you on the ongoing scandals
that we've been calling
"Stupid Watergate".
A scandal on the scale of Watergate,
but where everyone involved
is dumb and terrible
and bad at everything.
Last month marked the one-year
anniversary of Mueller investigation.
Or as the president
call itý
Robert Mueller's illegitimate,
runaway witch-hunt.
- It has been a witch-hunt.
- This is a witch-hunt.
- This is a witch-hunt.
- Basically a witch-hunt.
- The witch-hunt.
- It's a damn witch-hunt.
They've been referring to the Mueller
investigation as a "witch-hunt".
Which is a little ironic,
if Giuliani, Hannity and Trump
had been alive
back when people burned witches,
they'd have had front-row seats,
toasting marshmallows,
trying to conceal their boners.
It's also a strange claim,
considering that Mueller's team
has charged 20 people
and three companies
and gathered five guilty pleas.
If this is a witch-hunt,
witches exist.
We should change references
in our history books
to 16th-century witch hunts
to read:
"That Time We Were Right To Murder
All Those Teenage Girls in a Lake."
And the fact the investigation
has been moving fast is good news,
set aside how you feel
about Trump or politics.
"Did a hostile foreign government
try to manipulate our election ?"
is something any reasonable person
should want answered quickly.
An increasing number of Americans
seem to want the investigation to stop.
Last July, support for investigation
stood at 62 percent,
but a recent poll found it's now
down to just 54 percent.
Trump has actually considered
shutting the investigation down before.
If that number keeps dropping,
he may well feel empowered to do it.
Let's talk about
the Mueller investigation.
Not about its contents because
we don't know what they are yet.
About the effort
to actively undermine it,
not just from Trump and his lawyers,
but from, and more importantly,
Trump's TV friends, specifically
Pumpkin Dad, Captain Virgin,
Bad Judge, Whiter Megyn Kelly,
The Dunce Bus,
The Dunce Bus Junior for Presidents,
and Michael Cohen Client Number
Three, Sean Hannity,
a man voted most fuckable by "Nana
Needs New Glasses" magazine.
And if you're thinking:
"I don't watch Fox News."
It's important you know what's been
happening on it, for reasons that,
and I cannot believe I'm saying this,
Rudy Giuliani explained best.
When he was asked why he was
spouting unsubstantiated nonsense,
he offered this explanation.
Eventually the decision here
is gonna be impeach, not impeach.
Members of Congress are gonna be
informed by their constituents.
So our jury, as it should be,
is the American people.
He's right. He's related, by blood,
to his first wife. But he is right.
It is the longstanding view
of the Justice Department
that you cannot indict
a sitting president.
So to the extent that Trump
can be held accountable,
it's gonna be through impeachment,
where public opinion is key.
When Giuliani goes on TV, he's
arguing to the jury. And that is us.
I know you're thinking:
"fuck, jury duty !"
"Time to act like a racist idiot
to get out of it !"
That is not a disqualifier this time.
Not by a long shot.
Let's look at a few techniques they've
been using to influence public opinion.
The first involves attempting
to redefine the investigation.
Whenever they discuss it,
it's inevitably framed like this.
Mueller is there to show collusion
between Russia and Trump.
There is none so far
so why not end it ?
Where is any evidence of collusion ?
Show us. Nothing so far.
There is zero evidence
of Russia collusion.
Four words. Conclusion.
Collusion ? No.
Illusion, delusion, yes. I thought
we'd have some fun with words.
We didn't have fun
with words there.
All we did was witness the closest
anyone in the Trump administration
has ever come to making
or hearing rap music.
Mueller wasn't tasked with finding
"proof of collusion",
the word collusion doesn't
appear in his appointment letter.
He was tasked with looking
into links and coordination
between the Russian government
and the Trump campaign,
as well as "any matters that arose or
may arise from the investigation."
Saying the investigation has to shut
down if there's no collusion
is like Scrabble has to end because
you fit all the letters in your mouth.
Congratulations, but those aren't
the rules that we agreed to.
That is far from
the only diversionary tactic here.
There's also Whataboutism.
We've talked about this,
the practice of shifting the debate
to someone else's wrongdoing.
The master of this is Sean Hannity,
and he responds to any negative news
about Trump with epic rounds
of the whatabout game.
We have a two-tiered justice system.
What about FBI director Comey ?
What about Bruce and Nellie Ohr ?
What about Strzok and Page ?
What about lying Susan Rice ?
What about Christopher Steele,
the foreign national
that Fusion GPS hired
and funneled the money Hillary
did through the law firm ?
And the foreign national got Russian
lies to influence the American people ?
Who lied to the FISA court judges ?
That is a lot of names to throw up
and say "what about them !"
It's also a little easy as an argument,
I'll prove it.
Sean, have you thought
about these 15 people ?
What about them ?
What about Archduke Ferdinand, Sean ?
What about Cher ?
We're not talking about the FBI
until you answer:
what about Cher, Sean ?
Hannity's point is that other people
did bad things,
so Trump's bad things don't count.
Whether or not someone else
did something shitty
has no bearing over whether
you did something shitty.
If that were true, every movie
that got a bad review could say:
what about
"From Justin To Kelly ?"
The critic would be legally required
to give their movie five stars.
That whataboutism is an important
part of the third tactic on display:
building a counternarrative.
Trying to delegitimize
the investigation,
by framing it as part of a grand
conspiracy to bring down Trump.
Hannity has Carrie-from-Homeland
is-off-her-meds conspiracy boards,
with Mueller and Clinton as the head
of two different crime families,
and whatever
is happening on this one.
Hannity paints a picture where the
investigation is one gigantic scandal,
with the Democrats, the FBI,
the "deep state",
and establishment Republicans
teaming up to take down Trump.
And he's got a favorite phrase
to convey its scope.
It's bigger than Watergate. Watergate's
like stealing a Snickers bar.
Makes Watergate look like
stealing a Snickers bar.
That's just an odd number
of mentions for Snickers,
considering it doesn't sponsor
Hannity's show.
Presumably, Snickers simply
couldn't hang with big hitters
like his actual advertisers,
My Pillow, RectiCare cream
and of course:
Sock Slider.
It's true, take a look !
You struggle, you strain,
you're so far away.
Just bending over to put on your socks
is brutally painful every day.
Not anymore !
Introducing Sock Slider !
The pain-free, no-bend-over way
to put on your socks every day.
Thank goodness.
I have been waiting for someone
to invent a gadget
that I can pre-load with a sock condom
and then foot fuck my way
to comfort every morning.
Hannity's narratives
tend to fall apart quickly.
Take two of the names
on his Family Feud board:
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page,
they are FBI agents who worked
on the investigations
into both Hillary and Trump.
And the key thing you learn,
if you follow conservative media,
is that they were making sex
at each other.
Did these two cheating lovebirds,
who were still married to other people,
have any opportunity
to do their jobs at the FBI ?
There she is,
FBI love bird Lisa Page.
Peter Strzok, and his in-office
fellow FBI agent,
and secret lover, Lisa Page.
Peter Strzok, who along with
his goomah Lisa Page,
are getting off in their fight to save
the country from Donald Trump.
They were fucking !
They were doing the nasty !
Doing the slam-bam in the ham.
Stuffin' the muffin.
They were poking them in 44
"and" piercing them in 52.
They were dining at the all-you
can-bone buffet at BJ O'Porkington's !
They were having an affair.
And in doing that,
they relied on FBI work phones
to hide it from one of their spouses,
which is bad judgment.
Plus, texts like these made it clear
they preferred a Hillary presidency.
A political opinion they're entitled to,
as long as it doesn't affect their work
and the DOJ is looking
into that question,
but Robert Mueller didn't wait.
He removed Strzok from investigation
when he learned about the texts
and Page had already left.
So these two haven't been part of this
investigation for nearly a year now.
"The Wall Street Journal" read
the 7 000 messages between them
and found no evidence
of a conspiracy against Trump.
Spare a thought for the reporter
who had to read 7 000 sexts
between two horny FBI agents.
That's not
why they got into the game.
Hannity still brings up Strzok
and Page all the time
as just two of the many threads
in this counternarrative.
His latest obsession
is something called "spygate",
the claim that the FBI planted
a "mole" in the Trump campaign.
Here is what the "spygate" story
is based on:
as part of the effort to investigate
Russia's meddling in the election,
FBI agents sent an informant
to talk to two Trump advisers
who had suspicious contacts
linked to Russia.
That is the whole thing. But here is
how bullshit their theory is:
Republican congressman,
Trey Gowdy,
who led a more than two year
inquiry into Benghazi,
no stranger to digging
for dirt on Hillary,
even he says this is nonsense.
You believe the FBI acted
properly in this matter ?
I don't know what the FBI could have
done or should have done
other than run out a lead that
someone loosely connected
with the campaign
was making assertions about Russia.
You would want the FBI to find out
whether or not there was any validity
to what those people were saying.
He's saying the FBI did what
they were supposed to do.
The headline
"FBI Investigates Possible Crime"
is like the headline
"Domino's Delivers Pizza"
or "Harley-Davidson Sells Mid-Life
Crisis Mobile To Local Dad".
That's their whole reason
for existence.
Rather than accept that pushback,
Trump supporters turned on Gowdy.
I'm naming names here,
I'm through with it.
Trey Gowdy is a schizophrenic.
He is absolutely in the service
of the establishment.
And the deep state, intentionally,
consciously or purposefully.
Anyone who questions the conspiracy,
becomes part of the conspiracy itself.
The only thing that is schizophrenic
about Trey Gowdy
is his hairstyle over the years.
What exactly
is happening here ?
Trey, my friend,
when you are born with bad hair,
just pick a look and stay with it,
I am an expert on this.
This machine is now running
so aggressively
that even evidence
can't slow it down.
Watch Hannity
actively admit it in real time.
No evidence
of Trump-Russia collusion.
Mueller, if you got it,
come on the show and tell America.
If you have more proof that this is
not a witch-hunt, I don't believe you.
Think about that. Give me facts and
even if you do, I won't believe them.
He is bragging
that he's proof-proof.
Which is a superpower
that no one should want to have,
like the ability to throw a baby
100 yards with a perfect spiral.
It's technically impressive,
but maybe don't do it.
And all this can make it easy to
forget how bad what we know already is.
We know that in 2016, Don, Jr.
set up a meeting in Trump Tower
with a person described to him
as a "Russian government attorney",
with the promise that the person
would provide information
that would "incriminate Hillary
and her dealings with Russia",
as part of "Russia and its government's
support for Mr. Trump".
We know not
because of the investigation
or because there was a spy
in the campaign,
or because these two fuck-buddies
teamed up to frame anyone.
Don Jr. tweeted out the e-mails
setting up the meeting.
So that story is just a fact,
one that looks very bad for Trump.
If you think Hannity isn't up to
the challenge of deflecting that one,
just watch him go to work.
Remember the infamous 2016
Trump Tower meeting
between Donald Trump Jr.,
a Russian lawyer,
a Russian American lobbyist
and few others ?
We have new information:
a transcript from a 2017 Senate hearing
that the Russian-American lobbyist
admitted to knowing Hillary Clinton.
Let me get this straight:
you seem to be implying Hillary Clinton
sent someone into Trump Tower,
to offer her opponent dirt on herself.
Congratulations, Sean Hannity,
you have officially come up with
the shittiest conspiracy theory.
None of this even addresses
the most obvious question.
If absolutely everyone,
from Hillary to the FBI to Trey Gowdy,
was in on a deep-state plan
to sabotage Trump,
how the fuck
is he president right now ?
Everyone in the country got together
to steal an election,
and then for some reason,
forgot to do it.
We could pick apart
conspiracies all night,
but there is really no point,
there'll always be another rabbit hole.
A metaphorical rabbit hole. Not
to be confused with The Rabbit Hole,
the gay club where, years ago,
a young Marlon Bundo allowed
his curiosity to overpower his shyness
and in so doing, met someone special:
himself.
Creating rabbit holes
is kind of the point here.
I would argue that Hannity,
Trump and all the rest
aren't interested in getting to
the bottom of any of these questions.
They're trying to sow enough doubt
that this number dips far enough
below 50 per cent to enable
the investigation to be shut down.
They are just working the jury.
If you've seen focus groups on TV,
you know that at least
some jurors are really listening.
I call it a farce,
created by the deep state.
It was a witch-hunt
to overturn an election.
All of this stuff
they say that Trump did,
they're finding out
the Democrats did.
It's been going on for a year
and a half.
We keep told: "There's something,
we'll find it." There's nothing.
Exactly. We've argued the tactics
you've seen are transparent,
illogical and dumb, but the other thing
they are is depressingly effective.
These tactics have worked in
the past. Quite famously, in fact.
A sociopathic misogynist millionaire,
evolved from celebrity
to undeserving folk-hero,
has evidence piling up
he may have done something terrible
and he puts
the whole system on trial.
If that sounds familiar,
it's the story of O.J. all over again.
Trump is going full O.J.
and it's working.
What does it mean
to "go full O.J. ?"
In one sense,
it means to murder two people.
But it also means,
to sway a jury by building a wild,
implausible conspiracy
that the system is corrupted.
Hannity throws out so many theories
is because he knows,
if he can discredit
any part of Mueller's investigation,
he can convince people
the whole thing is a sham.
And that is the same angle
that O.J.'s lawyers took.
Listen to one of them try
to discredit all evidence
because doubts raised
over a blood-soaked sock.
If they manufactured
evidence on the sock,
how can you trust
anything else ?
And the jury bought that !
I also do have questions
over how police got their hands
on those socks
because the Sock Slider
hadn't even been invented !
Seems impossible. There are
differences between the two defenses.
The O.J. trial had "if it doesn't fit,
you must acquit".
We have "collusion, delusion,
conclusion, illusion".
Which if anything is even dumber.
I am not saying Trump is guilty.
But even if the Mueller investigation
doesn't prove Trump colluded
with the Russians,
that doesn't mean the whole thing
was a witch-hunt or a waste of time.
The process of finding out
is important
and it needs to be seen
through to its conclusion.
And my fear right now is,
that we are headed in a direction
where even if Mueller comes
with irrefutable evidence,
Trump could pardon himself and
put out a book called "If I Did It"
and a large portion of the country
would fucking buy it.
And now this.
The entire seventeen-minute piece you
just saw, boiled down to eight seconds.
Time for our question of the day:
should the special counsel
now be shut down ?
Yes, shut it down.
Some news from the United Kingdom:
America's rough draft.
You may recall that last week,
we ran one of our "And Now" segments
featuring John Bercow,
delivering put-downs like this.
You are a boisterous fellow,
and in the course of your behavior,
you appear to be
chewing some sort of gum.
Whoever he is talking to
just got burned !
And by "burned" I mean
the British equivalent:
"boiled slowly over many hours until
devoid of all flavor and texture."
No one in the U.K.
saw that segment.
Not for disinterest, ignorance
about this show's existence
or longstanding aversion
to my name and face.
Even the people who watched
this show in Britain missed it.
Because where that segment
should've been, instead, they saw this.
Have I said too much ?
Our main story tonight
concerns senior citizens.
It just cut to black. Like I'd just
been murdered on The Sopranos.
In the U.K., it is, unbelievably,
against the law to use footage
from the House of Commons
for the purpose of comedy.
Specifically: "no extracts
of Parliamentary proceedings"
"may be used in any light entertainment
programme or political satire."
You're probably thinking:
lucky for you, your show is neither.
Well, fuck off, dad. I'm trying
my hardest ! Be proud of me !
This law was written after cameras were
introduced into Parliament, in 1989.
One of the MP's who wrote it
claimed that it was for good reason.
There is a tendency amongst
all journalists, that's how people are,
to tend to go for the startling
and in some cases the ridiculous.
We didn't want the situation where
if somebody's false teeth fell out,
that was the main thing that was
shown on TV.
That would not be the "main" story
because this is the United Kingdom:
"teeth disappoint" is not a headline,
it's a given.
Britain is supposed to be one of
the world's great free societies.
We came up with the Magna Carta
and we allow a product called
"Daddies brown sauce" to be sold
regardless of how disturbing it sounds.
That's freedom right there !
This anti-satire law isn't just
hypocritical, it is a burden.
It's hard to use Parliamentary footage
for purposes that are not comedy.
Parliament is inherently ridiculous.
Here is just a few seconds
of Bercow quieting one politician,
before introducing another.
They should pipe down,
and if they won't pipe down...
Very simply, three words: leave
the chamber. Mister Ed Balls !
Yes. You heard right.
"Mister Ed Balls !"
He is calling on this man
"Ed Balls", a former MP
legendary in Britain for once trying
to search for his own name on Twitter,
resulting in the magnificent tweet
by Ed Balls: "Ed Balls".
To not be able to make fun of
footage of that man is entrapment !
And the fact that we are using
Parliamentary footage
in making fun of this means
that this part of the show
is now going to be blacked out
in the U.K. tomorrow.
Which is genuinely insane
and frankly anti-Democratic.
This has to change.
So to drive home to U.K. viewers
what they're missing,
tonight's show is gonna end
in two ways.
In most of the world, they'll get
this segment you are watching now.
In the U.K.,
as a form of punishment,
this segment will be replaced
with Gilbert Gottfried reading
three-star Yelp reviews from
restaurants in Boise, Idaho.
La Tapia,
reviewed by L. S.
This was my first visit
because of a coupon.
The waiters were friendly and
it has a welcoming environment.
The food was ok.
If I didn't have a coupon,
I would give this restaurant
two and a half stars.
That is what Britain is getting
for five long minutes.
That is all the U.K. deserves,
until they change their law.
That's our show. Thanks for watching.
See you next week, good night !
Fork reviewed by Kelsey M.
Prepare to be underwhelmed !
We went here for Saturday brunch
after hearing from several sources
that it would blow our minds.
It was "meh" at best.
The food was lackluster
and the service was mediocre.
It was also disappointing to learn
that they don't offer any alternative
milk options for their coffee.
END OF EPISODE 14,
SEASON V
WITH JOHN OLIVER
SEASON V
EPISODE 14
Welcome to Last Week Tonight.
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you for joining us.
A quick recap of the week. We begin
with the upcoming North Korea Summit.
If you are wondering
how hard Trump has been preparing,
deep down,
you know the answer.
I'm very well prepared. I don't
think I have to prepare very much.
It's about attitude, it's about
willingness to get things done.
"It's not about preparation,
it's about attitude."
That's not a viable strategy
on RuPaul's Drag Race,
where you'd better also bring your
knowledge of wigs, makeup,
fashion and tucking technique
or you sashay away.
Trump is confident. When he was asked
how soon he would know
if talks were going well,
this was his reply.
I think within the first minute,
I'll know.
My touch, my feel.
That's what I do.
It's not a great sign for a negotiation
where so much depends on tone
and choice of words.
He's describing his strategy in
the most upsetting possible way.
I'm gonna grope
my way through this.
Or I was gonna use our mouths to bring
this summit to a satisfying climax.
Why's everyone's
looking at me weird ?
We still have
two days until the Summit,
so that's two more sunsets
at least for us to enjoy.
Let's move on to the Philippines.
The southeast Asian island,
not the teenage fan club
for Prince Philip.
He's so dreamy.
It's his birthday today.
We've talked
before about their president,
strongman and aspiring Street Fighter 2
character Rodrigo Duterte,
who's gained notoriety
for supporting extrajudicial killings
as part of his war on drugs.
He demonstrated the same level
of nuance to gender relations.
A kiss may just be a kiss sometimes.
But not when the Philippine
President is delivering it.
A spokesman for Rodrigo Duterte
says the president's kiss of a woman
was an act of endearment
toward Filipino workers.
"It was an act of endearment
towards Filipino workers"
is a more creative justification
for that sort of behavior than:
"when you're a star,
they let you do it."
That clip didn't do justice
to how uncomfortable
the build-up to that kiss was.
That felt so grotesque,
the MTV Movie Awards
have retroactively nullified
every "Best Kiss" winner, saying:
"Given Duterte's recent actions, we can
no longer condone kissing of any kind."
"Every kiss
is now the worst kiss."
Many in the Philippines were
upset by this,
but Duterte's legal counsel insisted
the incident was charming.
The kiss was an endearing kiss.
Coming from a fan
who was so tickled pink when
she had the opportunity.
She did it willingly and excitedly,
she was tickled pink !
Stop saying "tickled pink".
It's not technically a dirty phrase,
but you are making it
disgusting.
Fan or not,
she repeatedly pulled away from him.
Sometimes women
just don't want to kiss you.
I'm not speaking from
personal experience here,
I just have a deep rooted hunch
about it.
This incident is the tip of the iceberg
regarding Duterte and sexual politics.
In February,
he told a group of Filipino workers:
"Don't use condoms
because they don't feel good",
which is not great advice
in a country facing an HIV epidemic.
He gave a group of soldiers
a horrifying suggestion
for how to deal with female rebels.
Tell the soldiers, the women,
call them and tell them:
"the mayor has a new order
not to kill you,"
"just shoot you
in the vagina".
No more vagina,
you're useless.
Let's be clear about this one:
"without a vagina, you're useless"
it's a searing indictment of anyone
who's stuck walking around
with this ridiculous thing instead.
Look at it.
Does anybody find this cool ?
There's not a single person
in this room thinking;
"what a spiffy little gizmo
we're all gazing upon !"
"I hope he keeps that
image on the screen forever !"
As for the outcry
over his kissing stunt,
Duterte claimed
it was all perfectly innocent.
I can only generate an emotion
if I kiss a woman I love.
Any other stranger is pure showbiz.
Pure showbiz.
You want
to say that that's a terrible excuse,
but given all we've learned
about the entertainment industry,
"pure showbiz" might be the perfect
description of what is happening.
And now, this.
Julie Chen has a few questions for
the audience of "The Talk".
How awkward would it be
at this point in your life,
for your parents
to see you naked ?
What is the last object
you got hit by ?
At what age do you think
it's ok to scare a child ?
Do you plan for the end ?
Do rats freak you out ?
Do you think
you could do your job stoned ?
Have you ever had
to toot your own horn ?
Would you trust
a robot to cook your food ?
Has anyone ever interrupted
you in the bathroom ?
Do you think
claiming your pet peacock
as your emotional support animal
is going too far ?
No, Julie.
Moving on. We thought we'd update
you on the ongoing scandals
that we've been calling
"Stupid Watergate".
A scandal on the scale of Watergate,
but where everyone involved
is dumb and terrible
and bad at everything.
Last month marked the one-year
anniversary of Mueller investigation.
Or as the president
call itý
Robert Mueller's illegitimate,
runaway witch-hunt.
- It has been a witch-hunt.
- This is a witch-hunt.
- This is a witch-hunt.
- Basically a witch-hunt.
- The witch-hunt.
- It's a damn witch-hunt.
They've been referring to the Mueller
investigation as a "witch-hunt".
Which is a little ironic,
if Giuliani, Hannity and Trump
had been alive
back when people burned witches,
they'd have had front-row seats,
toasting marshmallows,
trying to conceal their boners.
It's also a strange claim,
considering that Mueller's team
has charged 20 people
and three companies
and gathered five guilty pleas.
If this is a witch-hunt,
witches exist.
We should change references
in our history books
to 16th-century witch hunts
to read:
"That Time We Were Right To Murder
All Those Teenage Girls in a Lake."
And the fact the investigation
has been moving fast is good news,
set aside how you feel
about Trump or politics.
"Did a hostile foreign government
try to manipulate our election ?"
is something any reasonable person
should want answered quickly.
An increasing number of Americans
seem to want the investigation to stop.
Last July, support for investigation
stood at 62 percent,
but a recent poll found it's now
down to just 54 percent.
Trump has actually considered
shutting the investigation down before.
If that number keeps dropping,
he may well feel empowered to do it.
Let's talk about
the Mueller investigation.
Not about its contents because
we don't know what they are yet.
About the effort
to actively undermine it,
not just from Trump and his lawyers,
but from, and more importantly,
Trump's TV friends, specifically
Pumpkin Dad, Captain Virgin,
Bad Judge, Whiter Megyn Kelly,
The Dunce Bus,
The Dunce Bus Junior for Presidents,
and Michael Cohen Client Number
Three, Sean Hannity,
a man voted most fuckable by "Nana
Needs New Glasses" magazine.
And if you're thinking:
"I don't watch Fox News."
It's important you know what's been
happening on it, for reasons that,
and I cannot believe I'm saying this,
Rudy Giuliani explained best.
When he was asked why he was
spouting unsubstantiated nonsense,
he offered this explanation.
Eventually the decision here
is gonna be impeach, not impeach.
Members of Congress are gonna be
informed by their constituents.
So our jury, as it should be,
is the American people.
He's right. He's related, by blood,
to his first wife. But he is right.
It is the longstanding view
of the Justice Department
that you cannot indict
a sitting president.
So to the extent that Trump
can be held accountable,
it's gonna be through impeachment,
where public opinion is key.
When Giuliani goes on TV, he's
arguing to the jury. And that is us.
I know you're thinking:
"fuck, jury duty !"
"Time to act like a racist idiot
to get out of it !"
That is not a disqualifier this time.
Not by a long shot.
Let's look at a few techniques they've
been using to influence public opinion.
The first involves attempting
to redefine the investigation.
Whenever they discuss it,
it's inevitably framed like this.
Mueller is there to show collusion
between Russia and Trump.
There is none so far
so why not end it ?
Where is any evidence of collusion ?
Show us. Nothing so far.
There is zero evidence
of Russia collusion.
Four words. Conclusion.
Collusion ? No.
Illusion, delusion, yes. I thought
we'd have some fun with words.
We didn't have fun
with words there.
All we did was witness the closest
anyone in the Trump administration
has ever come to making
or hearing rap music.
Mueller wasn't tasked with finding
"proof of collusion",
the word collusion doesn't
appear in his appointment letter.
He was tasked with looking
into links and coordination
between the Russian government
and the Trump campaign,
as well as "any matters that arose or
may arise from the investigation."
Saying the investigation has to shut
down if there's no collusion
is like Scrabble has to end because
you fit all the letters in your mouth.
Congratulations, but those aren't
the rules that we agreed to.
That is far from
the only diversionary tactic here.
There's also Whataboutism.
We've talked about this,
the practice of shifting the debate
to someone else's wrongdoing.
The master of this is Sean Hannity,
and he responds to any negative news
about Trump with epic rounds
of the whatabout game.
We have a two-tiered justice system.
What about FBI director Comey ?
What about Bruce and Nellie Ohr ?
What about Strzok and Page ?
What about lying Susan Rice ?
What about Christopher Steele,
the foreign national
that Fusion GPS hired
and funneled the money Hillary
did through the law firm ?
And the foreign national got Russian
lies to influence the American people ?
Who lied to the FISA court judges ?
That is a lot of names to throw up
and say "what about them !"
It's also a little easy as an argument,
I'll prove it.
Sean, have you thought
about these 15 people ?
What about them ?
What about Archduke Ferdinand, Sean ?
What about Cher ?
We're not talking about the FBI
until you answer:
what about Cher, Sean ?
Hannity's point is that other people
did bad things,
so Trump's bad things don't count.
Whether or not someone else
did something shitty
has no bearing over whether
you did something shitty.
If that were true, every movie
that got a bad review could say:
what about
"From Justin To Kelly ?"
The critic would be legally required
to give their movie five stars.
That whataboutism is an important
part of the third tactic on display:
building a counternarrative.
Trying to delegitimize
the investigation,
by framing it as part of a grand
conspiracy to bring down Trump.
Hannity has Carrie-from-Homeland
is-off-her-meds conspiracy boards,
with Mueller and Clinton as the head
of two different crime families,
and whatever
is happening on this one.
Hannity paints a picture where the
investigation is one gigantic scandal,
with the Democrats, the FBI,
the "deep state",
and establishment Republicans
teaming up to take down Trump.
And he's got a favorite phrase
to convey its scope.
It's bigger than Watergate. Watergate's
like stealing a Snickers bar.
Makes Watergate look like
stealing a Snickers bar.
That's just an odd number
of mentions for Snickers,
considering it doesn't sponsor
Hannity's show.
Presumably, Snickers simply
couldn't hang with big hitters
like his actual advertisers,
My Pillow, RectiCare cream
and of course:
Sock Slider.
It's true, take a look !
You struggle, you strain,
you're so far away.
Just bending over to put on your socks
is brutally painful every day.
Not anymore !
Introducing Sock Slider !
The pain-free, no-bend-over way
to put on your socks every day.
Thank goodness.
I have been waiting for someone
to invent a gadget
that I can pre-load with a sock condom
and then foot fuck my way
to comfort every morning.
Hannity's narratives
tend to fall apart quickly.
Take two of the names
on his Family Feud board:
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page,
they are FBI agents who worked
on the investigations
into both Hillary and Trump.
And the key thing you learn,
if you follow conservative media,
is that they were making sex
at each other.
Did these two cheating lovebirds,
who were still married to other people,
have any opportunity
to do their jobs at the FBI ?
There she is,
FBI love bird Lisa Page.
Peter Strzok, and his in-office
fellow FBI agent,
and secret lover, Lisa Page.
Peter Strzok, who along with
his goomah Lisa Page,
are getting off in their fight to save
the country from Donald Trump.
They were fucking !
They were doing the nasty !
Doing the slam-bam in the ham.
Stuffin' the muffin.
They were poking them in 44
"and" piercing them in 52.
They were dining at the all-you
can-bone buffet at BJ O'Porkington's !
They were having an affair.
And in doing that,
they relied on FBI work phones
to hide it from one of their spouses,
which is bad judgment.
Plus, texts like these made it clear
they preferred a Hillary presidency.
A political opinion they're entitled to,
as long as it doesn't affect their work
and the DOJ is looking
into that question,
but Robert Mueller didn't wait.
He removed Strzok from investigation
when he learned about the texts
and Page had already left.
So these two haven't been part of this
investigation for nearly a year now.
"The Wall Street Journal" read
the 7 000 messages between them
and found no evidence
of a conspiracy against Trump.
Spare a thought for the reporter
who had to read 7 000 sexts
between two horny FBI agents.
That's not
why they got into the game.
Hannity still brings up Strzok
and Page all the time
as just two of the many threads
in this counternarrative.
His latest obsession
is something called "spygate",
the claim that the FBI planted
a "mole" in the Trump campaign.
Here is what the "spygate" story
is based on:
as part of the effort to investigate
Russia's meddling in the election,
FBI agents sent an informant
to talk to two Trump advisers
who had suspicious contacts
linked to Russia.
That is the whole thing. But here is
how bullshit their theory is:
Republican congressman,
Trey Gowdy,
who led a more than two year
inquiry into Benghazi,
no stranger to digging
for dirt on Hillary,
even he says this is nonsense.
You believe the FBI acted
properly in this matter ?
I don't know what the FBI could have
done or should have done
other than run out a lead that
someone loosely connected
with the campaign
was making assertions about Russia.
You would want the FBI to find out
whether or not there was any validity
to what those people were saying.
He's saying the FBI did what
they were supposed to do.
The headline
"FBI Investigates Possible Crime"
is like the headline
"Domino's Delivers Pizza"
or "Harley-Davidson Sells Mid-Life
Crisis Mobile To Local Dad".
That's their whole reason
for existence.
Rather than accept that pushback,
Trump supporters turned on Gowdy.
I'm naming names here,
I'm through with it.
Trey Gowdy is a schizophrenic.
He is absolutely in the service
of the establishment.
And the deep state, intentionally,
consciously or purposefully.
Anyone who questions the conspiracy,
becomes part of the conspiracy itself.
The only thing that is schizophrenic
about Trey Gowdy
is his hairstyle over the years.
What exactly
is happening here ?
Trey, my friend,
when you are born with bad hair,
just pick a look and stay with it,
I am an expert on this.
This machine is now running
so aggressively
that even evidence
can't slow it down.
Watch Hannity
actively admit it in real time.
No evidence
of Trump-Russia collusion.
Mueller, if you got it,
come on the show and tell America.
If you have more proof that this is
not a witch-hunt, I don't believe you.
Think about that. Give me facts and
even if you do, I won't believe them.
He is bragging
that he's proof-proof.
Which is a superpower
that no one should want to have,
like the ability to throw a baby
100 yards with a perfect spiral.
It's technically impressive,
but maybe don't do it.
And all this can make it easy to
forget how bad what we know already is.
We know that in 2016, Don, Jr.
set up a meeting in Trump Tower
with a person described to him
as a "Russian government attorney",
with the promise that the person
would provide information
that would "incriminate Hillary
and her dealings with Russia",
as part of "Russia and its government's
support for Mr. Trump".
We know not
because of the investigation
or because there was a spy
in the campaign,
or because these two fuck-buddies
teamed up to frame anyone.
Don Jr. tweeted out the e-mails
setting up the meeting.
So that story is just a fact,
one that looks very bad for Trump.
If you think Hannity isn't up to
the challenge of deflecting that one,
just watch him go to work.
Remember the infamous 2016
Trump Tower meeting
between Donald Trump Jr.,
a Russian lawyer,
a Russian American lobbyist
and few others ?
We have new information:
a transcript from a 2017 Senate hearing
that the Russian-American lobbyist
admitted to knowing Hillary Clinton.
Let me get this straight:
you seem to be implying Hillary Clinton
sent someone into Trump Tower,
to offer her opponent dirt on herself.
Congratulations, Sean Hannity,
you have officially come up with
the shittiest conspiracy theory.
None of this even addresses
the most obvious question.
If absolutely everyone,
from Hillary to the FBI to Trey Gowdy,
was in on a deep-state plan
to sabotage Trump,
how the fuck
is he president right now ?
Everyone in the country got together
to steal an election,
and then for some reason,
forgot to do it.
We could pick apart
conspiracies all night,
but there is really no point,
there'll always be another rabbit hole.
A metaphorical rabbit hole. Not
to be confused with The Rabbit Hole,
the gay club where, years ago,
a young Marlon Bundo allowed
his curiosity to overpower his shyness
and in so doing, met someone special:
himself.
Creating rabbit holes
is kind of the point here.
I would argue that Hannity,
Trump and all the rest
aren't interested in getting to
the bottom of any of these questions.
They're trying to sow enough doubt
that this number dips far enough
below 50 per cent to enable
the investigation to be shut down.
They are just working the jury.
If you've seen focus groups on TV,
you know that at least
some jurors are really listening.
I call it a farce,
created by the deep state.
It was a witch-hunt
to overturn an election.
All of this stuff
they say that Trump did,
they're finding out
the Democrats did.
It's been going on for a year
and a half.
We keep told: "There's something,
we'll find it." There's nothing.
Exactly. We've argued the tactics
you've seen are transparent,
illogical and dumb, but the other thing
they are is depressingly effective.
These tactics have worked in
the past. Quite famously, in fact.
A sociopathic misogynist millionaire,
evolved from celebrity
to undeserving folk-hero,
has evidence piling up
he may have done something terrible
and he puts
the whole system on trial.
If that sounds familiar,
it's the story of O.J. all over again.
Trump is going full O.J.
and it's working.
What does it mean
to "go full O.J. ?"
In one sense,
it means to murder two people.
But it also means,
to sway a jury by building a wild,
implausible conspiracy
that the system is corrupted.
Hannity throws out so many theories
is because he knows,
if he can discredit
any part of Mueller's investigation,
he can convince people
the whole thing is a sham.
And that is the same angle
that O.J.'s lawyers took.
Listen to one of them try
to discredit all evidence
because doubts raised
over a blood-soaked sock.
If they manufactured
evidence on the sock,
how can you trust
anything else ?
And the jury bought that !
I also do have questions
over how police got their hands
on those socks
because the Sock Slider
hadn't even been invented !
Seems impossible. There are
differences between the two defenses.
The O.J. trial had "if it doesn't fit,
you must acquit".
We have "collusion, delusion,
conclusion, illusion".
Which if anything is even dumber.
I am not saying Trump is guilty.
But even if the Mueller investigation
doesn't prove Trump colluded
with the Russians,
that doesn't mean the whole thing
was a witch-hunt or a waste of time.
The process of finding out
is important
and it needs to be seen
through to its conclusion.
And my fear right now is,
that we are headed in a direction
where even if Mueller comes
with irrefutable evidence,
Trump could pardon himself and
put out a book called "If I Did It"
and a large portion of the country
would fucking buy it.
And now this.
The entire seventeen-minute piece you
just saw, boiled down to eight seconds.
Time for our question of the day:
should the special counsel
now be shut down ?
Yes, shut it down.
Some news from the United Kingdom:
America's rough draft.
You may recall that last week,
we ran one of our "And Now" segments
featuring John Bercow,
delivering put-downs like this.
You are a boisterous fellow,
and in the course of your behavior,
you appear to be
chewing some sort of gum.
Whoever he is talking to
just got burned !
And by "burned" I mean
the British equivalent:
"boiled slowly over many hours until
devoid of all flavor and texture."
No one in the U.K.
saw that segment.
Not for disinterest, ignorance
about this show's existence
or longstanding aversion
to my name and face.
Even the people who watched
this show in Britain missed it.
Because where that segment
should've been, instead, they saw this.
Have I said too much ?
Our main story tonight
concerns senior citizens.
It just cut to black. Like I'd just
been murdered on The Sopranos.
In the U.K., it is, unbelievably,
against the law to use footage
from the House of Commons
for the purpose of comedy.
Specifically: "no extracts
of Parliamentary proceedings"
"may be used in any light entertainment
programme or political satire."
You're probably thinking:
lucky for you, your show is neither.
Well, fuck off, dad. I'm trying
my hardest ! Be proud of me !
This law was written after cameras were
introduced into Parliament, in 1989.
One of the MP's who wrote it
claimed that it was for good reason.
There is a tendency amongst
all journalists, that's how people are,
to tend to go for the startling
and in some cases the ridiculous.
We didn't want the situation where
if somebody's false teeth fell out,
that was the main thing that was
shown on TV.
That would not be the "main" story
because this is the United Kingdom:
"teeth disappoint" is not a headline,
it's a given.
Britain is supposed to be one of
the world's great free societies.
We came up with the Magna Carta
and we allow a product called
"Daddies brown sauce" to be sold
regardless of how disturbing it sounds.
That's freedom right there !
This anti-satire law isn't just
hypocritical, it is a burden.
It's hard to use Parliamentary footage
for purposes that are not comedy.
Parliament is inherently ridiculous.
Here is just a few seconds
of Bercow quieting one politician,
before introducing another.
They should pipe down,
and if they won't pipe down...
Very simply, three words: leave
the chamber. Mister Ed Balls !
Yes. You heard right.
"Mister Ed Balls !"
He is calling on this man
"Ed Balls", a former MP
legendary in Britain for once trying
to search for his own name on Twitter,
resulting in the magnificent tweet
by Ed Balls: "Ed Balls".
To not be able to make fun of
footage of that man is entrapment !
And the fact that we are using
Parliamentary footage
in making fun of this means
that this part of the show
is now going to be blacked out
in the U.K. tomorrow.
Which is genuinely insane
and frankly anti-Democratic.
This has to change.
So to drive home to U.K. viewers
what they're missing,
tonight's show is gonna end
in two ways.
In most of the world, they'll get
this segment you are watching now.
In the U.K.,
as a form of punishment,
this segment will be replaced
with Gilbert Gottfried reading
three-star Yelp reviews from
restaurants in Boise, Idaho.
La Tapia,
reviewed by L. S.
This was my first visit
because of a coupon.
The waiters were friendly and
it has a welcoming environment.
The food was ok.
If I didn't have a coupon,
I would give this restaurant
two and a half stars.
That is what Britain is getting
for five long minutes.
That is all the U.K. deserves,
until they change their law.
That's our show. Thanks for watching.
See you next week, good night !
Fork reviewed by Kelsey M.
Prepare to be underwhelmed !
We went here for Saturday brunch
after hearing from several sources
that it would blow our minds.
It was "meh" at best.
The food was lackluster
and the service was mediocre.
It was also disappointing to learn
that they don't offer any alternative
milk options for their coffee.
END OF EPISODE 14,
SEASON V