Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2014–…): Season 6, Episode 18 - Boris Johnson - full transcript

Welcome, welcome, welcome
to "Last Week Tonight."

I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.

We are back, and just time
for a quick recap of the week...

a week that saw North Korea
resuming missile launches,

Robert Mueller somehow managing
to irritate all of Congress,

and the president threatening France
with tariffs on their wines

in the dumbest possible way.

I've always liked American wines
better than French wines.

Even though I don't drink wine.
I just like the way they look.

I mean, look,
on one hand, yes, that is stupid.

On the other hand, judging things



purely on their looks is
extremely on-brand for Trump.

He may as well have said,

"I need my wine to be
at least a double D."

It would have made exactly
as much sense as that.

But instead of dwelling
on the president,

let's instead turn to Puerto Rico...
objectively the best island

after, of course, Temptation,

Love, and kitchen.

Sorry, Hawaii, until you can display a
knife block and a decorative fruit bowl

while also having hidden storage,
you're not even on my list.

Daddy needs his feng shui.

There was... there was big news
out of Puerto Rico this week.

The embattled governor of Puerto Rico
finally gives in and steps down.

Protests turn into celebration
in the streets.



After hours of delay,
Rosselló finally said the words

these people had been waiting
12 days to hear:

"I will be resigning."

Holy shit. It does not bode well
for your political career

when people are reacting
to your resignation

like Oprah just gave them a car.

"You get a new governor!
You get a new governor!

Everybody gets a new governor!"

And look, it is hard to overstate

just how historic a moment this was.

Puerto Rico has endured decades
of systemic corruption,

a massive debt crisis,
crippling austerity measures,

an inadequate response
to Hurricane Maria,

and most recently,
a high-profile probe

that saw two former top officials
arrested earlier this month.

But the last straw was this.

Governor Ricardo Rosselló
has been under fire

since nearly 900 pages
of a private group chat

were leaked and published

by the Center for Investigative
Journalism in Puerto Rico.

The reported messages
between Rosselló

and several close aides include
personal attacks on rival politicians,

sexist comments,
and anti-gay slurs.

Yeah, that's not good.

Nobody leaks 900 pages
from a group chat

unless there's something
terrible in it,

because otherwise
all group chats are the same.

There's the girl who writes
in full paragraphs,

the guy who says "K,"

and inevitably,
the one person apologizing

because they thought this was
the chat Danielle wasn't in,

but it turns out it's the group chat
that Danielle was in,

and now she knows McKenna
thinks that she's basic.

I mean, Danielle is basic,
but that's not really the point, is it?

And Rosselló's group chat

was very, very, very bad.

It featured the governor calling one
female adversary a "whore"

and an associate of his saying
he was

"salivating to shoot"
the mayor of San Juan,

to which the governor responded,
"You'd be doing me a grand favor."

But perhaps the most
devastating text

was a joke about
the dead bodies accumulating

during and after Hurricane Maria
at an understaffed morgue.

So it's frankly understandable
that people wanted him gone,

but I don't think anyone
said it better than this protestor.

After the hurricane,

I was hungry.
I didn't have water.

Like, I didn't have anything.

And then this guy was living it up?

No, bruh, you're not fit
to be governor. Out.

Wow. Well, I mean,
she is not wrong there.

I know this isn't the point,

but someone needs to make that woman
the next Bachelorette,

because I would tune in every week

just to watch her look Luke
in the eye and say,

"You wanna know what I'm doing in the
fantasy suite? Nah, bruh, you're out.

"You're out.

No, bruh... no."

The...

the protests against Rosselló
were enormous,

with hundreds of thousands
of people on the streets,

some on bicycles,
some underwater,

and some even on horseback,
which does seem unfair,

since we don't technically know
who the horses support for governor.

You assume you know
what side horses are on,

but you meet one
at a party with a MAGA hat,

and you realize, "Whoa! Maybe I don't
know them as well as I thought I did."

Then the horse stops
because you said "whoa,"

and you have to say,
"I didn't mean that 'whoa,'"

but you're still
judging him for the hat.

And yet incredibly,

Rosselló refused to step down
for over a week,

even trying to stand his ground
during this testy interview

with Fox News's Shep Smith.

Governor, who's come forward to support
you in the middle of this chaos?

-There are folks who supported me.
-Who, specifically, is supporting you?

There are folks that support
the rule of law.

-There are people.
-Could you give me one name?

I see them out there;
there is a protest.

Well, it's... I've talked to people...

-Just one name, Governor.
-From different groups.

A lot of people
from the administration.

Governor, you can't
give me the name

of one person in Puerto Rico
who supports you...

Continuing as governor?
Is that correct?

I can. So the mayor of San Sebastián,
for example, supported this effort.

-Whose name is?
-Uh, from different municipalities.

Javier Jiménez, for example.

That was excruciating.

He took so long
to come up with a name,

you might even be thinking that
he just made Javier Jiménez up.

Well, in fairness to the governor,

I should say Javier Jiménez is in fact
the mayor of San Sebastián,

but there is one problem,

and I think you can
probably guess it.

We spoke to Javier Jiménez
last night via Facetime,

and he says he doesn't support
the governor at all.

I am not supporting him.
Of course not.

That is totally incorrect.

Wow.

So the one name Rosselló
came up with was bullshit,

which is such a stupid mistake.

Why give him a name
they can check in seconds?

When 14-year-olds lie about
having a Canadian girlfriend,

they know to keep the details
vague and untraceable.

They don't say she's Celine Dion

because they'll get found out
immediately.

But finally, on Wednesday,
Governor Rosselló

did announce
he'd leave office next week,

but it's not clear
what happens next.

The next in line was
the secretary of state.

He was also in the group chat
and has already resigned.

The person in line after that
is the secretary of justice,

who protestors think
is too close to Rosselló

and just announced
she doesn't want the job.

So Puerto Rico's future is unclear,
although I will say this.

People there seem
incredibly optimistic.

In fact, Rosselló may have been
a terrible governor,

but he may have inadvertently
accomplished something here.

Thank you, Governor,
because you united one island.

The people in Puerto Rico
altogether were able

to get him out of the seat
that he was in.

The things that we can do
together now

as a whole, you know,
it's totally amazing.

Yeah, it is amazing,

because in a way, by being
such a spectacular shithead,

Rosselló ended up uniting
Puerto Rico in hating him,

and that's an incredible
achievement.

But before he thinks for even a second
that what I said constitutes praise,

I'd like to remind you of the words

of one of his island's
greatest philosophers.

No, bruh, you're not fit
to be governor. Out.

Exactly.
And now, this.

And now, the not-so-secret sadness
of Fox 10 Phoenix's Cory McCloskey.

When we were kids, Troy,
it was fun to climb up on a barn

and then jump off into a wagon
full of maybe hay

or garbage... whatever.

When I was a kid, we always had
to bust these things in half.

I never got a whole popsicle.

-Never?
-No, never.

This is my whole youth:

being whacked in the face
by a snowball.

I grew up in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.

-Really?
-Yeah. Small town called Kennett Square.

Kennett Square?
Aw, I lived out that way.

I had to live
on the Jersey side, though.

Not a lot of cooking went on
in our house.

We prepared meals,

but I wouldn't say that my mom
was really a chef.

We all grew up with Crayola,
of course,

and, man, you know who
I always envied?

The kids who had the box
with the sharpener.

I was always reduced
to getting a paring knife out

to try to shave something
into a point.

I grew up with the world's
smallest bounce houses

at the carnivals
where I used to live,

and they always smelled like...

like a combination
of corn chips and feet.

This is all different.
It's out in the open air.

Nothing can hurt you here.

Moving on.

Our main story tonight

concerns the United Kingdom,

home of fascinating wildlife,

like the fearless
mating foxes of Kent,

and beautiful mountains
that go largely unexplored

by the carefree
mating foxes of Kent.

It's also home to some of the world's
most gifted artists,

like whomever took this picture
of the stoic mating foxes of Kent.

Unfortunately, the UK is about
to be completely fucked,

in a way not unlike
the resigned mating foxes of Kent,

and the reason for that
is that this week

the UK had some very big news.

The UK has a new prime minister.

Boris Johnson took over today
from Theresa May,

sealing the transition of power

in a handshake with the queen.

He bowed, then broke the rules

by telling his news staff
what she said.

Exactly, and it was apparently,
and I quote, "Deez nuts."

It's true. She's said it to every
prime minister since Churchill,

and she won't say why.

But yes, incredibly,

Britain's new prime minister
is Boris Johnson.

Even if you know nothing
about British politics,

you're probably already
vaguely aware of him.

As mayor of London, he famously
got stuck on a zip line

while promoting the 2012 Olympics.

And if you've seen a photo of him,
you'll probably remember it,

because it's hard to find one
where he doesn't look ridiculous.

In fact,
everything about his appearance

is consistently, immaculately wrong.

Here he is wearing a bike helmet

that's somehow both too small
and too big for his head.

That's not easy to do.

Here he is looking
like what would happen

if an egg could be both
hairy and sad.

Even his childhood pictures
are funny,

because here he is looking
more like a young Anna Wintour

than I'm guessing she did
at that age.

You may even have seen this clip
that went viral recently

of Boris's endearingly weird answer
to a very simple question

about what he does to relax.

I have a thing
where I make models of...

I mean, realizing that we're mayor of
London, we build beautiful... I make...

Buses.

-You make models of buses?
-I do.

So in Downing Street...

So what I do... no, I didn't mean models
of buses. What I make is...

I get... I get old, um...
I don't know, wooden crates.

-Yeah.
-Right?

And then I paint them.

You make cardboard buses.
That's what you do to enjoy yourself.

No, I paint the passengers
enjoying themselves...

-Okay, great.
-On the wonderful bus.

Okay. Okay, so... so three things
about that.

One, yes, it's magnificent.

Two, there's just no way
that's true.

But three, if it were true,

I now want nothing more than to see

one of those fucking buses,

because if they're terrible,
that's weird.

But if they're impressive,
that's somehow weirder.

The very idea
of the new prime minister

painting crate buses
in his spare time to relax

is just endlessly fascinating.

But Boris is so much more

than the potential Michelangelo
of vehicular crafts.

He was an absolutely crucial leader
in the Brexit campaign,

famously riding around
in a gigantic, red, non-crate bus

with a complete lie
splashed across the side of it.

And now, he is prime minster
and has to face the challenge

of finalizing a Brexit withdrawal deal
by October 31st,

which is less than 100 days
from now.

And the consequences
of messing that up

could have catastrophic
ramifications

for Britain, Europe, and the world.

So we thought it might be helpful
to explain who exactly Boris Johnson is.

And let's start with the fact that
given that Britain's new leader

is a clownish figure
with silly hair

and a passing relationship
with the truth,

you may already be thinking
of the person you're almost always

thinking about anyway.

And you are not alone in that.

There have been countless headlines
comparing Boris to Donald Trump,

and just this week,
Trump did it himself.

They're calling him "Britain Trump",

and people are saying that's good,
that they like me over there.

No, they don't.
Nope, they... they don't.

They absolutely do not.

They don't like you over there,
and no one ever says "Britain Trump"

unless it's in the context
of a sentence like,

"I'm getting the fuck out of Britain;
Trump is coming to visit this weekend."

But to call Boris Johnson
"Britain Trump"

is neither exactly wrong
nor exactly right.

Johnson is actually
a lot more complex than Trump

in a number of important ways.

For one, while Trump tells you
he has "the best words" but doesn't,

Johnson is more than happy
to show you how erudite he is.

Just watch him charmingly drop
some sporting trivia

ahead of the London Olympics.

Ping-pong was invented on
the dining tables of England,

ladies and gentlemen,
in the 19th century.

It was, and it was called
"whiff-whaff."

And there you have
the essential difference

between us
and the rest of the world.

Other nations, the French,
looked at a dining table

and saw an opportunity
to have dinner.

We looked at a dining table

and saw an opportunity
to play whiff-whaff.

Look, look, yes.

I will admit
that is objectively funny,

although I'm not sure
that that whiff-whaff anecdote

reflects quite as well
on the British

as he's implying there.

The French looked to the dining table
as a canvas

upon which to create
exceptional cuisine,

and the British saw a way to
basically invent mouse tennis.

And look, Johnson is more than happy
to look ridiculous.

It's enabled him to not just survive
when he fucks up, but actually benefit.

That absurd zip line photo
from the Olympics

would have killed
most politicians' careers,

but Boris found a way to laugh
at himself and charm everyone.

Just watch how it got covered
on the news at the time.

Isn't that fantastic?

This is a man who some are tipping
as a future prime minister.

Look, I think if anyone
has won the Olympics,

I would say it's Boris Johnson.

Hold on.
Hold on there.

"If" anyone won the Olympics?

To be clear, people definitely
won the Olympics,

specifically the winners.

The winners won the Olympics.

And in a nutshell,

that has been the root
of Boris's appeal...

a loveable mess weathering adversity

with humor and good cheer.

But the truth is,

there may be a great deal
more calculation

behind that image
than first appears,

because Boris learned
at an early age

the benefits of making yourself
the butt of the joke,

as his own sister remembers.

He discovered he could
make people laugh.

When he was in a French play,

he had to recite Molière and he hadn't
bothered to learn his lines,

and he hid behind a pillow
reading them out,

which was obviously much funnier
than if he'd learnt them perfectly

and had stood on the stage
and declaimed them.

Yeah, obviously.

It's always funnier
when things go wrong,

like in this photo of Johnson shaking
hands with the queen... Oh, no.

Oh, what an embarrassing mistake.

See? Objectively funnier.

And by the way, how are neither
of you into this?

Boris... Boris actually learned
a great deal from that incident

as he himself will admit.

Do you think that you learnt
something for later life

from acting in plays at Eton?

You could actually get more laughs

by looking as if
you don't know your lines

than actually remembering them.

Well, I certainly think that

as a general tactic in life,

if that's what you're driving at,

it is often useful...

to give the slight impression

that you are deliberately pretending
not to know what is going on.

The reality may be that you
don't know what is going on,

but people can't tell the difference.

And that, right there,
is the key to Boris Johnson,

presenting his own lack
of preparation so charmingly

that you actually doubt
he's unprepared,

but he is.

It's an incredibly powerful trick,
and incidentally, it's clips like that

that are one major reason
why Boris is not the Britain Trump,

because can you imagine Trump
having that level of self-reflection?

"Look, with 'covfefe,'
the tactic was to present myself

"as a kind of sub-literate clown

"and to distract you from the fact
that I'm a mound of skin

"tautly stretched
across the howling chasm

of the space
where a soul should be."

That's... it's a very useful tool
when deployed well.

The point here is, though,

Johnson's bumbling persona
is a carefully calibrated act.

Take his hair. Multiple people have said
he actually messes it up on purpose.

A BBC producer tweeted

that "he'd always ruffle it

right before the camera
started rolling,"

which kind of makes sense,
doesn't it?

He's been on TV hundreds of times,

and he always looks like a mess.

What were the chances that
before every one of those appearances,

he combed, gelled,
and carefully part his hair

only to then be hit in the face
by a goose

right as they started filming?

No, he looks like that
because he wants to.

Or take his clothing. He's often seen
outside in eccentric, chaotic outfits,

but he knows how to dress.

He just also knows that
that is a more relatable image

than this one from when he was
in the notoriously elite

Bullingdon Club at Oxford University

with his friend David Cameron.

Now, that photo was
a huge liability for Cameron

but not for Johnson,

because he's cleverly
inoculated himself

against that image
of astonishing privilege

by presenting himself
as a cartoon Englishman

who dresses like a raccoon
who just emerged

from David Foster Wallace's trash.

And once you realize what he is doing,
it makes you question everything

that you previously found
charming about him.

Remember that clip where he's
talking about painting buses?

Undeniably funny,

but some in Britain have pointed out
that it might have been an attempt

to change the Google search results
people receive

when they looked for something like
"Boris Johnson bus,"

meaning that people would see
that delightful clip

rather than this significantly
less delightful bullshit.

Now, was that actually
his intention?

It's impossible to know,
but you can't rule it out either.

And once you see the possibility

that his gaffes are in fact
calculated manipulations,

you can't unsee it.

It's like looking at the FedEx logo
and finally noticing the arrow.

Or...

Or looking at the Starbucks logo

and finally noticing
Robert De Niro's face.

You can never look at it
in quite the same way again.

And beneath all of
Boris's surface charm

are some truly nasty elements.

For one thing, he is a liar.

He was fired from his first job
as a journalist,

at "The Times" of London
for completely making up a quote.

In fact, his editor claims
Johnson was the "single worst employee"

he's ever had,

"and skipped many work days to hang out
with his best friend, Jeffrey Epstein,"

which is terrible.

It's not true;
I just made that quote up.

But now, you can see
just how irresponsible it is

to fabricate them.

And from there, Johnson failed upwards
to a job at "The Daily Telegraph,"

where he built a following
on a series of flagrant falsehoods

about the European Union
as their Brussels correspondent...

falsehoods that would help
lay the groundwork

for the Brexit vote decades later.

Johnson even admits that he had
something called a "save-get."

It's a key command like a copy-paste
of a phrase that he liked to use

to paint a caricature of the EU.

I had a sort of "save-get."
Do you still have "save-get" keys?

A "save-get" kind of intro,

which was "Britain stood alone
last night as..."

and then I'd fill in whatever it was,
"As Europe proceeded with plans

to abolish the prawn cocktail
flavor crisp,"

or... or whatever.

Okay.
So, first, for those unfamiliar,

prawn cocktail crisps are real.

They shouldn't be, but they are.

And to explain,
it's what happens when a country

looks at a dining table
and foregoes food

in favor of playing whiff-whaff,
but Johnson...

Johnson actually did write
a series of columns

claiming Europe was attempting to ban
the prawn cocktail crisp,

which was a complete lie.

Europe was never planning
to abolish them,

and they immediately
pointed that out.

But Boris's allegation
spread like wildfire

and became a popular example
of an out-of-control EU,

and as recently as 2016,

a full 25 years after his bullshit
was completely debunked,

Boris actually cited "the great war

against the British
prawn cocktail crisp"

as part of his case for Brexit.

And by the way,
if there ever is a great war

against the prawn cocktail crisp,
there will be no winners.

Believe me, because...

I will say this.
Eating them...

It's... it's like eating
a cremated mermaid.

But... but in a bad way.

And...

Oh, that's bad.
And look, look...

Look, look, it would be bad enough
if Boris were just a liar.

He's also been more than willing to tap
into outright bigotry to get ahead.

He's made repeated references
to some immigrants

as people that want
to "leech off the state,"

and over the years he's made
references to "piccaninnies."

He said the people of Congo
had "watermelon smiles,"

he's called gay men
"tank-topped bumboys,"

and just last year, there was this.

"They look like letterboxes,"

Boris Johnson wrote on Monday.

He even compared women who wear them

to bank robbers.

That is an appalling comment

that leaves a truly disgusting
taste in your mouth,

much like the shrimp crisp dust

that has very much voted
to remain on my fucking tongue.

And look, when reporters camped
outside Johnson's house,

he really turned the cartoon
version of himself up to 11,

ruffling up his hair,
donning an absurd outfit,

and waddling out to charm them,

and just watch how
depressingly effective

it winds up being.

-Do you apologize for what...
-Will you have a cup of tea?

-Will you apologize...
-Would you like a cup?

-Yeah, sure.
-Go on. Have a cuppa.

Thank you, thank you.
Do you regret...

-Would you like a cup?
-Do you regret your comment?

-Do you regret your comment?
-Go on, have a cup of tea.

-Thank you very much.
-There you go.

-There you go.
-Do you regret your comment?

I want you
to have a cup of tea.

If I have a cup of tea,
will you answer my question?

No, I'm here solely
on a humanitarian mission.

You've been here all day,
and you've been incredibly patient

and incredibly...
I feel sorry for you,

'cause I have nothing to say,
except offer you some tea!

-Okay.
-Okay? Go on.

-Okay, thank you. Thank you so much.
-Go on.

No!

Don't take the tea,

and do not thank him for it!

Because think about
what just happened there.

He referred to Muslim women
as letterboxes,

and in the space of 30 seconds,

he had them laughing along
with them.

He was in trouble,
he put on full Brit face,

and those journalists
fucking fell for it.

And for the record,
I can say Brit face.

You can't.

I can definitely say it.

We can say it together;
you can't say it at all.

That's the rule.

But unfortunately,
Boris the prime minister

may have hit the limits
of where that charm can take him,

because crucially,
he now has less than 100 days

to negotiate a Brexit deal.

And his well-engineered,
clumsy Brit persona

does not necessarily travel well.

We saw that during his time
as foreign secretary.

In 2017, he was in Myanmar,
where for some reason

he kept muttering Rudyard Kipling's

colonialist poem "Mandalay"
to himself.

Oh, yeah.

The ambassador is quick to spot

that reminding their hosts
of British rule

might not be wise.

Is it good stuff?
Or is that actually bad stuff?

'Cause I'd argue,
as a foreign secretary,

it's best not to remind people

of when your country subjugated theirs
for more than a century.

It honestly would've been
more diplomatic at that point

to recite the lyrics to
"My neck, My Back", by Khia.

"My neck, my back,

lick my pussy and my crack."

Good stuff, good stuff.

And look, that...

that wasn't a one-off.

Johnson's time in the foreign office
was littered with gaffes,

as this journalist explains
with the help of a visual aid.

I've spoken to one figure

who said that working
with Boris Johnson

is like walking a few feet
behind a horse

shoveling its shit.

Wow. That is a striking quote,

although I'm not really sure
why that journalist

felt the need to be
next to a horse to deliver it.

How do you pitch that
to the stable owner?

"Look, I'm just worried that people
have forgotten what horses look like,

"so please stand aside while I humiliate
your animal on the news."

And the problem is, if Johnson messes up
the Brexit negotiation,

the pile-up of shit
could be considerable here,

as most economists believe
a no-deal Brexit

would cause a deep recession.

And the EU may be extra immune
to Boris's charms.

Remember, he was a key figure
in the Brexit campaign

and has lied about them for decades
in his newspaper columns,

on top of which he has privately
referred to the French as "turds"

and publicly compared
the EU to Hitler.

So he's not working

with a lot of goodwill
at this point.

And Boris has made extravagant,
unkeepable promises,

including that he will somehow
devise a way

to sever northern Ireland
from the EU

without creating a hard border
with Ireland.

But his suggestions cannot work,

and EU Commissioner
Jean-Claude Juncker

has responded
pretty clearly to them.

Juncker reiterated
that "the EU's position

"that the Withdrawal Agreement is
the best and only agreement possible."

In other words,
Juncker said no to Johnson.

Yeah, of course he did,

so Johnson is shit out of luck
at this point.

His bumbling charm may work wonders
in low-stakes situations,

but that's not where he is now.

Think of it like this. Hugh Grant is
delightful in romantic comedies...

the stammering, the hesitation,

the inability to relate
to his surroundings

with any level of competence.

You want to see Hugh Grant in
"Four Weddings and a Funeral,"

but no one wants to see him
in "United 93,"

because the context would make
his character a lot less charming.

"Sorry, I just... um, well,

"ah, this is a...
really a stupid question,

"Particularly
in view of your recent jihad,

"but I just wondered if by any chance,
in the words of David Cassidy,

"when he was still with
'The Partridge Family,'

"I believe, uh,
you might be persuaded to,

should Allah will it, obviously..."

"Land-land-land this plane. Um...

Allahu, as I believe
you say it, Akbar."

Because...
yeah, it's less good.

It's less good in a situation
that matters,

because Johnson cannot get what
he wants or has promised here,

and his only hope of avoiding
complete catastrophe

is through focus, discipline,
and detail.

But those are three Achilles heels
of his. I'll show you.

One of his great plans for mitigating
the potentially catastrophic effects

of a no-deal Brexit is to suggest that
if the UK misses that October deadline,

it could simply trade freely with the EU
under Article 24, paragraph 5B

of this existing trade agreement,

but... and you do not need
to know the details of this...

the very next paragraph, 5C,

makes it clear that
that is simply not possible.

And just watch as a journalist
who actually understood that

challenged Johnson on it.

You talk about Article 5B
in paragraph 24.

Paragraph 5B. Article 24.

-Get the detail right, Andrew.
-Article 5...

It's Article 24, paragraph 5B.

And how would you handle
paragraph 5C?

I would... I would confide entirely
in paragraph 5B, because that is...

But how would you get around
what's in 5C?

I'd confide entirely in paragraph 5B,
which is enough for our purposes.

-Do you know what's in 5C?
-No.

Oh, for fuck's sake!

That "no" was delivered
with the confidence of a man

who doesn't know what he's talking
about, but thinks it doesn't matter.

It's a "no" that says, "Yeah,
I'm full of shit. So what?

"Just walk a few feet behind me
and clean it up with a shovel."

But that lack of attention to detail
for a process that has the potential

to impact millions of people
is really alarming,

and there is no reason
for much hope here,

because all the skills that have helped
Johnson to become prime minister

will not paper over
all of the deficits

that are going to make him
terrible at that job.

Johnson has backed himself
into a corner,

because Parliament has rejected
the EU's deal;

the EU says there is
no better deal to be had.

There is really no good way
out of this,

meaning that
he's pretty much stranded...

and not the charming kind
of stranded

that means you've somehow
won the Olympics,

because this time that zip line
isn't over Olympic spectators.

It's over a volcano.

It's set to erupt
in three months' time,

and the only people
who can help get him down

are the same people he's accused
of being turds and Hitlers.

And unfortunately for Johnson,
Britain, Europe, and the world,

I just don't think he's gonna be able
to whiff-whaff his way out of this one.

And now, this.

And now, CNBC's Joe Kernen
irritates his co-workers.

Rami Malek's teeth... those fake teeth

actually won Best Actor, I think.

Did they not, or...?

Uh, no, I think they did not.

-You're not a baby powder guy?
-No.

Baby skin.
If you get a little bit older...

-I have it already.
-Get a bit older,

-...gravity takes over.
-The baby powder...

-Gravity takes over?
-Eventually.

Is that what you want to tell
Americans at 6:08?

It's just a fact, right, Mac?

There are big...
specific type of sweat...

-Ugh. So gross.
-Glands in your ear canal, Andrew.

-Really...
-Active. Active ones.

-It's spectacular.
-It's fast.

It's real. They're real,
and they're spectacular.

-Nice.
-Yeah, like he said.

You're glued
to what's-his-face, with the...

big Austin Powers dude
with the teeth, um...

-Mike Myers?
-No.

Uh, the guy who summarizes a week
in a day on Sunday nights...

-Oh, John Oliver.
-Yeah, yeah.

God almighty.

He's not representative of, uh...

of Great... is he?
I mean, do you take credit for...

I think it's a good show.

-I like him.
-Okay.

How about time
for the Squawk planner?

That's our show.
Thanks for watching.

See you next week.
Good night!