Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (TV Series)

Stupid Watergate (2017)

John Oliver: Self - Host

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Quotes 

• Himself - Host : Tonight, we're going to do something a little bit different, because for one week, and one week only, the show "Last Week Tonight" is actually going to talk, at some length, about the last week tonight.

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : And the reason we, unfortunately, have to do that is the last seven days have been absolutely insane. So much so that by Friday night, it may have broken Anderson Cooper.

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : Because... I'll tell you why. Because Jeffrey Lord, CNN contributor and die-hard Trump supporter was in the middle of defending yet another indefensible statement from Trump when Cooper finally snapped.

  [footage of Cooper and Lord, followed by audience laughter and applause] 

  Himself - Host : Yes. Yes. That is a professional journalist saying, of the president, "If he took a dump on his desk, you would defend it." And more importantly, Jeffrey Lord did not immediately answer "no".

• Himself - Host : And, look, on a different night, I could probably devote time to why CNN would put themselves in the position of having a professional dump defender constantly on their network, but there is not going to be time, because tonight, we have to track the latest developments in what we've been calling Stupid Watergate.

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : A scandal with all the potential ramifications of Watergate, but where everyone involved is stupid and bad at everything. And given the exhausting pace of this week's events, tonight we are simply gonna try and answer a few basic questions: "What the fuck is going on?", "How big a deal is this?", "Where do we go from here?", and "Is this real life?".

• Himself - Host : So, let's begin with question one, what the *fuck* is going on?

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : And the answer to that is "quite a lot". 'Cause... can... can you even remember how this week began? 'Cause there was actually a big story on Monday that you may have forgotten by now.

  [clips from news shows about Trump leaking classified intelligence to the Russians] 

  Himself - Host : That's right. President Trump may have inadvertently revealed code word information, one of the highest levels of classification, to Russian officials. And that is the kind of information you shouldn't even share with your closest friends, which of course in Trump's case would be the golf caddy he calls Steve, even though his name is Doug; uh... a bucket of KFC chicken, and the ghost of Roger Ailes.

• Himself - Host : Back then, in the more innocent time of Monday, it felt like there simply could not be a bigger story than that.

  [a clip of Alan Dershowitz calling the controversy "the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president" is shown] 

  Himself - Host : Yeah, it turns out Alan Dershowitz was extremely wrong about that, and...

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : ...and I would say it's hard to imagine him being more wrong about anything, but fortunately, we have photographic proof.

  [a picture of O.J. Simpson at his 1994 murder trial is shown, to gorans from the audience] 

  Himself - Host : But... the point is... the point is that that Russian news was buried the very next day by this.

  [news clips of Trump asking James Comey to stop his investigation of Michael Flynn] 

  Himself - Host : And that was a huge deal, because let me give you a quick reminder about why the FBI was investigating Flynn, a man whose overall demeanor says "I only fuck on top the sheets so I don't ruin the hospital corners."

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : Michael Flynn was fired after it emerged he discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Russian officials during the transition, despite denying that to the press, to the FBI, and to Vice President Mike Pence. Flynn was so flawed, Team Trump was repeatedly warned about his baggage by both then acting A.G. Sally Yates and President Obama, and even, as reported this week, General Flynn himself. But Trump kept standing by him anyway, which kind of makes sense in a way, because literally every decision in the Trump administration is the worst possible one. Paper or plastic? "Whichever one kills the most birds."

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : Soup or salad? "I'm gonna go with the 'N' word."

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : Favorite Beatle? "It's got to be Yoko."

• Himself - Host : Anyway, let's get back to this week, because on Wednesday, just *four days* ago, which is the equivalent of 150 years in 2017 time, Donald Trump gave the commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy. And that should have been easy; simply lift the cadets' spirits and point them towards the future. But Trump, inevitably, used the speech to, where I'm fairly sure momentarily forget the word "certainty", and then also generally whine about how mean people were being to him.

  [a clip of Trump's speech is shown] 

  Himself - Host : Wait. "No politician has been treated worse"? Abraham Lincoln was shot by an actor. William McKinley was shot by an anarchist. JFK was, of course, murdered by Ted Cruz's father...

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : ...and... and James Garfield was shot; then, to find the bullet - and this is true - Alexander Graham Bell devised a kind of metal detector which didn't work, so doctors tried to fish around in his guts for the bullet with unwashed fingers, which just made his infection worse, so he died in horrible pain. But yeah, Alec Baldwin sometimes does a mean impression of you on TV, so yeah, it's basically the same, isn't it?

• Himself - Host : Then... then, later that same day... the same day, the Justice Department appointed a special counsel, former FBI head Robert Mueller, to conduct an independent investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia, which is also a massive development that was closely followed by Thursday's news concerning James Comey; specifically his friend's account of the lengths to which Comey went at this post-inauguration meeting to try and avoid a personal encounter with the president.

  [clip of Benjamin Wittes, the editor in chief of Lawfare] 

  Himself - Host : Come on, Comey! If you're six foot eight, you don't hide by blending into a curtain. You wear a brown suit, you paste a few leaves to your hand and head and you hope to be mistaken for a tree.

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : That's what you do! Now, luckily, we somehow escaped Thursday alive, and on Friday, the president took off for a nine day overseas trip. But the wheels of Air Force One had barely left the ground when this happened.

  [a clip is shown of Jake Tapper reporting that Trump called Comey "a nut job"] 

  Himself - Host : Now, yeah, that sounds rough, but in Trump's defense, I can kind of see where he's coming from. I mean, "The guy keeps hiding in my drapes? Who does that? He's huge! I can see him!" Dress like a tree! You've got to know that!

• Himself - Host : And... and here's the thing. The same document which the White House did not deny, gave the even more concerning detail that Trump had told his Russian guests "I just fired the head of the FBI. I've faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off." And it's almost difficult to believe your ears when you hear something that sounds so audaciously corrupt. It's like if Hillary Clinton had sent an e-mail with the subject line "'Sup? I did Benghazi".

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : But... but wait. Wait. Because the week still wasn't quite yet done. 'Cause almost at the exact same time that the "nut job" news emerged, there was one last startling revelation.

  [BBC News clip reporting a current White House official is a 'significant' person of interest in the Russia investigation] 

  Himself - Host : And that is also potentially enormous. Now, some have suggested that that could be Jared Kushner, but it seems unlikely because while he is technically significant and legally a person...

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : ...he, in no way, qualifies as "of interest".

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : He is the least interesting human on Earth. He is the person equivalent of an empty room painted eggshell.

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : He's like a white bread sandwhich where the middle is just a third slice of white bread.

  [laughter] 

  Himself - Host : Or, as Mike Pence refers to that, the Devil's hoagie.