[TV static drones]
[bright tone]
[upbeat rock music]
*
[cheers and applause]
- Welcome, welcome, welcome
to "Last Week Tonight."
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Just time for a quick recap of the week.
And we begin with Donald Trump:
Rome burning in man form.
On Thursday, he went to the RNC headquarters in Washington
to meet with Paul Ryan and the Republican establishment
to try and mend fences.
Now, Ryan had famously declined to endorse Trump,
but after the meeting,
he struck a more conciliatory tone.
- I was very encouraged with
what I heard from Donald Trump today.
I do believe that we are now planting the seeds
to get ourselves unified
to bridge the gaps and differences.
I was very encouraged with this meeting.
His personality, I thought was--
I thought he has a very good personality.
He's a very warm and gen-- warm and genuine person.
- Okay, stop.
Because I understand the "genuine" part
in the same way that Miller Genuine Draft is genuine.
You know, it is the shitty thing that it is.
But the only way Trump could be described as "warm"
is if you're feeling leftover tanning bed heat
radiating from his skin.
And why is Paul Ryan being so coy about this?
We all know where this is going.
Trump needs the GOP's money
because he's decided he's not self-funding
his general election campaign,
and the Republicans need to not alienate Trump's voters.
So Trump and the Republican establishment
are like a teenage Christian couple
who've made an abstinence pledge.
They are going to have sex.
It is just a matter of time.
But they still need to make a big show of resisting it
for anyone who might be paying attention.
However, the rest of the week was a little bumpier for Trump.
On Friday morning, he attempted to justify
not releasing his tax returns,
and it did not go great.
Trump: There have been many presidents
that have not shown their tax returns.
- Actually, every single nominee since 1976
has released their tax returns.
Trump: Right, but before 1976, most people didn't do it.
- Yeah, sure.
But there were a lot of things we did before 1976
that seem crazy now,
like smoking on airplanes
and thinking Elliott Gould was a major sex symbol.
The point is times have changed.
But--but perhaps the weirdest thing involving Trump this week
was the release of tapes suggesting that, in the '90s,
he had, for some reason, invented a publicist for himself
named John Miller
and pretended to be him on the phone.
- That--that is so perfectly Donald Trump.
Even his imaginary alter ego
reflexively brags about himself.
Now, on that tape,
you hear "John Miller" saying
many incredible things about Trump,
including claiming that Madonna wanted to date him.
- Now...
Now, much like his candidacy,
that claim is sad, but not implausible.
Remember, there were rumors that, in the '90s,
Madonna got together with Vanilla Ice,
Jose Canseco,
and Willem Dafoe.
And what is Donald Trump,
if not a mixture of the authenticity of Vanilla Ice,
the likability of Jose Canseco,
and the terrifying facial expressions
of Willem Dafoe?
But this shouldn't even have been news this week.
It shouldn't have been news.
Back when this happened,
Trump confessed to the whole thing.
man: Soon after the interview, Trump admitted
that he was John Miller
and called it a joke gone awry.
- Okay, so there's no story here then, is there?
All present-day Trump needed to do
was quickly reconfirm that it was him.
- I guess the simple question this morning:
are you aware of the tape?
Is it you?
Trump: No, I don't think it--
I don't know anything about it.
You're telling me about it for the first time,
and it doesn't sound like my voice at all.
- Yes, it does!
It's clearly you!
Look, there is only one way to settle this.
Tonight I would like to extend an invitation
to John Miller, publicist, to appear on this program.
Now, to be clear, to be clear,
this is not an invitation to Donald Trump,
who has never and will never be invited here
for an interview.
But if John Miller wants to come sit down with us,
we would love to have him.
We've even set up our interview area
for you where-- with all the things
that we presume John Miller enjoys:
overcooked steaks,
low-grade pornographic magazines,
and a hand mirror.
It's an open invitation,
so please, come on by, John Miller!
There's literally nothing stopping you
other than the fact you obviously don't exist.
So--so let's move on for now to Queen Elizabeth II,
the only becrowned woman
who acts more entitled
than a bride at her bachelorette party.
"This is my day!
It's my day before my other day!"
Now, normally--
normally when the queen makes headlines,
it's because she's just gotten older.
You know, her most meaningful power as monarch
is basically to stand there
and experience the passage of time.
But this week at a garden party,
she made news with an overheard complaint.
- The queen has been caught on camera
criticizing a recent Chinese delegation to the U.K.
Her majesty was introduced to a police commander
who described difficulties during the state visit
of the Chinese president.
- Ooh, they were rude to the ambassador?
I will say it's actually kind of refreshing
to hear a 90-year-old woman air a grievance
with specific Chinese individuals
rather than expressing a vague distrust
for Chinese people in general.
But this story became a surprisingly big deal,
with experts even delving into the physics
of how the queen had been overheard.
- The thing with the royals is,
sometimes you hear them, sometimes you don't.
There seems to have been a sort of perfect storm yesterday.
The queen was under a plastic umbrella,
which acted to amplify her words.
- Oh, yes, of course,
the classic problem of unintended sound amplification.
We haven't heard this much from the queen
since she had surgery and had to wear
one of those big plastic cones around her neck.
But other people--
other people were more interested
in examining why the queen was so upset.
man: In the queen's defense, she is only saying
and the police officer is saying
what was widely reported at the time,
which was Chinese officials and Chinese security
at the Chinese Embassy
were pretty high-handed in the way they were treating
British police, British diplomats and officials,
acting, in the words of one observer,
"As if they owned the place."
- Oh, that is a little rich
coming from an English person,
'cause for about 300 years,
that was Britain's entire military policy.
"How should we engage the enemy, sir?"
"Well, I suppose we'll just march in
and act like we own the place."
[mimics puffing on pipe]
And finally this week: Budweiser,
America's favorite liquid yeast infection.
This week, they decided to make a branding change,
and surprisingly, it wasn't making their product
taste less like Minion jizz.
It was something far less expected.
- This summer, Budweiser is renaming its beer "America,"
that will include some new labels and images
associated with the U.S.
- It's true.
For six months,
Budweiser will be called "America."
So now people can finally say,
"Sorry, I just vomited America
all over the men's room of a Ruby Tuesday's."
It is clearly a little self-serving
for Budweiser to wrap the American flag around their cans
of "what's left in the dishwasher
after you accidentally wash beans,"
especially when you consider this one tiny detail...
woman: Budweiser, by the way, is brewed in St. Louis,
but it is owned by a company in Belgium.
- Yes, Budweiser's parent company is based in Belgium.
Though Belgium does have one thing in common
with Budweiser: historically speaking,
Germans refuse to acknowledge that it's even there.
But nevertheless, one proud American has already
stepped forward to claim credit for the change,
and you will almost certainly guess who.
- Donald Trump, do you think you had something to do
with Budweiser changing the name of their beer
for this summer from Budweiser to America?
- Did they owe you money? Trump: I think so.
They're so impressed with what our country will become
that they decided to do this before the fact.
- They got to get a taste of that.
- You know what?
That actually makes sense,
because Budweiser beer is a lot like Trump.
They're both known for their terrible taste and frothy heads,
they're both the color of burnt urine,
and every once in a while,
they both seem to change their name
for no fucking reason whatsoever.
And now this.
male announcer: Elected officials,
whether at the local, state, or federal level,
these are the men and women
who diligently make us look like fucking idiots
for electing them.
Let's meet one in our ongoing series,
"People Who Somehow Got Elected."
This week's person who somehow got elected,
Paul LePage, governor of Maine,
the state that has been overseeing
a nonstop lobster genocide since 1820.
Since coming to power five years ago,
brash Tea Party vet conservative Paul LePage
has been busy, mostly fighting with the state's legislature,
to which he's issued a record number of vetoes:
over 400 and counting.
But he's probably best known for the unusual things he says,
like these remarks about drug dealers
many took to be racist.
- These are guys of the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty...
these type of guys that come from Connecticut and New York.
male announcer: Okay, first, no self-respecting drug dealer
has ever called himself "Smoothie,"
and second, we haven't even gotten to the racist part yet.
- Incidentally, half the time,
they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave.
announcer: There it is.
And LePage later offered a recommendation
for how Maine's gun owners could combat the drug trade.
- Everybody in Maine, we have constitutional carry.
Load up and get rid of the drug dealers.
announcer: Encouraging vigilantes
to mow down criminals isn't a sound law enforcement strategy.
It's the exact plot of the movie "Death Wish III."
[machine gun firing]
- Yeah!
[triumphant music]
announcer: But for people who live in Maine,
statements like these from their governor
are not surprising.
You see, while most humans possess a thin barrier
that stops thoughts
from immediately exiting their brain as words,
Paul LePage does not.
- [yelling]
announcer: Like when he sent a message to the NAACP.
- Tell 'em to kiss my butt.
announcer: Or complained
about immigrant workers in his state.
- Do you ever try to say, "What's the special today?"
from somebody from Bulgaria?
And the worst one's if they're from India.
announcer: Or described the diseases
he thinks refugees would bring to Maine.
- What happens is you get Hepatitis C,
tuberculosis, AIDS, HIV,
uh...the "ziki fly."
announcer: And here, LePage is wrong,
because "ziki fly" populations
have actually decreased dramatically
in Maine in recent years,
owing primarily to the fact
that "ziki flies" are not a real thing
and do not exist.
But LePage saves his finest remarks
for his political opponents,
like when he criticized a state lawmaker
in the most graphic possible terms.
announcer: That's right.
He just implied former State Senator Troy Jackson
was subjecting mayors to an un-lubricated fucking.
But hold on. Oh, shit.
He's coming back to say something else.
- Listen.
announcer: As a result of his mouth forming words,
Paul LePage is in a near constant state of apology.
woman: Governor LePage is apologizing.
- The governor apologized.
- Governor Paul LePage met with Jewish community leaders
this morning to apologize again.
I apologize to all the Maine women.
- Governor LePage apologizing
to the son of a "Bangor Daily News" political cartoonist.
LePage sent Nick Danby a handwritten letter
apologizing for joking that he wanted to shoot Danby's father.
announcer: That is a weird letter to receive.
And yet, Paul LePage insists there's a rational explanation
for everything he's said in his career.
- I'm sorry I am not like you guys.
I am not polished speaker,
but I have a heart.
You can take the kid off the street,
but you can't take the street out of the kid.
I may not be very articulate
because I came from the people's streets.
[toy squeaking]
announcer: Squeezing a toy pig
doesn't prove you're from the streets.
It proves you're a three-year-old boy named Toby.
But Paul LePage does have a point.
He's not one of those politicians
who will think one thing and say another.
He'll always tell you exactly what's on his mind,
no matter how horrifying it is.
And that is why Paul LePage is, incredibly,
a person who somehow got elected.
[cheers and applause]
- Moving on.
Moving on.
Our main story tonight concerns 911.
You know, the thing you call right after WebMD tells you
you're not gonna be able to get it out on your own.
911 is a number so important,
we do everything to make kids remember it,
from classroom posters to toy phones
to folksy PSAs produced by local firehouses.
- Hi, Mrs. Clark. Welcome to station four.
So who knows when to call 911?
You should call 911 if a person is badly hurt
or in danger right now.
If you're not sure whether it's a real emergency
and there are no adults around,
it's a good idea to make the call.
- Now, that's true, but sometimes you should call
even if adults are around.
For instance, if someone's dying and the only adult
is Matthew McConaughey,
maybe don't leave the decision to him.
"Oh, you bleedin' out there, hoss?
"All right, tell you what to do, let's get some bongo drums
"and a bit of herbal love and tell that open wound
to come together, hombre."
[inhales loudly]
"We got it done."
We make roughly 240 million 911 calls each year,
and the dispatchers do amazing work:
talking people through childbirth, CPR,
abductions, and home break-ins.
In fact, we're so accustomed to relying on them,
we even call when we don't have an emergency.
- You're welcome.
announcer: That's a little boy named Richie.
- Now, okay--now, I know-- I know that sounds adorable,
but that kid may have caused such a mess in that bathroom,
he had to call 911.
"Uh, yeah, this is Richie.
"You guys have some sort of emergency clean-up crew
"you can send out?
'Cause I am done going potty."
We have a lot of faith in 911,
but the system can break down more than you think.
And when it does, people can die as a result.
male reporter: Shanell Anderson was delivering newspapers
in the dark in suburban Atlanta
when she careened into this pond.
She knew right where she was.
reporter: But 911 dispatchers can't find her on their map.
It took first responders nearly 20 minutes to get to her.
- She died
because a system we expect to save our lives failed her.
And 911 losing valuable time
simply because dispatchers have trouble
determining your location is not unusual.
The FCC estimates improving location accuracy
could save over 10,000 lives a year,
which seems like a worthwhile goal.
People making emergency calls are on the very short list
of things we expect to be found 100% of the time.
It's that, the clitoris, and Nemo.
He's not a bad fish. He's not a bad fish.
He's just curious, and he's capable of more than you think!
And the obstacles for 911 centers don't stop there.
Depending on where you live, they may also be under-funded,
under-staffed, and full of outdated technology,
which is fine if you're describing a RadioShack,
but it's a little scary when you're describing
a place that handles life-and-death situations.
So tonight, let's focus on how on Earth we got to this point.
Now, the location problems have a lot to do
with the fact that 70% to 80% of all 911 calls
now come from cell phones.
And that's become a problem.
When everyone used landlines,
they could simply match the call to your billing address
and know exactly where you were.
But now you could be anywhere.
Unless, of course, you have AT&T,
because then you can only get reception
standing on a chair right by your living room window,
as long as it's not cloudy.
And while 911 centers do get some location info
from wireless carriers, it varies wildly.
Sometimes, they might only get the cell tower
your call was routed through.
And that's why, around the country,
your chance of them quickly getting your exact whereabouts
ranges from as low as 10% to as high as 95%.
Just watch one reporter
put a dispatch center in Virginia to the test.
woman: 911. What's your emergency?
- Hi, this is Jeff Rossen with NBC News.
Just want to know if you can tell me
where our location is on your computer.
- That's not here. - Absolutely not.
That's about a quarter mile away.
- And we're standing in the actual 911 center.
That's it right down there.
- Oh, that is not good.
You never want to be in a situation
where you have to tell someone,
"I'm actually inside you right now."
And if you're thinking--
if you're thinking, "Well, hold on.
"Wait a minute.
I can find my location on my cell phone,"
well, you're not alone.
Dispatchers wonder the same thing.
- I can check in on Facebook
and it'll tell you exactly what building I'm in.
I can be at the hockey game and it tells me
I'm at First Niagara Center checking in on Facebook,
but when you call 911, we don't get
that accurate location information.
So the technology is out there.
It's just not getting to us at this point.
- That's a good point 'cause even the Domino's app
can tell where you are, and they've barely mastered
the technology to make a palatable pizza.
So we asked everyone from the FCC to public safety groups
to industry trade groups about why it seems
Ubers can find you better than ambulances can.
And there doesn't seem to be a simple, satisfying answer.
Broadly, what we were told was services like Uber aren't always
100% accurate either, particularly in rural areas.
Plus, emergency workers would like technology
that can tell them what floor of a building you're on,
and no one seems to know how to do that yet.
And while the wireless industry does claim to be working
toward incorporating some of what Uber uses
into 911 location services, it seems there is no guarantee
when that'll be ready for widespread use.
What we do know is that the FCC has mandated
they improve accuracy so that by 2021,
carriers deliver a usable location for callers
80% of the time, which sounds impressive
until you put it like this:
male reporter: Six years from now,
911 could still be unable to find
one out of every five emergency callers.
- That's not good enough!
The sentence, "In six years, I might not be able to find
one out of five of you" is only acceptable
if you're speaking to the members of One Direction.
And I'm sorry, Niall,
but one of you has to be the J.C. Chasez.
And look, fixing the location problem won't fix everything.
911 is so fragmented, there are currently
5,899 dispatch centers,
because each county or municipality in an area
might have its own one.
Plus there is no guarantee that any two dispatch centers
use the same technology
or have a system to work together.
And none of this is helped by the fact that in six states,
there is no specific statewide entity
in charge of coordinating 911 services.
And while Georgia law does require an actual committee
to help develop plans for 911,
it's not exactly a robust body.
- This is it:
Georgia's permanent 911 advisory committee.
You'll notice all 15 seats are empty.
There's no one at the mic
and there's nothing on the agenda.
This committee hasn't met for years
because there isn't a single member
currently appointed.
- How the fuck is that possible?
We even asked, and a spokesperson claimed
that that committee does actually have members,
but couldn't confirm it's active
and didn't answer when we asked for those members' names.
And come on!
You could at least make up a name like,
I don't know, John Miller,
right off the top of your head.
It's clearly not hard.
And there is a lot
that that committee could be doing.
For instance, for over a decade,
the federal government has been talking about something
called Next Generation 911,
basically upgrading dispatch centers
to an IP-based network,
and enabling them to do things
like accept videos and text messages.
And that could be life-saving
in situations where you can't make a phone call,
like domestic violence or a home invasion
or having a heart attack in a library.
I mean, sure, get some help,
but have some respect for the other patrons.
But as of right now,
no state has fully implemented Next Gen 911,
which makes no sense.
This would make everything so much easier
for the dispatchers, whose jobs are, frankly,
hard enough already.
- Some days, depending upon the outcome,
it's good.
Other days, not.
Sometimes you really don't know the outcome,
and you go home at night and you wonder,
is there something I could've done
that would've prevented maybe this person from dying,
or this person from getting hurt?
And then there are other times when you might save a life,
that you go home and you, you know,
you pat yourself on the back.
You're driving home and you cut the music up
and you're saying to yourself,
"Wow, I did something really good."
- Okay, I mean, that is a wider extreme
than most of us experience in our daily jobs.
For me, the difference between a good day and a bad day is
whether there's hazelnut creamer in the break room
or whether Janice from accounting
drank it all again.
God damn it, Janice!
That's not even milk!
That's disgusting!
And that level of stress,
combined with funding shortages,
has caused dispatch centers to be understaffed.
In fact, right now, go to Google,
put in "understaffed 911 dispatch"
and your town, and see what comes up.
Because in many places, it will be headlines like these.
It seems 911 staffing problems are one of those things
a ridiculous number of cities have,
like a Chinatown or a statue of someone racist.
And if your local dispatch center is understaffed,
then when you call, the first voice you hear
may be this...
woman: You have reached the Cincinnati 911 Center.
Your call will be answered as soon as possible.
man: You have reached 911 emergency dispatch.
Do not hang up.
If in danger, lay down the phone and go to safety.
- Oh, oh! Go to safety.
Why didn't I think of that?
Here I am in danger,
when really, I could simply be going to safety!
I shouldn't have wasted your time
by calling in the first place.
And some of that call volume is on us.
The ubiquity of cell phones means if 50 people see a fire,
911 might get 50 calls,
and that's on top of an even bigger strain on the system.
male reporter: Approximately 84 million 911 calls a year,
nationwide, are butt-dials.
female reporter: One person even butt dialed 911 136 times.
- When you receive a call and it's from--
as we call, "the butt dial,"
there's really not a whole lot you can do.
- When I tell them that I butt dialed them,
they always sound kind of aggravated.
I mean, it's kind of a waste of their time, you know?
It's like, "Okay, make sure you don't call again."
- Okay.
Honestly, I'm willing to bet
that guy hears the same response from just about anyone
he dials by accident or on purpose.
So, look.
We have an antiquated, disjointed system,
populated by workers who are, understandably,
sick of listening to people's butts.
And what makes this even more frustrating
is that almost everyone's phone bill
has a line like this on it, which you might assume
goes directly to fund 911 centers.
But the FCC's fee reports show that, since 2008,
at least 20 states have diverted those dollars elsewhere.
Which is probably why, depending on where you live,
911 may be a joke in your town,
to quote Duran Duran.
I mean, I know it's a Public Enemy song,
but did you know that Duran Duran covered it?
both: * 911 is a joke
* 911 is a joke
[rock music]
* 911 is a joke
- You're welcome.
Because you haven't heard that disaffected anthem properly
until you've heard it performed by a white man named Simon
from Hertfordshire.
The point is, we are routinely raiding 911
to pay for other things.
New York state,
which has seen multiple breakdowns in its 911 systems,
took in over $185 million in fees in 2014,
but then diverted $77 million
into the state's general fund,
where it could be spent on pretty much anything.
And yet, when the governor was asked about this,
he blew it off.
- Is that something in the budget process
that you'll take a look at?
Is it right for us to divert this money?
- It is not an issue that has come up,
uh, and I haven't heard any local legislator raise it,
but if it comes up, we'll look into it.
- Okay, A, it just fucking came up.
B, legislators have raised the issue repeatedly
since you've been in office.
And C, not diverting money away from 911
is one of those things
you shouldn't have to be told not to do,
like siphoning gas out of a fire truck
to put in your dirt bike.
"Oh, look, no one's told me this is wrong,
"so, if you'll excuse me,
I'm gonna spin some donuts in that Arby's parking lot."
But this blasé attitude is indicative of the fact
that until we're explicitly confronted
with the challenges facing 911,
it seems we're not going to do anything about them.
And maybe the problem is that we are taught from a young age
to take 911 for granted,
so perhaps it's time for that to change.
[happy whistling and music]
*
- So, you should call 911
if a person is badly hurt or in danger.
Any questions? Yeah.
- So if I call 911, you'll come and help me?
- Well, I'm sure gonna try, sweetie.
But I got to be honest.
If you're calling from a cell phone
and you don't know your address,
a lot of the time, we're gonna struggle
to find out exactly where you are.
- That's scary.
- Well, don't you worry.
By the year 2021, we will find you every time...
four out of five times.
- Wait. How can you not know how to find me?
I can order pizza from my phone right now
and they know exactly where I am.
- It's not the same thing.
- I just did it. There's a pizza on its way.
- You know what, I'm gonna get a dispatcher
to come explain this to you.
- Hey, kids.
Firefighter Bill said you had some questions
about why we're not able to find you all the time.
- Yeah. Why is that?
- Well, we just don't have the technology to--
- Pizza's here. - Shit.
Get out.
- On the bright side, some places have
pretty good statewide systems,
like Maine.
- Hey, my grandma lives in Maine.
- Well, then she should be fine.
- My grandma lives in Georgia.
- Ooh, she is fucked.
- [laughing] Totally fucked.
- Why don't you guys just try harder?
- Excuse me?
- Oh, shit. - You think I don't try hard?
I just worked a 12-hour shift.
I helped deliver three babies,
I saved a family from a fire,
I pulled a lizard out of a printer,
and I listened to 15 different butts.
[all laughing]
Oh, yeah, well, we'll see how hard you're laughing
when I'm listening to someone's ass
and you're all burning to death in your beds.
- "Aah! Aah!
"It's so hot!
The flames, they're licking my body!"
Okay. Who wants to pet a Dalmatian?
male announcer: 911.
We'll be there when you need us.
Some restrictions apply. Availability may be limited.
Offer not guaranteed in all states.
Actual response time may vary.
Contact a medical professional
if you experience a wait time longer than four hours.
- That's our show.
Thank you so much for watching.
See you next week. Good night.
[cheers and applause]
[upbeat rock music]
*
[bright tone]