[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,
and let us dive right in this week
with the 2016 election,
or, as it's increasingly known,
America's Fucktastic Cirque de Dismay.
Now, the big news this week
surrounded Donald Trump,
a punch line that is quickly becoming a nightmare,
like--like-- like if you said,
"Take my wife, please,"
and then she was actually kidnapped by ISIS.
Now, this week revealed
a somewhat startling statistic.
Witt: A new report from "USA Today"
found Trump and his businesses
have been involved in at least 3,500 lawsuits
over three decades.
- 3,500 lawsuits.
That is unprecedented for a presidential nominee.
In fact, if each lawsuit involving Trump
were the basis of an episode of "Law & Order,"
they could sustain all 456 episodes of the original,
all 389 episodes of "Law & Order: SVU,"
all 195 episodes of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent,"
and all 22 episodes of "Law & Order: LA,"
as well as every episode of "The Practice,"
"Ally McBeal," "L.A. Law,"
"Boston Legal," "Night Court,"
"The Good Wife," "Matlock,"
"JAG," "Perry Mason,"
"Judging Amy," "The Guardian,"
"The Public Defender,"
"Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law,"
"Harry's Law," "Courthouse," "Suits,"
"Family Law," "Sweet Justice,"
1971's "The D.A.,"
2004's "The D.A.,"
"Reasonable Doubts," "Damages,"
"Shark," "The Defenders,"
"The Paper Chase," "Head Cases,"
"Judd for the Defense," and all three episodes
of NBC's "First Years," and at that point,
you're still missing one lawsuit,
but you've also basically
run out of television shows about lawyers,
meaning Trump's lawsuits
exceed the limits of the fucking genre!
Well--well, lately,
lately, there have been some new developments
with Trump-related litigation
after he complained about a judge
presiding over two particular cases against him.
- I have a judge
who is a hater of Donald Trump,
a hater.
He's a hater.
His name is Gonzalo Curiel.
[crowd jeering]
And he is not doing the right thing.
The judge, who happens to be,
we believe, Mexican, which is great.
I think that's fine.
- Oh, oh, you do, do you?
You think that's fine?
Great news, people of Mexican descent.
Donald Trump thinks it's "fine"
for you to be a human being existing on this planet.
Now, for the record,
the judge in question was born in Indiana,
but that's not the point,
because, as he later clarified,
it was the judge's Mexican heritage
that made him unfit to judge Trump.
- You're invoking his race when talking about
whether or not he can do his job.
- Jake, I'm building a wall, okay?
I'm building a wall.
I'm trying to keep business out of Mexico.
Mexico's fine. There's nothing--
- But he's Amer-- he's an American.
- Uh, he's of Mexican heritage,
and he's very proud of it,
as I am where I come from.
- But he--
- Wait.
Where are you-- where exactly are you from?
Because you look like you came out of a clogged drain
at the Wonka factory,
and--and you know what?
That's great.
I think that's fine.
But think about--
think about what he's implying there.
The judge is unfit to do his job
because of his ethnic background,
and just this morning, Trump took it a step further.
- What if he was a Muslim, though?
You've had--been very tough on temporary
Muslim immigration bans.
If it were a Muslim judge, would you also feel like
they wouldn't be able to treat you fairly
because of that policy of yours?
- Uh, it's possible, yes.
Yeah, that would be possible, absolutely.
- I would say that was
the dictionary definition of "bigotry,"
except after this campaign,
the definition of "bigotry" might just become
"See: Trump, Donald."
Now, as it happens,
the judge he initially insulted is overseeing cases
involving the controversial Trump University,
and he ordered a cache of documents
to be released this week,
which was very exciting to us,
'cause we actually looked into his university
when we did our big piece on Trump
back in February,
and it wound up on this very long list
of awful Donald Trump stories
that we literally didn't have time to delve into,
even in a 22-minute piece.
But once we started reading through these new documents,
we figured, "Oh, fuck it.
Let's take some time to talk about it now,"
because Trump University is kind of amazing.
Back when it opened,
Trump made some big claims.
- At Trump University, we teach success.
That's what it's all about:
success.
It's going to happen to you.
If you don't learn from the people
that we're going to be putting forward--
and these are all people that are handpicked by me--
then you're just not gonna make it
in terms of the world of success.
- [scoffs]
"The world of success."
It--it sounds like what Donald Trump
calls his bedroom.
"Welcome to the world of success.
"Please enjoy a mint
and a nondisclosure agreement."
Now, unfortunately, Trump University
ran into problems in several states,
starting with the name itself.
- We started looking at Trump University
and discovered that it was
a classic bait-and-switch scheme.
It was a scam,
starting with the fact that it was not a university.
- Holy shit.
Trump University wasn't even a university,
which is enough to make you wonder
what the fuck was in Trump Steaks.
Oh, God, it was possum, wasn't it?
It was possum, you monsters.
But the name was just the beginning,
'cause remember how he had handpicked instructors?
Well, according to his own depositions,
he did not personally select instructors for live seminars
and was...
And it's probably good
that he didn't handpick them himself.
That would be dangerous.
Anything Trump's tiny fingers touch
turn into an ex-wife
or an abandoned casino.
And--and it doesn't stop there.
According to the sworn testimony by several former employees,
many instructors and mentors had...
In fact, one had worked as a salesman for Lowe's,
and another had been manager for Buffalo Wild Wings,
or, as I call it, B-dubs-dubs.
And--and even a former member of Trump's own sales staff
testified that it was, among other things,
"a joke," "a facade,"
and was "just selling false hopes and lies."
And, to be fair, every university
has sold some of its students false hopes and lies.
It's just, most of the time,
they call it a theatre arts degree.
Now, these--these new documents also include
several revealing playbooks of sales tactics.
For instance, the room temperature
was to be "no more than 68 degrees,"
which is partly to keep students alert
and partly because Professor Wild Wings
doesn't want the ranch sauce getting all gamy.
There are also instructions on how to sell
and up-sell students,
or, as the playbooks call them, "buyers,"
on expensive courses,
with typo-riddled tips like...
And if prospects seemed at all wary,
there was advice for dealing with that.
man: "You must be very aggressive,"
one passage from the playbook reads.
- You might laugh, but that is the same technique
that Trump has been using to run for president,
and apparently, it fucking works.
These playbooks are rife with sleazy salesmanship.
For instance, employees were told to "substitute the words
'thank you' with 'congratulations,'"
so that the potential customer
ends up thanking you,
which is pretty obnoxious.
If I started this show every week with,
"Welcome to 'Last Week Tonight.'
Congratulations on joining us,"
you would quite rightly turn it off.
And I know what you're thinking:
"Well, what about people who simply
didn't have the money?"
Trump U didn't really have a problem with that.
Smith: A set of playbooks for the sales team
coached them on how to market the courses
even to single mothers with three children
who "may need money for food."
Money, instructed the playbook...
- "Lack of money is not an excuse"
is not what single parents need to hear.
It's what Donald Trump needs to hear
when a fifth company of his
inevitably files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
And as you might expect, some of the customers
on the other end of that hard sell
wound up feeling duped, like Carmen Mendez,
who put a $35,000 course on her credit cards
and was left disappointed.
Mendez: I thought that I'm going to be a millionaire,
because Donald Trump is a millionaire,
and they were offering a course for people to get rich.
Chernoff: This is the closest Mendez got to Trump
during the course: a picture of her
with a picture of Donald Trump.
- Oh, that's not a one-off,
'cause another former student said, "We were told that..."
Which is actually a perfect metaphor for Trump University.
You're expecting the real thing,
but in the end, all you get
is a tacky, two-dimensional facade
with Donald Trump's face slapped on it.
But perhaps the most suspicious thing of all
is that the playbooks even include specific instructions
on what to do if an attorney general shows up,
and believe it or not, the answer is not
"kick over a table as a distraction
and get the fuck out of there."
No, apparently, you "contact April immediately,"
and it also reminds you "you do not have to show them
any personal information unless they have a warrant,"
which is suspicious advice for a university employee.
I'm pretty sure Harvard doesn't tell its new professors,
"Welcome.
"Here's a gun and a cyanide capsule
"in case the fuzz show up.
Don't let them take you alive."
Now, Donald Trump...
Donald Trump has broadly denied
the claims in the lawsuits,
and his attorneys have gathered statements
from satisfied customers.
In fact, to hear Trump tell it,
the school was very good value.
- 98% of the people that took the courses--
we have report cards from everybody.
They report-carded on the course.
98% of the people that took the courses--
98% approved the courses.
They thought they were terrific.
- Okay, first, there is something
instantly fishy about 98%.
The only things that have that level of unanimous approval
are dictators, Pixar movies,
and Neapolitan ice cream.
Yeah, it's got chocolate for the chocoholics,
vanilla for the borings,
and strawberry for the perverts.
In fact, according to plaintiffs,
the reason those numbers are so high
is because the surveys were not anonymous...
Such as assistance
or mentoring from the instructor
they were evaluating.
So listen to why one former student
gave it a good review that he now regrets.
- I really look at it like this.
Is--is--say you go to a really nice restaurant and--
really expensive restaurant,
and you eat this really gorgeous dinner,
and the chef comes out near the end of your meal
and asks you how you liked the meal,
and you really, really loved it,
but then by the time you go home,
you realize that you'd gotten food poisoning,
and you're really, really sick.
man: What do you think about Trump University?
- I felt like I had been poisoned.
I just felt like I was just duped and poisoned
and ripped off.
- The only thing worse than that
is having that same feeling and then realizing,
"Oh, shit, he's got three years,
364 days left in his first term."
But--but perhaps the most valuable lesson
to come out of Trump University is the one that it is
currently giving all of us
in what's behind Trump's campaign strategy,
because the playbook tells his salespeople...
And that is what is happening now.
Crowds at a Trump rally may not be able
to point to a concrete benefit or solution he offers,
but they know how he makes them feel,
and that is jacked-up and ready to boo any name
that sounds vaguely Latino.
So if you are planning to vote for Trump in November,
I'd like to direct you to a quote from the top
of Trump University's old homepage.
Donald, I could not have said it better myself,
so thank you, or should I say,
"Congratulations."
And now this.
- We will hear from the president.
Uh, the cameras will be in there.
They'll be rolling, obviously.
He's got Ebola, and that's obviously
a source of great concern.
They would like a good solution, obviously,
one that prevents Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
An 18-point lead for Hillary Clinton
in South Carolina.
Obviously, that's welcome news for her campaign.
Apparently kills about 1/3 of those
who get this virus,
and that's obviously very, very terrifying.
Bringing in Nazis and Hitler and all of this--
obviously not appropriate.
If anyone sees them, obviously,
don't get near them.
Mitt Romney, obviously, is a Mormon.
Obviously a lot of media there.
Obviously we have a gas mask.
[light instrumental music]
- Moving on,
our main topic tonight concerns debt.
It's the reason Nicolas Cage
has made so many great choices in recent years,
and--and presumably, it's the fuel he uses
to power performances like this one
from his recent movie "The Trust."
- Open it! Open it!
Open it!
Open it! Open it! Open it! Open it!
- Holy shit.
He--he delivered that line
like a child on PCP opening birthday presents,
which he clearly hopes are full of more PCP.
Now, American households
collectively owe over $12 trillion in debt,
and right now, $436 billion of that debt
is seriously delinquent,
meaning it's 90 or more days past due,
and it is not good when anything is that late.
If your baby were three months overdue,
you'd effectively just be giving birth
to a floppy toddler.
And look, clearly, if you have debts,
you should pay them if you can,
but many people can find themselves in debt
for no direct fault of their own.
Take Bob Weinkauf.
A few years ago, he was in intensive care
over breathing trouble,
and after four days of treatment,
the hospital told his wife that their insurance
was not going to cover the costs.
- She said,
"The bill is up to $80,000 already,"
and she said, "Mrs. Weinkauf, I hope you realize
that you're responsible for this bill."
I was just hysterical.
I thought, "What am I gonna do?
"I've worked my whole life.
Is this how my life is gonna end?"
- Now, that's terrible,
because some debts are completely unavoidable.
This isn't someone spending $80,000
on this Versace coat
that looks like a banana fucked a Rorschach test.
No, this is someone spending $80,000 to breathe,
but the fact that so many people
have money trouble is not really surprising.
What may surprise you is the extent to which
seriously delinquent debts have now given birth
to an entire debt-buying industry.
- When most consumers get a call and say,
"I'm calling on your Bank of America debt,"
you assume that it's someone at Bank of America,
but what happens is, Bank of America
sold off that debt for pennies on the dollar years ago,
and it's been bought and sold
and bought and sold and bought and sold.
Most of the big banks do it, and not just banks but payday loans.
Brzezinski: Mm-hmm.
- Book club membership, gym fees,
auto loans.
Every year, billions of dollars of this debt
is sold off cheap.
- It's true.
Debt-buying companies like these
that you've probably never heard of
have amassed a huge amount of Americans' debt.
In fact, the largest,
Encore Capital Group,
which has these subsidiaries,
tell investors that one in five consumers
either owes them money now
or has owed them money in the past,
which is incredible,
because that means, statistically,
one member of Evanescence
owes or has owed Encore money,
and I think we all know who that would be.
It would be guitarist and backing vocalist
Troy McLawhorn.
But--but as you will see, almost every step
of how this industry is allowed to operate
is problematic,
and let's start at the very beginning.
Let's say you have $1,000 credit card debt
that you can't pay.
At a certain point, your bank
might write off the full $1,000 on its taxes
and then, to make just a little extra money,
sell it off to a debt buyer
for a tiny fraction of the cost, maybe $50,
and that debt buyer can then come after you
for the full original amount,
and if it can't collect,
potentially, it can then resell that debt
for a fraction of what it paid to someone else,
who can still come after you for the original amount,
or sell it for a fraction of what it paid,
and so on and so on and so on.
Now, you might think the information changing hands
would include a lot of verifiable information,
but you would be wrong.
- It's, I think, helpful to understand
that when I talk about debt
that's being bought and sold here,
we're really just talking about an Excel spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet will have debtor's name,
social security number,
address, balance,
date that the account was opened,
maybe one or two other fields,
but that's basically about it.
- That's right.
The information about your debt
may be sold in an Excel spreadsheet,
which is troubling for two reasons.
First, nothing good happens in Excel.
Most of us go into a cold sweat
if we just open it by accident.
Oh, God! Oh, no!
Please, no!
Let me go back in time and fix this!
No!
And--and second, in many states,
there is little obligation on the part of the debt seller
to provide additional documentation.
Many leaked contracts have explicitly stated
the debts are being sold "as is"
and "with all faults,"
which are weird terms to see
in a major business transaction.
They'd even be troubling in the context
of an OkCupid profile.
"As is, with all faults.
"Sometimes I masturbate to 'The Little Mermaid.'
"Hey, hey.
It's the fish half that does it for me."
Now, as for debt buyers,
they aren't always scrupulous about checking their information
before collecting, which is why it is not surprising
to see incidents like this.
- I opened the door,
and a envelope was thrown at me,
and the guy said, "You've been served" and left.
Supposedly, it was a debt that I owed.
It was right under $5,000.
It was with a company I never had a card with.
It's humiliating.
It's intimidating.
It--it provokes a lot of anxiety.
- "Humiliating, intimidating,
and provokes anxiety."
Now, to be honest, I've had a similar experience,
but at least afterwards I got to brag
that I finally lost my virginity.
It was--it was--
it was some years after that.
But it's not--it's not just--
it's not just being sued for a debt you don't recognize.
Buyers can end up harassing you over debt
that is past the statute of limitations
or that you've discharged through bankruptcy
or that you've paid.
You may have seen stories like this on local news,
because it's got a fun name.
- It's called zombie debt.
That's debt that you thought was dead
but starts to take on a whole new life,
much like a zombie.
Chapman: Buried old debt coming back to life.
It's called zombie debt.
man: We're not talking about the kind of zombies
that terrorize humans each week
on "The Walking Dead."
man: Old debt, thought to be settled and buried,
coming out of the grave,
if not to eat your brain,
then certainly to give you a headache.
- Yeah, zombies are fun,
but the comparison is actually quite apt,
'cause just like on "The Walking Dead,"
zombie debt comes back from the grave,
is incredibly hard to deal with,
and seems to disproportionately impact minorities.
So--so once-- once a company
has bought your debt,
whether the information is accurate or not,
they are going to try to collect on it,
and they can either do that themselves
or assign it to a collection agency.
And while many collectors work within the bounds of the law,
some behave like this.
- Whoa, whoa,
that is not just horrifying.
It's stupid.
How are you gonna put handcuffs on a dog?
They don't have wrists.
The cuffs are just gonna
slip straight off their doggy paws.
Your plan is silly.
And some debt collectors won't just stop at calling you.
Listen to an employee of an upstate New York debt buyer
explain one of his tactics to a hidden camera.
- That's your favorite thing?
That is the weirdest favorite thing I've ever heard,
and I am including "whiskers on kittens"
and "brown paper packages tied up with string."
That's a parcel bomb. She's describing a parcel bomb.
Also, what's wrong with the rest of the kitten,
you creep?
Now, tactics like the ones that man described are illegal,
but debt buyers have been caught
operating in flagrant disregard for the law.
Just look at Williams, Scott & Associates.
Federal prosecutors allege in a criminal trial
that will start next month
that they lied to debtors,
telling them they were part of a "government task force
set up to investigate fraud"
and using this letterhead,
featuring a clip-art image of scales and the logo of,
for some reason, the State Department.
And they even gave their employees aliases, like...
Which sound like the stage names
of understudy Chippendales.
"Sorry, Ace. Sorry, Joe.
"Everyone's here again tonight.
Please put your shirts on and leave."
And look, the debt-buying industry
will tell you that all these abuses are outliers
and that most debt buyers work within the law,
but one way they do that
is that they sue people a lot.
Debt buyers are among the heaviest individual users
of our state court systems.
In fact, in some cities, like Newark, St. Louis, and Chicago--
and this is true--
debt buyers have been found to file more cases
than any other type of plaintiff.
And if you're wondering how
the lawyers representing debt buyers
possibly have time to review all those cases,
they often don't.
When one New Jersey collection firm was sued,
they found that one attorney reviewed
up to a thousand cases a day,
reviewing one case for just four seconds.
And look, there are definitely things
that you can review in under four seconds.
Lay's Biscuits & Gravy Flavored potato chips,
for instance.
One, two, three. Awful.
There you go.
Or your mother's new boyfriend.
One Mississippi, two Missi-- not my real dad!
But--but judging whether you have enough information
to sue someone should really take a little longer than that,
and it turns out there is a strategy
behind filing so many lawsuits.
Howard: These companies bank on consumers ignoring
the lawsuits, which means they're automatically
responsible for the debt.
- They're dealing with 90% to 95% of these lawsuits
going unanswered.
- It's true.
They go unanswered,
meaning people don't turn up to their court dates,
and the debt buyers win by default,
and the phrase "by default"
makes any situation sound less legitimate.
"Hi, I want you to meet Carson.
"He's my boyfriend...
by default."
Oh, hi, Carson.
I have a lot of questions, then.
And if they win, in many states,
they then have the power to garnish your wages directly,
and given all of this, it is hardly surprising
that the debt collection industry,
of which debt buyers are a major part,
can claim a dubious honor.
- We receive more complaints about this industry
than any other, and last year alone,
consumers filed over 280,000 complaints
with federal authorities related to debt collection.
- Wow.
There aren't even 280,000 complaints
on the Yelp page for Hitler's bunker.
Although--although I'd actually like to add one more:
"Why is there a Yelp page for this?
One star. One star for you."
Now, regulators and prosecutors
have taken some successful actions against big players
in the debt industry,
and some states have tightened their laws
concerning debt buyers, but others, like these,
have all loosened regulation.
Just look at Arkansas, where in 2013,
representative John Vines proposed HB 2028,
which he claimed didn't do much at all.
- What it does is it defines the term "credit card,"
which has apparently not been defined
throughout our many UCC provisions,
so all this does is define
"credit card" and, uh...
other terms
that are germane to credit card
and credit card usage, 2028.
- Now, I know that sounds
like the world's most boring man
describing the world's most boring bill boringly,
but that's not all it did, because that bill actually
defined the legal term "creditor"
to include debt buyers
and established a "presumption of correctness"
of the information in favor of the debt buyer.
That is a very friendly deal for them
or anyone--like a bank--
that would want to sell to them, and it's worth noting
that representative Vines's wife works for a bank,
and I'd say he should've disclosed that,
but there was really no need to, because the legislature
was too busy creepily joking about it.
Williams: And is this considered a pro-consumer bill,
or not a--not--neutral, or is it helpful for banking?
[stammering]
- I don't--don't know that it's going to have
any effect on the consumer.
It's more just to clarify the terms of usage
I think presently used in the industry.
man: Representative Williams,
if it's not good for banking,
I suggest that Representative Vines not go home tonight.
Williams: Well, I-- I would suggest the same way.
I want to make sure that he's taking care of the bankers.
[chuckling]
- Always.
[all chuckling]
- Ugh.
"Always."
Tell you what, if I don't take care of the bankers,
I'm gonna be takin' care of myself in the shower
for the rest of the week, y'all know what I mean?
Five, give me five.
I'll take another five.
Let's make it a 20.
Now, by the way, that-- that bill
passed the Arkansas House 83 to 0,
but perhaps what's most concerning about all of this
is that in some states,
there is a shockingly low barrier of entry
into this industry.
In these states, you can purchase debt
with no license,
and in these states, you can collect on debt
with no license.
Essentially, that means there are places in this country
where you need to fill out less paperwork
to start collecting money from people's pockets
than you do to collect fish from a fucking lake.
Now, the debt-buyers' trade group, DBA International,
claims the industry is working to regulate itself.
In fact, it's developed a code of ethics
it calls "the gold standard" of the industry.
It actually has an annual conference in Las Vegas,
which does makes sense,
as Vegas, as we know, is the gold standard
of shitty places.
Anyone can go to their conference,
though I frankly wouldn't recommend it.
It's pretty bleak,
and the reason I know that is,
we sent people with a hidden camera,
and the footage they brought back was fascinating.
Not fascinating like a good book,
more fascinating like a rat carrying a wedding ring
across some train tracks.
There's a story there,
and it's a fucking sad one.
But right from the start of the conference,
there was a defensive tone.
One seminar was actually titled...
Although their argument for that
seemed shaky at best.
- Oh, yeah, they're really
helping people get their ducks in a row,
but only in the "window of a Chinese restaurant" sense.
This "good guy" conference
also featured a free shoeshine booth
for a business promising to "liquidate your bankrupt
and deceased debt,"
which is exactly what it sounds like,
because their business includes...
And that is the sleaziest way of making money imaginable,
other than a petting zoo attendant
charging ten bucks extra to let you get to second base
with a goat.
And whenever the law did come up,
speakers could be surprisingly glib.
For instance, some debt buyers
try to collect on out-of-statute debt,
which is debt that has grown so old,
you can no longer be sued over it,
and that is something that some states
now require debt buyers notify you about
in letters that they send.
But watch the contempt with which one speaker
dismisses those warnings.
- Oh, fuck you.
No--no "good guy" business model
has ever been based on the logic of,
"Well, don't worry about people's legal rights.
"I'm pretty sure half these unsophisticated morons
"can't read.
"Right, guys? Right?
Am I right, though, guys?"
Look, it is pretty clear by now,
debt-buying is a grimy business
and badly needs more oversight,
because as it stands, any idiot can get into it,
and I can prove that to you,
because I'm an idiot,
and we started a debt-buying company,
and it was disturbingly easy.
Let me explain.
Back in April, we spent $50
to incorporate a debt-acquisition company
online in Mississippi,
and incidentally, "over the Internet"
is the best way to experience Mississippi.
We called it-- we called it
Central Asset Recovery Professionals, or CARP,
after the bottom-feeding fish.
I became chairman of the board,
and CARP set up this very bland website
and dipped our toes into the debt market,
and with little more to go on than that website,
we were soon offered a portfolio of nearly $15 million
of out-of-statute medical debt from Texas
at a cost of less than half a cent on the dollar,
which is less than 60 grand.
For that amount, CARP would be sent
the personal information-- including names,
current addresses, and social security numbers--
of nearly 9,000 people.
So we bought it,
which is absolutely terrifying,
because it means if I wanted to,
I could legally have CARP take possession of that list
and have employees start calling people,
turning their lives upside down
over medical debt they no longer had to pay.
There would be absolutely nothing wrong with that,
except for the fact that absolutely everything
is wrong with that,
and that is why we actually
decided to go another way, because we thought, well,
instead of collecting on the money,
why not forgive it?
Because on one hand, it's obviously the right thing to do,
but much more importantly,
we'd be staging the largest one-time giveaway
in television-show history,
because as best we can tell, the most anyone
has ever given away on a TV show at one time to date
was this...
- You get a car! You get a car!
You get a car!
Oh, my goodness!
Everybody gets a car!
- [yelling]
Yes, yes, yes!
[cheers and applause]
Now, that giveaway
was worth nearly $8 million,
but we bought nearly twice that in medical debt,
so instead of having the file sent to CARP,
we had the seller send it directly
to a nonprofit organization
which specializes in forgiving medical debt
with no tax consequences for the debtor,
and tonight, at my signal-- with the power vested in me
as chairman of the board of CARP--
they will commence the debt-forgiving process.
So what do you say?
Are you ready to make television history?
[cheers and applause]
Let's do this.
Now, clearly,
this is only going to help
the 9,000 people whose medical debt we bought.
The larger issue is,
we need much clearer rules
and tougher oversight to protect consumers
from potentially predatory companies
like the one that we set up,
but in the meantime,
it seems the least we can do with this debt
that I cannot fucking believe we are allowed to own
is to give it away.
So are you ready to do this?
[cheers and applause]
You are about to watch me
give away $15 million.
Fuck you, Oprah.
[upbeat music]
It's done!
It is done.
I am the new queen of daytime talk!
*
Thank you so much for watching the show.
Thank you to the debt-buying industry
and all of our irreparable problems associated.
See you next week.
Good night.
[bright tone]