[TV static drones]
[bright tone]
[upbeat rock music]
*
[cheers and applause]
- Welcome welcome, welcome to "Last Week Tonight."
Thank you so much for joining us.
I am John Oliver.
And let's begin with the story
that has dominated the news all this week:
the aftermath of the shootings in Orlando.
Everyone has had their own ideas
on the root of the problem
and it will not surprise you
to hear where the worst of those ideas came from.
- I've been talking about it for a long time
and I've been saying it's going to happen.
We are taking in thousands of people into our country.
We have no idea where they come from.
We have no idea who the hell they are.
- Okay.
There is--there is a great deal wrong with that,
not least the fact that we know exactly
where this shooter came from,
because he was born in Queens,
about eight miles from where Donald Trump was born,
presumably when a racist fairy
brought a butternut squash to life.
Now, for their part, Democrats chose to focus
less on the shooter and more on the weapons he used,
even springing a surprise filibuster
on the floor of the Senate.
woman: Democrats, led by Chris Murphy of Connecticut,
held the floor for nearly 15 hours
pushing for new regulations
to stop people on the terror watch list from buying guns
and to expand background checks.
woman: After nearly 15 hours,
Murphy said he had gotten signals
that his two measures would get a vote.
- Wait--is he absolutely sure he saw those signals?
Or was that a hallucination
brought on by ammonia poisoning
after holding his pee in for 15 hours?
To be fair, though, those proposals are actually
coming up for a vote,
but before you get your hopes up,
there may be a bit of a problem.
- Let's not kid ourselves.
The Republicans control the House of Representatives.
There is never gonna be any gun control that passes.
- That's true. Closing the gun show loophole
in this Congress is incredibly unlikely.
Even regulating the gun show Paul Ryan puts on every day
is pretty much a lost cause at this point...
which means here we are again
after another mass shooting
with weak legislation doomed to failure.
And there is clearly a disconnect
between public opinion,
which favors, to varying degrees,
a number of different gun control measures,
and any practical action in Washington.
And it is pretty clear
what is standing between those two things,
and it's the National Rifle Association.
Like PETA, but for guns, and effective.
And to be fair-- to be fair to the NRA,
it's not surprising they take a hard line
on gun legislation.
They're an advocacy group.
It's what they're supposed to do.
What is shocking is
just how successful they've been at it.
Just look at the last big failed attempt at gun control,
known as the Manchin-Toomey amendment.
There were high hopes for that,
partly 'cause it didn't really do much.
It just called for background checks at gun shows
and for online sales.
But mainly because Joe Manchin, who cosponsored it,
had some credibility regarding firearms.
Manchin: As your senator, I'll protect
our Second Amendment rights.
That's why the NRA endorsed me.
And I'll take dead aim
at the cap-and-trade bill.
- Holy shit.
That is a guy so comfortable with guns,
he basically just used one as a hole punch.
His office's three-hole punch
must be fucking terrifying.
And--and Manchin did everything he could to appease the NRA.
He even inserted several of their direct requests
into his bill,
including allowing firearms dealers,
for the first time since 1968,
to sell handguns across state lines,
which is a weird provision
to put in a gun control bill.
It's like letting Jose Cuervo convince you
that the seventh step in Alcoholics Anonymous
should be tequila shots.
But despite all that,
the NRA turned on Manchin and the bill,
and then punished him by running ads like this in his home state.
man: Manchin is working with President Obama
and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Concerned? You should be.
- Yes, the NRA stabbed Manchin in the back.
Although it would've been more on-brand of them
to shoot him in the back
and then argue it never would've happened
if his back had had a gun.
And--and the thing is,
whenever any potential regulation comes up,
the pushback is always the same.
- And there's just no evidence that these gun laws would
prevent these shootings.
- There is at least an absence of certain proof
as to the efficacy
of gun ownership laws in the past.
- To think that somehow gun control is--
or increased gun control--
is the answer, in my view,
that would have to be proved.
- Ah, yes. It's the old
"I'm not doing anything until you can prove it" argument--
the same argument favored by climate-change deniers
and fathers of the baby on "Maury."
Happy Father's Day.
And...and that brings us--
[cheers and applause]
The point is, that brings us
to perhaps the most ingenious and insidious NRA tactic,
because they don't just manage
to block legislation concerning guns.
They've managed to block information concerning them too.
For instance, one of the major funders of academic research,
the Centers for Disease Control,
has been hamstrung in studying how best to prevent gun violence
for the last 20 years.
Strassmann: In 1996, the NRA successfully lobbied Congress
to put this restriction into the CDC's budget...
- Now, the CDC was already banned
from advocating for gun control laws
or, indeed, any form of legislation.
But the 1996 Dickey amendment--
named after both its sponsor, Jay Dickey,
and after the fact it was an extremely dickey thing to do--
had a chilling effect
on the CDC funding any gun research at all.
Strassmann: CDC funding into gun violence research
has plummeted 96% since 1996,
to just $100,000 of last year's $5.6 billion CDC Budget.
- The only other things that have dropped 96%
in the last two decades
are Lycos searches
and Tickle Me Elmo-related stampedes.
And it's not just the CDC struggling to collect
reliable gun-related information.
For decades, the NRA has successfully lobbied
to prevent the ATF from having a database
that is electronically searchable by name
when tracing the origins of firearms.
So, for instance, this is what they have to do
with documents from gun shops that have gone out of business.
Reid: Workers here are left with an antiquated system
to trace 350,000 guns a year,
requiring them to review by hand tons of paper records
and 500 million entries on microfilm.
Many of the records are barely legible.
- So, for example, these are records that we received
as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
We had to dry these out in the parking lot.
- That is clearly absurd,
because that does not look like a present-day record
of gun ownership.
It looks like the manifesto
from a Spanish galleon that sank in 1610.
So how the fuck has the NRA managed
to accomplish all of this?
Because the truth is,
they're not that large an organization.
They claim they have a membership
of around 5 million.
But that is 3 million fewer members than Planet Fitness.
And--and the members of Planet Fitness
have almost no power.
Most of them don't even have the power
to actually go to Planet Fitness.
And that is true. That is true.
By mid-January,
that place is nothing more than a storage facility
for grape-colored exercise bikes.
And while the NRA does spend a lot of money lobbying,
they are frequently outspent by even the NAR,
or National Association of Realtors,
a group of wily bastards
who have somehow convinced all of us
we need to live indoors like a bunch of nerds.
But the real power of the NRA is in its members,
who are highly motivated and can be mobilized quickly.
Just look at the website
of the NRA's Political Action Committee.
You will find alerts
for practically every piece of legislation
around the country.
And not just "write your congressman" alerts.
Alerts like...
Because they know their members often show up.
And one of the reasons they're able to rally their base
so effectively
is they have an appealingly simple message.
- It's all about a single issue.
There's no four-point plan that they have to defend.
And, I would point out, they only have to say no.
So, they're not for anything. They're against something.
A single issue. One word: "no."
- Exactly.
It's a lot easier to drum up support
when you're just flatly against something.
There is a reason that TLC insisted upon "No Scrubs,"
and not the implementation
of a national registry of potential scrubs,
AKA "busters,"
that would screen for scrub-like tendencies
or affiliations with known scrubs.
They knew "No Scrubs" is a lot catchier.
And the truth about politics is,
it's about showing up.
Remember the Manchin-Toomey amendment?
Well, a national poll at that time found that
88% of people supported universal background checks,
and yet Manchin's office maintains that,
of the calls it received, they ran 200 to 1
in opposition to the bill.
And that's why it is important
to actually call your congressman.
You can't just hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.
Because you won't get a personal response, or even worse,
you'll get a very personal response, indeed.
Put it away, Carlos.
Put it away.
And--and remember--remember the Dickey amendment,
which has effectively kept the CDC
from studying gun violence?
It is now opposed by both the American Medical Association
and Jay Dickey,
the man who sponsored it in the first place.
And yet, whenever a member of Congress tries to kill it,
as Nita Lowey did last summer,
this is how it goes...
- Let's support research to prevent gun violence,
protect our communities, and save lives.
Thank you.
- The question is on the Lowey amendment.
All in favor say "aye."
[together] Aye.
- All opposed say "no."
[together] No.
- The nos seem to have it. The amendment's not agreed to.
[laughter and grumbling]
- It's--it's like watching a committee of deer
voting against investigating the effects of oncoming cars.
"Let's stand still.
"I like our chances.
And those headlights are shiny."
And if you're thinking,
"Well, I'm sure, after Orlando, if someone tries that,
they'll succeed, 'cause we're all paying attention now."
Well, here's the thing about that.
Representative Tony Cárdenas
tried to overturn it again just this Wednesday
with an amendment to a mental health bill,
and this was the result...
- All those in favor will say "aye."
[together] Aye.
- All those opposed, say "no."
[together] No.
- In the opinion of the chair, the nos have it.
- Are you fucking kidding me?
That happened four days ago,
and I'm guessing that you're hearing about it
for the first time now.
To be honest, we only found out about it yesterday,
and we've been working on this story all week.
And look, the Dickey amendment is emblematic
of a chokehold the NRA has
over even basic gun data,
and it should obviously be overturned.
But the hard truth is,
NRA members seem to care more consistently
about preventing gun control
than most of us do about passing it.
Because while you might be
focused on gun control right now,
they were focused on it two weeks before Orlando,
and they'll still be focused on it
two weeks from now.
So this is where I would usually say,
"Call your Senator and Representative
and tell them you want to repeal the Dickey amendment."
And you should absolutely do that if you want to.
But you are going to need to do more than that.
You're gonna need to call them again
and remind them to repeal it.
Then call them on their birthday and say, "Happy birthday,
and also get rid of the Dickey amendment."
Call them on Arbor Day and say,
"Happy Arbor Day, whatever that is.
By the way, what's going on with that Dickey amendment?"
Call them on days where there wasn't a mass shooting--
and I know those days are getting
fewer and farther between--
and say, "Hey, it's me again.
What the fuck's up with the Dickey amendment?"
Because repealing it is not asking much.
It's not gun control.
It's enabling us to have an informed conversation
about what that could look like.
And if and when a proposal you like is on the table,
you're going to have to make all those calls again.
Because remember: it doesn't take much
to outnumber the NRA.
Planet Fitness members outnumber them,
but it is time for us to learn what those members haven't.
If you want to see serious changes,
you actually have to show up every fucking day.
And now this.
- He's a notorious tunnel manufacturer, and--
- The tunnel king? - The tunnel king.
- Not without controversy? - Not without controversy.
- A collector of trophies. - He's a collector of trophies.
- Dirty money? - Dirty money.
- Bad actors? - Bad actors.
- And both are false? - Both are false.
- Not the varsity team? - Not the varsity team.
- East German Secret Police? - East German Secret Police.
- So, alarms were going off? - Alarms were going off.
- It took 16 years? - It took 16 years.
- Because you were Cockney? - Because I was a Cockney.
- The class system was that rigid?
- It was that rigid.
- Just accept that? - Accept that.
- They are going to get in? - They're gonna get in.
- Didn't want to get his pants dirty?
- He didn't want to get his pants dirty.
- The doo-wop. - The doo-wop.
- You touch it? - You touch it.
- Then they go home? - And then they go home.
- F-bird? - F-bird.
- And that's what happened? - That's what happened.
- Just like that? - Just like that.
- Nailed it.
- Nailed it? - Nailed it.
[clock ticking]
[cheers and applause]
- Moving on...
Our main story tonight concerns the United Kingdom,
birthplace of The Beatles,
and yet very much the world's Ringo.
Now, on Thursday,
the UK faces an in/out referendum
on whether to leave the European Union.
And incidentally, an "in/out referendum"
is also what most English people call sex.
"I say, that was a jolly good in/out referendum, Priscilla.
Capital stuff, old girl! Simply capital!"
You--you may not have heard about this referendum
unless you watch financial networks,
where it's usually referred to by a catchy name.
- There's a lot of fear out there in the marketplace
about the Brexit vote that's coming up.
- Brexit fear is getting traction.
- A new survey this morning focuses on Brexit fears.
- Brexit is one of the major concerns
in the market at the moment.
- I think that the scariest thing about Brexit
is the name Brexit.
Because it's "unknown."
I mean, it's like, "Wow, Brexit.
"Whoa, be afraid.
Conjuring Brexit."
- Okay, calm down.
"Brexit" doesn't sound scary.
It just sounds like a shitty granola bar
you buy at the airport.
"Hey, this tastes like a preserved owl pellet.
"Fuck it. I'm going to Cinnabon.
You pushed me into it!"
And I know--I know if you're watching this outside the UK,
you're probably thinking,
"Why should I care about what Britain does with the EU?
"Honestly, as long as those crooked-toothed scone goblins
"keep shooting out royal babies and episodes of 'Doctor Who,'
I don't give a tally-ho fuck what happens there."
And fair enough. Fair enough.
But a Brexit, or British exit,
could have wide-ranging implications,
both for the UK and the world's economy.
And first, it might help to understand
what the European Union actually is.
The idea for it came after the Second World War,
when there was, understandably,
a desire to keep the continent
from tearing itself apart yet again.
And it has since evolved
into an economic union of 28 countries
whose citizens can trade and move freely across borders
and who negotiate international agreements as a bloc.
But despite being a member, Britain has always had
an arm's-length relationship with the EU.
For instance, it doesn't use the euro,
and some British politicians have been openly hostile,
right to the face of EU Officials.
- I don't want to be rude,
but you have the charisma of a damp rag
and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk.
And the question that I want to ask,
that we're all going to ask, is, "Who are you?"
I'd never heard of you.
Nobody in Europe had ever heard of you.
- That is painful to watch,
and not just because all of those insults are
things people in the UK have said about me.
And--and look, look, the EU is not perfect.
It's large, confounding,
and relentlessly bureaucratic.
Think of it like Gérard Depardieu.
It's an unwieldy European body
that's a source of great bewilderment.
But Britain leaving it would be a huge, destabilizing decision,
so you would expect the Brexit camp
to have some pretty solid arguments.
Unfortunately, many of them are bullshit.
One of the most popular involves the financial contributions
that Britain makes to the EU.
- We've got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to take back control in this country
of huge sums of money that we send every year to Brussels--
about £350 million a week,
we do not control.
- That is former London mayor Boris Johnson,
a man with both the look and the economic insight
of Bamm-Bamm from "The Flintstones."
He--he's even been driven around
in a giant red bus for the last month,
with the words "We send the EU £350 million a week"
written on the side.
But that number has been thoroughly debunked.
It's actually about £190 million a week
when you consider a rebate the UK receives
and other money that the EU sends back.
On top of which, if Britain does leave the EU,
it may have to spend close to that amount
just to access the common market.
So what the bus should really say is,
"We actually send the EU £190 million a week,
"which is a proportion of our GDP.
"Makes sound fiscal sense.
"In fact, considering the benefits we reap in return--
"Oh, shit, we're running out of bus!
Okay, bye-bye!"
Now, one of the other main talking points
from pro-Brexit campaigners
has been the EU's onerous regulations.
It's even a centerpiece of the feature-length pro-Brexit movie,
"Brexit: The Movie."
man: Here is regulated EU Man
waking from his regulated slumber
to start his regulated day.
You wouldn't think you'd need a law for pillowcases,
but the EU has five... but that's nothing.
The pillow inside is subject to 109 different EU laws.
- But is it, though?
Because we blew up that frame, and then went looking
through each of the pillow regulations they feature.
And the problem is,
most have nothing to do with actual pillows.
For instance, this one is a classification
of a type of breakfast cereal
that comes in "pillow shapes."
This one is related to a merger between two auto part companies
that included the phrase "pillow ball joints,"
and finally, this one uses the word "pillow"
in reference to this weird foot pump thing,
which is supposedly for inflating air mattresses,
but is clearly a sex doll for a platypus.
It's so obvious what that actually is.
So, it seems the benefits of leaving may be overstated.
And there is many-- there's a great many people
warning about a real downside.
President Obama is against Britain leaving.
So is China. So is Japan.
So is India.
And the EU itself.
In fact, one Austrian politician tried
to convince Britain not to leave with a poem.
- The Brexit is, to put it simple,
not like an ordinary pimple-- you take some cream,
you put it on, a few days later it is gone.
It is a complicated matter
more like a novel, not a letter.
To understand the story well you've got to listen.
I will tell you what may happen
so sit back, and let me rappin'.
[laughter and applause]
- Cool.
I mean, come on, Britain.
If a middle-aged Austrian bureaucrat
spitting dope half-rhymes in a busy hallway--
if he does not win you over, nobody will.
But you know what, there's also overwhelming consensus
about the damage Britain could do to its economy by leaving.
Reports by groups like the British Treasury,
the Bank of England,
the IMF, the OECD,
the National Institute of Economic and Social Research,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Oxford Economics,
and the Centre for Economic Performance
have all predicted that leaving would have a negative effect
on the British GDP.
And the pro-Brexit camp's response to that
has not been great.
- I think the people in this country have had enough
of experts with organizations from acronyms saying--
- Had enough of experts? The people of this country
have had enough of experts? What do you mean by that?
- From organizations with acronyms
saying that they know what is best
and getting it consistently wrong.
- Yes!
Fuck these eggheads with their studies and degrees.
I get my economic forecasts
from Clever Otis, the GDP-predictin' horse!
And at this point,
you may be wondering,
if leaving is so universally seen as a bad idea,
then who the fuck is in favor of it?
Well, let me introduce you
to one of the leading groups backing a Brexit,
the UK Independence Party,
also called UKIP.
Their leader is Nigel Farage,
that man you saw earlier at the Comedy Central roast
of European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.
UKIP is known for its hard-line anti-immigration views,
and some of its members have engaged in outright racism.
Just look at Robert Blay, a UKIP candidate for Parliament
who was suspended after a tabloid paper caught him
saying this about a rival of Sri Lankan descent...
- Whoa there. Just hold on.
"Not British enough to be in our Parliament"?
He's talking about a British citizen
who was born in London and raised in Hampshire.
How is that "not British enough"?
Must he literally be a monocled badger named Reginald
who lives in a shepherd's pie?
Is that the bar of entry to him?
And at the local level,
UKIP has had councilors like this woman
who served on a district council in Kent.
- I have to watch my tongue, because I can be very outspoken,
and it goes against the grain.
The only people I do have problems with...
are negroes
and I don't know why.
- Okay, okay.
Let's agree. It is now official:
not everything sounds smarter in a British accent.
It's official now.
It is absolutely 100% official.
I...I know--I know what you heard is horrifying,
but at least we can all rest easy knowing that,
as she speaks, that shelf full of clowns
is plotting to carry her away into the night forever.
But even when UKIP candidates are
caught making racist comments,
Farage has sometimes stood by them.
Look at Kerry Smith,
who used a racial slur about Chinese people--
a term that I'm not going to use
because I'm not a parliamentary candidate for UKIP.
But Nigel Farage did not exactly condemn him.
- If you and your mates were going out for Chinese,
what do you say you're going for?
- I honestly would not use the word "chinky," would you?
- No? Fine. A lot of people would.
- Would you? - No, but a lot of people would.
- Yeah, yeah, a lot of people would.
Uh, racists, for example.
Uh, bigots, idiots, the intolerant--
who am I missing here?
Oh, yeah, UKIP voters. Them as well.
A lot of people would.
UKIP argue that a Brexit would enable the UK
to significantly reduce immigration,
preventing both EU citizens from taking British jobs,
and non-EU citizens from sneaking in
to commit terror attacks.
And they have not been subtle in their campaign,
with toxic posters like this one,
showing lines of refugees
and the headline "Breaking Point."
It is hard for me to overstate to you
how poisonous things have become in England.
Just this week, MP Jo Cox was killed in the street,
and the man charged for it gave his name in court as
"Death to traitors, freedom for Britain."
And in that cauldron,
people are being asked to make a major political decision.
And incidentally, regarding immigration,
even if you believe tightening borders is
what Britain needs to do,
you should know that opting out of the EU
will not necessarily enable Britain to do that.
- Leaving the EU-- does that mean
the UK gets control of its borders?
- Um, it could do--if we were
to completely cut ourselves off from the rest of Europe,
we could certainly choose to end migration from the EU.
But if we want to remain part of the single market,
that means accepting free mobility of labor
both into and out of the UK.
- Of course.
'Cause if Britain wants a good trade deal with the EU,
it's probably gonna have to abide by most of its rules.
And the same goes, by the way, for all those
hypothetically cumbersome, non-pillow-related
pillow regulations.
Because if British companies want to trade with the EU,
they, also, are likely to have to--
going to have to abide by those rules anyway.
So it's not a Brexit so much as it's a "bratus quo",
or a "bromeostasis",
or a "conscious unbroupling."
So, to recap, immigration policy may not change,
hysteria over regulation is a red herring,
the costs of membership are reasonable,
and the economic benefits of staying
appear to outweigh the costs.
And yet, polls suggest my homeland
is on the edge of doing something absolutely insane.
And on some level, I actually kind of understand
because there is an innate British desire
to tell Europe to go fuck itself.
I feel it too.
You know those things I say
when countries pop up over my shoulder?
That's a reflex action.
I don't even know I'm doing it.
I'll show you.
Germany, where the national motto is,
"Let's stick to the present, shall we?"
Uh, okay, give me another one.
Luxembourg: What happens when you leave Lichtenstein
out in the sun too long.
Bam! Okay, give me another one.
Belgium: the casual acquaintance
France crops out of its Instagram photos.
Okay, okay, one more. I'm on a roll, one more.
Denmark: what would happen if a suicide note was a country.
I don't even know I'm doing these,
and I could do them all day.
And to be honest,
the EU does not make itself easy to love.
Its official anthem is Beethoven's "Ode to Joy",
and they actually had a competition
to do a video set to that tune.
And you really have to see what won.
[jazzy arrangement of "Ode to Joy" in German]
*
Fuck you! Fuck you all forever!
You fuck yourself!
You go fuck yourself right now!
[applause]
Ugh.
Ugh! [cheers and applause]
You see, it is perfectly understandable
to be annoyed at Europe.
I'm barely containing my anger right now.
But here is how I feel about the EU.
It's a complicated, bureaucratic,
ambitious, overbearing, inspirational,
and consistently irritating institution,
and Britain would be absolutely crazy to leave it.
Especially because, if it stays,
it can reap all the benefits
while still being a total dick about everything.
And that is the British way.
So, to the people of the UK, I say this:
if you need your hatred-of-the-EU itch scratched,
I understand,
but please don't vote for a Brexit on Thursday.
I have a better solution.
I'd like to retroactively enter that EU anthem contest
with a song straight out of every British heart
that both relentlessly insults Europe
and quietly acknowledges how lost we'd be without it.
Please enjoy.
["Ode to Joy" playing on piano]
*
[cheers and applause]
- That's our show.
Thank you so much for watching.
We'll be back next week. Good night!
[cheers and applause]
[bright tone]