[TV static drones]
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*
[cheers and applause]
- Welcome, welcome, welcome to "Last Week Tonight."
I'm John Oliver. Thank you so much for joining us.
We are back after a whole month away.
And we've missed so much, since we've been gone,
from Apple introducing a cutting-edge way
to lose their products, to once again celebrating
America's greatest goose murderer,
to just this week,
a nightmare endorsing a panic attack.
But we must begin tonight with the protests in Charlotte,
following yet another fatal shooting by the police
of an African-American man.
The police videos of the incident
were released late last night, after significant resistance,
including an excuse from the local police chief
that was far from reassuring.
reporter:
- Sure. I appreciate your passion,
but I never said "full transparency."
I said "transparency."
And transparency's in the eye of the beholder.
[laughter]
- No, it isn't.
That's literally the opposite
of what the word "transparent" means.
None of us could behold the tape
because of how un-transparent you were being.
Look. The protests this week
following the shootings in Charlotte and Tulsa
clearly raise big issues, from police accountability
to institutional racism, all of which
require time and sensitivity to discuss.
Or, if you're North Carolina Representative Robert Pittenger,
they're actually pretty simple.
- The grievance in the mind is the animus, the anger.
They hate white people 'cause white people are successful
and they're not.
I mean, yes, it is. It is a welfare state.
We have spent trillions of dollars on welfare,
but we've put people in bondage
so that they can't be all that they're capable of being.
- Wow. That is some toxic stuff.
And just look at the expression on that journalist's face.
[laughter]
It's half confusion and half wonder
at witnessing that kind of racism being spoken aloud,
instead of coming out of a Twitter egg
named "Aryan the Hendersons."
Now, unsurprisingly, Pittenger had to quickly
walk those comments back, which should've been easy.
Simply apologize and avoid some clichéd excuse,
like, you have many friends
in the African-American community.
- It didn't come out right. And I apologize.
I have many, many dear friends
in the African-American community.
- No, you don't.
[laughter]
At best, you had one,
and he's pretty pissed off with you right now.
There'll be more to say about Charlotte in the coming weeks,
but for now, let's move on to Wells Fargo.
The only bank ever to be serenaded
by an 8-year-old Ron Howard.
- * Oh, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' *
* Now I don't know how I can ever wait to see *
Fuck you.
[laughter]
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
I know you're a very powerful man in Hollywood now,
but to be fair, you were an infuriating 8-year-old.
Just three weeks ago,
Wells Fargo was the most valuable bank in the world,
but recently, its reputation has taken a massive hit
after some alarming revelations.
man: The feds say employees at Wells Fargo
took money out of customers' accounts
without their permission.
They opened new bank and credit card accounts
without the customers knowing,
then charged those same customers fees for the accounts
the customers didn't even know they had.
The feds say 2 million accounts are involved.
- That's right. Wells Fargo employees
created fake e-mail addresses to enroll customers
in hidden accounts, creating PIN numbers
that customers didn't even know existed.
And hidden fees are bad enough,
without being hidden inside hidden accounts
with hidden pin numbers made with hidden e-mail addresses.
[laughter]
It's like a Russian nesting doll,
where the last doll is giving you the middle finger.
[laughter]
And for customers who got caught up in this,
like Frank Ahn,
even when they found out, they couldn't stop it.
Ahn: One point in time I had 10 accounts.
I've had more than 10 accounts at Wells Fargo. I only need one.
woman: Ahn says he complained to Wells Fargo,
but the bank kept opening accounts in his name
and sending him credit cards he didn't even want.
Ahn: They kept making promises.
They said, "We won't charge you any fees, this is it."
They always said this is the end of it,
so I thought it was the end of it, but it wasn't.
Look, Frank.
I do not want to let Wells Fargo off the hook here,
but after 10 accounts, any bank would have been better.
[laughter]
Chase Bank.
Citi Bank.
Even Elizabeth Banks would've been a better place
to stash your money.
Now, Wells Fargo apparently fired over 5,000 people
for engaging in this, but you do have to wonder:
how did they all get the same idea?
- They were incentivized to earn financial rewards
under the incentive compensation program.
And we're hearing that managers even taught employees
how to do this.
Wow. So the fraud was baked in,
which I believe is the title of Martha Stewart's autobiography.
[laughter]
And all this is a little surprising,
given that the bank's CEO, John Stumpf,
has talked a big game about decency and integrity.
The DNA of leadership is trust.
That's true in a family relationship.
That's true for government.
That's true for business.
We like to say we don't care what you know
until we know what you care.
You can't teach caring.
And you can't teach sharing.
What?
[laughter]
He sounds like a burned-out, drunken Barney.
[laughter]
"We can't teach caring, and you can't teach sharing."
[inhales]
"The little shits won't listen. Don't touch me!"
Now, Stumpf actually appeared
in front of the Senate banking committee this week
with a bandage on his hand, which I legally can't say
is the result of carpal tunnel
from typing in so many fake e-mail addresses.
[laughter]
And he wanted to be clear.
He didn't know anything about anything.
I'm not an expert in compensation.
I don't know that issue off the top of my head.
I'm not an expert in this field.
I'll talk to our team, and we'll get back to you.
I-- Just again, I'm not an expert in that.
I don't even know exactly what we're talking about.
Come on. If he was gonna play that dumb,
he should have at least turned up
wearing his shoes on his hands
and a Stone Cold Steve Austin T-shirt.
Then it would have made sense.
But look, this gets one step worse.
Because the total fine for Wells Fargo's behavior
was $185 million, which is nothing,
considering they made $23 billion in profit last year.
And it's even less than Stumpf himself could walk away with
if he resigns.
woman: A CNN money investigation shows that if he does resign,
he could get $200 million in terms of payouts
when he walks out of the door.
- The only way that could possibly be okay
is if they put that money in 20 million fake accounts
of $10 each and never, ever tell him about them.
[laughter]
And now, this.
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- Moving on.
Our main story tonight concerns the 2016 presidential election.
Or, as it's more commonly known,
the electoral equivalent of seeing someone puking,
so you start puking, and then someone else is puking,
and pretty soon everyone is puking 2016.
The first presidential debate is tomorrow night.
More than 100 million people could be watching two candidates
whose campaigns have been defined less by
questions about their policies than their ethics.
- Every day is another drip, drip, drip of scandal
for Hillary Clinton.
- Another Clinton scandal.
man: Too many scandals have followed her and Bill Clinton
over the years.
- What about the Trump scandals?
Another Trump campaign scandal.
woman: Another booming scandal of the day with him,
but there are so many, it's hard to keep track.
- Listen, we have had scandals during campaigns in the past,
from Barack Obama's financial dealings with Tony Rezko,
to George W. Bush's Air National Guard service,
to the revelation that Dwight D. Eisenhower's middle initial
stood for "Deez Nuts."
[laughter]
But this campaign, the scandals have been so pronounced,
polls show that less than half the electorate
sees either candidate as honest or trustworthy.
And you may not like either candidate for good reasons.
But if you are still somehow torn about which one to vote for
and are factoring their scandals into your decision,
we thought it might help to spend tonight
walking you through them.
So let's start with Hillary Clinton,
the woman who, if she loses, will sit there, motionless,
not speaking, until she eventually dies.
[laughter]
And I do know that even talking about her scandals
will irritate some of you,
given that her opponent is an unambiguously racist scarecrow
stuffed with scrunched-up copies of Juggs magazine.
And that's fair. That is a fair point.
But not being as bad as Donald Trump
is a low bar to clear.
And if you focus on nothing but him,
you fail to vet a woman who might be president.
And if you believe the internet,
she's guilty of everything.
Just click around and you can find such masterworks as:
"Killary Klinton,"
"Hillary ordered the murder of the children of Waco,"
"Hillary the Butcher of Benghazi,"
And my personal favorite:
"Is Hillary Clinton Satan?
Hillary: 'I am the devil.'"
And that's in quotes on the internet,
so she must've said it.
Although, to be fair, she could've been referring to
her time as the New Jersey Devils mascot.
Now many of Hillary's most famous scandals
have been heavily litigated in the past.
For instance, Whitewater.
Now, more than six years of investigations
by three different prosecutors
and multiple congressional committees
failed to find sufficient evidence of wrongdoing.
Then there was Benghazi.
Eight congressional investigations broadly concluded
the State Department could have done more
to increase security at the Embassy,
but none found evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton.
And then there's the problematic issue
of the Swiss File Transfer.
And while, yes, investigators found Hillary was in Zurich
at the time of the transfer, and documents show
she was aware the transfer took place,
and yes, the Clintons did have something to gain financially
from it, the fact is, the Swiss File Transfer
is something I just made up right now.
But the fact that, for a second, you kind of remembered it
says something about the tone of coverage surrounding Clinton.
But many rational people are still worried about
two particular scandals.
It turns out nearly half of all Americans
are very concerned about both her e-mails
and the Clinton Foundation.
So let's start with the e-mails, which you may remember
from their starring role at the Republican National Convention.
- She put our nation's security at extremely high risk
with her careless use of a private e-mail server.
- Hillary Clinton cared more about protecting her own secrets
than she cared about protecting America's secrets.
- She jeopardized the American people, our national security,
with her secret e-mail server. She lied!
- Okay, Hillary's e-mails were basically the unofficial theme
of the RNC, right alongside "How loud can Giuliani scream?"
[laughter]
And "' Happy Days' residuals can't buy you attention."
[laughter]
But while some of Hillary's opponents
feel her e-mail scandal should put her in prison,
at least at the beginning,
she claimed there was nothing to see.
- Everything I did was permitted.
There was no law. There was no regulation.
There was nothing that did not give me the full authority
to decide how I was going to communicate.
And people across the government knew that I used one device.
Maybe it was because I am not
the most technically capable person
and wanted to make it as easy as possible.
And now I think it's kind of fun.
People get a real-time behind-the-scenes look at,
you know, what I was e-mailing about,
and what I was communicating about.
- Now, that's a bad answer for a number of reasons.
First she says "Everything I did was permitted,"
which isn't remotely true.
The use of a private e-mail server
would've required prior approval,
and she never asked for it.
Then she blames not being "technically capable,"
which is a fine excuse for your dad
when he accidentally texts you the letter Q 10 times,
[laughter]
but it's pretty shitty coming from a Secretary of State.
And then she caps it off by saying
the whole thing is "kind of fun,"
Which it definitely isn't.
Unless every single one of her e-mails
was just a JPEG of a dog dressed as Dracula,
in which case, yeah, you know what, this is kind of fun.
[laughter]
So there have been exaggerations on both sides.
While she since acknowledged that her use of the server
was a mistake,
the idea persists that it was a good deal more.
So let's walk through what we actually know.
Hillary claims this started due to a simple tech issue
because when she took office in 2009,
Department-issued Blackberries couldn't access
two different e-mail accounts.
woman: Clinton said today it was more convenient
for her to carry one device instead of separate devices
for work and personal e-mails.
- Looking back, it would've been better for me
to use two separate phones and two e-mail accounts.
I thought using one device would be simpler,
and obviously, it hasn't worked out that way.
Yeah, no shit.
[laughter]
So this whole situation could potentially have been avoided
if she'd just had the ability to carry two Blackberries.
Meaning, it's the only time
the best advice a politician could have received
was "cargo shorts."
[laughter]
So if she wanted one phone, she had a few options.
First, use a state.gov e-mail address for all her e-mails,
meaning her personal e-mails would reside
on government servers, potentially making them
more accessible to requests for public records.
So instead, Hillary sent everything
through a non-government address.
It's a practice that's legal, but highly discouraged.
Although she's by no means the only one who's done it.
Others include Colin Powell, John Kerry,
Chris Christie, Jeb Bush,
Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Martin O'Malley, Greg Abbott,
Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, Ashton Carter, and Karl Rove.
And EPA administrator Lisa Jackson
had a different workaround,
using a second government e-mail
under the alias "Richard Windsor,"
Which turned out to be a mashup of her dog's name
and her family's hometown.
So she was doing government business under her porn name.
Which cannot catch on.
No one wants to be writing to
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro
at Bud.ThunderJunk@hud.bone!
That can't happen.
But Hillary went much further
than just having a private e-mail.
She had her own private server.
And it wasn't just any old server.
- To put an e-mail server at your house is not a--
it's a complicated thing.
- Yeah, but it was already there.
It had been there for years.
It is the system that my husband's personal office used
when he got out of the White House,
and so it was sitting there in the basement.
Wait, wait.
You used a server that Bill Clinton had been using,
which was in your basement.
I hate to tell you this,
but you just stored government records
on a machine that Bill called "The Porn Master 5000."
[laughter]
[imitating Bill Clinton] I love that machine. Old faithful.
[laughter]
[in normal voice] Now, the private server wasn't the only way
Hillary communicated.
There was a separate official government system
for classified information.
Unfortunately, some e-mails sent to Hillary
did contain pieces of information
that were classified in nature.
The FBI found 113 such e-mails, though, in fairness,
only three of them had classification markers
and were not in the header of the e-mail,
as they should have been.
And while the FBI found Clinton and her staff
to be extremely careless,
they said they couldn't find a case
that would support bringing criminal charges.
So it's not good, but it's not as bad as it looks.
Which is never a satisfying thing to hear,
or, indeed, read above the buffet
at a Golden Corral.
[laughter]
So that is basically the e-mails.
Let's now move on to the Clinton Foundation.
Six months ago, it was known as the top-rated global foundation
that has, among other things,
helped millions around the world
access lower-cost HIV treatment.
But it has now become possibly the only charity
that inspires more visceral anger than this one.
-* 1-877-Kars-4-Kids
* K-A-R-S Kars for Kids
* 1-877-Kars for Kids
* Donate your car today
Shut up! Shut up!
What is this charity?
You're kids! You can't fucking drive!
[laughter]
What money-laundering scheme are you operating?
[applause]
Look, the point is-- The point is
the controversy with the Clinton Foundation
is not so much what they did with their money.
It's the possible conflict of interest
in taking donations from individuals
and foreign governments with business
before the State Department. And to be fair, in 2008,
the foundation tried to head this off,
by promising the Obama administration
they'd not only disclose all donations,
but also get advance approval for any
coming from certain foreign governments.
Which they did.
But a few slipped through.
There's one involving Algeria donating half a million dollars,
although there's no proof that State Department policy
was swayed as a result.
More concerning is one involving Russia, which does sound bad.
- Reports out overnight say the State Department,
with Clinton at the helm, approved the sale
of one of America's largest uranium mines to Russia.
At the same time,
a foundation controlled by the mine's chairman
was making donations to the Clinton Foundation.
We are talking about some big money here.
Four separate donations totaling $2.35 million,
and these reports say
that the donations were not publicly disclosed.
- Holy shit.
There are so many not-good words in that one sound bite.
Russia, uranium, controlled, big money, and not disclosed.
It could only be worse if it also contained the words
orifice, shart, butt-chug, and Cosby.
[laughter]
Now, brace yourself, because this gets pretty dense.
Basically, the Canadian chairman of the mining company
that was eventually sold to Russia
had also given money to the Clinton Foundation.
But instead of doing it directly,
he gave it through this Canadian affiliate,
which didn't disclose his name because it didn't have to,
because the affiliate wasn't actually included
in that agreement the Clinton Foundation signed
with the Obama administration.
So neither the law nor the agreement
were technically violated,
though the spirit of the agreement definitely was.
So again, this looks bad,
especially given that the State Department did sign off
on the sale of that uranium mine to Russia.
But not only was Hillary not involved in that decision,
but eight other federal agencies
plus the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
also had to sign off, which they did.
So this donation was legal, but very annoyingly handled.
And any suggestion of pay for play fails to account
for the separate actions of nine unrelated government agencies.
Basically, it's complicated.
And like the movie "It's Complicated,"
it probably would've been best for everyone
if it had never happened,
[laughter]
but no one broke the law.
And look, we've spent several frustrating weeks
trawling through all the innuendo and exaggerations
surrounding her e-mail and foundation scandals,
and the worst thing you can say is, they both look bad,
but the harder you look, the less you actually find.
There's not nothing there.
But what is there is irritating rather than grossly nefarious.
And this is where it's instructive to compare her
to her opponent, Donald Trump.
America's wealthiest hemorrhoid.
[laughter]
Because if you're struggling with
the idea of voting for Hillary because of all this,
you need to take a long, hard look at Trump.
If you're irritated by her lying, that is understandable,
but he's quantifiably worse.
PolitiFact checked around the same number of statements
from both of them over the years,
and found around 13% of Hillary's statements
to be flatly false,
but for Trump, that figure was a whopping 53%.
[laughter]
Presumably, it's only that low because the rest of the time
he was saying things like this.
- If Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her.
woman: Stop it! That's so weird!
- Yeah, that's probably true.
[laughter]
And the fact it's probably true is what makes it so horrifying.
And if you're thinking, "Okay, Hillary may not lie
as much as Trump, but she needs to be more transparent,"
that's fair enough. But bear in mind
we know almost nothing about Trump's finances.
And that is not good.
He's the first major-party nominee since 1980
not to release his tax returns,
and his justification is pathetic.
- I will absolutely give my return,
but I'm being audited now for two or three years,
so I can't do it until the audit is finished.
- But yes, you can.
The IRS has explicitly said
you don't need to wait for a completed audit to release them.
You're just saying two completely unrelated things.
"I'd love to pick you up from the airport, but I can't,
because a blue whale's tongue weighs as much as an elephant."
[laughter]
What the fuck are you talking about?
Those two things have nothing to do with each other!
[applause]
And on top of Trump's personal tax records,
there are unanswered questions about his business dealings.
As many experts have pointed out,
his investments, debts and business ties span the globe,
and could present unprecedented ethical challenges
for a president.
Now, traditionally, presidential candidates
in that kind of situation promise to put
their financial holdings into a blind trust,
where an independent trustee is given control
over their investments.
But when Trump was asked if he would do that as well,
he seemed not to know what it meant.
- Are you planning on putting your assets in a blind trust
should you become president?
- I have Ivanka and Eric and Don sitting there.
Run the company, kids. Have a good time.
I'm gonna do it for America, okay?
So I would be willing to do that.
- So you'll put your assets in a blind trust?
- I would put it in a blind trust.
Well, I don't know if it's a blind trust
if Ivanka, Don, and Eric run it,
but is that a blind trust? I don't know.
- No! That is not a blind trust.
[laughter]
It's the opposite of one.
Almost anything else you could have said
would've been closer to a blind trust.
"I'm gonna put my assets in an upside-down doghouse
filled with pudding. Is that a blind trust?"
No, that's ridiculous,
but you're actually closer than you were before.
[laughter]
And even more alarmingly,
when George Stephanopoulos talked to Donald Trump, Jr.,
he didn't seem to understand what a blind trust was either.
- It's not a blind trust if you and your siblings
are running the company.
- we're not gonna be involved in government.
Stephanopoulos: Then it's not a blind trust.
You're running the company and he's president.
So any foreign--
He's not making any decisions as it relates to the company.
- but a blind trust is not a blind trust
if it's being run by his children.
- It is because he'll have nothing to do with it.
- He's still going to know what the businesses are.
And where they are--
- He won't. We'll not--
- How will he not know?
- We won't discuss those things.
It doesn't matter. Trust me.
- Wait, trust you?
[laughter]
The only reasonable thing to trust you on
is which hair products can best make someone look like
a 1980s serial killer.
[laughter]
That's it. And look...
[applause]
If the financial actions of the Clinton Foundation annoy you,
let me introduce you to the Trump Foundation.
And I'm not talking about
the estimated 12 pounds of foundation
that Trump wears on his face,
[laughter]
I'm talking about his charitable organization.
The "Washington Post" has been investigating,
and has found, among other things,
that Trump has not personally given it any money since 2008.
And just this week, this story broke.
- Donald Trump is facing questions tonight
about his charitable foundation after a report today
in the "Washington Post." The foundation spent
more than a quarter of a million dollars of donated money
to settle lawsuits against Trump businesses.
- Yes, Trump reportedly used his foundation's money,
which had been donated by people for charitable purposes,
As a tool to make some legal disputes go away.
On the spectrum of shittiest things you can do,
that's right up there with catfishing a baby owl.
He waited all night for you!
And he's nocturnal, so that's his day gone!
[laughter]
And Trump also allegedly used foundation money
to purchase ridiculous items for himself.
- In another instance, Trump's foundation paid $10,000
at a charity auction in 2014 for a portrait painted of Trump.
It was the second time
Trump used foundation funds for a portrait of him.
- Okay, okay. Okay, wait. Wait, wait, wait.
For a start, what is he doing with his face in that photo?
That's not a smile,
that's waking up in the middle of a colonoscopy.
[laughter]
And also, on top of that, how did that portrait cost $10,000?
It looks like someone xeroxed a black-and-white picture
of Trump, and then painted over it
with condiments from Burger King.
[laughter]
Now, what Trump did there would technically be legal,
as long as the portrait itself
was put to some charitable purpose.
Well, Univision found it. And it wasn't in an orphanage.
man: This is the painting that Donald Trump purchased
with funds donated to the charitable foundation
that carries his last name.
This morning, Univision got the scoop
that the art work remained hanging inside
the restaurant Champions Bar & Grille,
inside the Doral Hotel and Golf Course,
a property owned by Donald Trump.
- Now, in Trump's defense,
that portrait is the perfect pairing
for his restaurant's signature dishes,
which are apparently, according to Yelp reviewers,
"watery tomato chunks with no flavor."
And "craft beer brands misspelled on the menu."
[laughter]
And it is not just portraits.
Trump also once used foundation funds
to buy a signed Tim Tebow helmet, a steal at $12,000,
for something that once contained
the head of America's worst quarterback.
[laughter]
He also used funds to make an illegal political donation
to support Florida A.G. Pam Bondi
around the time that she was considering investigating
his not-a-university university.
So it seems the Trump Foundation may exist
primarily to benefit Trump himself.
In which case, they should really change the name
to something more appropriate,
like the National Association for the Advancement
of Donald Trump, or the NAADT for short.
And the thing is,
we've barely scratched the surface of his scandals.
There's everything,
from the ongoing lawsuits against that bullshit university
to the alleged use of undocumented workers
when building Trump Tower
to the fact he received an illegal $3.5 million loan
from his father in the form of a purchase of chips
from one of Trump's casinos.
That loan could not have been shadier
if it was given in baggies of cocaine
or the bones of endangered species.
[laughter]
Look. The point is,
this campaign has been dominated by scandals.
But it is dangerous to think
there is an equal number on both sides.
And you can be irritated by some of Hillary's.
That is understandable.
But you should then be fucking outraged by Trump's.
Think of it like this.
[applause]
Try to think of it like this.
Ethical failings in a politician are like raisins in a cookie.
They shouldn't be there.
They disgust people.
But most politicians have at least a few raisins.
And Hillary is a cookie like this one.
She arguably has more raisins than average.
There's probably 10 of those little fuckers in there.
[laughter]
But we all need to remember that when it comes to Donald Trump,
this is the amount of raisins that he represents.
[applause]
The man is a fucking raisin monsoon.
He is ethically compromised to an almost unprecedented degree.
So if you don't like raisins?
I get it. They're disgusting.
But unfortunately, this November,
you're gonna have to swallow 10,
or we're all gonna be eating this shit for years.
[laughter, applause]
That is our show.
Thanks for watching.
We'll be back next week.
Good night.
*
[bright tone]