[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 unfortunately, we must begin yet again
with the 2016 election,
or, as you may know it,
"I honestly don't even know if I can make it
"another two-and-a-half weeks.
"I've been drinking a lot and lashing out,
and frankly my family is worried 2016."
Now, the most anticipated event
of this week was on Wednesday,
with the final presidential debate of this election season
and possibly ever.
Uh, it was the candidates' last chance
to show that they can elevate the tone of this campaign.
How did that go?
- Look, Putin... Wallace: Wait, but--
- From everything I see, has no respect for this person.
- Well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet
as president of the United States.
- No puppet. No puppet.
- And it's pretty clear-- - You're the puppet.
- It's pretty clear you won't admit...
- No, you're the puppet. - That the Russian--
- That is a pretty childish tone.
"No, you're the puppet"
sounds like something teenage Pinocchio
would yell at Geppetto
before slamming his bedroom door.
"You're the puppet! You're the puppet!
I wish I'd never been carved!"
And look, I would love to say
that that was Trump's low point of the evening,
but there were so, so many more.
- We have some bad hombres here,
and we're gonna get 'em out.
Nobody has more respect for women than I do--nobody.
In the ninth month, you can take the baby
and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother.
- Well, let me translate that if I can, Chris,
because, um--
- You can't.
- My Social Security payroll contribution
will go up, as will Donald's,
assuming he can't figure out how to get out of it.
Uh, but what we want to do
is to replenish the Social Security trust fund--
- Such a nasty woman.
- Now, now, now, now, now. Now, now.
To be fair, the questions that the moderator asked there were,
"What is an offensive way to describe Mexicans,
"state an objective falsehood,
"describe a nonexistent medical process,
"mansplain in two words,
and incorrectly name your favorite Janet Jackson song,"
so he kind of went five for five.
But--but the most notable moment of all
came when Trump was simply asked whether,
given his constant claims that this election is rigged,
he would accept the results of the vote,
to which the easy and only answer
is yes.
But he took a different path.
- I will look at it at the time.
I'm not looking at anything now.
I'll look at it at the time.
Wallace: Are you saying you're not prepared now
to commit to that principle?
- What I'm saying is that I will tell you at the time.
I'll keep you in suspense.
- What do you mean,
you'll keep us in suspense?
This is a presidential election,
not an "American Idol" result show.
"Oh, I'll tell you whether or not my followers
"will plunge the country into anarchy
after the break."
Now, after significant criticism,
Trump appeared to walk back his statements the next day,
before throwing in a twist at the last moment.
- I would like to promise and pledge
to all of my voters and supporters
and to all of the people of the United States...
[cheers]
That I will totally accept the results
of this great and historic
presidential election
if I win.
- [laughing]
Oh, you got us.
You got us.
That's so funny, 'cause we thought you were gonna
say the rational thing
that would have put the country at ease,
but instead, you pulled the old switcheroo
and you continued to destabilize
the foundations of our democracy.
Ah.
That is a solid bit.
Ah.
And look, as we have discussed on this show before,
the odds of voter fraud are very slim.
A study found that out of the billion-plus votes cast
between 2000 and 2014,
there were just 31 credible instances
of voter impersonation.
By comparison, in 2009 alone,
there were 32 newborns in the U.S.
named ABCDE.
And I would argue we should be less worried about voter fraud
than we should be about those 32 sets of parents voting.
But--but Trump and Clinton
didn't only share the stage during the debates this week.
The following night, they were at the Al Smith dinner
in New York,
an annual fundraiser for Catholic charities
where traditionally, presidential candidates
gently roast themselves and one another.
This should have been an easy win for Trump,
because Hillary Clinton is, to put it kindly,
less than side-splittingly hilarious.
And Trump is basically an insult comic writ large.
It is hard to imagine a philanthropic event
he'd be better suited for
other than of course a charity groping booth.
And yet--and yet, somehow,
somehow, he completely lost the room.
- Hillary is so corrupt...
she got kicked off the Watergate Commission.
[crowd booing]
Here she is tonight, in public,
pretending not to hate Catholics.
[crowd booing]
Everyone knows, of course,
Hillary's belief that it takes a village,
which only makes sense, after all, in places
like Haiti, where she's taken a number of them.
[crowd booing]
- How are you blowing this?
It's a charity roast.
In fact, just watch the face of the man sitting next to him
after that first joke.
It says--it says something
about how horrifying Trump's speech was
that his expression is that of someone who just realized,
"My God, I've been shot.
I've been shot."
And the crazy thing is,
of all the negative things you--you could, should,
and are morally obligated to say about Trump,
being unentertaining is not one of them.
He is a born showman, and that room
couldn't have given him more of a home field advantage.
This wasn't a town hall or a debate.
It was a $3,000-a-plate fund-raising gala
at a moth-eaten Manhattan hotel
organized by the Catholic Church,
a real estate-owning, male-dominated,
sex scandal-plagued organization
with whom Trump obviously shares
a uniquely unqualified interior decorator.
I mean, just--just look at the audience there:
white bow ties.
They are dressed like they're about to play a game
of steerage darts onboard the Titanic.
"Oh, terribly high-stakes, steerage darts.
If you're not careful, you could lose a dart."
But perhaps there is no better index
of just how badly he did
than this.
- People were really cringing, I think,
a lot of times with Donald Trump.
I was sitting next to Henry Kissinger,
and he said, "This is not good."
- [chuckles] - "This is not good."
- It's true.
Henry Kissinger thought Trump bombed horrifically.
And Henry Kissinger is pretty much
the world's leading authority
on horrific bombings.
And yet despite the audible boos he heard during his speech,
Trump somehow did not seem to be aware
of how badly he was doing.
- Hillary believes that it's vital to deceive
the people by having one public policy...
[crowd booing]
And a totally different policy in private.
That's okay--I don't know who they're angry at, Hillary,
you or I.
- It's you.
They're angry at you,
and I'll tell you why:
because you are treating a benefit for needy children
like open mic night at Rascal McBigot's,
Long Island's fourth-best alt-right comedy club.
But perhaps the reason that Trump did so poorly
is that the Al Smith dinner is supposed to involve
a healthy share of self-deprecation,
and he's almost pathologically unable to acknowledge
any flaw or fault.
In fact, there was one revealing moment
in Wednesday's debate
when Hillary Clinton hit something of a nerve.
- There was even a time when
he didn't get an Emmy for his TV program
three years in a row,
and he started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged.
- I should've gotten it.
- Of course.
Of course.
Of course he wants an Emmy.
It's a woman, it's gold, and it's proportionate
to his tiny hands.
It's basically Trump's ideal mate.
And here's the problem.
Here's the problem here.
It increasingly seems like if Donald Trump loses,
we are not going to get the concession speech
that the country badly needs,
because he is medically incapable of accepting
that he's a loser.
So we need to find a way for him to give a concession speech
while he's still able to claim
that he won something.
And--and I think I might have the answer here,
because I have a proposition for Donald Trump.
Let's bet on the outcome of this election.
I will take the side that you win.
You take the side that you lose.
That way, if you lose, you still win.
And--and--and as for the stakes--
as for the stakes of the bet,
I have something I know that you want.
She's so small.
She's so shiny.
You don't even have to take her furniture shopping.
Take the bet, Donald.
Take the fucking bet.
And now this.
[trumpet flourish]
- In a moment, we'll be joined by NBC News'
chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd, who's in London
with the president, but first,
here's a clip from the great movie "Love Actually."
It's been brought to the fore so many beautiful times
in movies, my favorite being "Love Actually."
We're gonna show a clip from that.
Well, we still remember this scene,
and we'll play it again, probably tonight again,
from, uh, "Love Actually."
Like in that great, memorable scene from "Love Actually."
Did you see the very popular movie "Love Actually"?
- I did.
Matthews: I see him every time I re-watch
that incredible movie "Love Actually."
I think everybody on the planet fell in love
with that guy Colin Firth in "Love Actually."
One of my favorite movies, "Love Actually."
My favorite movie, "Love Actually."
Is "Love Actually"... "Love Actually"...
And that reminded me of this scene from the movie
"Love Actually," which I've seen about a million times.
- Moving on, for our--
for our main story tonight,
I would like to talk to you about drugs.
And I know, I know, I already sound
like a middle school health teacher
about to show you a video like this.
man: The pattern is generally the same.
Take a life of responsibility,
the inability to make right choices,
add to it ignorance and indifference,
and top it off with a desire for escapism and kicks.
The sum total is then conceivably found
in the bennies, the reefer,
the pot needle.
- Yes, the pot needle.
Now--now--now, you may laugh, but that film works.
Think about it: when was the last time that you saw
a pot needle?
Exactly. Exactly.
But unfortunately,
America is now in the midst
of a new drug crisis,
and it seems that no one is safe from it.
woman: Laura, Charlie's owner,
who asked us not to use her last name,
says Charlie had to be rushed to the vet.
You can't see the suspect throw the drugs over the fence
in the video,
but that's Charlie,
and what she's eating is a full bag of heroin.
- You can't process the fact that your dog ate heroin.
- Yeah, and if she can't process it,
imagine how it must have felt for her dog when it kicked in.
"Who's a good boy? I--I'm a good boy.
"I'm a really good boy.
I'm the best boy."
[exclaims]
But--but here's the thing:
even that lighthearted local news story
had some chilling context.
woman: Here, Bishop runs the Bark and Play
where it happened.
He says it highlights a much bigger problem.
- This whole heroin problem around here is--is ridiculous.
You know, we find needles.
We find everything around here.
And it's--it's getting to the point
to where I can't let my employees go outside.
- Okay, that is terrifying,
although, honestly, rampant heroin abuse
near a doggie day care center is the first case
that McGruff the Crime Dog is actually qualified to solve.
But the thing is, that-- that is symptomatic
of the fact that America is facing an epidemic
of addiction to opioids
like heroin and prescription painkillers.
As of 2015, an estimated 2.6 million Americans
were addicted to them, and they're now involved
in almost 30,000 overdose deaths a year in the U.S.
And the prevalence of this problem
astonishes some people.
Just listen to Donald Trump up in New Hampshire.
- They said the biggest single problem they have up here
is heroin.
And I said, "How does heroin work with these beautiful
"lakes and trees and all of the beautiful--
it doesn't."
- Yeah, it does, though. It does.
Heroin works basically everywhere,
because it's heroin.
It's not a cell phone.
Heroin has full coverage.
So--so tonight,
we're gonna look at one of the major causes
of this crisis:
prescription painkillers,
which are chemical cousins of heroin.
Around 75% of heroin users
started with a prescription opioid:
drugs like OxyContin,
uh, Vicodin,
and Percocet,
which some take recreationally
and others take as prescribed by a doctor.
But however it starts,
it can get out of hand fast.
- So how many, if we start from this side,
have moved--moved from prescription drugs to heroin?
Everybody.
man: Once people became dependent on painkillers,
they said they'd do almost anything to get them.
- One time, I-- I was hurting so bad
that I ended up punching a 4x4
and breaking all three of these fingers and this bone
to get pain meds from my doctor.
I did that several times--
- So you'd hurt yourself in order to go to a doctor?
- Absolutely.
- I had nine teeth pulled out of my head for prescriptions.
- At the time, that's how my mind--
- To get a prescription? - Yeah.
- I've been in with, like, groups of people
where they've taken, like, bats to their wrists.
man: Broke arms. - Snapped 'em easily.
- Uh, I mean, how many people do know someone that's died
of overdose from...
- Well, I mean-- - Everybody?
- This is happening everywhere.
The odds are, right now, you probably know someone
who is struggling or who has died from an opioid addiction.
Some towns have been devastated.
Just two months ago,
in and around Huntington, West Virginia,
28 overdoses occurred in one five-hour span.
And given their risks, it's kind of amazing
how freely doctors have prescribed them,
because there are a lot in circulation.
- We have, currently, nearly 250 million prescriptions
for opioids written every year.
That's enough for every adult in America
to have a bottle of pills,
and then some.
- Holy shit.
And those bottles aren't necessarily
sitting on a shelf unused,
like that bottle of wine that you are saving
for a special occasion
that now serves as a reminder
that you haven't had a single event in four years
that was deserving of getting "fancy drunk."
No, the--these-- these pills are getting used
or falling into the hands of others, from--
from those who are already addicted
to just bored teenagers.
So how has this happened?
Because interestingly, as recently as the early '90s,
doctors were excessively wary of prescribing opioids.
- Back then, there was a thing called "opiophobia."
A lot of health care professionals did not
want to prescribe opiates at all
because they thought you give the slightest amount,
you turn your patients into addicts.
And so even people with, uh, stage four cancer
weren't being given opiates.
They were left to suffer.
- Yes, "opiophobia,"
which is not to be confused with "Oprah-phobia,"
which is the irrational fear of screaming talk show hosts
giving you a brand-new Pontiac sedan.
"Oprah, I can't afford the taxes on this.
You haven't thought it through."
Now, obviously, that level of under-treating pain
was a huge problem in itself.
And to their credit,
pain care advocates worked to dispel
some dangerous myths.
But in doing so,
they made a key mistake,
as you will see right at the end of this clip.
- Today, the federal government said in a report
that about half of all surgery patients
suffer needlessly because doctors and hospitals
don't pay enough attention to painkiller.
Health Secretary Louis Sullivan talked about myths
that pain builds character--
myth, he said.
That infants don't feel pain--
another myth.
That elderly patients have a higher tolerance for pain
or that painkillers are addictive--
all myths.
- Okay, okay.
Okay, first, of course babies feel pain.
How the fuck did we ever think otherwise?
But more importantly, the fact that painkillers are addictive
was not a myth.
It's like a book of Greek mythology
featuring the stories of Zeus, Sisyphus,
Oedipus, and Yanni.
Come on, that last one is very real,
and it cannot be dismissed.
And look, a nuanced discussion between the medical community
about the complexities of pain treatment
is clearly important.
The problem is,
that discussion became dominated
by the pharmaceutical industry,
who started amplifying the message
that opioids should not just be used for acute pain,
like that from cancer or surgery,
but for all sorts of pain,
like arthritis and backaches,
which makes sense as a motive coming from the pharma industry.
End-of-life pain care is a narrow business.
It's hard to make a lot of money
off of a product exclusively marketed to people
who are close to death.
Honestly, I don't know how Fox News even does it.
I have no idea.
I--it's a mystery.
Volume, I guess.
But I--I don't know.
And--and within the pharma industry,
the loudest voice was Purdue.
In 1996, they released the blockbuster drug OxyContin,
and they marketed it to doctors aggressively,
giving out swag like, uh, fishing hats,
uh, swing music CDs
bearing the slogan, "Swing in the right direction
with OxyContin,"
and Oxy-branded stuffed plush toys.
And if you think we didn't get hold of one of those,
you have clearly never watched this show before,
because yes, here he is.
And yes, he is my new best friend,
and yes, his name is Harold.
And I've got to say, Purdue,
this is the perfect choice of mascot,
because much like a gorilla,
OxyContin might seem appealing,
but if you're not careful,
it will tear your fucking life apart.
Won't you, Harold?
Yes, he will.
Purdue also distributed inspirational videos
like "I got my life back"
featuring seven patients whose lives were turned around
by the magic of OxyContin.
- Since I've been on this new pain medication,
I have not missed one day of work,
and my boss really appreciates that Lauren is there every day.
So I'm able to be very productive.
And one of the things that's really dear to my heart
and, uh, which I'm especially, um, excited about
is just the fact that I'm able to spend time
with my grandchildren.
It's amazing just to be able to keep up with them
and not have to, uh, always constantly tell them,
"Grandma can't play now. Grandma can't do this.
Grandma's hurting. Grandma's back hurts."
- That's genuinely sweet.
And it's also a powerful message,
although I will note,
"It makes time with your grandkids more fun"
could apply to literally any drug.
"Hey, kids." [sniffing]
"Uh, Grandpa's gonna take you to the park.
"I'm gonna--I'm gonna take you on the swings.
"I'm gonna push you real high.
"And then we're gonna stay up all night,
"and I'm gonna come up with inventions,
"and you're gonna write them down.
"And you're gonna write them down fast.
We're having quality time!"
[sniffing]
And it--it wasn't just--
it wasn't just uplifting stories.
Other Purdue videos sought to reassure patients
who might have been nervous about taking such a strong drug.
- Less than 1% of patients taking opioids
actually become addicted.
- Less than 1%.
And I know it may seem like they are pulling that number
out of their ass.
But they actually pulled it
out of the letters to the editor section
of "The New England Journal of Medicine."
Seriously, this is it.
That paragraph is the whole thing.
It wasn't peer-reviewed, and it was only about
short-term use of opioids in hospitals.
But it became the main source
for that 1% claim.
And letters pages are not a solid source for information.
Just this month, a Pennsylvania newspaper
published a letter, uh, featuring a man's question
about Hillary Clinton's fitness for office,
uh, because, and I quote,
"What if that time of the month comes?"
To which the obvious answer is, one, she's 68,
and two, fuck you.
Maybe just a little bit.
But--but--but even if doctors
started noticing that a lot more than 1% of their patients
were getting addicted,
Purdue had a ready answer:
"What if they're not?"
Because they had doctors on their payroll
like Alan Spanos, who were happy to explain
the helpful new concept
of "pseudo-addiction."
I'll let him tell you about it.
- Pseudo-addiction is when a patient
is looking like a drug addict
because they're pursuing pain relief.
So pseudo-addiction is relief-seeking behavior
mistaken as drug addiction.
- Wow, that is so convenient.
That is like Chipotle going,
"Have you heard of this fascinating new thing
"called 'pseudo-diarrhea'?
"It--it looks a lot like diarrhea,
"but it's not diarrhea.
And the cure may actually be more tacos."
And Purdue's overall message of a quick, easy cure for pain
was very appealing,
especially for primary care doctors who might only have
15 minutes to treat a patient.
So it is no wonder that by the year 2000,
doctors were writing nearly 6,000,000
OxyContin prescriptions per year
and its sales were more than even Viagra.
And remember, that was a drug
that had the distinct advantage
of being sold by Bob Dole,
the red-hot, late-'90s "it" boy.
However, evidence started piling up
that it was far riskier than promised,
with headlines like "OxyContin Abuse Is Increasing"
and "OxyContin abuse called 'a plague,'"
or, as I'm sure Purdue would call it,
a "pseudo-plague."
And--and even the stars of Purdue's
"I got my life back" video
were not immune from this trend,
because a later investigation discovered
two out of the seven of them
died as active opioid abusers.
And that grandmother you saw earlier
became addicted and nearly lost everything.
- I lost my house.
Oh, yeah, I've lost cars.
I've lost-- I lost a lot.
A lot.
I--I've lost a lot
to keep, um, the high and taking that drug
when I did lose my job.
Mm-hmm.
Had I not lost my medical insurance,
well, as I said, if I was to go to the mailbox once a month
and I would find a bottle of OxyContin in it,
I'd probably still be on it,
and I'd probably be dead.
- Think about that.
Losing her health insurance
might have saved her life.
That is an irony so deep
it would vaporize Alanis Morissette
into a cloud of fucking steam.
Now, by now, I'm guessing
you are pretty angry at Purdue.
So you may be glad to hear that in 2007,
they admitted some responsibility
in a lawsuit so big, it actually led the evening news.
- Good evening.
The maker of a hugely popular painkiller
has some pain of its own tonight.
The company and its top officers
will pay $634 million in fines
for lying to the public.
- Wow.
You know they fucked up
if they had to pay over $600 million
for misleading marketing,
because you get a lot of leeway on that.
That's why Dunkin' Donuts has not yet been sued for saying,
"America Runs on Dunkin'"
when we all know their real slogan should be,
"Sometimes You Can't Find a Starbucks."
And--and look, it wasn't just Purdue pushing the envelope.
Cephalon paid a $444 million settlement
for over-marketing drugs
and INSYS has been investigated
for some of its practices surrounding a drug they made
containing fentanyl,
an opioid which can be 100 times more powerful than morphine.
Their drug is only approved for cancer patients,
but INSYS is accused
of not just pushing it for non-cancer patients,
but even helping convince insurance companies
to pay for it.
And to do that,
according to one ex-employee,
they used a particularly shady technique.
- If you don't have cancer and breakthrough cancer pain,
no insurance company is gonna pay for this medication.
So if you call up and you tell them
that the patient doesn't have cancer,
it's automatically denied.
- So instead, what were you doing?
Nixon: They would always ask,
"Does the patient have cancer?"
"Uh-huh." That's what we would say.
- So you'd do, "Uh-huh"? You would--
- Right. - Say yes.
- But I'm not saying, "Yes," right?
I would just say, "Uh-huh."
- Isn't that a yes?
- Well, and that's what they did think.
Um, but I wasn't blatantly saying yes.
- Oh, my God.
Except everybody knows
"uh-huh" means yes.
If you go to Thesaurus.com
and type in "uh-huh,"
literally the first word that comes up is "yes,"
followed by options such as "absolutely,"
"definitely," "unquestionably,"
and "yep."
And--look, and at this point,
I--I should say that Purdue and Cephalon's, uh, owner
told us that those practices were in the past.
And INSYS has denied wrongdoing
and didn't respond to any of our questions,
not even with a "nuh-uh."
But at a certain point, the question has to become
less "What did we do wrong?"
and more "What do we do now?"
Because these drugs are still the most effective solution
for certain types of pain,
and many patients need them.
So we can't get rid of them,
but we have to be much more careful
about how they're prescribed.
And to their credit,
the CDC issued voluntary guidelines this year
suggesting doctors use non-opioid therapies
when possible and, if and when one is needed,
to start patients with a lower dose
and a shorter supply,
a technique that they call
"start low and go slow,"
which does sound good,
but also sounds like how your creepiest high school friend
described cunnilingus.
"Dude, start low,
"go slow,
"and afterwards, take her to Friendly's.
"Chicks love root beer floats, dude.
"They love them, dude.
"Low and slow. Low and slow, dude.
Low and slow."
Look, and while-- while all that sounds great,
unfortunately,
not all areas of the country
have access to alternative pain treatments.
- It's easy to say,
"Use some non-opioid alternative,"
but in a lot of rural areas,
patients don't have access to things like physical therapy
and mindfulness meditation,
and insurance companies won't pay for it.
- And that is a big problem,
because even in a rural area,
alternative pain treatments
should be at least as easy to find
as Waffle Houses,
which, like heroin, are both hazardous to your health
and dangerously addictive.
And--and to put it mildly,
it does not seem that the pharmaceutical industry
is expecting any major reversals
in opioid sales anytime soon.
In fact, they are now marketing extra drugs
to fight one of opioids' side effects:
constipation.
[toilet flushing]
[melancholy string music]
*
man: If you need an opioid to manage your chronic pain,
you may be so constipated.
It feels like everyone can go,
except you.
[laughter]
- You know painkillers are powerful
if people use them despite the s--
the side effect "being jealous of a dog's butthole."
And that commercial aired during the Super Bowl this year,
which means, A, it is a big business,
and B, I can only assume there was a reverse commercial
during the Puppy Bowl featuring a jealous dog
and a shitting man.
But we cannot just work
to prevent future addicts.
We're going to need to do more
to help the millions that already exist,
which means more investments in treatment programs
as well as increasing availability
of drugs like nalox-- naloxone,
commonly used in a nasal spray to rescue people from overdoses
because, as this firehouse makes clear,
it is a tool that they use with depressing frequency.
- So every single firefighter in the Revere Fire Department
knows how to use this--
has been trained on this?
- Yeah. - Has used it.
- Yes, we-- - And has used it?
- Yes, uh, from the chief down.
We tend to have more overdoses than we do--
- Fire? - Fires.
So it's a piece of equipment that we can't go without now,
just like we have the hose.
- It's true.
Firefighters might be more likely to use a nasal spray
than a hose,
which is really going to fuck up
those hot firefighter calendars,
because something about an overdose-reversing
nasal spray isn't quite as sexy.
It's still sexy, but just not quite as sexy.
It is still sexy, though, just not qui--
but still-- and that's not the point.
The point is,
there is no one simple answer here.
Not all opioid addicts will respond to the same treatment,
and not all people in pain
will find relief from alternative therapies.
This is going to take a massive effort
and a significant investment.
It won't be cheap,
it won't be quick,
and it won't be easy.
And it is hard not to be angry
at the drug companies like Purdue,
whose promise of cheap, quick, easy pain solutions
helped put us in this fucking mess.
Because while they may not be solely responsible,
if you were to ask me if they bear significant blame
for reckless, greedy behavior
which contributed to this massive public health crisis,
I might not say yes, exactly,
but I would definitely say, "Uh-huh."
man: 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 another in our ongoing series...
This week's person who somehow got elected:
Glenn Grothman,
U.S. Representative from Wisconsin's 6th district,
the picturesque home to cheeseheads
and that creepy prosecutor from "Making a Murderer."
Grothman was elected to Congress in 2014,
but before that, he spent 22 years
in the Wisconsin state legislature
making his name as a fiscal and social conservative,
taking bold stances
such as speaking out against an equal pay law.
- Senator Glenn Grothman said,
"You could argue that money is more important for men.
"I think a guy in their first job--
"maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday--
may be a little more money-conscious."
man: Yes, Glenn Grothman talks
like a character out of "Mad Men"
and dresses like a contestant on a 1987 episode
of "Jeopardy!",
which is not to say Glenn Grothman
does not support women.
He loves all of them,
even the single moms.
- I know a lot of gals
who are having kids out of wedlock,
and I love them.
I've been outside abortion clinics,
and I've encouraged them.
man: See?
Would a man who hates women
go talk to them outside of abortion clinics
or end that same speech this way?
- Our country is not gonna survive
if we continue this war on men.
Thanks for having me.
[cheers and applause]
man: But if there's one issue dear to Glenn Grothman's heart,
it's racism, or as he calls it...
- Well, this is one more example
of, I think, screaming rashism
where obviously none exists.
The idea that somehow--
you know, opponents say, "It's rashist,"
is ridiculous.
man: Yes, for some reason
Glenn Grothman pronounces this word
"rashism," which is weird,
because he clearly has no problem
making an "S" sound.
- Governor Walker is gonna be giving the tech schools,
the schools, the prisons,
the counties, the cities, all less money.
man: And Grothman's obsession with "rashe"
is especially strange,
given that his district is so overwhelmingly white.
It wasn't just the location of the state's
2015 Polka Hall of Fame awards.
It was also the birthplace of OshKosh B'gosh,
the closest wardrobe equivalent
to dressing your child in an actual banjo.
But that doesn't mean Grothman can't link rashism
to any story.
Take Planned Parenthood.
- Given the rashist background
of Planned Parenthood,
and not liking people who are not white,
I wonder if one of the reasons why Planned Parent
likes to do these, uh, sex-selective abortions is--
disproportionately are done on people of an Asian background.
man: Incidentally, that's 100% falsh.
But that's just scratching the surface of Grothman's
rashe-based opinions.
He's also opposed to making
Martin Luther King Day a holiday.
- I would bet the vast majority
of African-Americans,
as the vast majority of everybody else,
isn't doing anything for Martin Luther King
on Martin Luther King Day.
I think most employees who are off
are shopping at the mall.
Maybe they're taking an extended vacation
somewhere over the weekend.
Let's be honest.
man: And that's not the only
African-American holiday he opposes.
- Wisconsin state senator Glenn Grothman
isn't backing down on his stance
that the African-American holiday Kwanzaa
should "die a quick death."
- I think the underlying problem here
is not enough TV types, when they talk about Kwanzaa,
talk about the horrible, rashist, violent past
of its founder.
- Grothman says Kwanzaa is a holiday that, uh,
quoting here, "Almost no black people today care about."
man: And if you're wondering how he can be so sure,
don't worry, he checked.
- I spent some time-- happened to be at the Rose Bowl,
and I spent some time interviewing, briefly,
20 black Americans from either California or Arizona
or people getting on airplanes,
and none of them celebrated Kwanzaa,
so I don't think Kwanzaa's really important
to the average African-American.
man: That's a flawed study,
though it was published in "The New England Journal
of Harassing Strangers Who Are Just Trying to Board a Plane."
But Glenn Grothman knows,
whether it's African-Americans at airports
or women at abortion clinics,
everyone's entitled to his insane opinions,
and that's why it's so remarkable
that Glenn Grothman is a politician
who somehow got elected.
- That's our show. Thank you so much for watching.
See you next week. Good night.
[cheers and applause]