[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 begin with our first and only story,
the 2016 election or, as you may know it,
"I Thought I Wanted It To Be Over But Now That It's Over
"I Wish It Was Still Going On Because It Turns Out
The Ending Is Even Worse Twenty-Fucking-Sixteen."
The results on Tuesday
were--were a little different
than what just over half the voters wanted.
- We can now project the winner of the presidential race.
CNN projects Donald Trump wins the presidency.
Donald J. Trump will become the 45th president
of the United States.
- It's true! That happened.
It turns out, instead of showing our daughters
that they could someday be president,
America proved that no grandpa is too racist
to become leader of the free world.
"Look, Papa, someday that could be you."
Now, if you're like me,
the implications of this have been hitting you in waves.
One minute, you're numb.
And the next minute, you realize that Donald Trump,
this man, will soon have access to the nuclear codes.
And then maybe you get distracted by daily life
until it hits you again.
Oh, our future president was supported
by a former grand wizard of the Klan
and 60 million people voted for him despite that.
And then maybe you finally manage to get some sleep,
but then you wake up realizing,
"Oh, shit, the Supreme Court."
Because remember Merrick Garland,
who the Republicans have refused to confirm all year?
You know, the guy whom we asked you to choose
a Supreme Court dog for.
Uh, you actually picked this one, by the way.
Uh, we--we never announced it
because we figured that we would tell you
when he was confirmed.
Well, he's not getting confirmed,
and that dog is dead now.
Uh, no, actually, not really.
She--she is fine,
but she's not getting on the court.
- Donald Trump will fill that seat
and maybe more.
Uh, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in her 80s.
Uh, Anthony Kennedy is--is over 80.
And there are over justices who've talked,
bandied about the idea of--of retiring.
Bottom line: Donald Trump is going to shape
the Supreme Court for decades to come.
- Wow.
That is one of those phrases
you just assumed you would never have to hear,
like, "Vanilla Ice is picking up his Nobel Prize in Physics,"
or, "Henry Kissinger just came out
with a line of skinny jeans."
They go with everything.
Now, it has been wave after wave of nausea all week.
I woke up on Thursday feeling fractionally better,
but then on turned on the TV
and saw Trump in the Oval Office with President Obama.
And just look at the president's face there.
He cannot believe what he's looking at either.
In fact, just listen to the actual audio in that room.
["Curb Your Enthusiasm" theme music]
[upbeat quirky music]
[cheers and applause]
Fun fact:
that is the new national anthem now.
You see? We're laughing.
We're having fun.
And then you remember:
Trump's going to be in charge of the military.
And leaders there do not know what to expect.
- They have seen Donald Trump's statements
on the campaign trail,
talking about waterboarding,
talking about bombing with little regard
to civilian casualties,
talking about taking the oil in Iraq.
All of these things potentially, uh,
very serious, uh, violations of international law,
violations of the Geneva convention.
- Yes, our president-elect
has, at various times, said he'd bomb civilians,
loot oil, and waterboard,
which isn't a military strategy so much as
the series of words that Donald Rumsfeld mutters
so he can stay hard while he's masturbating.
And--and look,
look, Trump won this election,
by which I mean, he won the Electoral College,
which, for reasons I will never understand
no matter how many times it's explained to me,
is how things are done.
And many people-- it's important to remember,
many people are happy to see him in office.
Some are voters who think he'll bring jobs back
and shake up Washington.
Others are happy simply because he isn't Hillary Clinton.
Uh, and others, of course,
are Vladimir Putin and Scott Baio.
But for the rest of us,
we are faced with the same questions
as a guy that woke up the day after
a Vegas bachelor party, deep in the desert,
naked, tied to a cactus and a dead clown,
namely, "How the fuck did we get here,
and what the fuck do we do now?"
Because Donald Trump will be president.
And respecting democracy means accepting that.
Although there is one sentiment
that, I would argue, takes that a little too far.
- The man hasn't even
been a president for a day yet, all right?
Let's give him a chance to be the president.
- Give Donald Trump a chance.
- We now have to give him a chance
and see how he's gonna govern.
- The American people should give him a chance to govern
because if he succeeds, we succeed.
- Now, in the broadest sense,
I get that impulse:
hope for the best in the face of very long odds.
It's like we're on a plane
and we just found out our pilot is a wombat.
I don't like this,
I don't understand how it happened,
and I'm pretty sure we're headed for disaster,
but what the hell?
Come on, Batty, prove me wrong!
[cheers and applause]
And--and the thing is,
optimism--optimism is nice if you can swing it.
But you've got to be careful, because it can feed
into the normalization of Donald Trump.
And he's not normal.
He's abnormal.
He's a human "What Is Wrong With This Picture?"
He sticks out like a sore thumb,
and, frankly, he even looks like a sore thumb.
So--so giving him a chance
in the sense of not speaking out immediately
against policies that he's proposed
is dangerous because some of them
are alarming.
- Just some of Trump's promises?
Repeal and replace Obamacare;
build a wall along the southern border with Mexico
and get Mexico to pay for said wall;
deport all 11 million to 12 million
undocumented immigrants
in this country, including children;
appoint a special prosecutor to investigate
and potentially jail Hillary Clinton;
temporarily ban Muslims and immigrants
from terror-prone nations
from coming into the United States.
- Okay--okay, stop. Just stop.
'Cause it sounds like you're reading
the to-do list on Satan's refrigerator,
which--which, of course, Satan no longer needs
now that hell has frozen over.
And--and while some are arguing
that Trump might not have meant all those things,
that leaves us with two devastating options.
Either we just elected a president
who didn't mean a single word he said,
or we elected one who did.
And it's impossible to know which one.
Earlier tonight, he did his first
major post-election interview
and he was asked about Obamacare,
which, remember, he had labeled "a disaster."
- When you replace it, are you going to make sure
that people with preconditions are still covered?
- Yes, because it happens to be one of the strongest assets.
- You're gonna keep that?
- Also with the children living with their parents
for an extended period, we're gonna...
- You're gonna keep that? - Very much try and keep that.
- Oh, okay.
So, uh, get ready for a barely changed version
of Obamacare called Trumpcare,
which sounds like a health care plan
where doctors feel your breast for lumps
whether you asked them to or not.
But--but by the way,
don't get complacent
that he's going to keep those aspects of Obamacare.
He might change his mind on that again.
Trump is like a Magic 8 Ball.
Every time you shake him,
he gives you a different answer.
And sometimes the answer is just "Big League"
or "That's Some Body On My Daughter, Right?"
So--so we have to take all of Trump's promises seriously.
And the truth is,
they were not all universally bad.
For instance, he ran on a promise to "drain the swamp,"
cracking down on corruption
and ending the reign of Washington insiders,
which sounds great.
So let's try and be positive for a moment.
What are the early signs on that?
- Some of the potential cabinet members
that are being reported by CNN that are under consideration:
Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich,
Chris Christie, Reince Priebus.
- Right, so that's the longtime head of the RNC,
a former Speaker who entered Congress in 1979,
a former mayor turned professional asshole,
and a man whose name is more synonymous with scandal
than Shonda fucking Rhimes.
That is so swampy,
you're gonna need to swap out "Air Force One"
for one of those shallow-bottom boats
with a big fan on the back.
And the thing is, it actually makes sense
for Trump to appoint people
with significant experience in government.
Until a few days ago,
the highest office he'd ever held
was on the 26th floor of a shitty building on 5th Avenue.
But some of the people he's bringing in
are horrifying.
His transition team includes people like Ken Blackwell,
who has argued that homosexuality is a choice.
And he's named Myron Ebell to lead his EPA transition team,
making him a front-runner for administrator
despite this.
- The whole case for global warming,
I believe, is silly.
And I believe the vast majority of scientists
think it's silly.
And therefore, I'm a little bit embarrassed
that I waste my time on a silly issue.
[crowd groans]
- Okay, well, just, first of all,
the vast majority of scientists believe
humans are contributing to climate change.
And secondly, this man
does not have a science degree.
He wouldn't even be qualified to head
the Agency of Baking Soda Volcanoes.
So how the fuck did we get here?
Well, clearly, there are many possible answers
to that question, uh, including
misleading forecasts that bred complacency;
uh, a flawed candidate who failed to appeal
to white, rural, and working-class voters;
and--and this is worth repeating--
deep racism and/or indifference to it.
And for those, including us,
who were shocked by Tuesday,
we're gonna be examining all of this for years,
but for tonight, let--let's look at just one
narrow element that may have helped bring us here,
because it will be important going forward,
and that is our media,
specifically, how a system that is supposed
to catch a serial liar failed.
And I'm not just referring to mainstream TV news,
although some did wait far too long
to take Trump seriously,
giving him billions of dollars' worth of free media.
Uh, CNN, for instance, sometimes
ran his speeches almost in their entirety.
And their president, Jeff Zucker,
now admits that might not have been such a great idea.
- I'd say that if we made a mistake last year,
it's that, uh, we probably did put on
too many of his campaign rallies
in the-- in those early months, uh,
un--you know, unedited, and just let them run.
And I think, in hindsight, we probably
shouldn't have done that as much.
- Yeah, it turns out hindsight,
much like the year we're all now desperately
looking forward to, is 20/20.
And--and that is-- that is not to say
that there wasn't some great coverage
of Trump in this election from outlets like
"The Washington Post" and "The New York Times."
Even CNN eventually pivoted
and began correcting Trump in lower-third graphics,
such as "Trump: 'I Never Said Japan Should Have Nukes'
(He Did)."
And that is good journalism.
If I gave a speech saying I'm the sexiest man alive,
it would be fair to tag that with,
"(Look at Him)."
Now, the-- [laughter and cheers]
That's--that's a mean joke to laugh at.
But the problem is--
the problem is, the impact of corrections like that,
which may have sunk a candidate in another era,
was compromised,
because there is no longer a consensus
on what a fact is.
Trust in mainstream media outlets has been falling,
and people can choose to get their news
from echo chambers that validate their views.
And there is nothing inherently wrong
with media that has a viewpoint.
This show has a viewpoint.
We fact-check everything we say,
but I don't pretend to be neutral
on things like criminal justice reform--
I'm for it--
uh, Coldplay-- I'm against it--
uh, or DeWalt's ladders.
They're a seamless blend of style and performance.
Walking up one is like ascending to heaven
on a golden cloud.
I'm not being paid to say that.
I'm just a fan.
But a healthy media diet
has to be broader than that.
And unfortunately, the way that many of us
consume news now is micro-targeted.
- The majority of Americans, 62%,
say they get their news from social media.
According to Pew Research, 44% of all adults
say they get news specifically from Facebook.
- That's true.
News is now one of the three things
that we get from social media,
the other two being our entire sense of self-worth
and pictures of shaved alpacas.
And--and fake facts
circulate on social media to a frightening extent.
You may have seen this quote from Donald Trump online
about Republicans being dumb.
He never said that.
It's not true,
just as it's not true that the pope
endorsed Trump, because of course he didn't.
But that story was shared almost a million times,
which is absurd.
Everybody knows
the candidate the pope endorsed
was Joe Exotic.
They have very similar views
on deregulating tiger preserves.
Please share this news a million times.
But there is now a whole cottage industry
specializing in hyper-partisan,
sometimes wildly distorted clickbait.
BuzzFeed News researched sites like
Addicting Info, on the left, and Freedom Daily, on the right,
both of which have over a million followers on Facebook,
putting them in the same range as "Anderson Cooper 360,"
and found that some of them were publishing
many viral articles containing flat-out falsehoods.
- Over two weeks, 38% of news
on some Republican-leaning Facebook pages
was partly or completely false,
compared to 19% of news
shared on some Democrat-leaning Facebook pages.
- Yeah, and before you say,
"Well, Republicans are twice as bad,"
19% is still terrible.
And it is not news that there is
misinformation on Facebook.
Just look at the relationship status
"It's complicated."
The accurate version of that would clearly be
"In three weeks I'll be single, but I can't admit it yet."
But these sites can warp your views pretty fast.
Your news feed may have been full
of "The Times'" and "The Post's" stories
about Donald Trump's actual scandals,
but many Americans logged on to Facebook
every day and saw shit like this.
And this cesspool of nonsense would be a problem anyway
were it not for the fact
that one of the people in thrall to it
is our future president.
Back in March, he claimed that a man
who had rushed the stage at one of his rallies
had ties to ISIS,
something that had circulated online
and had been found to be untrue.
And when that was pointed out to him,
this was his response.
- There's no ties to ISIS for this man,
no law enforcement official, and it--this video
that you linked to appears to be a hoax.
- What do I know about it?
All I know is what's on the Internet.
[laughter and groans]
- Okay.
Okay, okay.
Here's the--here's the thing:
being on the Internet is not a high bar for accuracy.
If I edited Wikipedia to say
that Dianne Wiest's real name
is Dianne Frosted Mini-Wiest,
our next president would believe that to be true.
In fact, during the campaign,
Trump routinely used his platform
to share wildly incorrect information.
And even fellow conservatives
tried to point out how resp-- irresponsible this was.
- You tweeted out that, um,
whites killed by blacks--
these are statistics you picked up from somewhere--
at a rate of 81%.
And that's totally wrong.
Um, whites killed by blacks is 15%.
- Hey, Bill, Bill,
am I gonna check every statistic?
I've got millions and millions of people--
@realDonaldTrump, by the way--
- You got to; you're a presidential contender.
You got to check. - I have millions of people--
You know what? Fine.
But this came out of radio shows and everything else.
- Oka--okay--okay.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
"I got it from radio"
is maybe the weirdest nonsense explanation
I've ever heard.
It's like if someone said, "This sandwich tastes weird,"
and you said, "But I found it in a hole.
"If there's something wrong with it,
then what was it doing sitting in a hole?"
And that is the evil genius at work here.
Weird conspiracy bullshit has always been
bubbling under the surface, but Trump
was the first major candidate to harness
and fully legitimize it.
And it's obvious in hindsight.
He came along and told millions of people
every crazy email you've ever forwarded was true.
And that, at least in part,
is why he will be our next president.
And to their credit, some Republican lawmakers
were calling him out on this during the campaign.
- I'm gonna tell you what I really think of Donald Trump.
This man is a pathological liar.
He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies.
- He was right.
He was just right.
But before you think Republicans might now
stand up to Trump, I will remind you
that by the end of the campaign,
Ted Cruz, like many others, not only said
he'd vote for Trump
but was doing this.
- Hi, this is Ted Cruz calling.
Uh, I was calling to encourage you
to come out and vote on Election Day.
- Wow, that is hard to watch.
"Hi, uh, this is Ted Cruz.
"Just calling to remind you to vote for a man
"who insulted my wife and said my dad helped kill JFK.
"Anyway, uh, life has no meaning.
"Thank you. I want to die.
"Uh, take care now. God is dead.
"Buh-bye. Buh-bye.
"Buh-bye now.
Buh-bye."
[cheers and applause]
So there is very little holding Trump back.
And remember, in January,
he will be sworn into office.
And there is another wave of nausea for you.
It hits you in small ways and large, doesn't it?
For instance, had you considered the fact
that, uh, portraits of Trump
are going to be hanging in our airports,
uh, or that the man who disparaged a Gold Star family
will now be expected to comfort the families of fallen soldiers?
And maybe you've tried to make yourself feel better,
fantasizing that he might Google
"how much does the president get paid?"
get depressed, and then resign.
But that is when you remember
Mike fucking Pence,
who might be even worse
because he looks like he's from the 1950s,
but he thinks like he's from the 1650s.
"Oh, what's that you say?
"Her pregnancy was terminated before birth?
"Well, clearly she's a witch.
"Hold a funeral for the fetus
and throw the mother in a lake."
And I know this is all depressing,
but it does bring us back to the important question,
what the fuck do we do now?
And for the record,
the answer is not move to Canada.
Literally the only excuse to ever migrate to Canada
is if you were born there originally,
it's springtime, and you are a goose.
That's it.
That is it.
[laughter and applause]
No, instead, we're go--
we're gonna need to stay here and fight
and not just politically in four years
when he's up for reelection
but constantly, monitoring legislation
as it moves through Congress
and fucking voting
when your legislators come up for reelection
in two years.
But that is still
below the barest minimum
of what is going to be needed,
because for the last eight years,
we've had a president we could assume
would generally stand up for the rights of all Americans.
But that is going to change now.
So we're gonna have to actively stand up for one another.
And it can't be just sounding off on the Internet
or sharing think pieces or videos like this one
that echo around your bubble.
I'm talking about actual sacrifice
to support people who are now under threat.
So if you can afford the time or money...
[cheers and applause]
Support organizations that are going to need help
under a Trump administration.
Uh, for instance, if you're concerned
about women's health, donate to Planned Parenthood
or the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Uh, if you don't believe man-made global warming
is a silly issue, uh, donate
to the National Resources Defense Council.
If you don't think refugees
are a terrorist army in disguise,
donate to the International Refugee Assistance Project.
Oh, and, uh, also,
given these guys' track record,
I would also recommend donations
to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,
The Trevor Project for LGBTQ youth,
and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
because that last one...
[cheers and applause]
Would be perfect if your compassion for Latinos
goes beyond, say-- I don't know--
occasionally eating a fucking taco bowl.
And--and do check the box
for recurring donations if you can
because this is not a short-term problem.
And also, just--just for a dash--
I'll give you just a dash of fun here--
I will point out
if you have relatives who supported Trump,
you can give money in their name.
So consider your holiday shopping this year done.
"Happy holidays, Nana.
The Trevor Project thanks you."
[cheers and applause]
And there is-- there's one more group
that I will single out for help here,
and that is the press,
because as we've seen, Trump is a masterful denier
of both reality and responsibility.
He's a man who would kick you in the nuts
and then tell you that your penis did it.
So the press is going to face challenges,
not just because Trump's chief strategist
is Steve Bannon of Breitbart News
but also because of yet another promise
that Trump made.
- If I become president, oh, do they have problems.
They're gonna have such problems.
I'm gonna open up our libel laws
so when they write purposely negative
and horrible and false articles,
we can sue them and win lots of money.
[cheers and applause]
We're gonna open up those libel laws.
- Okay.
Well, first,
there is no federal libel law
for Trump to "open up."
And as many supposed recipients
of Trump's charitable gifts might tell you,
you can't open something up
if it doesn't exist.
But--but that attitude of punishing the press
is genuinely worrisome
now that he is going to be president.
So instead of sharing partisan memes
you found on republigoofs.redneck
and democrappy.cuck,
you need to support actual journalism
by buying a subscription to outlets like "The Times"
or "The Post" or your local newspaper
or donating to groups like ProPublica,
a nonprofit which does great investigative journalism.
The point is,
if we don't get actively involved
to at least mitigate Trump's damage,
things will not be okay.
And yes, the sun will rise each day.
But the continuing rotation of the Earth
should not be your baseline expectation
of American society.
And I-I just need to ask you one more thing.
It is gonna be too easy
for things to start feeling normal,
especially if you are someone
who is not directly impacted by his actions.
So keep reminding yourself,
this is not normal.
Write it on a Post-it Note
and stick it on your refrigerator.
Hire a skywriter once a month.
Tattoo it on your ass.
Because a Klan-backed, misogynist Internet troll
is going to be delivering the next State of the Union address,
and that is not normal.
It is fucked up!
And the only thing
that gives me one degree of comfort
is that I think part of Trump
might be realizing that now too.
Just look at his face after meeting with Paul Ryan
and getting a glimpse of what this job
actually entails.
Here is the genuine audio from that moment.
["Curb Your Enthusiasm" theme music]
*
[laughter and applause]
I feel the same.
Look, I don't know what happens from here.
And this is actually our final show of the year.
And normally, on our last show,
we mash up elements from the season
and we dance around in the studio.
But that doesn't really seem appropriate tonight,
not just because of the election
but because 2016 has been an uncommonly shitty year,
from the ongoing crisis in Syria
to Zika, uh,
to Ryan Lochte being a douche
to a seemingly endless string of celebrity deaths,
including, just this week, Leonard Cohen.
So we've put something together
about how awful this year has been.
We started it a little while ago,
but it now feels more prescient than ever,
because even though this year
still has seven weeks left, I'm calling it early,
2016 has been the fucking worst.
So thank you for watching,
and please enjoy this tribute
to a truly terrible year.
[elegant orchestral music]
Let's face it.
2016 has been one calamity after another.
And while it will be remembered for the giant calamity
we all just witnessed,
we shouldn't lose sight of the other multiple ways
this has been a shitty year.
- If we could erase 2016 off the calendar,
it would be perfectly good with me.
- Pretty rotten year if--
I think most people would--would admit that.
- It totally blew. It was awful.
- This world is feeling scarier.
It's feeling a little colder.
- For EU, it was a really crappy year.
- The whole Brexit was kind of a mess.
- Just a lot of, like, hatred to a lot of groups.
I think--I think that's, like, been the staple of this year.
- Syrian refugee crisis is pretty terrible.
- Lots of, uh, sexism being very blatant.
- I think it's absolutely disgusting
what the city of Flint did to--to its residents.
- The New York Jets suck.
The Yankees missed the play-offs.
- I didn't like Kevin Durant going to, um...
[laughs] Going to Golden State.
[laughs] That was a chicken-shit move.
- Some asshole stole my watch in Miami.
- I got broken up with. That was pretty shitty.
- I had a girlfriend for 3 1/2 years.
She broke up with me about two months ago.
- My landlord is a piece of shit.
- I met Bruce Willis here, like, a week ago
and asked him for a picture and he said no,
so that made me feel bad.
- My son is hitting puberty
and he's being a real pain in the ass.
- I got, um, all mauled up by a dog on my birthday,
so that was, like, the cherry on top
of, like, a shitty year.
- Menopause.
- Never forget Harambe.
- If Harambe's out there listening,
he took shots for us; we should take shots for him.
- Too many deaths.
- Prince. Prince is my man.
I miss Prince.
- Prince, I mean, that was just...
*
- I think the worst is the-- David Bowie's death.
- David Bowie.
What the fuck?
- Bowie.
That was my big one.
- Phife Dawg, man. Come on, man.
Shout out to--to Q-Tip, man.
*
Tribe Called Quest, I grew up on that.
- Muhammad Ali, that was one of the biggest.
- What he represents for black people in America,
that's a huge deal for me.
- "Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee."
- Oh, God. Gene Wilder.
- Alan Rickman.
Fucking Snape, dude.
- Oh, God, yeah. - Yeah.
- Man. - Yeah.
- This year did suck.
- Fuck 2016.
- Fuck you, 2016.
- Fuck 2016.
- Fuck you, 2016.
Bad year. Shit year.
- 2016, this is for you.
- Fuck 2016. Fuck it a lot.
- Fuck 2016. And fuck Donald Trump.
- Fuck 2016.
- CNN won't let me say this on New Year's Eve,
but get fucked, 2016.
- Fuck 2016!
- [speaking a foreign language]
- What is this, mayonnaise?
Fuck 2016!
- Fuck you, 2016.
- [barking]
- Fuck you, 2016!
- 2016, fuck off.
- 2016...
falls well below my standards of quality.
- Fuck 2016.
- Fuck you, 2016.
- Hey, 2016,
go punch yourself in the dick.
- Fuck this year.
- Fuck you, 2016.
- Fuck you, John Oliver.
- Hey, 2016,
fuck you!
And hey, 2017, fuck you too!
I hate you already.
- Fuck you, 2016. - Fuck 2016!
- You're asking me?
Fuck 2016!
all: Fuck 2016!
- 2016, from the bottom of my heart,
go fuck yourself.
- Fuck you, 2016.
Fuck you.
[slow-motion whoosh]
[ticking slows]
[choir singing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"]
*
[slow-motion whooshing]
[cheers and applause]
*
[dramatic thudding]
*
That's our show.
Thanks so much for watching.
Let's all try harder next year.
Good night.
[cheers and applause]
["Ode to Joy" continues]
*
[music fades]
[fire crackling]
[bright tone]