*
[Cheering and applause]
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight."
My name is John Oliver.
Thank you so much. Thank you for being here.
Very kind.
Uh, let's have-- let's quickly, quickly--
quick recap of the week.
To be honest, this week has been
a huge disappointment.
Because all week long, we were promised a fairy tale--
California Chrome will try to become
the 12th horse to ever win the famed Triple Crown.
REPORTER: Can California Chrome do it?
Thank you, thank you. Godspeed and speed
to that great horse.
Godspeed...
Godspeed, California Chrome!
Run, run like a-- like a horse.
By which I mean as fast as you can
until that tiny man on your back stops
hitting you with a stick.
But sadly, it was not meant to be.
California Chrome lost
some of its shine
at the Belmont Stakes
when Tonalist crossed
the finish line
to win that race.
Who the fuck is Tonalist?
That's not the horse I wanted.
I wanted a different horse!
Fuck this horse.
If that horse is Tonalist.
It's hard to tell. They're all horses,
but fuck that horse!
But all was not lost because while, yes,
yesterday did not give us a Triple Crown winner,
it did give us, in California Chrome's co-owner Steve Coburn,
the Secretariat of sore losers.
I look at it this way.
If you can't make enough points to get into
the Kentucky Derby, you can't run
in the other two races.
And it's all or nothing.
It's all or nothing
because this is not fair to these horses.
Exactly.
We need to treat these horses fairly
by breeding them until they have
the structural integrity of a Jenga tower
and then when they inevitably collapse,
shooting them in the head fairly.
Well done, Coburn. Well done because...
[Cheering and applause]
it is not easy-- it is not easy
to be the least classy person at a racetrack,
but, no--but let's cut him a break actually.
I'm sure it was just the heat of the moment.
Let's see what he said this morning
once he had a chance to sleep it off and come to his senses.
You figure it out.
I mean, you ask yourself
would it be fair if I played basketball
with a child in a wheelchair?
Well, um, I guess that depends.
How good is the child's outside shot,
and are you as bad at basketball
as you are at analogies?
Meanwhile, in other absurd competitions,
there was an amazing moment last week on the German version
of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?"
Although the full title in German is...
[German accent] "Who Dares Have the Hubris to Assume They Deserve
Great Wealth For Mere Excellence in Trivia?"
Beautiful language.
It happened when the contestant...
[German accent] Wolfgang Bosbach--
just like honey off the tongue.
It happened when he decided to use his lifeline
to call German chancellor Angela Merkel.
MAN: A German lawmaker tried Merkel
for his phone a friend lifeline.
[Speaking German]
TRANSLATOR: God, who should I call now
except the chancellor?
I don't know if she's busy right now.
Let me answer that for you.
She is.
She is busy.
She's not in an important meeting
with a Greek finance minister saying...
[German accent] "Do you mind if I leave my phone on?
"Because you know the phone a friend option?
"I'm the friend!
"Any questions regarding the IMF
or Doctor Who is me!"
Please, please tell me she did not answer the phone.
WOMAN: When the show called her as their lifeline,
they got her voicemail twice.
Good!
Because the only thing worse than answering would have been
if she'd answered it saying...
[German accent] "Hi. It's Angela.
"I can't hear you.
"It's so loud in the club!
"I'm so wasted right now!
Whoo!"
And speaking of Germans losing things,
it was the 70th anniversary of D-Day this week.
[Applause]
One of--one of--
OK, OK, OK, OK.
It was actually one of two major anniversaries,
the other being the 25th anniversary
of the protests in Tiananmen Square,
Not that you wouldn't know that if you lived in China.
China's government has done its best to erase
the massacre from their history books.
REPORTER: Try searching Tiananmen Square
on China's heavily monitored Internet,
and results are censored.
25 years have passed, and we still don't know
what happened.
I think that's--
that's not-- that's not cool, I think.
Not cool? Yeah, that's not cool.
Not cool?
Wearing socks and sandals is not cool.
Ordering fries for the table
and then eating them all, that's not cool.
Erasing a massacre is chilling.
Now protesters have tried to subvert the government
using phrases like May the 35th
instead of June the fourth,
but that just caused them to clamp down even harder.
The list of banned words gets longer
and longer, so this year,
words that were banned included
like "today," "this day,"
"sensitive day,"
even the phrase "when spring turns
to summer."
No, no!
You can't ban "when spring turns to summer!"
I need full access to the Chinese market
if my romance novel is going to succeed!
And that is--
[Applause]
No one wants that.
Nobody wants that,
but the most ingenious attempt at subversion
was this--when a Chinese soap opera actress's
supposed sex video leaked last month,
an activist group edited the video to add in
messages encouraging people to show up
at Tiananmen Square
for the anniversary.
That is brilliant.
Can you even imagine how smart we would be
if we snuck information into our pornography?
"I want you so bad."
"Actually, it's badly,
"and that's just one of 6 grammar rules
I'm anxious to cover during this fornication."
Unfortunately, pornography is illegal in China,
so the government took it down.
So what we'd need to sneak the message out there
would be something both legal
and massively popular among China's youth.
REPORTER: "Friends" lives on in the heart
of the Chinese capital,
where a Central Perk replica has been built by Du Xin.
We want to be like one of the characters
in the show.
It's about caring between friends.
I'm crazy about "Friends."
Yeah. China is for some reason
absolutely obsessed with "Friends."
And Did you know that the Chinese character
for "obsession with Friends" is the same
as the one for "opportunity"?
Because with that in mind, this might help
young people in China remember Tiananmen Square next year.
*
Gentlemen, pick your category.
Fears and pet peeves.
"What is Monica's biggest pet peeve?"
[Dubbed voice] The government killing people.
Correct.
Ladies.
Same category.
According to Chandler...
[Dubbed voice] how many died in the 1989
Tiananmen Square protests?
[Dubbed voice] Anywhere from 200 to 2,600!
That is correct.
[Dubbed voice] But why'd they kill those guys?
[Dubbed voice] They wanted free speech
and government accountability.
*
Hang in there, China.
"We'll be there for you."
Now moving on.
I'd like to talk to you about the sausage principle
the theory that says if you love something,
never find out how it was made.
Well, tonight, I would like to
show you my sausage.
Wait, wait. Wait, wait.
This is my sausage.
ANNOUNCER: The 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Ooh!
OK, the World Cup starts this week,
and I am both excited and conflicted about it.
Now I know in America soccer is something you
pick your 10-year-old daughter up from,
but for me and everyone else on Earth,
it's a little more important.
REPORTER: Soccer had become Brazil's religion.
REPORTER: In Colombia, soccer is a religion.
REPORTER: Football is a religion here.
Soccer, or football like we say, it's a religion.
Yeah, and they're not exaggerating.
When David Beckham got a tattoo of Jesus,
the response of most soccer fans was,
"Ooh, that's huge for Jesus.
That's--that's a big deal for him."
Here's my conflict.
The World Cup is one of my favorite things,
but it's organized by these guys--FIFA.
You either know it as the Fédération Internationale
de Football Association
or that soccer video game you have,
but for American viewers who may never have
encountered them, FIFA is a comically
grotesque organization.
In fact, telling someone about the inner workings
of FIFA for the first time is a bit like
showing someone "2 Girls 1 Cup."
You do it mainly so you can watch
the horrified expression on people's faces.
Because let's start where FIFA's current World Cup
is about to take place, Brazil.
Brazilians are excited about everything.
This is how they celebrate the fact
that it's just about to be Lent.
They love the concept of giving up chocolate temporarily.
They're also the biggest soccer fans on Earth,
so they must be thrilled at the prospect
of hosting the world cup.
REPORTER: There's months of unrest in some
of the city's favelas, or slums,
with clashes between police and residents.
Here people demonstrated against Brazil
holding the World Cup.
That makes no sense.
Why would you be unhappy hosting the thing
that you love the most in the world?
REPORTER: The government has spent more than $11 billion
getting ready.
JON FRANKEL: The United States team
will play its second game
here in the city of Manaus
in this brand-new, $270 million stadium.
Manaus is so remote that it's almost impossible
to reach by car, which is why officials
had to have the stadium materials brought in by boat,
shipped across the Atlantic from Portugal
and up the Amazon river.
OK. That does seem like a waste of money,
especially when you consider that that stadium
is only going to be used for 4 World Cup games.
There's no team in Manaus that can fill it afterwards,
at which point it becomes
the world's most expensive bird toilet.
No wonder Brazilians are so upset,
especially when you think about what they are
actually getting in return.
Well, and they're going to make money,
as well as the money they're spending.
Actually, FIFA makes the money.
This is where the controversy is.
The country usually doesn't make money.
FIFA, the organization of the World Cup,
is who makes the money.
Yeah. Brazil, let put this in terms you might understand.
Think of money as pubic hair and FIFA as wax.
They're going to be all over you during the World Cup,
but when they go, they're taking
all the money with them,
including some from places you didn't know you had,
leaving you teary eyed, going,
"Jesus, what happened here?
"What--what happened?
I'm never doing this again!"
Because here are FIFA's tax demands
for prospective host countries...
It is FIFA and its FIFA subsidiaries
that are fully exempt from any tax
whatsoever levied at whatever level,
state level, municipality level.
All sorts of taxes-- consumption taxes,
income taxes, you name it, it's all exempt.
That's right. By Brazil's own estimates,
they're allowing FIFA to forego $250 million in taxes.
Somewhere, Wesley Snipes is going,
"So soccer was the answer.
"Oh, God.
It seems so obvious now."
Now FIFA says they leave a lot behind,
which they do, like new laws.
Because, you see, once upon a time,
Brazil did this.
In 2003, the Brazilian government banned alcohol
from stadiums because of the enormously high
death rate amongst fans.
Well, that seems like a good idea.
Potentially life-saving, even.
The only problem is Budweiser is one
of FIFA's key sponsors,
and they sell a product they reflexively insist
on calling "beer,"
and FIFA seemed anxious to protect Budweiser
from a law designed to protect people,
which is why FIFA's secretary general went
to Brazil with a simple message.
[French accent] "Yes. Maybe I look a bit arrogant,
"but, uh--how you say--
"fuck your laws and your public safety.
Is that--is that right?"
And the amazing thing is FIFA won.
They successfully pressured Brazil into passing
the so-called "Budweiser bill,"
allowing beer sales in soccer stadiums,
and at this point, you can either be horrified
by that or relieved that FIFA wasn't also
sponsored by cocaine and chain saws.
And Brazil-- Brazil is lucky.
Brazil's lucky.
At least, they just had FIFA force alcohol on them.
When South Africa hosted the World Cup 4 years ago,
FIFA forced the creation of the FIFA World Cup Courts,
which sound funny.
It's like going to the World Series and being
dragged in front of Judge Philly Phanatic,
except FIFA's courts were no joke.
Two Zimbabweans who robbed foreign journalists
on a Wednesday were arrested on a Thursday and began
15-year jail sentences the next day.
That is unsettlingly fast.
That's like when you order Chinese food
and it comes 5 minutes later.
Thanks very much, but that was too quick.
You didn't have time to make this properly.
And there is a certain irony in FIFA setting up
any kind of justice system, given the scandals that have
dogged it over the years.
Football's governing body has tried to tackle
its shady inner workings by suspending two executives
on corruption charges.
The FIFA scandal rumbles on.
Jack Warner, who was at the center of bribery accusations,
has resigned as vice president.
There's been so many corruption scandals
that FIFA have had to deal with.
Bribery and FIFA go together like
peanut butter and jelly.
Yeah, but they shouldn't, though.
Peanut butter and jelly are supposed to go together.
FIFA and bribery should go together like
peanut butter and a child with a deadly nut allergy.
No, Devin, no!
It's for your brother!
And if you think FIFA can't get any more
cartoonishly evil,
this is their headquarters' actual boardroom.
That's right.
FIFA apparently modeled where they meet
on the war room from "Dr. Strangelove."
That is exhibit "A" for an organization that
does not give a shit what you think about them,
and yet, the head of FIFA maintains that they are merely
a humble, nonprofit organization.
We are a nonprofit organization,
and we have to remain a nonprofit organization.
A nonprofit with over a billion dollars in the bank.
Yes, but this is a reserve.
A reserve?
A reserve of a billion dollars?
When your rainy day fund is so big you've got to
check it for swimming cartoon ducks,
you might not be a nonprofit anymore.
That--by the way--
[Cheering and applause]
that man--the man you just saw
is Sepp Blatter,
and even his name should have been a red flag.
If your name is Sepp, at the bare minimum,
you've strangled someone in a bar fight.
That's just a fact.
And let me just give you a taste of Sepp Blatter
as a human being.
Recently, he was asked how should women's soccer
be made more popular.
He said, well, they should wear shorter shorts.
Great idea.
Put the ladies in hot paints,
call it foxy soccer,
and while you're at it, tighten up the jerseys,
maybe replace the ball with a plate of hot wings,
and, fuck it, let's just open a Hooters.
FIFA--FIFA, the humble nonprofit,
even recently spent $27 million to fund
"United Passions," a fictionalized version
of their history starring, for some reason,
Tim Roth as Sepp Blatter,
and this movie, like FIFA itself, looks terrible.
We'll be the Fédération Internationale
de Football Association.
FIFA.
The first World Cup will be held in Uruguay.
MAN: You have everything you need to run our family,
but, you know, the slightest error,
and you're out.
Who makes a sports film where the heroes are the executives?
And the crazy thing is, you don't need two hours
and Tim Roth because the greatest film
about Sepp Blatter has already been made.
It's 10 seconds long, and it's on YouTube.
[Men speaking French]
[Laughter and applause]
That is--wonderfully--
that is the one time you can genuinely say,
"I'm glad that old man fell off a stage."
But perhaps the worst part of FIFA is not even
its past or its present.
It's its future
because the host of the 2022 World Cup
has already been decided.
The winner to organize the 2022 FIFA World Cup
is Qatar!
Qatar?
There's between 1 and 50 reasons why
that is an awful idea.
Summer temperatures in Qatar can reach some
50 degrees Celsius,
a difficult environment to hold
a professional sporting event outdoors.
50 degrees Celsius is 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
You are hosting the World Cup somewhere
where soccer cannot physically be played.
That's like if the NFL chose to host
the Super Bowl in a lake.
Now there are now allegations that some FIFA executives
took bribes to put the World Cup in Qatar,
and I hope that's true
because, otherwise, it makes literally no sense,
and not just because of the weather
but because of the working conditions.
WOMAN: Qatar is a slave state in the 21st century.
REPORTER: A migrant worker can't leave the country
without an exit visa.
That visa has to be approved by his employer.
Who has your passport?
So you're trapped here?
We've got coffins coming on every day,
more than a worker per day on average is dying.
WOMAN: Conservatively from the figures
of just two countries, India and Nepal,
more than 4,000 workers will die before a ball
is kicked off in 2022.
So what you're essentially saying is
the Qatar World Cup is shaping up to be
the most deadly Middle East construction project
since this one.
And by this point, I hope I've proven to you
that FIFA is just appalling,
and yet here's their power.
I am still so excited about the World Cup next week,
and it's very hard to justify how I can get so much joy
from an organization that's caused so much pain
other than going back to where we started.
Soccer, or football like we say,
it's a religion.
But it's not just that.
It's an organized religion,
and FIFA is its church.
Just think about it.
Its leader is infallible,
it compels South American countries to spend money
they don't have building opulent cathedrals,
and it may ultimately be responsible
for the deaths of shocking numbers of people
in the Middle East,
but--but--but--
[Applause]
but for millions of people around the world,
like me, it is also the guardian
of the only thing that gives their lives any meaning,
and if that comparison does not make Americans
love soccer, then frankly nothing will.
And now this.
I worked in the business of politics back when you had
people like O'Neill, Tip O'Neill, my boss.
I worked for Tip O'Neill, as everybody knows.
My great boss Tip O'Neill...
Tip O'Neill, my old boss...
And I got to go because I was Tip's guy.
Tip...Tip...Tip...Tip O'Neill.
By the way, my old boss Tip O'Neill loved
"The Golden Girls."
And finally, finally tonight,
a lighter subject--Syria.
For 3 years now, Bashar al-Assad has been
brutally clamping down on his own people,
killing an estimated 100,000 people
and displacing millions,
and yet, Assad is still there.
He's like herpes or "A Prairie Home Companion."
At this point, he's clearly never
fucking going away,
and this week, in the midst of the bloodbath,
he even had the bare-faced balls to stage an election.
Guess how that turned out.
WOMAN: According to new reports this afternoon
President Bashar al-Assad allegedly won
nearly 89% of the votes.
89%? That is too high.
All dictators should know
a rigged election should be like a pleasant spring day--
high 60s, low 70s.
[Cheering and applause]
Now. Yes.
Bashar al-Assad is a maniac,
and nothing we can do is going to stop him.
We even tried taking away his chemical weapons last year.
Guess what happened.
REPORTER: The Syrian regime may have found a loophole.
Chlorine gas, which can be used legitimately
in water treatment, has also allegedly been used
in recent government bombing attacks.
The poison gas burns the lungs and can be deadly.
And we're not going to do anything about that
because the opposition are literally made up of literally
of 1,000 distinct armed units,
and any regime change is likely to be followed
by ethnic cleansing,
and I know you're thinking "Well, it's the Middle East.
"I'm sure everything will be fine.
It always is,"
but honestly, this time, I'm not so sure.
Basically, we are stuck,
and Syria is at the mercy of this guy.
So if we're forced to live in a perpetual nightmare,
let's at least learn something about the man who put us there.
What is this supervillain's back story?
REPORTER: Growing up, he was a polite boy
who never lorded his status over his friends.
Assad ended up studying ophthalmology in London
and was known more for his love of volleyball
and rock music than for his interest
in Syrian politics.
OK. That's as surprise.
A volleyball-, music-loving ophthalmologist was not
the back story I was expecting,
although, when you look at his face,
it does actually make sense
because he could not look more like
an ophthalmologist than that.
So why didn't he just follow his dream,
his incredibly boring dream, and do that?
Because He should be treating an 8-year-old's case
of pink eye right now,
and the tragic thing is that actually could have happened
fit wasn't for a cruel twist of fate.
REPORTER: In 1994, Assad was suddenly called back
to Syria after his older brother was killed
in a car accident.
He was now next in line to rule.
So he was actually second choice
behind his older brother,
and we're just lucky to have avoided
the third Assad brother Dustin, who's such a screw-up
he forgot to wish Aunt Linda a happy birthday.
Fuck you, Dustin!
She only turns 75 once.
Look. I'm not a psychologist,
but I would say that Assad has some family issues.
The strong figure in this family
after the death of Hafez al-Assad
was Aniseh, the wife of Hafez al-Assad,
the mother of Bashar,
and she was known early on in this rebellion
to urge Bashar to crack down even harder,
to live up to the legacy of his father.
So his mother is pressuring him?
Absolutely.
Oh, that's just perfect.
So now we've got a brutal dictator
with mommy issues.
Next thing we're going to hear about him
it's his bed-wetting problem
and the fact that he won't go anywhere
without his Woobie.
In fact, the more you learn about Assad,
the more you're forced to come to terms
with the fact that he's half mass murderer
and half your creepy sophomore-year roommate
because two years ago, a trove of his e-mails leaked,
and all of a sudden, the world had
a fascinating glimpse into his music tastes.
JOHN KING: And as the people of Syria have been fighting
and dying for their freedom, their president
Bashar al-Assad apparently has been
ordering pop music off iTunes.
His play list includes
"Sexy and I Know It"
by LMFAO.
LMFAO?
So we're dealing with someone
with the political instincts of a young Joseph Stalin
and the music tastes of a 14-year-old girl
from Orange County named Tiffany.
"That song is so hot right now."
Among Assad's other iTunes purchases were--
and this is true-- a song from "Right Said Fred,"
the British sensation
that you might remember from this...
* I'm too sexy for your body
* Too sexy for your body *
That is--that is a great song, by the way,
but--but--but it should not be on a dictator's play list.
A dictator's power is in their mystique.
When you picture Assad, he wants you to hear this...
[Ominous music playing]
But now--now when you look at him,
all you should be able to hear is this...
RIGHT SAID FRED: * I'm sexy, and I know it
And that's the point. That's the point.
Yes--yes, he's a monster, but he's also a moron,
which is why it's so frustrating that
we are powerless to do anything to hurt him.
If only there were something, however small,
that we could do.
I guess we could find something he loves
and turn it against him.
We could track down, let's say, Right Said Fred,
and we could, hypothetically,
fly them all the way over here from London to perform
a specially rewritten anti-Assad version
of their greatest hit, but--
[Cheering and applause]
but would it really be worth all that time
and expense just for the momentary catharsis
of mildly irritating one of the worst people
on the planet?
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you
one of Bashar al-Assad's favorite bands
Right Said Fred!
[Cheering and applause]
*
* You're too awful for this Earth *
* Too awful for this Earth
* So awful it hurts
* Your face has barely got a chin *
* It's barely got a chin
* You look just like him
* So please stop downloading our tracks *
* Stop downloading our tracks *
* Here's your money back
* You're a monster
* We hate your regime
* And we think you should be tried for war crimes *
* Yeah, for war crimes yeah, for war crimes, yeah *
* You probably should be on trial for war crimes *
* You're an ophthalmologist, an ophthalmologist *
* Hey, can you read this?
* You're just a walking taint *
* The opposite of a saint *
* At least Hitler could paint *
* You're a monster and a volleyball fan *
* But more than that, you're an asshole *
* You're an asshole who's afraid of his mom *
* You're a murdering, mom-fearing asshole *
* You're an asshole, you're an asshole, yeah *
* Everyone thinks you're an asshole *
All together now!
* You're an asshole, you're an asshole, yeah *
* Everyone thinks you're an asshole *
[Cheering]
Here we go!
* Please stop listening to our songs *
Yes!
That's our show! Thank you!
That's our show! Thank you.
Thank you to Right Said Fred.
Thanks for watching. Have a great week!
*