[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's dive straight in with the latest installment
in what we're calling Stupid Watergate,
something with all the potential national shame of Watergate,
brought to you by people too stupid
to grasp the concept of shame.
Now, this week, former FBI director
and worst person to sit behind in a movie theater,
James Comey, got everybody's attention.
- Breaking news tonight: striking revelations
and allegations from James Comey, under oath,
telling Congress he has no doubt he was fired
because of the Russia investigation.
- Now, it was undeniably dramatic,
but the notion that Comey was fired
because of the Russia investigation
isn't actually new or controversial.
It is easy to forget,
but Trump himself suggested as much
in an interview just a month ago,
so it's more a known fact
that many people choose to ignore,
like a pet snake is a character flaw
or DJs aren't doing anything up there.
But nevertheless, James Comey,
the result of a mall security guard's
drunken hookup with an oak tree,
did testify before
the senate intelligence committee,
and within three minutes,
he had forcefully addressed
Trump's initial excuse for firing him.
- Saying that the organization was in disarray,
that it was poorly led,
that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader--
those were lies, plain and simple.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.
Hold on there, 'cause let's be honest here,
Donald Trump's lies are never plain and simple.
Each one is like an Everlasting Gobstopper:
you'll never make it through every layer
because it was produced by an insane person
who should never be in charge of anything.
You're a good candy man, Willy, but the Oompa-Loompas
have been shitting in the chocolate river,
and you're about to leave your estate
to the only child you didn't nearly murder today.
You have no business running a factory.
And that was just one of many times
Comey questioned the president's credibility.
Just listen to the amazing reason
that Comey gave for taking detailed notes
on his meetings with Trump.
- I was honestly concerned that he might lie
about the nature of our meeting,
and so I thought it really important to document.
- He is describing his meeting with the president
like a person who thought he was about to be murdered.
"All of a sudden, we were alone,
"so I texted my location to a friend
and tried to get some of his DNA under my fingernails."
[laughter]
And look, it is a good thing
that Comey, a disgruntled giraffe
who was somehow cursed by a warlock
to head the FBI, did take notes,
because some of his encounters with the president
got pretty weird, like the infamous dinner
where Trump allegedly asked for his loyalty.
- How unusual is it to have
a one-on-one dinner with the president?
Did that strike you as odd?
- Yeah, so much so that I assumed
there would be others,
that he couldn't possibly be having dinner with me alone.
- Yeah.
He was tricked into a one-on-one dinner
with Donald Trump, which is definitely
not the first time that that has happened.
Comey is just lucky, frankly, that Trump didn't try and pull
the old "hole in a bucket of popcorn" trick.
And look, look, let's-- let's all admit,
it is also better to have a dinner alone with Trump
than have Jared Kushner there too,
just staring at you silently with his creepy, dead eyes.
"Oh, is that you, Jared?
"I thought you were a painting
of an orphan from the Great Depression."
[laughter]
But the truth is, the most tantalizing moment
may turn out to be the things
that Comey didn't or wasn't able to say,
like in this exchange.
- Do you believe Donald Trump colluded with Russia?
- That's a question I don't think I should answer
in an open setting.
- "Yeah, I can't answer that question here,
"although I have been screaming the word 'yes'
"into this paper bag for the last four weeks,
"which I can submit as evidence to the committee if required.
I will, however, need to be provided with a new scream bag."
Now, Comey declining to answer
doesn't necessarily mean there's anything there.
He could just be operating out of an abundance of caution,
but there was a moment
where he seemed to hint at something new,
and it came when discussing the FBI's lack of surprise
at Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusing himself
from the Russia investigation.
- Our judgment, as I recall, was that he was very close to,
and inevitably going to, recuse himself
for a variety of reasons.
We also were aware of facts
that I can't discuss in an open setting
that would make his continued engagement
in a Russia-related investigation
problematic.
- Now, that sounds like a big deal.
If someone asks you
if you've ever had sex with a turtle,
and you say, "There are facts about that
I can't discuss in an open setting,"
the answer is yes,
and the closed setting you'd prefer to discuss it in
is Eggs-List.com, a message board
for finding hot, freshly hatched turtles to have sex with.
Now, all in all, Comey's testimony appears
pretty damaging for the White House,
and in the immediate aftermath,
even Fox News was struggling to spin any positives.
- Politically, I thought it was very damaging to the president.
- I am concerned after hearing Jim Comey today.
It was far stronger, more credible, and more damning
than the statement we got from Jim Comey yesterday.
- I think this sort of brings home
the question of the president's credibility,
which is always a big loss.
- Wow, that is not good, although at this point,
saying something "damaged Trump's credibility"
is kind of like saying,
"That graffiti is a real eyesore
on that pile of dead pigeons."
But as-- as for the president himself,
he was notably silent the day of the hearing
but sent a tweet early the next morning that began,
"Despite so many false statements and lies,
total and complete vindication,"
and just think about what he's saying there.
Trump is essentially claiming that he's been vindicated
by testimony he's claiming is false.
At this point, he's become a walking logical paradox.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised
if he just starts tweeting things like,
"I just traveled back in time and killed myself. Very unfair!"
And in a press conference later that day,
Trump reiterated his claim that Comey had lied,
which prompted an obvious question.
- Would you be willing to speak under oath
to give your version--
- One hundred percent.
- So if Robert Mueller wanted to speak with you about that--
- I would be glad to tell him
exactly what I just told you, Jim.
- Holy shit.
Trump just volunteered to testify under oath,
putting himself in a situation
where it's his word against Comey's,
and it was notable that for all the pushback
Republican senators gave Comey,
they never once questioned his honesty and his integrity
or challenged his characterization of Trump
as a liar,
so why did Trump just seem to expose himself like that?
I don't know.
I cannot explain his behavior.
Jane Goodall could not explain his behavior.
She could watch Trump for a decade
and eventually conclude, "I don't know.
"I think it's a cocktail of insecurity,
"horniness, and malice,
"but which is in control of which is beyond me.
"I miss the integrity and emotional intelligence
of the apes."
But perhaps the most infuriating response
to Comey's revelations this week
came from House Speaker Paul Ryan,
a man who proves that you can live
a normal, healthy life without a spine,
because Ryan's explanation was truly pathetic.
- The president's new at this.
He's new to government,
and so he probably wasn't steeped
in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships
between DOJ, FBI, and White Houses.
He's just new to this.
[crowd groans and laughs]
- There are so many problems with what he just said,
but the main one is that there are undeniably times
when the excuse "he's new to this" is fair.
If you work at a daycare, and on your first day,
you mix up the three Olivias, no big deal.
You're new here.
But if on your first day, you set up a baby fight club,
that is not okay,
and you should've known that before you started.
And a president attempting
to shut down an investigation into a subordinate
is pretty firmly the latter option here,
and you want their supervisors to look into that,
even if the first rule of Baby Fight Club
is that you cannot talk about Baby Fight Club
in an open setting.
And now this.
[dramatic orchestral music]
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♪ ♪
[laughter]
♪ ♪
[playing patriotic music]
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
- Moving on.
Our main story tonight concerns the United Kingdom,
the country that's been saying, "Yas, Queen" for centuries.
We've been saying it for centuries.
Yas, Queen, yas!
Yas, Queen!
Now, the UK held a national election this week.
There wasn't actually due to be one for three years,
but Prime Minister Theresa May called it early.
It's called a snap election,
and she did it to consolidate her power,
although it didn't quite work out that way.
- A disaster for the UK prime minister tonight.
Theresa May's Conservatives suffering a stunning setback.
- Her goal of securing a stronger hand
for Brexit negotiations has backfired spectacularly.
The snap general election has ended with a hung parliament.
- Yes, this was a clusterfuck,
or to be more precise,
a crumpet-fuck of epic proportions.
Theresa May is hanging on to her job by a thread.
So to stay in power, she's attempting to cut
a distasteful deal with the DUP,
a hard-line, anti-gay,
anti-abortion party in Northern Ireland,
which has opened her up to even more criticism.
Meanwhile, there are rumors of a leadership challenge
from within her own party by Boris Johnson,
a grown man who perpetually looks
like a seven-year-old who's just spun in circles
for two minutes and is about to throw up,
and while Theresa May did manage
to win reelection in her own constituency,
even that came with some humiliation,
and let me explain:
British politics has a proud tradition
of having all candidates standing together on the stage
when the results are announced, even joke candidates,
which means that on election night,
as her party was dealt a massive blow,
the prime minister, here, had to stand on stage
alongside Elmo, who got three votes,
as well as Howling Laud Hope
of the Monster Raving Loony Party,
who got 119 votes,
and if you've noticed this guy,
wait till you hear his name.
[laughter]
- Oh--oh, you can roll your eyes all you like, Theresa.
Your evening just found a way to get a lot worse.
And for the record, Lord Buckethead is this guy,
an intergalactic space lord who ran on a platform of,
among other things, the abolition of the Lords,
brackets, "except me,"
and "stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia;
start buying lasers from Lord Buckethead."
And he did this all while looking
like Darth Vader fucked an Amazon Echo.
What I'm saying is-- what I'm saying is,
British politics, when done well,
can be very fun.
So--so how did Theresa May suffer such a setback
in an election that just two months ago
she was predicted to win in a landslide?
Well, among other things,
she ran a campaign full of mistakes, flip-flops,
and uninspiring moments like this.
- What's the naughtiest thing you ever did?
- Oh, goodness, me.
Well, I suppose...
Gosh, do you know, I'm not quite sure.
I have to confess, when me and my friends
sort of used to run through the fields of wheat,
the farmers weren't too pleased about that.
[laughter]
- The naughtiest thing you've ever done
is run through a wheat field?
I cannot imagine a scenario when that is ever naughty
unless you're doing it while high on PCP
and fucking a cantaloupe.
Now, one of the beneficiaries of the election
was May's key opponent, Jeremy Corbyn.
He and Britain's Labor party
vastly outperformed expectations,
despite taking some rough treatment
from the British tabloids, so this was
a genuinely impressive performance for Corbyn,
only slightly undercut by one awkward moment
with a fellow party leader.
- Mr. Corbyn was beaming as he arrived
at his own count in Islington last night,
though his high-five with Emily Thornberry
went a touch too far, perhaps.
[crowd groans]
- That-- that's not ideal.
That's not ideal.
A celebratory moment immediately followed
by history's most catastrophic rounding of second base.
[laughter]
And look, look, I do not agree with Theresa May
on the vast majority of issues, although I will say,
the tone of some of the coverage surrounding her setback
was more than a little sexist.
- The face of Theresa May: the look of a woman defeated,
heavily made up
as if she'd been in tears earlier,
her voice cracking at times, I thought.
- "And if there's one thing I can recognize,
"it's the look of a woman defeated.
"It's the one my female colleagues give me
"any time I tell them to smile more in the office.
"Anyway, back to you in the studio, Angela.
"See, there it is, that's the exact expression
"I'm referring to there.
Cheer up, old girl. You look absolutely miserable."
Now, the whole point of May calling this election
early in the first place was to strengthen her hand
going into Brexit negotiations,
and though it has done the exact opposite of that,
tonight, let's take a look
at what those talks are going to involve,
because talks are set to begin a week from tomorrow,
and they need to be completed by March of 2019,
which is not a lot of time to do something
incredibly important and incredibly complicated.
- Britain wants out of the EU,
but we've been in for more than 40 years,
with our countries, our systems becoming
more and more tangled up with each other,
more and more enmeshed, and we only have two years
to hammer out a divorce deal.
- It's true, this is going to be a messy, complicated divorce,
and it's a rough analogy,
but try and think of it this way:
imagine if Florida wanted to secede from the union.
Nice, right?
But think about everything
that that would actually entail.
Florida has a border with Alabama and Georgia
that would potentially need patrolling.
Any Florida goods going over that border,
like oranges or meth,
would likely be subject to tariffs,
and then you'd need to decide
whether Floridians would be welcome
to live and work in the U.S.
or Americans welcome in Florida,
and that's before you even get into the tricky question
of who's forced to take custody of Hulk Hogan.
The point is,
Florida and the U.S. splitting up would be
an immensely complicated process.
It's a great idea, and we should definitely do it,
but it wouldn't be easy,
and Brexit is going to be vastly more difficult
and more expensive too.
For a start, a so-called divorce bill
needs to be negotiated,
where the UK settles financial commitments
that they made while a part of the EU,
and some estimates put that as high as 100 billion euros.
And that's just the beginning: now, broadly speaking,
the question is whether the UK will have
a hard or a soft Brexit,
and that is a concept that British TV
has repeatedly attempted to explain,
sometimes in the most ludicrous possible fashion.
- The options range from a harder Brexit
to a softer Brexit,
and what better way to judge people's political tastes
than through cheese: hard or soft?
- What?
[laughter]
What better way to judge
people's political tastes than through cheese?
I don't know; off the top of my head,
literally all other ways.
Even BuzzFeed would find "Tell Us What Cheese You Like,
And We'll Tell You What Brexit You Want"
to be too stupid for one of their quizzes,
and they've run the actual quizzes
"Should You Stick This Up Your Butt?"
and "Which Olsen Twin Are You?"--which is ridiculous,
because, as we addressed last week,
there is only one Olsen twin.
It's a gigantic conspiracy. You're being lied to.
I just don't know why yet.
But anyway, put that aside.
That report actually had some useful information in it,
if you can ignore the fact
that it is pointlessly written on cheese.
- A harder Brexit would see the UK leave the single market.
The UK would then trade with the EU
under World Trade Organization rules.
We'd also have more of a say over our borders
so we could control immigration.
A softer Brexit would see the UK
remain part of the single market,
there'd be continued free access for EU nationals,
but Britain's exports wouldn't be subject to border checks.
- And that's actually a pretty decent explainer,
although I really must insist
that cheese is distractingly weird.
Really, the only time cheese should be used
as a framing device is if you are a mouse couple
posing for wedding photos,
and even then, it's a little Pinterest-y.
I'm--I'm just saying,
it's never a bad idea to ask yourself,
if you somehow couldn't Instagram your wedding,
would you still be getting married?
Anyway.
The point is, within that hard-soft framework
are decisions that will affect a lot of lives.
Take immigration: there are currently 3 million
EU citizens living in the UK
and 1.2 million British citizens living in Europe,
all of whom presumably wouldn't mind knowing
where they're going to be allowed to live
and what their rights might be in just two years' time.
Then there's the issue of Northern Ireland,
which is part of the UK and will therefore Brexit,
but the Republic of Ireland is part of the EU,
and any effort to stop policing the border between them
will be difficult because there is a long and painful history
of tensions on the subject of that divide.
The idea of border checkpoints
suddenly splitting communities again
could quickly become a nightmare,
so this is a huge, delicate problem,
which one news report illustrated
in the most whimsical way possible.
- Pip the dog goes on a brief excursion
to the Republic of Ireland...
and returns to the United Kingdom
just as easily.
- This dog, he had no license
to cross the border,
so he'll have to go to jail now.
He's an illegal immigrant.
- Now, yes.
Yes, now-- yes, that is, undeniably,
an objectively silly way
to illustrate an important issue,
although I will say I'm not sure
there is a better metaphor
for the British Empire
than a jolly chap named Pip
shows fuck-all respect for a border.
"This bit of land here is mine. This one too.
This part is very fun to play around in."
And we haven't even got
to what may be the most
difficult issue of all here,
and that is trade,
because pulling out of the EU single market
without striking a favorable trade deal
could expose UK products to high tariffs,
and that is especially worrisome for farmers,
since around 2/3 of the UK's agricultural exports
go to the EU, not to mention
the significant EU farm subsidies
that would be lost, so it's frankly no wonder
that farmers are concerned.
- Andrew Baugh's family have farmed here since 1947.
If we leave without a trade deal,
he'll be badly hit.
- We'd have a job to export things because of the tariffs,
particularly with something like these sheep,
which 1/3 of all lambs in the country
need to be exported.
The whole food industry, I believe, is at risk.
[laughter]
- [unintelligible]
- Yeah, we're gonna have a rub now.
That's what we do in life.
- Now--now, listen.
Could they have cut out of that interview
before the pig started grinding on that post?
Yes, but they didn't, because they knew
that twerking pig may actually be
the perfect embodiment of the entire Brexit situation:
it's in motion already,
we're all powerless to stop it,
and it is impossible to look away.
[laughter]
And as for how the British economy will fare
outside of EU-negotiated trade agreements,
that is also very much unclear.
Some argue that things could work out great
and that no matter what,
British products are so desirable,
they will find eager customers all around the world,
and maybe that's true.
Maybe pork pies, Marmite, mushy peas,
and undiagnosed clinical depression
will all take the planet by storm,
and sure, that is technically-- technically possible,
but there is a massive amount of work to do
before that can happen.
For instance, the UK will need to decide
which EU laws regulating many of its industries
it'll choose to keep on everything
from workers' rights to environmental protection.
It'll also likely need to set up its own regulatory agencies
to replace the EU bodies that it's been relying on,
and it may also need to negotiate new treaties
to replace the 759 EU broker deals
that it will immediately be excluded from,
governing everything from wine to nuclear power
to the 1981 bilateral agreement with Iceland
concerning the trade of sheep meat and goat meat.
What I'm trying to say is, any single part of Brexit
is a mountainous task,
and that is before you get to the tiny little bits
that you understandably haven't even thought might be a problem.
- 250,000 dogs and cats
go across the British Channel every year.
Trying to work out how the pet passports work,
that would take several months of negotiation.
- He's right.
They even have to work out the issue of pet passports,
and while they are a genuine logistical concern,
pet passports do also sound like they belong
to real asshole cats and dogs.
"I mean, technically, I'm a Persian,
but I consider myself more a citizen of the world."
Fuck you, Muffin.
You still use your mouth to clean your butt.
You're not better than me.
You're not better than me!
And remember, the entire Brexit deal with the EU
needs to be finalized within just two years,
and if you're thinking, well, what if they don't get it done
in that time, well, this happens.
- If there's no deal, that leaves only one option:
the cliff edge.
[laughter]
- The cliff edge describes the reality
of one day being in the EU,
with everything that that means,
and the next day being out of it with no deal.
- You know, there is exactly one instance
in which the melodramatic stock footage
of an old-timey car flying off a cliff
is appropriate for news broadcast,
and congratulations, you have all just witnessed it,
because if there is no deal,
everything, from tariffs to immigration,
will basically default
to the harshest possible scenario,
which could destabilize the entire country,
and look, in theory,
they could get an extension on the negotiation,
but that would require all 27 EU members
to unanimously approve it,
and I would not rely on that happening.
The EU has a vested interest in making this negotiation
as difficult as possible,
because however much they may value the UK as a partner,
they need to dissuade any other countries from pulling out,
and the EU is already taking a firm line.
For instance, after the Brexit vote,
Boris Johnson, a man with the face
of a Roald Dahl character
and the uncomfortable racism of a Roald Dahl,
claims that our policy
is having our cake and eating it.
Well, watch EU President Donald Tusk dismantle that idea.
- To all who believe in it,
I propose a simple experiment.
Buy a cake, eat it,
and see if it is still there on the plate.
[laughter]
There will be no cakes on the table.
For anyone.
There will be only salt and vinegar.
- Ouch.
Ouch, Donald, ouch.
Nothing but salt and vinegar.
That is some tough talk,
although someone should probably tell him
that British people absolutely love salt and vinegar.
Just look at all of our variations
on salt and vinegar crisps.
So to be honest, threatening the British
by saying there will be only salt and vinegar on the table
is like threatening the French by saying
there will only be wine and baguettes,
or threatening the Swiss by saying
there will only be chocolate and Nazi gold.
Those are their two favorite things.
They like those equally.
The fact is, the UK currently faces a daunting task.
The pound has suffered since the Brexit vote,
and Theresa May seems to have fatally weakened her position
going into the negotiations,
making it harder for her to enact her plan,
although it wasn't clear
what the fuck that plan was in the first place,
because while she seems to favor a hard Brexit,
she could be maddeningly evasive when asked for specifics.
- People talk about the sort of Brexit
that there is going to be.
Is it hard? Soft? Is it gray? White?
Actually, we want a red, white, and blue Brexit.
That is the right Brexit for the United Kingdom.
- But what does that mean?
You're heading into a negotiation
that will set the course for Britain for generations,
and you're naming colors on the fucking flag.
Forget running through fields of wheat;
that may be the most ridiculous thing you've ever said.
And actually, you know what, I apologize
to that guy from before.
I said there was literally no worse way
to discuss this than with cheese,
but I was not counting on Thatcher in the Rye here
answering a policy question with a fucking color scheme.
And you know what?
Her vagueness did not go unnoticed.
In fact, it is not a great sign
that the single most honest statement
from any candidate in this election
regarding the difficulty of the task ahead
came from a man with a 2-foot bucket
on his head.
- Your prime minister, your MP, Theresa May,
called this election about Brexit.
Have we heard from her what she plans to do
about Brexit?
No.
This is mad.
On Thursday, you are going to be faced
with Prime Minister May or Prime Minister Corbyn
against 27 prime ministers from the European Union.
It will be a shit show.
[laughter, cheers, and applause]
- You know what? You know what?
I never thought I'd say this,
but that intergalactic space lord has a point.
Look, in eight days,
the UK is set to walk into a negotiation
with no real leverage,
no significant political mandate,
and no coherent plan,
and I don't really have a solution to that,
but I do have a proposal for Theresa May,
'cause at this point,
you have basically fucked everything up,
and your only real chance here
is to utilize the element of surprise,
so how about, instead of sending a career negotiator,
why not send someone that there is no way they would expect?
I'm talking about someone bold,
unafraid to call it how it is,
someone with a firm,
leather-clad grasp of the issues,
someone with a bucket list of demands
and an honest, slightly muffled voice.
That's right, I'm talking about
the intergalactic space lord himself.
Here's the question: is he willing to do it?
Well, yes, he is, and the reason I know that
is we found him, contacted him,
and actually flew him here to New York this morning.
[cheers and applause]
Now, could we have just made a similar costume
and put an intern in it?
Yes. Shit, we could've done that.
That's a good point.
But we didn't, and the fact that we didn't
is why I am now able to present to you here tonight
your new Brexit negotiator.
Please welcome Lord Buckethead!
[epic orchestral music]
♪ ♪
That's right.
On your knees, earthlings.
Theresa May, if you are still prime minister
by the time that this show airs, I implore you,
send the dark lord to Brussels.
Is it an absurd idea? Yes.
But it would not even be close
to the stupidest thing that you have ever done.
Thank you so much for watching.
That's our show. We'll see you next week.
Good night!
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪