[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 we begin this evening with President Trump,
two words that still simply do not belong together,
like "baby pubes"
or "haunted horse."
This week actually began promisingly for the president,
as he addressed Congress with what appeared to be
a more disciplined tone.
- The time for small thinking is over.
The time for trivial fights is behind us.
- Okay, here's-- here's the thing about that.
I know that's supposed to be a reassuring statement,
but it could actually go either way.
"The time for trivial fights is behind us.
"The time for major fights is here,
"which is why I'm launching
"a full-scale invasion of Australia.
Who's with me?"
The speech actually got rave reviews,
and for almost 24 hours,
it seemed the White House might finally be getting on track,
until this happened.
- The "Washington Post" now reporting tonight
that Attorney General Jeff Sessions,
when he was still a senator
and an adviser to the Trump campaign,
had meetings with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.
but did not disclose them during his confirmation hearings.
- Yes, Jeff Sessions, Trump's attorney general
and the unfortunate result of Dobby the house-elf's
one-night stand with a Confederate flag,
got in trouble this-- enjoy--
got in trouble this week
for undisclosed meetings with Russia's ambassador,
something which, in itself, is not against the law.
The problem is, Sessions's confirmation hearing
featured this exchange.
- If there is any evidence that anyone
affiliated with the Trump campaign
communicated with the Russian government
in the course of this campaign,
what will you do?
- Senator Franken, I'm not aware of, um, any of those activities.
I have been called a surrogate
at a time or two in that campaign,
and I didn't have-- not have communications
with the Russians, um,
and I'm unable to comment on it.
- Now, there is an obvious problem there.
As we now know, what he just said is not true,
but perhaps the weirder thing is that was an unforced error.
He wasn't even asked whether he'd met with the Russians.
He just implicated himself out of the blue,
which should've been immediately suspicious.
If you asked someone how their weekend was,
and they say, "Well, I definitely wasn't masturbating
into the Slurpee machine at the 7-Eleven,"
you check the fucking security cameras at the 7-Eleven,
and you don't act surprised.
And--and you can sort of tell
that Sessions knew he'd fucked up,
because watch his expression immediately afterward.
- I didn't have-- not have communications
with the Russians, um,
and I'm unable to comment on it.
- Very well.
Um, without divulging--
[laughter]
- He looked right at the camera!
He looks like he's about to loosen his collar
and audibly say the word "gulp."
Now, Sessions eventually recused himself from investigating
anything to do with Russia and the Trump campaign,
but that might not be enough.
There are now multiple calls for his resignation,
the most forceful of which was a damning tweet that read,
"That's not good enough, you need to resign,"
posted by the band Smash Mouth.
And-- you know what they say,
"As goes Smash Mouth, so goes about 8,000 people, tops."
And--and to be clear, to be clear,
it wasn't just Sessions
meeting with Russian officials last year.
Many Trump campaign operatives,
including J. D. Gordon and Carter Page,
met with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak,
as did Jared Kushner,
and again, there is nothing inherently wrong there,
but it doesn't look great
that every time Trump associates
are asked about Russia, they respond
like they're trying to hide something.
Just watch former policy advisor Carter Page on Thursday.
- Did you meet Sergey Kislyak in Cleveland?
Did you talk to him?
- I'm not gonna deny that I talked with him--
- So you did talk to him?
- I will say that I never met him anywhere,
uh, outside of Cleveland.
Let's just say that much.
- So the only time that you met him was in Cleveland?
- I-I--what-- that I may have met him,
possibly, would've-- might have been in Cleveland.
- "I mean, when you think about it,
"Cleveland is more a state of mind
"than a physical place, right?
"For example, sometimes, when I need to delay an orgasm,
"I 'go to Cleveland' in my mind,
"and sometimes, I meet Sergey Kislyak there.
"Does that count? Does that count?
Am I still talking?"
And that is part of a pattern of suspicious responses
you can trace back to last summer,
when Paul Manafort, Trump's then-campaign manager,
did this.
- So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships
with any Russian oligarchs?
- That's what he said.
I didn't--that's what I--
that's obviously what the proposition is.
- Holy shit!
That was so unconvincing,
it probably set off an unplugged polygraph machine
just sitting in a closet somewhere.
"I don't know what happened, Sarge.
"I went in to get some paper clips,
and the needle was just going crazy!"
And look, it is not clear
what is really going on here yet,
although one possibility is that this all amounts
to what I'm going to call Stupid Watergate:
a potential scandal with all the intrigue of Watergate,
except everyone involved is really bad at everything.
And--and the relevant question isn't so much,
"What did the president know, and when did he know it,"
as it is, "Is the president physically capable
of knowing things at all?"
Because yesterday, he decided that this was the best way
to dispel everyone's suspicions.
- It was just before sunrise in Palm Beach
when the President of the United States
took to Twitter to make
one of his most stunning accusations ever.
"Terrible! Just found out
"that Obama had my 'wires tapped'
in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found."
Followed by four more presidential outbursts
taking on President Obama and misspelling "tap."
[laughter and applause]
- Okay.
Let me give you some context for where we are.
In 1992, Dan Quayle misspelled "potato,"
and it became one of the most famous dumb moments
in political history,
but we are now at a point where the president is so busy
hurling destabilizing conspiracy theories around,
we can't even pause to enjoy the fact
he misspelled the word "tap."
And his evidence for suggesting
President Obama has committed a crime
seems pretty thin.
- Because the president cited no proof,
it is not clear tonight
whether he based his allegations
on a top-secret White House briefing
or whether it came from reading an article
on the conservative "Breitbart" website,
posted Friday, the detailed speculation
from a conspiracy-loving talk show host,
Mark Levin.
- Okay, I think we can now officially declare
that Trump has a worse media diet
than the Son of Sam killer,
and he got all his news
from a talking dog who told him to murder.
And rather than providing evidence
to support the accusation,
this morning, the White House urged Congress
to look into the allegations, and it seems odd
that a president would issue a firm statement of fact
and then launch an investigation to try and support that claim,
something that was pointed out to a White House spokesperson
just this morning.
- The President of the United States
is accusing the former president of wiretapping him.
- I think that this is, again, something that--
if this happened, Martha--
- If, if, if, if!
- [laughs] I agree that--
- Why is the president saying it did happen?
- Look, I think he is going off of information that he's saying,
that has led him to believe,
uh, that this is a very real potential.
[laughter]
- Let's break that down.
She "thinks" the President saw information
that led him to "believe" that this is a real "potential."
So I guess this is just how things are going to work now.
The president once saw a banana with a bruise
that looked like a picture
in an article he read in a dream,
and that is why we're at fucking war!
And the sad thing is... [cheers and applause]
Deep down, we probably all knew
that this week would end this way,
and if you need proof of that,
just look at Paul Ryan's face
immediately after Trump made his call
for an end to triviality on Tuesday.
- The time for trivial fights is behind us.
We just need the courage
to share the dreams that fill our hearts.
[laughter and applause]
- That is the face of a man thinking,
"Don't laugh. He's the President."
Which incidentally should now be
the official slogan of the Republican party.
And now this.
- All right, my fellow pop culture nerds.
All right, you Apple nerds, myself included.
Here's how big of a nerd I am. We political nerds--
All of us political nerds... I was a huge nerd
and sat and watched the entire last debate.
Gonna put on my news nerd hat.
Big old news nerd.
I'm a bit of a word nerd.
I was a big "Lost" nerd.
I was a bit of a Shakespeare nerd.
Big music nerd.
I wanted to have a geek-out moment with you.
I'm officially an archeology geek.
I'm a little bit of a self-professed geek myself.
Thank you for allowing me
to get my Supreme Court geek on with you.
As a huge space geek...
Listen, you know I'm a space geek.
All right, my fellow space geeks.
All right, my fellow space geeks, check it.
All right, my fellow space nerds.
Thank you, my fellow space nerd.
- You know I'm a bit of a nerd
about these things-- - I'm a nerd!
Are you geeking out like I'm geeking out here?
- Oh, my God, come on! - Is this not amazing?
Thank you very much for having a nerd moment with me here,
live on CNN.
- Moving on.
For our main story tonight,
we'd like to talk about someone
you may not have thought about for a while:
the Dalai Lama, a man so enlightened,
he's basically the original woke bae.
According to a Gallup poll,
the Dalai Lama is actually
the sixth-most admired man in America,
and when you mention his name to people in the street,
you can see how widely he's revered.
- Lot of respect, inspiration from what he says.
- He says, like, a lot of good quotes.
- He has some really great quotes about life.
- He's said a lot of good things.
- I guess he's a peaceful man.
- He's about peace.
- Okay, so he's peaceful,
admired, and has some good quotes.
That is pretty broad.
They could be describing
either the Dalai Lama
or Matthew McConaughey,
but watch what happens when those same people are asked
a simple follow-up.
- Oh.
- I have no idea. I'm not even gonna lie.
- I don't know. He just...
I don't-- I'm not really sure.
- He's a very important figure
for, um, Hinduism?
- That's like, Buddhist God, right? No?
- No, not a god. He's a real person.
He's alive. - Oh, shit.
- He just said "oh, shit"
like he owes the Dalai Lama money.
"He's alive? Oh, shit.
"I've got to disappear for a while.
That guy does not fuck around."
Now, the Chinese government, however,
have a very different view,
'cause instead of vaguely loving the Dalai Lama,
they very specifically hate him.
They've referred to him as a "wolf in monk's robes"
and have banned his image.
They've even retaliated against Americans
for even meeting with him.
- Britain's "Guardian" says
China reportedly banned Lady Gaga.
That's because she met with the Dalai Lama
in Indianapolis to discuss yoga.
- Wow.
Not only is it incredible that they banned her for that;
it's incredible that that event happened at all.
Lady Gaga was with the Dalai Lama in Indianapolis
discussing yoga.
That is only slightly less ridiculous
than Elton John meeting Ben Bernanke on Easter Island
to talk about Roombas.
Now--now, the Chinese government's hatred
of the Dalai Lama stems from its desire
to main control of Tibet,
a region in southwest China,
and Tibet was something of a celebrity cause
in the 1990s.
There were Tibetan Freedom Concerts
featuring the Beastie Boys, and Richard Gere
even brought it up at the Oscars.
- I was wondering if this kind of...
[scattered applause]
If something miraculous, really kind of movie-like
could happen here,
where we could all kind of send love and--and truth
and a kind of sanity
to Deng Xiaoping right now in Beijing
that he will take his troops
and take the Chinese away from Tibet
and allow these people to live
as free independent people again.
[applause]
So.
Thoughts. We send these thoughts.
Send this thought out. Send this thought.
- "We send this thought.
"We send it out right now-- oh, you know what?
"I'm sorry. There's been a mistake.
"The thoughts are actually supposed to be sent
"to the producers of 'Moonlight.'
"Uh, this is not a joke.
"'Moonlight,' these thoughts are for you.
"There's been a horrible mistake.
'Moonlight,' take the thoughts."
But-- but there is a lot about Tibet
that you might not actually know.
For a start, it's larger than you probably think.
China say it's this area, but Tibetan exiles will say
it's even larger, encompassing an area
that is roughly 1/4 of China,
so it's very big in a confusing way,
which, and this is true,
is also how director Lars von Trier
characterized Willem Dafoe's dick.
Seriously, he told reporters,
"It's too big.
Everybody got very confused when they saw it."
What I'm saying is,
Tibet is the Willem Dafoe's dick of Planet Earth.
It is surprisingly large.
The point is,
China invaded Tibet in 1950,
and ever since, they've imposed strict controls
on the institutions of Tibetan Buddhism there.
Temples and monasteries have been destroyed,
and hundreds of thousands of Tibetans have been killed,
and things inside Tibet are still grim.
When Freedom House scored countries and territories
for political rights and civil liberties,
Tibet came in second-worst,
behind Syria
and ahead of both Somalia and North Korea.
The whole territory is a gross human rights violation,
which is interestingly another way
that Lars von Trier has described
Willem Dafoe's penis.
And perhaps the clearest sign of just how bad conditions are
is the fact that since early 2009,
146 Tibetans have self-immolated in Tibet and China,
setting themselves on fire in protest,
to which the Chinese police have been less than sympathetic.
[unintelligible yelling]
- Well, every part of that is fucking horrifying,
and China is unlikely to loosen its grip on the region.
Tibet has incredibly rich resources,
from gold and lithium
to rivers supplying hydroelectric power and water
to over a billion people,
so they are very sensitive
to any perceived threat to their control,
which brings us back to the Dalai Lama.
Traditionally, he's been both a spiritual and political leader
of Tibetan Buddhists, sort of a cross
between a pope and a president, a popesident, if you will,
but you shouldn't, so please don't.
China has done everything they can
over the years to diminish his power.
He even fled Tibet in 1959 under fear of arrest,
and he hasn't been back since,
an escape that was reported at the time
by the most British man who has ever lived.
- The young Dalai Lama,
revered by his people as a living Buddha,
was reported under arrest by the Reds,
but, according to other sources,
is safely in hiding.
One clear fact:
Red tyranny is not wanted
by these intensely religious people.
- "Yes, damn that unwanted creeping Red tyranny,
"down with those thieving imperialists,
"and good night to Her Majesty's subjects
"in Bahrain, Maldives, Rhodesia, Jamaica,
"Barbados, Kenya, and Uganda.
Nighty night. Sleepy tight."
[cheers and applause]
And so, for over 50 years,
the Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India,
and he's lived quite a life.
He's met with the last four presidents,
and when he was a child, FDR gave him
a beautiful Patek Philippe pocket watch,
which he still has to this day,
and George W. Bush gave him an even greater gift
by painting his portrait, this portrait,
and I give Bush's skills as an artist
the same review I give his time as president:
not bad for a five-year-old.
Now, the Dalai Lama officially stepped down
from running the Tibetan government in exile
in 2011, but he is still
of profound importance to the Tibetan people
as a spiritual leader and a figurehead,
and here, here is where
this story gets absolutely amazing,
because he's 81 years old,
so thoughts have inevitably turned
to his next reincarnation,
but it turns out there's a bit of a problem with that.
Let me explain.
Broadly speaking, when the Dalai Lama dies,
he reincarnates as a child
somewhere on Earth, and traditionally,
a key person in the process of finding him
is someone called the Panchen Lama,
and when the Panchen Lama dies,
the Dalai Lama plays a similar role in finding him,
and so on, and so on.
They're basically playing a Buddhist version
of hide-and-seek.
So the ninth Panchen Lama helped to identify
the current Dalai Lama,
who in turn identified this six-year-old boy
as the Panchen Lama,
but this is where it starts to get tricky,
because that boy has not been seen in more than 20 years.
- These are the last known pictures
of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima,
the boy chosen to be Panchen Lama.
The Chinese authorities rejected his appointment,
arrested the boy and his family.
- It's true.
China kidnapped a six-year-old,
and no one has heard from him since,
although just two years ago,
a senior Chinese official said he is "being educated,
"living a normal life, growing up healthily,
and does not wish to be disturbed,"
which is a little suspicious 'cause it sounds like
the kind of thing a former child star's publicist
would scream into a phone.
"She's growing up healthy, living a normal life,
"and those track marks on her arms
"are just where they inject the vitamins.
She's fine! She's fine!"
But China didn't stop at just stealing the Panchen Lama.
They had another trick up their sleeve.
- In an attempt to discredit the Dalai Lama's choice
of one of Tibet's top Buddhist spiritual leaders,
Chinese officials used a 200-year-old ceremony
to name their own Panchen Lama.
- Yes, they made their own fake Panchen Lama.
They basically counterfeited a religious leader
like a knockoff handbag.
That doesn't say "Coach." That says "Cough."
And--and China's tactics here are obvious.
If they control the Panchen Lama,
they can use him to pick a new Dalai Lama
who might, completely coincidentally,
be very favorable to the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama, understandably,
is pretty pissed off about this.
- The one thing that I want to make clear
as far as my own rebirth is concerned,
the final authority is myself.
No one else.
And obviously not Chinese Communists.
- Yeah.
That is some forceful language too.
He's basically saying,
"They can make that decision over my dead body,
except, you know, specifically not that."
He's now actually saying that he will either not
reincarnate as the Dalai Lama at all
or, if he does, it won't be inside Chinese-controlled Tibet,
it will be somewhere else, which is incredible
because that means that when he dies,
we could plausibly wind up with two rival Dalai Lamas,
and the already fraught situation in Tibet
could spiral out of control.
And for the time being, there is really only one person
who can fill you in on what is happening
in the Dalai Lama's head, but he lives in India,
and that is a 14-hour flight away,
and the reason I know that
is I went to speak to the Dalai Lama in India.
Enjoy.
[cheers and applause]
[Indian music]
Yes, I traveled to the Himalayan foothills
of Dharamsala, India,
a journey that involved considerably more
uphill walking,
cows, and monkey traffic
than I'd been led to believe,
all to talk with the Dalai Lama about China,
conditions in Tibet, and what comes next for him.
Your Holiness, it is an honor to speak to you.
May I say, tashi delek.
- Tashi delek. Thank you.
- How is my pronunciation?
Tashi de-- - I think very good.
- In my defense, I just started learning Tibetan 40 seconds ago.
- [laughs]
- So let's talk about China. - Mm.
- Because the Chinese government
absolutely hates you, don't they?
- Yes.
- Publicly, one government official said
you're a wolf wrapped in monk's robes.
- Mm.
- And photos of you are forbidden in many places.
You don't, to me, look like an evil wolf.
- [laughs]
They describe me as a demon.
- You're a demon? Yeah.
- Then I immediately reacted,
"Yes, I'm demon with horn."
- Yeah, 'cause that's the classic demon, right?
- Yes.
- I think that's-- when they look at you,
that's what they see.
- Oh, whatever they want to see, that's their freedom.
I have no such-- no negative feeling.
I just feel a laugh, like that.
I practice, you see, taking others' anger, suspicion,
distrust, and give them patience,
tolerance, and compassion.
I practice that.
- But it seems the Chinese government
are particularly good at taking your positivity,
turning it back into negativity
and oppression of the Tibetan people,
and they hand it back to you as it was.
- Yes.
- Just outside the Dalai Lama's temple
is a local memorial honoring Tibetans
who've self-immolated in protest
against Chinese oppression,
acts that put him in a very difficult position.
This is a hard question. - Oh.
- The self-immolation that has happened...
- Oh.
- 140 Tibetans... - Yes.
- Have burned themselves.
It is very, very sad.
- Indeed, yes.
- Why is it hard for you to definitively tell them
to stop doing it?
- This is, I find, very difficult sort of situation.
Right from the beginning, when I first heard that,
firstly, I express my sort of sadness.
Then, meantime, if I say their action is wrong,
then their family, they will-- they feel very sad.
One of their family member
did something against the Dalai Lama's wish.
- Right. - I don't want to create that.
Then, certainly, I cannot support that,
the act of killing.
From Buddhist viewpoint, self-killing, not good.
So therefore, my position is very, very difficult,
so then best thing is, remain silent.
Keep quiet.
- The Dalai Lama is painfully aware
how powerful his words are,
and he occasionally uses them in targeted
and sometimes surprisingly specific ways,
like this example,
which he offered up out of nowhere.
- One of my previous visit, Mongolia.
They took lot of vodka.
The Russians sort of hard philosophy.
- They like a drink.
Yeah. Vodka.
- Then, I said, "Drink much less vodka."
- Yeah, they love to hear that.
- Instead of that, their tradition
is to drink horse milk.
- Wait, hold on. - Horse milk.
- Wait, you tried to wean them off vodka
by giving them horse milk?
- Oh, yes. They--they follow.
- What? - They follow.
Since then, I think a majority of Mongolian
no longer any drink.
- Hold on, that is a-- that is a huge claim.
You cured Mongolia of alcoholism...
- Yes. - Using horse milk?
- Yes. - Yeah, not to labor the point--
I'm just concerned I would see horse milk, and I'd think,
"Oh, that came from a horse."
- This-- - Oh, oh.
- That's illogical.
What's differences, cow milk and horse milk?
What differences?
- One comes out of a cow.
The other, I don't know how you get it out of a horse.
- [laughs]
- Finally, we were having fun,
and I knew just how to keep the party going.
Let's talk about a lighter subject: death.
You are going to die, and when you do,
it's going to be a massive problem
because there are issues regarding your reincarnation
regarding China.
- I do not match concern about that.
My main concern is well-being of 7 billion human being
and then preservation of rich Buddhist tradition,
which we kept.
- But you're intertwined with that.
- No, no. As an individual person,
not much important.
You know.
- Right, but you're the Dalai Lama.
- But Buddhism, over 2,600 years,
still very much alive.
- So do you think you might be the last Dalai Lama?
- Very possible.
- You do? - Yes.
- You might be it?
- If I become last Dalai Lama, I feel very happy.
- Why, because you were a good one?
- Oh, yes, I may say, quite intelligent.
- Oh, oh, you're calling yourself intelligent, are you?
- Oh, I think so.
- So a little bit of arrogance there, as well.
But if you don't resolve your reincarnation issue,
are you not worried that China will appoint
their own Dalai Lama
and he may not speak like you're speaking now?
- That also, if, may I say so? - Yeah.
- That's also, you see, one of the foolish act.
Short-sighted. - China.
- Without using human brain properly.
It's harmful.
- That's-- that is a guaranteed way
to calm the Chinese government down,
to tell them they're not using the human brain properly.
- I told them,
our brain usually, you see,
have the ability to create common sense.
The Chinese hardliners, in their brain,
that part of brain is missing.
- Zing.
- But you know what I think?
The Chinese leaders, Chinese Communists,
they are very much concerned about image of China.
- I'm happy to sit here and criticize China with you,
because I know the consequences for me
are not necessarily as bad as they are for you.
- [laughs]
So, so I wish-- you see, they call me demon,
so I want another demon,
so you become demon.
- No, no, no. You can't transfer--
you can't reincarnate the demon into me.
- Oh, yes, yes.
- No, no, no, no.
Don't make me a demon.
- [laughs] - No, no, no.
You can't do-- we--you cannot do that.
- You know... - Can he do that?
- As I've been telling you, you see.
- Oh, no. - [laughs]
- This is not how I wanted this interview to go.
So the Dalai Lama seems determined
to keep his reincarnation plans private for the time being,
leaving millions of Tibetans waiting for an answer,
and as our time drew to a close,
I wanted to cement our new friendship.
You were given a watch by President Roosevelt.
Is that true? - Yes, true.
At that time, I think one... Patek Philippe.
- Patek Philippe. A beautiful watch.
- Pocket watch. - Right.
Well, I have a special gift for you.
It is not a beautiful watch from a president,
but it is a special watch from me.
Here it is.
It's a calculator watch.
- Ah.
- Right?
- Oh.
- Roosevelt may have given you a fancy watch,
but that is water-resistant.
- Wonderful. Thank you.
Roosevelt watch, I think, old-fashioned.
- Yeah. - Now this new-fashioned.
- Well, not so much new-fashioned as from the 1980s.
- Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you much.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
- My demon friend.
- [laughs] - It was an honor.
[cheers and applause]
That's our show. Thanks for watching.
See you next week. Good night!
[upbeat rock music]
♪ ♪