[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 we begin tonight with President Trump--
two words that continue to sound wrong together,
sort of like "horse pope" or "Dr. Oz."
And this was a week of diplomacy for the president.
Or, as it turned out, the opposite of that.
- President Trump hosting Chancellor Angela Merkel
at the White House today.
It will be their first face-to-face meeting
since Mr. Trump ridiculed the chancellor
on the campaign trail, accusing her of "ruining Germany."
- Wow.
Well, first, that is a major insult,
because, historically, the title of
"chancellor synonymous with ruining Germany"
is pretty much taken.
And second, it's got to be awkward
to meet someone that you've talked so much shit about.
Personally, that is why I never leave the house,
because I know Johnny Depp is somewhere out there,
presumably vaping into a supermodel's vagina
while he mansplains acting.
And--and if you are thinking
that Trump made an extra effort
to smooth things over, you would be wrong,
because watch what happened
when the media at a photo op made a very routine request.
- Oh, shake her hand, you weird, weird man!
It is not often that you can genuinely say,
"Trump really should have touched that woman."
Because--look at him!
He's just staring straight ahead,
refusing to make eye contact!
He's treating the Chancellor of Germany
like a drunk guy masturbating in a subway car.
And it did not get any less tense
at their joint press conference, 'cause as you probably know,
Trump has been standing by his nonsensical claim
that President Obama had him wiretapped,
and when a German reporter asked him about that,
he tried to pull Merkel into it with him.
- As far as, uh, wiretapping,
I guess, by, you know, this past administration,
at least we have something in common, perhaps.
[audience laughter]
- Now, what that very funny joke is referring to
is the allegation that the U.S. had monitored Merkel's phone,
and she is not amused by that.
In fact, that may be the most uncomfortable
a U.S. president has ever made her.
And I will remind you, George W. Bush
once gave her an unsolicited surprise back rub.
And it wasn't just Germany
dragged into Trump's wiretapping mess,
because his press secretary
and special guest on the "Gilmore Girls" reboot
Melissa McCarthy
suddenly brought a British spy agency into it too.
- Sean Spicer, the president's press secretary,
has backed claims that GCHQ was involved
in tapping phones for Barack Obama.
- He didn't use the NSA,
he didn't use the CIA, he didn't use the FBI,
and he didn't use the Department of Justice.
He used GCHQ.
- Wow.
Now, that is going to piss off
the British, and you do not want to piss off the British,
because if you do, we will say, "Oh, dear,"
shake our heads, swallow the anger,
and carry it around until we die.
Because think about what he's actually alleging there.
He is suggesting a U.S. president
enlisted a foreign intelligence service
to spy on a political adversary.
That is an explosive charge.
Perhaps that is why the NSA's deputy director
told the BBC it was, "Arrant nonsense,"
revealing, "A complete lack of understanding
in how the relationship works,"
and, for their part, GCHQ called the accusations,
"Utterly ridiculous."
And yet, rather than distancing himself from Spicer,
Trump decided to back him up.
- All we did was quote a certain,
uh, very talented legal mind
who was the one responsible
for saying that on television.
That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox.
And so you shouldn't be talking to me;
you should be talking to Fox.
- No, we should be talking to you about it
'cause you're the fucking president,
and you're repeating it.
[cheers and applause]
"He only said it
because he heard it on television,"
is barely an acceptable excuse
for why your parrot said a racial slur.
"No, no, no, no! We've been watching 'The Wire'!
We've been watching 'The Wire'!"
Oh, and so you know,
that "very talented legal mind" that Trump's talking about
is this guy, Fox News contributor
Judge Andrew Napolitano,
a man whose persona
is so overwhelmingly non-authoritative
I just assumed he was a judge
in the "Judge Reinhold" sense of the word.
Spicer was quoting Napolitano directly,
and even by Fox's standards,
the judge is an unreliable source.
He has a history of entertaining dicey conspiracies.
He once questioned whether bin Laden was actually killed,
and a few years ago, he went on Alex Jones' show
and said this, regarding the World Trade Center:
- What a very talented legal mind!
And it is, frankly, telling
that even Fox News anchor Bret Baier
didn't stand behind the story.
- We love the Judge. We love him here at Fox.
But the Fox News division
was never able to back up those claims.
- That is like how you talk about a racist grandparent.
"We love Nana, we love her very much,
"but we cannot stand behind the things she says,
"nor would the rest of us use those specific words.
"Also she has been watching 'The Wire.'
"She's been watching 'The Wire.'
"If Stringer Bell can say it, why can't she?
That's her point."
And you know, if Fox News admits a story is bullshit,
then it is bullshit.
So all the Trump team had to do was apologize and move on,
and they were so close to doing that.
- A senior administration official said earlier today
Spicer and national security adviser H.R. McMaster
offered what amounted to an apology
to the British government.
But Spicer later disputed that,
saying the administration had no regrets.
- That is Sean Spicer saying he has no regrets,
which is amazing,
because if anyone on this planet
should have fucking regrets,
it is you, Madam Ghostbuster.
You should regret everything,
every life decision that brought you
into this regretful job that you regretfully hold.
At this point, you should really be more regrets than man--
a regretotaur, if you will, half--
half man, half regretful beast,
cursed to roam the planet until one day
you're finally released from your prison
by the inevitable firing you'll receive
in, oh, let's say, two and a half weeks, shall we?
And look, there is no evidence for Trump's claims.
There is no discernible motivation
for the British government to be part of this.
Just the word of a mid-transition werewolf
with questionable views on 9/11.
And yet none of that seems to matter to Trump,
and I could tell you why,
but I think I'll let Fareed Zakaria do it for me.
- I think the president is somewhat indifferent
to things that are true or false.
He has spent his whole life bullshitting.
He has succeeded by bullshitting.
He's gotten the presidency by bullshitting.
It's very hard to tell somebody at that point
that bullshit doesn't work,
because look at the results, right?
- Yeah. [cheers and applause]
Donald Trump is a bullshit artist.
And I know Trump might want to refute that,
but to be fair, someone on TV did say it,
and I am repeating it, so therefore, it must be true.
And now this.
male announcer: And now, morning news shows
celebrating St. Patrick's Day
literally the only way they know how.
- [Irish accent] And top o' the morning to you.
We're live.
And a great Friday morning St. Paddy's Day to ya.
- Top o' the morning. - Top o' the morning to ya.
- St. Patrick's Day. - Top o' the mornin' to ya.
- Top o' the mornin' there.
- Top o' the mornin' to ya, Wendy.
- Top o' the mornin' to ya, Bill.
- Top o' the mornin' to ya!
- Top o' the mornin' to ya.
- Top o' the mornin' to you, lad and lasses.
- Top o' the mornin' to ya.
- Top o' the mornin' to ya, laddies.
- Officers determined
the victim was shot on Denver Avenue.
Officers on the scene say they located blood
on the car and weapon.
We will bring you more information
as it becomes available.
- Well, top o' the mornin' to ya.
[cheerful Irish reel melody]
[cheers and applause]
- Moving on.
For our main story tonight,
we wanted to take a quick look at the federal budget,
the only beach read less appropriate
than Bill Cosby's "Little Bill: One Dark and Scary Night."
And this week, Donald Trump,
a man who constantly promised
that he would run America like a business,
gave us our clearest sense yet
of how he plans to do that.
- The president revealing his new budget proposal
just moments ago.
- It is promising the most dramatic change
in the federal government since World War II.
- This is a budget blueprint
from the president of the United Sates,
a document that he puts out there.
It is his wish list.
It is the way that he would like the government to be funded
and--and what his priorities are.
- Yes, this budget is simply a blueprint,
what's known in Washington as a "skinny budget,"
which sounds like a line item
that Trump might have included
in one of his prenups.
So try and think of it, this budget,
as a presidential mood board,
the mood board of a president whose mood
can always be described as, "Impatient, vain,
and horny for malice."
So what is in this thing?
- The budget blueprint calls for
a $54 billion increase
in defense spending.
Take a look at this graphic.
On the left, you see,
uh, departments getting an increase.
That would be Defense, Homeland Security,
Veterans Affairs.
The agencies facing cuts:
the Environmental Protection Agency,
the State Department, the Agriculture Department,
the Labor Department, Health and Human Services,
and the list goes on and on.
- You know what? It is sort of fitting
that the list of budget cuts scroll by
like the end credits for America.
"Thanks for helping us out, Agriculture Department!
"Hope you find a gig with the next country
that rises from our ashes."
And while this budget is very unlikely to pass
in its current form,
it is worth taking just a few minutes to look at it,
partly because it gives us a clear sense
of our president's priorities
but also 'cause it gives us a chance to get to know
yet another one of the Trump administration's key characters,
because we've met most of them by now.
There's Steve Bannon,
a wealthy former Goldman Sachs banker
who somehow constantly looks like he just woke up
on a park bench after losing custody of his children.
There is, uh, Kellyanne Conway,
the brave survivor of a terrorist attack
she completely made up.
And there's Stephen Miller,
the least popular boy at vampire school.
Well, for this budget,
we got to know Mick Mulvaney,
whose name, when spoken in my accent,
sounds like what you'd call a random Irish person
if you're trying to get him to fight you.
He is the director
of the Office of Management and Budget,
and I'll let--I'll let him give you just a glimpse
into the highly scientific process
by which he put this budget together.
- We came at it-- actually wrote the budget
by going through the president's speeches,
going through the interviews he had given
and talking to him directly
and finding out what his priorities were.
We took those words, those policies,
and turned them into numbers.
- Yeah, basically,
Mulvaney treated Trump's past statements
the way Trump treats women:
randomly singling out a few of them
and then reducing them down to numbers.
But--but that cannot have been easy
when you think about it, because
translating the noises that come out of Trump's face
into hard policy prescriptions is almost impossible.
Take this statement on military spending.
- You got to make the country rich again
and strong again so that you can afford it
and so you can afford military and all of the other things.
- I--I don't know what that was.
To be honest, it sounds like the audiobook
of "A Farewell to Arms" broadcast by an iPhone
submerged in hot coffee.
But--but apparently Mulvaney heard,
"Increase defense spending by $54 billion,"
because that is what he's proposing.
And as for the budget's funding for nuclear weapons,
they presumably had their basis in statements like this one.
- Putin has built up their military again
and again and again.
Their military is much stronger.
He's doing nuclear. We're not doing anything.
Our nuclear is old and tired,
and his nuclear is tippy-top, from what I hear.
[audience laughter, murmuring]
- Again,
I don't know how you turn that into policy.
"Let's trickle-dickle some money-bunnies
"into our boom-boom budget.
"We're aiming for tippy-top, people, because remember,
"we're talking about the most lethal weapons
"in the history of mankind,
so, if we can, tippy-tippy-top."
Now, that apparently means
a $1.4 billion increase
for the National Nuclear Security Administration
while cutting the Department of Energy's overall budget
by $1.7 billion.
But to be honest, I can't be certain
because I don't speak fluent toddler psychopath.
Now--now, these cuts
have made headlines for their severity,
but no one can say they're surprised
by who is on the receiving end of some of the worst of them.
For instance, his 31% cut to the EPA
is really just making good on some pretty clear words.
- Environmental Protection? What they do is a disgrace.
Every week, they come out with new regulations.
They're making it impossible--
- Who's gonna protect the environment?
- They--we'll be fine with the environment.
We can leave a little bit,
but you can't destroy businesses.
- We can leave a little bit of the environment,
specifically, this fish,
this bit of crabgrass in Utah,
and one of these meerkats.
So don't get too attached, one on the right.
And look, there is nothing wrong with cuts in principle,
but with budgets, as with haircuts,
it's where and how you cut that matters.
And, believe me, I say that as a grown man
who had bangs on national television for seven years.
Cool?
Cool.
And--and it is important to note,
non-defense discretionary spending
is already at its lowest level relative to GDP
in over 15 years,
lower than any year of Reagan's presidency.
And that's what makes something like Trump's proposed
28% cut to the budget for the State Department
and USAID so frightening.
Although Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
doesn't seem that worried about it,
and one of the reasons he gave for that
was a little surprising.
- What the president is asking the State Department to do
is, I think, reflective of a couple of expectations.
One is that, as time goes by,
there will be fewer military conflicts
that the U.S. will be directly engaged in.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on there.
You honestly think we're gonna have fewer
military conflicts under President Trump?
There is simply no way that is true.
He just needs one person to tell him
that World War I was called "The Great War"
and he's going to want to have a better one
out of sheer pettiness.
And making big cuts to things like the State Department,
International Development, and the EPA
isn't just shortsighted;
it doesn't even make fiscal sense.
The EPA is currently responsible
for 0.2% of federal spending,
and the State Department and USAID are 1.4%,
so you don't cut those agencies as a cost-saving measure.
You do it as a "fuck you."
It is the budgetary equivalent
of inviting Mitt Romney out to dinner at Jean-Georges
before not offering him a cabinet position.
And I will say, that was awesome, by the way.
Trump is so consistently monstrous,
sometimes out of sheer coincidence,
he happens to do something amazing.
Trump is truly the stopped clock of assholes.
But--but his pettiness extends even further
when it comes to some of the tiny items
his budget eliminates funding for,
like the national endowments
for the arts and the humanities
and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
which, last year, made up less than 0.02%
of federal spending.
But according to Mulvaney,
it is unfair to expect people to even pay that much.
- When you start looking at the places
that will reduce, uh, spending,
one of the questions we asked was,
can we really continue to ask
a coal miner in West Virginia
or a single mom in Detroit to pay for these programs?
The answer was no.
We can ask them to pay for defense
and we will, but we can't ask them
to continue to pay for
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
- Okay, that argument isn't just insulting.
It's absolutely ridiculous.
Because while, yes, the military keeps single mothers safe,
on a day-to-day basis,
"Bob the Builder" is an actual lifesaver for them.
"Declan, honey, Mommy's gonna lie down
"for a little bit while you watch yourself some 'Bob.'
He's the only man I trust anymore."
And if, if your real concern
is for the hard-earned dollars
of single mothers and coal miners,
let's break that down, shall we?
Because if your single mother needs to work
and her child attends a school,
she might need access to something like WINGS for Kids,
an after-school program that serves 1,600 children
in three states.
And guess what...
- Under President Trump's new proposed federal budget,
WINGS' primary source of funding would be eliminated.
Bridget Laird is the CEO.
How does that make you feel?
- Makes me feel devastated.
- Jessica Williams
has two daughters in the program.
What happens if it goes away?
- Um, I really don't know how I could...
I really don't know. I would be lost.
- Okay, so that is a really bad cut,
and again, I say that as a man
who no one stopped from going into a Supercuts
with a photo of Demi Moore in "Ghost"
and saying, "This, but worse."
And as for Mick Mulvaney's
hypothetical coal miners,
let's take a look at what Trump's budget cuts
from the Appalachian region.
- One of those programs at risk of losing all funding
is the Appalachian Regional Commission,
which funded 35 different projects and programs
in Tennessee alone last year.
- 35 programs in just Tennessee.
And that list includes things like
the Healthier Tennessee Communities initiative,
the Boys & Girls Clubs of Tennessee Valley,
and the Governor's Books from Birth Foundation--
all of which contain so many positive words.
I am presuming that also in line for cuts
are the Kid-Kitten Hardhat Alliance
and the Grandma's Wish Coalition for Warm Cookies
Straight from the Oven.
The cookies will be thrown away.
The grandma will be put down.
And by the way--by the way,
those cuts are coming in a state that went for Trump,
which leads us to the weirdest thing of all here.
Some of the cuts in Trump's budget
heavily impact groups that voted for him.
- The one that strikes me is rural airports.
We spend money to help subsidize rural airports
where they otherwise couldn't have air service.
Now, maybe that doesn't make any sense in an ideal world.
Maybe on principle, that's a bad thing,
but the people who are gonna lose their airports
if we stop doing that
are the people who voted for Donald Trump.
- So think about that.
Trump's rise was fueled by people in red states
who were justifiably irritated
that liberals sometimes refer to them as "flyover country."
But this budget could literally turn some of them
into flyover country
because there would be no other option.
And even some Republicans
are now wary of this budget.
Hal Rogers, a Republican
and former chair of the House Appropriations Committee,
went so far as to call many of the cuts,
"Draconian, careless, and counterproductive."
And a Republican saying that about budget cuts
is like a toddler telling you,
"This balloon fucking sucks."
Really?
I really thought you liked those!
And, look, Trump's defenders will say
that this is just him being a businessman.
It's a first offer, it's a negotiation,
the sort of thing that you could learn all about
in his book, "The Art of the...
"Wait, I Seem to be Betraying Everyone Who Supported Me.
"Ah, Well, Forget It.
"Anyway, Let's Talk About All the Trim I Got
in the '80s, Right Fellas? Hunga Munga!"
But if anything resembling this budget passes,
many of Trump's own voters
will likely wind up getting burned,
and they are going to be angry,
and Trump himself should know that,
given that in "The Art of the Deal,"
he said this:
- Oh, I think people are catching on.
It's taking longer than is perhaps ideal,
but I think, pretty soon,
all of us will be fed up
right up to the tippy-fucking-top.
And now this.
announcer: And now,
a special St. Patrick's Day moment
from "Fox & Friends."
- Today is St. Patrick's Day,
so we'll be celebrating throughout.
But it doesn't mean-- what did you just do?
- I just moved the leprechaun.
I didn't realize there was a leprechaun behind me.
- Sitting between us. - Remember a couple of years ago
when we actually had a leprechaun on the show?
Where Judge Napolitano sat on his lap?
- Right, I don't think that video's available anymore.
announcer: Oh, you wish that video wasn't available.
- Let's go over to Judge Andrew Napolitano
with a special-- - Hey, I got my new buddy here
from the University of Notre Dame...
- How are you, Judge?
- Paddy, all right. Good to see you.
announcer: Oh, what a fun memory.
- We hired this leprechaun off of craigslist.
[laughter]
- There's your first mistake. - And you know what?
You get exactly what you pay for.
announcer: Fuck you.
[cheerful Irish reel melody]
[applause]
- And finally, this week, before we go,
I know the world is a bleak place right now,
so we wanted to leave you with a happy story,
and it involves Bolivia,
a country you think about so little,
you don't even realize that's not Bolivia;
that's Colombia, except it isn't.
That's Venezuela.
That is Colombia, except it isn't.
That's Bolivia, which is the one we were looking for
in the first place.
Which one's Colombia?
There is simply no way to know.
The point is, the Bolivian city of La Paz
has had longstanding problems with their roads,
including traffic jams
and a high rate of fatal accidents.
And I know that you're thinking, "Wait. Hold on.
"Your happy story
involves fatal car accidents in Bolivia?"
Well, wait. Wait.
Wait. Trust me.
Because this is the solution they came up with.
[reporter speaking Spanish]
- Appropriating the image of the crosswalks,
called "zebras,"
and dressed in a costume of the animal by the same name,
these young people have been going into the street
of the city of La Paz for the past 13 years
with the goal of educating the citizens with love
and changing the chaotic face
of the vehicular traffic in this city.
- Admit it. You didn't see that coming.
Not a single one of you
was sitting there going, "Traffic zebras!
"I'm calling it!
Traffic zebras! Yes!"
Now, these zebras don't have policing powers,
like the ability to issue tickets or make arrests.
Instead, they just tease people.
And if you look online--
and I cannot recommend you do that enough--
there is incredible footage of them in action.
You can see everything from a zebra holding his head
while a man jaywalks
to one dancing and spinning around
in front of a speeding van that stops
just in the nick of time
to this zebra risking his life to stop a car
to the many, many clips of zebras dancing,
every single one of which, especially the last one,
is absolutely superb.
Watch him throw that down.
And at this point, you may be wondering,
how did this happen?
Well, it was based on a similar program in Colombia,
uh, where they dispatched traffic mimes
to monitor pedestrians.
And as far as having mimes rove around your city,
I think we can all agree: No.
Not only is it tremendously unpleasant,
but being mocked by a mime doesn't even work.
All you have to say is, "I can talk, and you can't."
Argument won.
You lock him in a glass box, and you walk away.
But Bolivia has really taken it up a notch
with this whole zebra business.
The program started with just 24 of them,
and today in La Paz alone, there are 265.
That is a population boom so great,
it puts actual zebras to shame.
And that is saying something
because zebras notoriously have no shame.
Put it away! Put it away!
That thing is a liability.
Tuck it away.
And while it may look like fun for people,
this is a real job with strict rules.
[reporter speaking Spanish]
- They explained some of the rules
to be zebras, like: honor the costume,
don't eat when you work,
never, never take your head off.
- That is a good rule.
Never take your head off.
You cannot risk shattering an innocent child's belief
that you are a real free-roaming bipedal talking equid
6,000 miles from Africa.
And by the way, that applies even in interview situations.
There are many, many clips
of reporters shoving microphones in zebras' faces,
even one with a zebra giving an interview to another zebra.
- This is very significant for me.
I really like what I'm doing,
and it's not just about telling people what to do.
- Come on!
Every interview is improved by a zebra head.
There's a lesson for everyone there.
Stressful interview with "60 Minutes"?
Put on a zebra head.
Tough questions on the red carpet?
You put on a zebra head.
Sean Spicer?
Get yourself a zebra head, man.
What is wrong with you?
[cheers and applause]
And--and here's the thing.
It doesn't just help with Bolivia's traffic.
Many of the people in those costumes
really need the work.
- Many of the zebras are young people
who are recovering drug addicts and alcoholics.
It's a way for them to get their lives back on track
and to give something back to society.
- Look, they're not only getting their lives on track.
I'm pretty sure the existence of these zebras
is the only thing keeping my life on track right now.
And is it any wonder how beloved these cebritas are,
considering the attitude that they project?
- Oh! - Cebrita!
- [speaking Spanish]
- Yes, the zebra was inside her the whole time,
which, admittedly, sounds like a description
for a very risqué YouTube video, but that's not the point.
The point is, I've got a few questions here.
First: How the hell
did no one tell me about this before?
I feel like we've been pretty clear on this show
about our interest in South American countries
you have scant geographical knowledge of
and people in animal costumes.
And frankly, I have needed this
over the last few months.
The news has been hard.
Which brings me to my second question.
If zebras can make Bolivian traffic jams bearable,
what else could they help with?
So here is what we've done.
We made our own Bolivian zebra
and have been seeing if they can help
make painful moments easier to take.
And I'll show you how it works.
Remember Trump's inauguration?
Tough to watch, right? But I'll say this.
It's a lot easier to watch with a zebra involved.
- I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear...
- That I will faithfully execute...
- The office of President of the United States.
- See? It's better, right?
Again, it doesn't change anything,
but it is easier to watch.
Now, this works for moments of frustration too.
Remember how it felt on Tuesday night
when Rachel Maddow made you sit through
19 minutes of preamble
to get to what amounted to very nearly nothing?
Well, you know what could have helped then?
A zebra to share your pain.
- Somebody...
[pages rustling]
Has decided to leak...
A portion of his 2005 tax return,
which is how and why we got it tonight.
And I am sure it is only the start,
but it's a start,
and our little piece of it,
we just got it.
We'll go through it, next.
- Come on!
- I promise, it works for anything.
Take "Manchester by the Sea."
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pretty harrowing movie, right?
That couple went through hell.
You know, if only they weren't so alone.
- [sniffs]
Maybe you don't want to talk to me.
- [mutters]
- No, let me finish.
I love you.
My heart was broken.
It's always gonna be broken.
And I know yours is broken too.
- Look, look, I think it's--
[cheers and applause]
I think it's pretty clear.
With things in America the way they are now,
we need these zebras like never before.
And that is why we've uploaded footage
of a green screen zebra
going through a wide variety of emotions.
You can use them however you want.
Just let us know whatever you did
with the hashtag #JUSTADDZEBRAS.
That is our show. Thank you so much for watching.
We'll be off next week, back April 2nd.
Good night.
Please enjoy a dancing zebra!
[cheers and applause]
[upbeat dance music]
♪ ♪
[bright tone]