John Oliver: Donald Trump’s Last Seven Days “Absolutely Insane”

UPDATED with video: Last week in “Donald Trump” was so nuts that John Oliver was forced to devote virtually all of Last Week Tonight to talking about it.

“The last seven days have been absolutely insane – so much so that, by Friday night, it may have broken Anderson Cooper,” Oliver acknowledged.

He’s of course referring to Cooper’s Friday show, during which the host interrupted Trump surrogate Jeffrey Lord as he defended yet another indefensible Trump statement, saying, “If [Trump] took a dump on his desk you would defend him.”

“And, more importantly, Jeffrey Lord did not immediately answer, ‘No,'” Oliver laughed.

Walking through the week, Oliver reminded viewers that:

On Monday it was reported Trump revealed highly classified intelligence to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, when they visited the White House the day after Trump sacked FBI Director James Comey. Trump may have revealed to them “code-word” information, a designation for intel even more secret than top secret. This is information “you should not even share with your closest friends which, of course, in Trump’s case is the caddie he calls Stave even though his name is Doug, a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the ghost of Roger Ailes,” Oliver explained.

That Russian news got buried the very next day with the revelation that, after an Oval Office meeting in February, Comey wrote a memo saying Trump had just asked him to shut down his investigation into National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Trump had been warned about Flynn’s Russia rannygazoo by former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, President Obama, and even Flynn himself, who told Trump he was under investigation before being named NSA.

Then, on Wednesday – “just four days ago, which is the equivalent of 150 years in 2017 time,” Oliver said – Donald Trump gave the  commencement address at Coast Guard Academy,” at which he whined about how mean people were being to him.  The speech’s best gag: “No politician in history has been treated worse, or more unfairly.”

As had the Twitter-verse immediately after the speech, Oliver on Sunday night noted President Abraham Lincoln had been murdered by an actor, President William McKinley was shot by an anarchist, and “JFK was, of course, murdered by Ted Cruz’s father.”

Meanwhile, President James Garfield, Oliver informed his viewers, “was shot.  Then, to find the bullet, Alexander Graham Bell devised a kind of metal detector, which did not work, so doctors tried to fish around in his gut for the bullet with unwashed fingers, which made his infection worse, so he died in horrible pain.”

“But yeah, Alec Baldwin sometimes does a mean impression of you on TV. So yeah, it’s basically the same,” Oliver snickered at Trump.

Same day Trump delivered that speech, the DOJ appointed a special counsel, former FBI head Robert Mueller, to conduct an independent investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia. That massive development was closely followed by Thursday’s news about Comey’s mortification at having been singled out by Trump at that televised post-inauguration meeting in the White House and trying to hide in the drapes.

On Friday, as Trump left the country for a nine-day trip, the NYT revealed a White House document said Trump had told the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, during that Oval Office visit, that Comey was a “nut job.” He also told them, the report said “I just fired the head of the FBI. … I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

“It’s almost difficult to believe your ears when you hear something that sounds so audaciously corrupt,” Oliver marveled. But that was not the last of the week’s startling revelations. Turns out, according to press reports, the investigation has identified some current White House official as a “significant person of interest.”

While some have suggested that could be Jared Kushner, Oliver insisted otherwise, “because, while he’s technically significant and legally a person, he in no way qualifies as ‘of interest.'” He called Kushner “the least interesting human on Earth. … He is the ‘person’ equivalent of an empty room painted eggshell. He’s like a white bread sandwich where the middle is just a third slice of white bread.”

All of these developments are a really big deal, Oliver said, despite the best efforts of Fox News Channel to convince us otherwise, using words like “unhinged,” “insane,” “lunacy,” “hysteria,” and “madness.” Jesse Watters even called it “a boring scandal” though, two days later, even he admitted he was “starting to get a little concerned.”

Meanwhile, in Washington, some Republican politicians are starting to use the word “impeachment” in sentences, including two who argued as to which of them should get credit for doing so first. And, White House lawyers are researching what a “possible Trump impeachment might look like,” Oliver said, adding, “I imagine at least part of it would involve thousands of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey.”

But, the late-night host warned, removing Trump from office would give us President Mike Pence, who is a hard-line conservative. If Trump’s scandals somehow took down Pence as well, we would have President Paul Ryan: “Three words I always knew I would have to say,” Oliver admitted, “but did not expect to have to say so soon, like ‘Remember polar bears’ and ‘Female Entourage reboot.”

More realistically, because Republicans control both houses, Trump probably will continue to be president, which should not surprise anyone, Oliver insisted, Trump having survived declining to disavow David Duke, bullying a Gold Star family, and the Access Hollywood tape.  The end of the line, for Trump, seems to have been drawn by M.C. Escher, Oliver acknowledged.

Even Trump seems unhappy he’s in office, Oliver observed, recalling that 100-day interview in which POTUS said he loved and missed, his “previous life,” and how surprised he was that being POTUS is so much harder than developing real estate and hosting Celebrity Apprentice.

“Say what you will about Nixon, he at least wanted to be there,” Oliver said.