John Oliver Translates Woodward Book: “President An Idiot; We’re All Going To Die”

While John Oliver was not picking up Last Week Tonight’s Emmys at Sunday’s Creative Arts Awards ceremony, HBO was airing his thoughts on Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward’s new book Fear: Trump In the White House..

Cliff Notes version: “The president’s a disaster and we’re all going to die.”

Oliver began his opening segment probing the New York Times op-ed written mid-week by an anonymous Trump administration senior official, saying many of President Donald Trump’s actions are detrimental to the health of our republic.

Trump immediately pushed back on Twitter, saying “TREASON?”

He then attacked the writer at a rally, calling the “anominous” writer “gutless.” Trump tried twice, unsuccessfully, to say “anonymous.”

“I don’t like Trump’s policies, ideas or or demeanor, but I do like how he occasionally sounds like a Teddy Ruxpin someone fished out of a lake,” Oliver conceded.

Trump is obsessed with unearthing the op-writer’s identity, causing a lot of the top brass in his administration to issue “not me” statements.

Making it tough on Trump, Oliver noted, it could be almost anyone who works or him, based on quotes in Woodward’s new book. In it, Defense Secy James Mattis is quoted by sources as having said Trump has the “understanding of a 5th or 6th grader.” and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is quoted by sources sa having said “We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here” as well as “This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”

Both men deny having made those remarks, while Woodward stands by his reporting.

But the most damning exchange in the book may be that of Trump’s former personal lawyer John Dowd who, Woodward writes, went directly to Robert Mueller and told him Trump was such a disaster during a practice interrogation that he could not possibly allow him to testify.

Dowd, who no longer is Trump’s personal attorney, is quoted as saying in March, “I’m not going to sit here and let him look like an idiot,” forecasting that when the transcript of an interrogation inevitably leaked overseas government honchos “are going to say ‘I told you he was an idiot. I told you he was a goddamn dumbbell’.”

Dowd also has denied making those comments.

“That is incredible. That is the president’s own lawyer telling a prosecutor that his client will be so stupid under questioning it will be a genuine national security concern,” Oliver marveled.

“Let’s appreciate how charming it is to call anyone a ‘goddamn dumbbell’. it’s so much much more delightful than ‘idiot’ or ‘dipshit’ or ‘fucking moron.’ ‘Dumbell’ just puts a fun cartoon network image in your head.”

“Anyway, the president’s a disaster and we’re all going to die.”