John Oliver is bemused at the Trump administration's love of using publicly funded private jets

John Oliver on Trump administration private jet use
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Last Week Tonight)

On Sunday's Last Week Tonight, John Oliver had a wry laugh at a pair of private-jet scandals in President Trump's administration, starting with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price's extensive use of chartered private jets to travel the country at taxpayers' expense. Oliver didn't just poke at Price, a millionaire, taking publicly funded private jets, but also at CNN's graphics department, showing his own saltier alternative transportation methods to get Price to Philadelphia on the cheap. He also had a laugh, apropos of nothing, at Price's onetime mustache.

"But for sheer brazenness here, Price has to take a fully reclinable back seat to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, a man whose appearance provides us with the answer to: 'What if income inequality dressed up as me, John Oliver, for Halloween?'" Oliver said. He ran through the various flaps about Mnuchin and his new wife, including their government-jet trip to Kentucky and a breathtakingly tone-deaf request. "It's true, a man worth an estimated $300 million asked to use a government jet for his European honeymoon," he said. In denying impropriety, Mnuchin "causally insulted the entire state of Kentucky," Oliver said, and you can watch him recreate that moment below. Peter Weber

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.