John Oliver frets that Trump's foreign policy is like a scared monkey hitting buttons on a submarine


President Trump went ahead and disavowed the agreement to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons last week, and essentially none of his peers or Cabinet secretaries agree with his decision, John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. He played a clip where Trump explained his thinking, then pointed out how everything Trump said is factually incorrect, leading to a premature celebration. "It turns out nothing matters, nothing matters anymore," Oliver said when it turned out Trump is still president. "I'm sorry. He didn't know what he was talking about! I thought that was meaningful."
Trump didn't sink the deal himself so much as kick it over to Congress, but the damage to America will be long-lasting nevertheless, Oliver said. "Countries need to know that America will honor its agreements, because if they don't, that's going to be an issue no matter who that next president is." So, he recapped, "this Iran deal decision is equal parts dangerous and bizarre. Trump is asking Congress to fix a deal they don't realistically have the ability to fix," bypassing the agreement's built-in "process for restoring sanctions if Iran doesn't comply — which, remember, everyone agrees that they are doing. And he also threatened to pull out of the deal himself, even though his secretary of state already said that he wouldn't, but who knows if those two are even speaking."
The end result can't be called a foreign policy so much as an incoherent mess, Oliver said, comparing it to "a scared monkey in a submarine randomly pushing buttons" — an adorable image until you realize that we're all on the submarine. There is NSFW language. Peter Weber
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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.
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