Speed Reads

Johnsplaining

John Oliver revisits Trump's 'ludicrously dramatic week,' from Michael Cohen to James Comey to 'Mission Accomplished!'

John Oliver kicked off Sunday's Last Week Tonight with former FBI Director James Comey's interview with ABC News, and he focused on one of the few parts he'd watched, where Comey discussed telling President-elect Trump about the "pee tape" and other rumors in the Russia dossier. "Yeah, James Comey thought that conversation was 'really weird,'" he said, "and I will remind you that this is a man who has seen Anthony Weiner's emails."

But the Comey interview just capped a "ludicrously dramatic week" that began with the FBI raid on Trump's lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, Oliver said. Cohen kept on making news when it emerged he helped pay off a Playboy model who got pregnant after a consensual extramarital affair with now-former RNC deputy finance chairman Elliot Broidy. Also, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced he's retiring, Trump pardoned Scooter Libby, and it emerged that the National Enquirer paid off a doorman who claimed Trump fathered a secret child in the 1980s with his housekeeper.

"Oh, and on Friday night, we bombed Syria," Oliver pointed out. Not everyone thinks Trump had the legal authority to do that, and some people are concerned that the U.S. is being drawn deeper into a war with no real strategy, "but don't worry on that front, because Trump has already declared 'Mission Accomplished!'" he said. When people questioned using George W. Bush's infamous phrase, Trump doubled down.

"It does not fill you with confidence to have a president who announces, 'I know I'm repeating one of the most notorious political blunders in recent history, I meant to do it, everyone should do it, and I'm going to do it again, forever,'" Oliver paraphrased. "I've got to say, if Trump's intention was to descend so far into self-parody that he somehow burrowed though the Earth's crust and came out the other side, mission f---ing accomplished." That f-bomb isn't bleeped out. Watch below. Peter Weber