‘Last Week Tonight’: HBO’s John Oliver Nicknames Trump-Ukraine Scandal “Stupid Watergate II: The Stupidest Watergate”

Dino-Ray Ramos

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The events surrounding Donald Trump, Ukraine and a whistleblower gave John Oliver plenty to discuss and skewer on HBO’s Last Week Tonight Sunday.

Oliver started at the very beginning of the scandal, talking about the phone call where Trump asked Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter not one, not two, not five — but eight times.

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“The only time it makes sense to ask for the same thing eight times in a single phone call is if you’re trying to connect with a customer service representative for AT&T,” joked Oliver.

Trump’s latest scandal has the former Celebrity Apprentice host being accused of withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine and using it as leverage to get dirt on Biden. “It is very, very dumb,” points out Oliver. So dumb that he has dubbed this “Stupid Watergate II: The Stupidest Watergate,” a sequel to Trump’s Russian scandal which Oliver referred to as “Stupid Watergate.”

The White House denied Trump’s wrongdoing and voluntarily released an account of Trump’s call, claiming it exonerated him. “It emphatically does not do that,” laughed Oliver.

Oliver pointed out that Trump explicitly asks for Biden to be investigated and follows it by saying, “I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call…and I’m also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it.”

“It’s impressive just how thorough the abuse of power is looping in someone who is so involved in government that they shouldn’t be involved in petty dirt and someone involved in petty dirt that they shouldn’t be nowhere near the government,” said Oliver, the former being Barr and the latter being Giuliani.

When the whistleblower’s complaint was released, it was clear that the White House worked extremely hard to cover its tracks after the phone call. The notes from the call were stored in a separate codeword-level system for highly classified information.

“Why do that if there wasn’t something very bad in there?” asked Oliver. “If you don’t want anyone to see something very bad on your computer, everyone knows you just put it in a folder labeled ‘finance records’.” Oliver then revealed that his “finance folder” on his computer contains images of hamsters in Speedos which he promised was not a sex thing.

The plot of “Stupid Watergate II” gets “dumber than you can even imagine” as Oliver discussed Ukrainian president Zelensky and his history as a comedian who used to play the President of Ukraine in a sitcom. He then shared a video of one Zelensky’s comedy routines where he is seen playing a duet on the piano with what seems to be his penis.

Oliver continued to point out the absurd people involved in the scandal — mainly Rudy Giuliani. After taking some jabs at his cousin/first wife, he revealed that Giuliani is working for Trump for free because he is going through a messy divorce. By working pro bono, he supposedly reduces future alimony. “The President is paying him nothing and is still overpaying him!” Oliver remarked.

Of all the Trump scandals, Oliver said, this is the one that might actually hurt. “People seem legitimately furious over this,” he said. “The House has opened an impeachment inquiry and even Republicans are treading with caution for a change. It kind of makes you wonder ‘why now?’ The President has done so many terrible things why does this one count? It’s hard to say — maybe because this one is simpler in key ways.”

Oliver continued to explain that, unlike earlier scandals, Trump pressuring Ukraine to get dirt on his opponent and then hiding the conversation is easy to understand. “You don’t need to know more than that to know that this is something that presidents absolutely should not be able to do.”

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