John Oliver Explains Why Donald Trump Loves Vladimir Putin, Who Loves Trump Right Back

Lisa de Moraes
Updated

John Oliver probed the “weird, noticeably soft spot” President Donald Trump has for Russia and its ruler Vladimir Putin on Last Week Tonight.

“Trump is fixated on getting along better with Russia,” the HBO late-night host said Sunday night, telling Trump, in absentia, “You’ve been objectively nicer to Putin than you’ve been to Meryl Streep.”

FILE - In this file photo taken on Monday, Aug. 3, 2009, then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin seen riding a horse while traveling in the mountains of the Siberian Tyva region (also referred to as Tuva), Russia, during his short vacation. Putin has become alternately notorious and beloved for an array of adventurous stunts, including posing with a tiger cub and riding a horse bare-chested. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, POOL, File)

While Americans might see him as a cartoon character, shirtlessly riding a horse bareback, in Russia “he’s not some comic book villain — he’s a comic book hero” who has his own pop song that begins:

I want a man like Putin who’s full of strength/I want a man like Putin who doesn’t drink.

“A Man Like Putin” is about how women want someone Putin-esque: 60s, thinning hair, “probably about 5-foot-5 … Richard Dreyfuss, but mean,” Oliver explained.

Trump’s love affair with Putin extends to defending him during his pre-Super Bowl interview with Bill O’Reilly, who called him “a killer,” to which Trump responded that we have a lot of killers in this country too, to which Oliver responded: “f*cking embarrassing.”

Russia’s apparently successful campaign to convince its people that our election was rigged was in service of its larger point that there is no such thing as real democracy, even in the United States.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0utzB6oDan0&w=620&h=340]

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