John Oliver began his latest installment of Last Week Tonight by addressing Donald Trump‘s Washington, D.C. takeover.
The late-night host delved into the hypocrisy of the president’s federal takeover of the U.S. capital’s police force, which POTUS announced was “a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse. This is liberation day in D.C. and we’re going to take our capital back.”
Since the declaration last week, the occupation has hurt local businesses, resulted in over 100 arrests and been challenged in court and on the streets. This, despite the fact that violent crime in D.C. hit a historic 30-year low earlier this year.
“It is painfully clear that Trump is doing this to boost his tough-guy image with his base,” Oliver began, “but that is gonna be a challenge because it is a tough sell for the man who was friends with a child sex trafficker [Jeffrey Epstein], brought about this mess [Jan. 6 insurrection] and on Friday got stream-rolled by a bloodthirsty warlord [Russian president Vladimir Putin] to convince Americans that he’s keeping them safe.”
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The political comic concluded, “When I would argue that if anyone is making things too dadgum dangerous in this country, it’s probably f—ing him right now,” parroting John Neely Kennedy’s folksy speech referenced earlier in the broadcast.
After running through the week’s highlights in news, Oliver then zeroed in on the MAHA, or Make America Healthy Movement, spearheaded by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.