As President Donald Trump prepares Americans for economic hardship amid a looming trade war, Last Week Tonight‘s John Oliver zeroed in on the GOP leader’s multiple comments about dolls, which came about as he enlisted a clumsy and ever-changing metaphor to discuss how girls of varying ages may now need to buy anywhere between two to five dolls instead of 30 or 37.
“Every single way this man refers to girls makes my skin want to turn inside out,” the political comic quipped. “That said, I did also want to see him keep going there, just to see how many variations of ages and numbers he could cycle through.”
Oliver then rattled off one of his signature high-speed asides, mimicking how the president might continue upping the ages of the girls mentioned (“45-year-old girl, but still young at heart”) and increasing the doll count (“12 dolls, 12 Apostles, 12 Days of Christmas, 12 Angry Men — Henry Fonda, great guy, right? The other men — very angry, very angry men, that’s what we’ve got to get out of this country that’s coming over illegally. Or you know what — 13 dolls, that’s my final offer.”)
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After reiterating his initial “frivolous” comments a second time during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, in which he posited that an 11-year-old “beautiful baby girl” would not need so many dolls, Trump’s second reiteration aboard Air Force One upped the figurative doll-owning age to 15.
“He thinks 15-year-old girls play with dolls. Has he ever met a 15-year-old girl? That’s a dumb question, of course he has — he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein,” Oliver said, flashing a picture of the two on screen and eliciting huge exclamations of “whoa” from the audience.
Elsewhere, Oliver also threw a zinger at Jeanine Pirro following her appointment as interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., calling her the “meanest drunk aunt.” He also made some lighthearted jokes about the election of Chicago-hailing Robert Prevost to the head of the Catholic Church as Pope Leo XIV.
“So if you’re wondering: ‘Is Trump’s stupid trade war about to hurt a lot of people?’ Well, is the pope Catholic and now also some guy named Bob from Chicago? The answer is, obviously, yes,” he said.