John Oliver began the latest edition of his Emmy-winning HBO program, Last Week Tonight, by going over the “absolutely insane” events of the past week, one that began with the revelation—courtesy of The Washington Post—that President Trump shared highly classified information with Russian officials during their White House visit and ended with the commander in chief massaging a mystical orb with the Saudis.
In between, there were The New York Times’ twin scoops: first, that former FBI Director James Comey wrote in a memo that President Trump had asked him to end the investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and then that Trump had told the aforementioned Russian officials in the Oval Office that he fired Comey because he was “a real nut job” and since he’s gone, “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
Of the “that’s taken off” line, Oliver remarked, “It’s almost difficult to believe your ears when you hear something so audaciously corrupt. It’s like if Hillary Clinton had sent an email with the subject line: ‘Sup—I did Benghazi.’”
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And yet, though Oliver thinks the whole Trump-Russia scandal “feels like a pretty big deal” and some Republican lawmakers—including Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI)—are raising the idea of impeachment, and White House lawyers are reportedly researching what a Trump impeachment might look like, the comedian cautioned people not to get their hopes up.
“Before we get lost any further down this paranoid wormhole, let’s just all take a collective breath, because in reality, even though some people have been getting excited this week, impeachment is a long shot for many reasons—not the least of which is it would require a majority of the House to vote to impeach, and that is currently controlled by Republicans, and it would then need two-thirds of the Senate to vote to convict the president, and it is also controlled by Republicans right now,” Oliver explained.
“So the likelihood is that Trump will survive this and continue as president, which shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone,” he added. “Why would this be the end of the line for him? Trump has seemed to reach the end of the line on multiple occasions only for nothing to happen.”
If Trump were to get impeached, however, Oliver joked: “Ironically, I imagine at least part of it would involve thousands of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey.”
