“Donald Trump isn’t going to be president anymore,” announced John Oliver at the top of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight.
The British-born comedian, who revealed last week that he’d voted for the first time in order to kick Trump out of the White House, was taping his HBO show Saturday night as people in America were taking to the streets to celebrate the president’s big defeat at the hands of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
“It was like that all day here in New York. There was a mood here that can only be described as a reverse 9/11, because it combined complete euphoria, an abiding disgust for Rudy Giuliani, and this time, people actually were dancing on the rooftops in New Jersey. It was a really good day. Never forget,” said Oliver.
He added, “It is genuinely hard to overstate the level of relief that has been flying around parts of this country, especially at the end of a truly draining week.”
The late-night host turned to the baseless allegations from Trump, his spawn, and his lackeys that the election was fraudulent—including Eric Trump, who tweeted out a video that purported to show 80 Trump ballots being burned in Virginia Beach but had actually been debunked a day before he shared it on his social media.
“And that is really a shame, because normally the Trump sons are so good at getting to the truth,” joked Oliver. “Like the time they solved the mystery of, ‘Can a beard actually make someone look more like a child?’ The answer turned out to be a resounding ‘yes.’ Good work, gumshoes.”
Then there are the Trump lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Michigan that were based on completely unsubstantiated hearsay and subsequently tossed out, as well as President Trump, who tweeted on Saturday: “THE OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED INTO THE COUNTING ROOMS. I WON THE ELECTION, GOT 71,000,000 LEGAL VOTES. BAD THINGS HAPPENED WHICH OUR OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE. NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WERE SENT TO PEOPLE WHO NEVER ASKED FOR THEM!” (He’s since deleted it.)
Oliver called it “a tough charge to make stick because, by the nature of the accusation, you didn’t see them,” adding, “But the claim was even more meritless than it appeared.”
Yes, Trump own campaign lawyers admitted that it was a lie in court and that their observers were allowed into the counting rooms. “Specifically, the judge asked, ‘Are people representing Donald J. Trump in that room,’ to which the campaign lawyer said, ‘Yes,’ and the judge replied, ‘I’m sorry, then what’s your problem?’” explained Oliver.
He then pivoted to Trump’s final big scam: frantically asking supporters to donate money to the campaign’s election-challenge efforts.
One email from the Trump campaign to supporters read, “This is your FINAL NOTICE. So far, you’ve ignored all our emails asking you to join us in DEFENDING THE ELECTION. You’ve ignored Team Trump, Eric, Lara, Don, the Vice President AND you’ve even ignored the President of the United States.”
“Quick side note about those solicitations: in the fine print it mentions that rather than funding lawsuits, half of any contribution will be used to retire debt from his re-election campaign,” Oliver said.
With that, he cut through the BS and spoke directly to the American people.
“The fact is: Trump lost this election. He lost. All that bullshit that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing work did not work this time,” said Oliver. “And it’s not like Trump and his family are going to stop. They’re going to carry on grifting and lying like they’ve always done. But once he’s out of the White House, it’s just not going to have the same effect anymore. It’s not going to directly impact every American’s life. And that alone is fucking fantastic.”
