On Sunday, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver began his program—the last episode of the season, as it were—by addressing President Trump, whom he branded “the most racist president we’ve had since we decided presidents probably shouldn’t be racist.”
And there were a lot of Trump gaffes this week, even by Trump standards. The president called Saudi Arabia “a spectacular ally” just after the CIA concluded that its leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, ordered the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi; dismissed climate change after touring the wildfire devastation in California by saying, “I want great climate”; repeatedly called Paradise, California, one of the towns left destroyed by the wildfires, “Pleasure”—while touring the aftermath; and claimed he “did not know” that the man he appointed acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker, had repeatedly dismissed special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
But Oliver argued that Trump’s “weirdest unforced error this week” came during a Medal of Freedom ceremony honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (as well as the wife of one of Trump’s biggest donors). After naming Scalia’s nine children, Trump addressed Scalia’s widow, Maureen, who was in attendance. “You were very busy!” the president told her. “Wow. Wow. I always knew I liked him.”
“What are you doing, you strange, strange man!” Oliver exclaimed. “You’re essentially saying, ‘I like your dead husband because I like people who fuck a lot because I fuck a lot. Guess what? I just took a speech about your dead husband and made it about me fucking a lot. Sorry for your loss, come get your medal.’”
