HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver made a meal out of some of the more shocking self-owns that retired military officials and current House Republicans uttered live on CNN this past week.
Last Sunday morning, for starters, retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson explained the rationale for allowing Israel to bombard Gaza until Hamas terror fighters gave up, saying, “The people are going to suffer, but they’re going to come up on the net and say, ‘Look, get us out of here.’” A perplexed CNN anchor, Victor Blackwell, replied: “Does that mean starve the Palestinian people?” Anderson confirmed as much, saying: “It sounds callous, but this is a war.”
On Last Week Tonight, a shocked Oliver replied: “What?! It is a war, but what you’re describing is a war crime. And one thing does not justify the other. Also, just spare a thought for the anchor, who probably didn’t get up that morning thinking he’d have to gently explain you can’t starve people to a former U.S. military official.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Oliver found lighter ground for mockery with the ongoing paralysis in Congress as House Republicans have failed for a second consecutive week to elect a new House Speaker, with last week’s sacrificial offering, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), trying and failing three times. “Enjoyably losing slightly more each time,” Oliver noted, zeroing in on a photo of Jordan holding a note reading ‘What is the real reason?’ and suggesting it looks “less like a bid to be speaker and more like an early draft of a suicide note.”
And yet, following Jordan’s third failed vote and Republicans deciding to adjourn for the weekend, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told a CNN reporter that somehow the Democrats were to blame for not supporting Republicans, but also claiming that by having these failed votes out in the open, the American people get to see how the proverbial sausage gets made. Oliver saw it differently: “It’s getting laid out because you’re incapable of making a sausage at all,” adding: “When people go to the grocery store they expect Oscar-Meyer Wieners, not Oscar-Meyer A Pig Anus & Other Assorted Animal Parts.”
Oliver also took joy in mocking Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) upon reading the revelations in a federal indictment alleging Mendendez has been acting as a foreign agent for Egypt.
Oliver listed a number of points that stood out, noting that the senior senator had met his current wife, Nadine, at an IHOP in Union City, New Jersey. Nadine Menendez has posted multiple selfies with the cast of The Real Housewives of New Jersey and Mob Wives and, according to the indictment, received a $15,000 bribe to pay for a new Mercedes after she totaled her previous car, killing a man in 2018 — “Google that yourselves,” Oliver suggested. “And by the way, not a great look for Mercedes there,” he said, reminding viewers that German manufacturer Mercedes-Benz was associated with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. “Although to be fair, it’s not the choice for Nazis anymore. These days, that’s really more of a Tesla thing.”
