Yes, the news broke this week that President Trump asked an aide to look into whether the U.S. could purchase Greenland—a country that is literally melting—and on Sunday night, comedian John Oliver had a field day with the news.
“Yeah, of course he fucking did. Of course he did,” offered Oliver on Last Week Tonight. “Greenland is icy, distant, and semi-autonomous—it’s exactly Trump’s type,” he added, before throwing to a picture of the president’s third wife, Melania Trump.
“Now, speculation on Trump’s comments rose to such a point this week that Greenland’s premier had to issue a statement saying, ‘Greenland is not for sale,’” the HBO host continued, “so, if you had 2 1/2 years in your office pool of ‘when a world leader would have to tell Trump you can’t buy our country,’ congratulations, you’re a big winner.”
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Later on, Oliver took issue with Trump’s idiotic response to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong over an extradition bill that could strip the people of their autonomy.
“Trump not only barely seems aware of what’s going on there, he also essentially gave China a green light to do whatever they want,” Oliver said.
He then played a clip of Trump breaking down the protests: “Well, something’s probably happening with Hong Kong… because when you look at, you know, what’s going on, they’ve had riots for a long period of time, and I don’t know what China’s attitude is,” Trump said. “Somebody said that at some point they’re going to want to stop that, but that’s between Hong Kong and that’s between China, because Hong Kong is a part of China.”
Hong Kong is a part of China. Brilliant stuff.
“I will say this: ‘They’re gonna want to stop that’ is exactly the wrong message to send to China right now,” Oliver argued. “Trump effectively giving China a tacit endorsement to use force against protesters is unfortunately not remotely surprising—he sends the wrong signals to other countries all the time. And until his term ends, we’re all just going to have to live with the fact that we now have a president who looks at America’s allies and says, ‘Go fuck yourselves’; looks at Russia’s interference in our election and says, ‘No big deal’; and looks at Greenland and says, ‘Two hundred dollars and Don Jr.—final offer.’”
