Mike Pence: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Mike Pence vice-president the United State and whatever the exact opposite of a Silver Fox is I'm gonna go with action weasel and if you're wondering why talk about pence well with all the recent focus on who Trump is firing in the White House it is worth remembering the one person that that cannot actually happen to president Trump cannot but see mr. pence as the indispensable man in his inner circle he is brett by statute the one person in the West Wing to whom Donald Trump cannot say you're fired that is true now while in many ways pence is like any other Trump employee ethically compromised creeps the out by Jared and subjected to all sorts of unwanted physical contact hence is constitutionally the only official in the White House that Trump can't fire and that is worrisome because he is synonymous with some extreme positions like his opposition to abortion and gay rights just listen to our osa who remember had first-hand experience working with him we would be begging for days of Trump back if pence became president that's all of this game he's extreme I'm Christian I love Jesus but he thinks Jesus tells him to say thanks Jesus I say that she's right Omarosa is right there also I'm pretty sure the original titles of the new and Old Testaments were Jesus said this and Jesus I say that so so if Pence is that terrifying tonight let's take a look at him and and if there are any Mike Pence supporters watching this I cannot promise that he is going to come out of tonight's show looking great but I can promise that I will say something nice about him before this piece is over you have my word on that so let's begin Pence's reputation is as the old boring principal to contrast to Donald Trump but the truth is he's been more than willing to defend the indefensible and while all politicians equivocate Pence is exceptionally good at dodging tough questions just look at this interview from just after Trump tweeted entirely falsely that he had won the popular vote if you just deducted the millions of people who voted illegally watch how many times pence refuses to engage in the premise of the question that statement is false why is it responsible to make it well I think I think the president-elect just wants a call to call to attention the fact that that there has been evidence over over many years of fraud and and and expressing that reality the Pew Research Center found evidence of that four years ago as certainly certainly his right but you know it's his right to make false statements well it's it's his right to express his opinion as a president-elect to the United States I think one of the things that's refreshing about our president-elect and the it's one of the reasons why I think he made such an incredible connection with people all across this country is because he he tells you what's on his mind but why make false statements well look I don't know that that is a false statement George and neither do you but yes you do though because everyone knows that statement was which is why it's a little alarming that pence would be so willing to defend a complete lie by calling it refreshing because if that's the standard you can say all sorts of things in the names of refreshment you could say Mike Pence spent four hundred thousand dollars having his penis replaced with a marshmallow peep is that true who knows but try telling me you're not refreshed hearing about it but despite lies like that pence is well-liked among evangelical voters eight out of ten of whom voted for the Trump pence ticket and he does have impeccable credentials as a social conservative pence used to have a local radio show the Mike Pence show in the 90s where he sounded off on hot-button issues and while current pence is controlled and polished back then he was surprisingly animated just listen to him address one day's topic with some real contempt in his voice early in the week we talked about whether or not it was time to rethink this whole business of women in the military what the is that toe he's saying women in the military with the same perm you skeptics as we used to describe this whole business of dinosaurs in medical school or chair in the starting lineup for the Cleveland Cavaliers she's a bench player at best you restrict her minutes we all know that look he wasn't just being provocative there he means it two years later pence wrote an editorial attacking the Disney film Mulan for showing a woman in combat concluding women in military bad idea and if you're thinking well well come on he grew up in the 1950s it's just a generational thing no he didn't he's 58 years old Pence is three months younger than flavor flake who has no excuse there and that was just one of many ludicrous opinions that pentas expressed over the years he also argued for the teaching of intelligent design in schools he expressed they hoped to consign Roe versus Wade to the ash heap of history and as governor of Indiana responded to an HIV outbreak among drug users by dragging his feet on allowing needle exchange programs during which time he said he was going to go home and pray on it which and I realize this isn't necessarily the most relevant criticism here but can't you do that from the office but perhaps the issue Pence is most associated with is his hostility to LGBT rights and it is not just me saying that his boss seems to think so too The New Yorker setting a campaign staffer reports that behind closed doors Trump had a habit of mocking Vice President Mike Pence's religiosity when the conversation turned to gay rights Trump motion towards pence and joked don't ask that guy you want to hang them all look look Trump is clearly joking about that but it is also the kind of punch line that only works if we all know the premise behind it to be true like jokes about terrible airline food or bad breakups or how people from Toronto a terrified of hard boiled eggs their jokes based on universal knowledge we all agree on and the truth is pence is not and has never been a friend of the gay community over the years he sport anti-discrimination laws that would have protected them he's also opposed allowing gays to serve in the military openly or otherwise with his campaigns website saying homosexuality is incompatible with military service and he wants defended the sanctity of marriage in another surprisingly passionate speech marriage was ordained by God instituted in the law is the glue of the American family and the safest harbor to raise children and it must be defended against the onslaught of the left in the Congress in the courts and if need be in the Constitution of the United States of America holy if if if I may quote one of America's greatest philosophers when pence made national news by signing a controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act which many felt enable businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexuality and realloc Xander and her wife Cynthia believe it's an invitation to discriminate by refusing service you know we don't know what restaurants or what stores we can go into and you know not be turned away and have to suffer you know that's degrading it's embarrassing exactly people were afraid of being turned away from restaurants and it is bad enough for someone to privately dislike you for your sexuality but it's even worse to be publicly told that you are too gay for waffles and and yet and yet when this possibility was raised to pence by his arch nemesis George Stephanopoulos he refused to even engage in the question so yes or no if a florist in Indiana refuses to serve a gay couple at their wedding is that legal now in Indiana George this is this is where this debate has gone with with misinformation and it's just a question sir yes well well this there's been shameless rhetoric about my state and about this law and about its intention all over the Internet do you think it should be legal in the state of Indiana to discriminate against gays or lesbians George it's a yes or no question come on Hoosiers don't believe in discrimination that's neither the word yes nor the word no it's the word Hoosier which isn't an answer to any question besides what's a good derogatory slang term for an owl with a drinking problem look at yourself you're Hoosier you're gonna go fly into a tree get your life together Hoosier but while Hoosiers may not believe in discrimination Mike Pence clearly does and yet interestingly one specific allegation he's pushed back on concerns whether or not he supported gay conversion therapy a question the frankly didn't come out of nowhere when Mike Pence ran for Congress in Indiana in the 1990s his campaign agenda included this resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior according to the vice president spokesperson mr. pence did not and does not support gay conversion therapy okay well I personally find that denial complete horseshit I will acknowledge that the language on his website was very carefully worded it does give him an escape and his denial is the grossest effort I've seen to reverse a decision made in the early orts apart from Russell Crowe's actual upcoming divorce auction to settle his 2003 marriage it is called Russell Crowe the art of divorce it's real and it's amazing and you can buy items such as this leather jock strap used during the filming of Cinderella Man will we be stupid enough to bid on that I don't know why don't you ask one of our five wax presidents the point here is that's not the point the point here is pence denies supporting conversion therapy but that's a little hard to take considering how much he is praised someone closely associated with it because one of his mentor's is the notorious homophobe James Dobson and if you are not familiar with him I'll let him introduce himself in a truly unsettling way I represent an organization called focus on a family which a three year old one time called pocus and the fanny you know that's not far off from what we're trying to do in some ways I guess you could say we're thrusting ourselves into the whole of American spiritual life and reaching around to grab the temples of secular decadence because that's what Focus on the Family is all about having gay sex that's right reducing the rate of gay sex by at least half the the organization the Dobson founded Focus on the Family has a history of promoting conversion therapy for a decade if sponsored a conference addressing understanding and preventing homosexuality called love one out which could not sound any more like a euphemism for masturbating as in all this talk of being poked in the fanny really makes me want to go and love one out Dobson Dobson also wrote a book titled marriage under fire in which he stated Focus on the Family promotes the truth that homosexuality is preventable and treatable and he produced a video series in which he elaborated on that theme we want to talk about the prevention and treatment of homosexuality in boys they're more than a thousand who are being treated at any given time for homosexuality they don't all change it's not easy to change I don't want to imply that it's just a simple thing you just decide you're not gonna be homosexual anymore no there are deeply rooted factors that account for this and they are tough to whip now obviously there is no such thing as the homosexual agenda but if there were whipping bad boys by the thousands wouldn't not be on it now now Dobson left Focus on the Family in 2010 and they have since claimed that they have softened their message but if you go to their website right now you will find articles like when a loved one says I'm gay the stages of grief and why we support sexual orientation change efforts not to mention the fact that their logo still features a child who dismembered to her parents and is holding their severed arms aloft in some sort of gruesome impish victory dance and I think that's just sick so while pants may claim that he did not and does not support gay conversion therapy he very much supports those who support his because just last year as vice president he was in Colorado saying this it is great to be here on the 40th anniversary of Focus on the Family allow me to acknowledge the founder of this ministry a man who became the author of an enormous body of work that has inspired millions and he's been a friend and a mentor to me dr. James Dobson look saying you don't support conversion therapy and then calling Dobson your mentor is like saying you're a staunch vegetarian and a law abiding citizen and by the way please meet my lifelong friend and mentor the Hamburglar and pence is not saying that as a city radio host or an Indiana congressman he say it as vice president of the United States in which role he also presented Dobson with an award just last June and that is appalling and all this makes it even more galling that at the start of this piece I promised that I would mention one thing that I liked about pence and look a promise is a promise so through gritted teeth here it is I kind of like his rabbit I really genuinely do and also I'm not the only one the vice president and his wife could kiss their audiences attention goodbye once Marlin bundo was introduced that's right the pen C's have a pet rabbit and his name is Marlon Banda which again it kills me to say this is an objectively good name for a bunny and Marlin boldo is a great rabbit he has his own Instagram account here is making an important phone call here he is making another one this time using a landline and here he's posing next to a strangely appropriate sign that says if you met my family you would understand here's the thing Garland I haven't yet I still do the point is Marlin fondo is the most likable thing about an otherwise unlikable man look how George W Bush is a perfectly fine painter or how Bill Cosby raised awareness Americans awareness of pudding or how Roger Ailes is dead sometimes we can't deny but there's one thing you like about someone and bondo is actually about to get even more attention the first tell-all book to come out of the current White House is hopping into bookstores Marlin bundo the pet rapid a vice president Mike Pence there he's signing a deal to publish Marlin bundles a day in the life of the vice president that is true Marlin bando has a children's book coming out this is it it's being released tomorrow there's even going to be a book tour and I would love to say fine look it's a fun sweet book about a rabbit who gives a but unfortunately one of the stops on that book tour is a focus on the family so congratulations pence you even managed to ruin marlin bond oh now none of us can enjoy a book about your rabbit or can we because it turns out in a complete coincidence we also wrote a book about Mike Pence's rabbit that has also been published in fact while he's out tomorrow right now now there are a few small differences between the two books you'll notice right away that our rabbit has a bowtie so there's that also our story is about Marlon bunt Oh falling in love with another boy rabbits because our Marlin Bonzo is gay the point is you can actually bite this book starting right now at Amazon and at better Bongo book calm which should be easy enough to remember if you want the regular Bongo book with a better bundle book it's a better bond o book calm all of our proceeds from dicks are going to The Trevor Project which provides crisis intervention services for LGBTQ youth and aged 90 which works to end the AIDS epidemic in the United States for those are two great reasons to buy this book another is that selling more books than pence will probably really piss him off so that's three great reasons right there you can also buy an audiobook at audible.com featuring Jim Parsons Jesse Tyler Ferguson Jeff Garlin Ellie Kemper John Lithgow Jack McBrayer and RuPaul and let me be completely clear about this this is actual book for children this is a real children's book this isn't some adult book telling Mike Pence to go himself although in buying it that's exactly what you would be doing is a sweet story about Marlon bundle falling in love and to prove it here is just a taste hello my name is Marlon bundo and I am a bunny this is the story of my very special day as usual after breakfast I hopped to the garden to look at the flowers that is when I saw him the most beautiful bunny I had ever seen my name is Marlon I said but my family calls me Botes it's short for bunny of the United States it's a long story my name is Wesley and my family calls me Wesley said Wesley we went on a long hop together we hopped through the garden we hopped right inside the old stuffy house we hopped through very boring meetings with very boring people at the end of our hop I said Wesley I don't want to hop without you ever again and Wesley said that's funny because I never want to hop without you Marlon bundo ever again and we both said we will get married and hop together forever [Music] said the stinkbug you can't get married the stinkbug was in charge all the animals listen to him even though he was very stinky oh boy bunnies don't marry boy bunnies boy bunnies have to marry girl bunnies but don't worry we had a plan a plan that involved all the animals in the garden and if you want to know how the story turns out you are going to have to buy the book please buy it for your children buy it for any child you know or just buy it because you know it would annoy mike pence you've been doing a nice thing in a really dickish way and isn't that the dream at the end of the day again you can find it at better bundle book con or if you would prefer at the website focus on the firmly which we also own now and additionally if you prefer to donate directly to the trevor project or 1898 if you make a donation of 1199 or more you can get a free copy of the ebook all the information is on our website we've actually bought copies but every member of our audience tonight [Applause]

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 14,770,584

Rating: 4.7294765 out of 5

Keywords: mike pence, pence, last week tonight mike pence, john oliver mike pence, john oliver pence, last week tonight pence, marlon bundo, john oliver marlon bundo, last week tonight marlon bundo, marlon bundo bunny, marlon bundo rabbit

Id: rs2RlZQVXBU

Length: 20min 26sec (1226 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 18 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/vostok412]

I am laughing my ass off that Pence named the bunny after Marlon Brando. Brando was openly bisexual and you can easily google to find a picture of him perform fellatio on another man.

[u/randomusernametaken]

John's wife is an Iraq war vet, that "females in the military" comment definitely hit a nerve for him.

[u/ShiroHachiRoku]

I like how Pence named his bunny after a known Hollywood elite bisexual.

[u/themanifoldcuriosity]

/u/masamunecyrus on Mike Pence:

There's a difference between being a representative and being a governor.

As a representative, you push for your special interests.

As a governor, you do what's best for your state.

Pence got the endorsement from the much-liked former Republican governor Mitch Daniels (now president of Purdue) basically with the promise that he wouldn't pursue a social agenda. Mitch Daniels was liked because he focused almost exclusively on the economy and government efficiency. He gave no fucks about social issues, and it was implied that Pence, as the successor of Daniels, would set aside the social dogmas that he was known for and govern a state that was on a very good path, economically, after Mitch Daniels' two terms.

He didn't do that.

From day one, Pence didn't govern--he played national GOP politics. Whatever the big firey debate of the day was among the national GOP, he grabbed ahold of it and pretended to be its conservative crusader, even if it had absolutely zero relevance to the state of Indiana. He spent time, money, and resources on championing issues that Hoosiers didn't care about or didn't support, because he wanted to pander to the National GOP's ultra conservative base for his future career. Essentially, he was using Indiana as a stepping stone. He never cared about being governor. He always had higher aspirations, and the governorship was a stepping stone to a higher federal office. Most Hoosiers, left or right on the political spectrum, espouse this opinion about him.

As I said before, Mitch Daniels literally gave no fucks about social issues. Indiana is generally a conservative state, but it's never been a state particularly hung up on social issues, and it's never been a state that follows the national GOP's social platform. Indiana has, for as long as I've been alive, been a business Republican state--politicians like the Bushes, Mitt Romney, etc. We voted Obama into office, and prior to Mitch Daniels in 2005, we had 16 straight years of Democratic governorship. Indianapolis, the capital and largest city in the state, routinely switched between Republican and Democrat mayors, and it has managed to have long-term plans and continue its momentum regardless of which party is in office.

So Pence, with his national conservative GOP politics, has been an aberration that has directly harmed Indiana's image and its pocket book.

In the three years since Pence took office, he:

• Pushed through legislation making harsher penalties for drug crimes against the protests of numerous major legal organizations including the Indiana Bar Association, as well as most Hoosiers

• Inherited a phenomenal state balance sheet from Mitch Daniels and used it as an excuse to push tax cuts so extreme (would have caused a tremendous deficit) that the Republican-controlled Congress shut him down

• Tried and failed to amend the Indiana constitution to ban gay marriage, despite widespread polling that showed that Hoosiers didn't support it, and despite the vociferous condemnation of virtually every major business in the state

• Since his gay marriage amendment failed, he literally, as payback (not exaggerating, the signing ceremony was invite only, no media was allowed or invited, but someone leaked a picture that showed Pence surrounded by well-known anti-LGBT extremists), came back with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which was a genuine political circus. It humiliated Indiana on the national stage, directly harmed Indianapolis, and was met with, perhaps, the fiercest backlash by the people of any state in the Union. The extraordinary protests of Hoosiers and businesses allowed the state GOP leaders to basically coerce--to his visible chagrin--Pence to amend the law and "fix it" (this was actually the front page of the biggest newspaper in Indiana).

• The RFRA was such a debacle that Pence ended up hiring an expensive out-of-state public relations firm to heal Indiana's national image. He couldn't answer why he chose an out-of-state firm. He couldn't answer why he chose such an expensive firm, when there are many firms in Indiana that could have done the job. It was eventually canceled, and was yet another waste of taxpayer money. To date, the RFRA has cost Indianapolis (a city that fought against it, changed the official tourism website to rainbow colors, and hung a huge rainbow banner at the airport) $60 million, and the total cost--to the economy and reputation--to the rest of the state is unknown.

• During the gay marriage supreme court fight, he literally sent the Indiana attorney general to other states to advise them on how to craft their laws and fight gay marriage nationally. He did this on the taxpayer dollar. He continued to spend taxpayer money fighting gay marriage in the courts and with lawsuits despite, at the time, everyone knowing what the Supreme Court decision was going to be. It was basically a political stand by Pence; an expensive political stand that Hoosiers didn't support.

• He fought to pass a law preventing cities from passing their own minimum wage statutes. Is this "small government"?

• He has acted like a strongman (think Turkey's Erdoğan), doing everything in his power to make Glenda Ritz, the state superintendent and an elected official, quit her job, and barring that, stripping her of the power given to her by the Indiana constitute and the Hoosiers that elected her through backroom deals, conspiracy, and highly technical legal challenges. Just Google "Mike Pence Glenda Ritz." You could write a thesis on it.

• Everyone, literally everyone, was on board for receiving a huge federal grant for preschool funding. The Indiana Department of Education was literally in the final stages of the application process--and the federal government was happy with Indiana and going to give us an especially large chunk of money--when Pence came in and shut it down for no reason because accepting money from the feds became politically untenable among the national GOP tea partier crowd. And, of course, you can't be elected president--Pence's eyes were always on the future--without support from the GOP's far right base. After shutting down the process, he has recently been opining that it would be a good idea to get federal money to fund preschools... A year after he shit all over the Dept of Education's proposal to do just that.

• The HIV epidemic in southern Indiana is out of control and among the worst in the country. Of course, we could provide free needles for heroin addicts like has been done in many states to curb HIV problems, but that is politically repugnant to Mike Pence. He also managed to get the Planned Parenthoods in that part of the state shut down, eliminating the opportunity for poor people to get tested. The HIV epidemic, which never had to be an epidemic, continues, and Pence gets to push the problem on our future governor as he goes to join Trump on the national stage.

• Speaking of Planned Parenthood, Pence is highly proud of his accomplishment at passing the single most restrictive abortion law since Roe vs Wade. The law, HEA 1337 is far stricter than anything even in the Deep South and is almost certainly unconstitutional. He knows that it's probably unconstitutional. Nevertheless, Indiana taxpayers will spend millions of dollars for our attorney general to fight the law all the way to the Supreme Court, just so Pence could make his political statement.

• He literally tried to make a state-run news agency that he would then give exclusive interviews and access to. I don't even know if that's legal, but he tried to do it and was promptly crucified by the media and even his own party.

• He asserted authority to ban Syrian refugees from being settled in Indiana. He has no authority. No governor has. He knew that, but he was planning to be a GOP presidential candidate, and he needed to show that he was strong and anti-Muslim refugee to appease the national GOP base. He took leadership role in this discriminatory crusade, appearing on national TV to preach his ignorance. This particular event managed to throw multiple refugee settlement organizations into disarray--which, by the way, actually include the Catholic Church of Indiana (the arch bishop of Indianapolis publicly criticized the governor)--and several Syrian refugees which were well into the process of moving to Indiana had to be relocated to another state. Pence didn't back down until the courts affirmed that his order was unconstitutional.

• He shut down a highly successful energy efficiency program--one of the first in the nation, making Indiana a trailblazer--initiated by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission with the support of previous governor Mitch Daniels. He did this for no good reason, other than to signal to his far-right constituents that he was fighting against Obama's evil despotic EPA.

This is all just in his three years in office. He is reviled across the state, and especially so in Indianapolis. There is (was--now that he's the VP nominee, he can no longer be governor) a bipartisan Pence Must Go campaign to get rid of him, and there are literally billboards and yard signs plastered all over the city. Pence is, by virtually all objective measures, one of the worst governors in recent Indiana history, at least in terms of working for the benefit of the state. He has basically focused on far-right Christian social conservative interests to the clear detriment of all else, most importantly the current and future well-being of the state's reputation and economy.

TLDR: Oliver lowballed what a fuckface this guy is.

[u/joalr0]

I just want to clarify something from this episode. As someone from Toronto, the fear of hard boiled eggs is perfectly legitimate and nothing to be joked about. Oliver making light of Toronto's dark, hard-boiled past is a little disturbing and insulting. It's nothing to yolk about.

[u/The_Larger_Fish]

There's "I'm going to drag your name through the mud" kind of fuck you. Then there's "I'm going to open my own church making fun of you" fuck you. However, the "I'm releasing a competing children's book that places you as the bad guy and we're going to use the money to support everything you are against" fuck you is so utterly prefect that I struggle to think of a better way to say fuck you.

[u/denizbabey]

This reminds me Billy Eichner's do gay people care about John Oliver segment. I love uncle JO. https://youtu.be/Dr5RFWj5GD0

[u/darthqueeg]

Mike Pence is Gargamel for gay people.

"I'll get you gays!" shakes fist from his dark castle overlooking Gay Village

[u/wherestherice]

I need to stop watching this late at night. I laughed way too loudly at the New/Old Testament gag.