Stupid Watergate II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

[Music] we thought we'd update you on the ongoing Trump administration scandals that we've been calling stupid Watergate a scandal potentially on the scale of Watergate but where everyone involved is dumb and terrible and bad at everything now last month marks the one-year anniversary of the murder investigation or as the president and his supporters call it Robert Muller's illegitimate runaway which on it is and it has been from the beginning a witch-hunt this is a witch-hunt this is a witch-hunt basically a witch-hunt though witch-hunt if you will it's a damn witch hunt yes they've been derisive ly referring to the Miller investigation as a witch hunt which is a little ironic because you just know if Giuliani Hannity and Trump had been alive back when people burned witches they'd have had front-row seats toasting marshmallows while trying to conceal their bonus now it's also a strange claim considering that mullahs team has in the past year charged 20 people and three companies and gathered five guilty pleas so if this is a witch hunt witches exist meaning we should probably change all references on our history books to 16th century witch hunts to read that time we were right to murder all those teenage girls in a lake and the fact the investigation has been moving fast is good news because set aside for right now how you feel about Trump or politics the question did a hostile foreign government trying to manipulate our election is something any reasonable person should want answered quickly and yet an increasing number of Americans seem to want the investigation to stop last July support for investigation stood at 62% but a recent poll found it's now down to just 54 percent and that is troubling because remember Trump was actually considered shut in the investigation down before and if that number keeps dropping he may well feel empowered to try and actually do it so tonight let's talk about the Muller investigation not about its contents because we don't know what they are yet but about the effort to actively undermine it not just from Trump and his lawyers but from and more importantly than you might think Trump's TV friends specifically pumpkin Dada captain Virgin bad judge whiter megyn kelly the dunce bust the dunce bust junior for presidents and of course Michael Cohen client number three Sean Hannity and voted most by nana nice new glasses magazine and if you think it will hold on I don't watch Fox News I tune all of that stuff out it's actually important that you know what's been happening on it for reasons that and I cannot believe I'm saying this Rudy Giuliani explained best because when he was recently asked why he was going around spouting unsubstantiated nonsense he offered this explanation eventually the decision here is going to be impeached not impeach members of Congress Democrat and Republican are going to be informed a lot by their constituents so our jury is me as it should be is the American people you know what he's right he's related by blood to his first wife but he is right because because it is the long-standing view of the Justice Department that you cannot indict a sitting president so to the extent that Trump can be held accountable it's gonna be through impeachment where public opinion is key basically when Giuliani goes on TV he's arguing to the jury and that is us and I know you're probably thinking right now jury duty time to act like a racist idiot to get out of it well that is not a disqualifier this time not by a longshot so with that in mind let's look at a few techniques that they've been using to influence public opinion and the first involves attempting to redefine the investigation on their terms because whenever they discuss it it's inevitably framed like this Muller is there to show collusion between Russia and Trump and there's none so far so why not end it where is any evidence of collusion show us nothing so far not a whiff there is zero evidence of Russia collusion so just so we're clear everyone forwards conclusion collusion no illusion delusion yes I just thought we'd have some fun with words oh well we didn't we didn't have fun with words there all we did was witness the closest anyone in the Trump administration has ever come to making or hearing rap music but it is important to remember Muller wasn't tasked with finding proof of collusion the word collusion doesn't even appear in his appointment letter in actuality he was tasked with looking into links and coordination between the Russian government and anyone associated with the Trump campaign as well as any matters that rose or may arise directly from the investigation that's a pretty broad mandate so saying the investigation has to shut down if there's no collusion is like saying a game of Scrabble has to end because you fit all the letters in your mouth well congratulations but those aren't really the rules that we agreed to and that is far from the only diversionary tactic here there's also what about ISM now we talked about this on the show before it's the practice of shifting the debate to someone else's wrongdoing the master of this is Sean Hannity and he responds to any negative news about Trump with epic rounds of the what about game we have a two-tier justice system what about fired FBI director James Comey what about Bruce and Nellie or what about anti Trump lovebirds struck in Paige what about lying Susan Rice what about Christopher steal the foreign national that fusion GPS hired and funneled the money Hillary did through the law firm and a foreign national about Russian lies to influence the American people in an election what about who lied to the FISA Court judges that is a lot of names to throw up on a screen and just say what about them it's also a little easy as an argument I'll prove it hey Sean have you thought about these 15 people what about them what about Archduke Ferdinand Shawn what about cher we're not talking about the FBI until you answer what about cher Shawn now and it is point there is that other people did bad things so therefore Trump's bad things don't count and look let me be clear on this whether or not someone else did something shitty has no bearing over whether you did something shitty if that were true every movie that got a bad review could simply say what about from Justin to Kelly and the critic would be legally required to give them movie five stars that what about ism is an important part of the third tactic on display here building a counter-narrative essentially trying to delegitimize the investigation by framing it as part of a grand conspiracy to bring down trump kennedy has a series of carry from homeland ease off her meds conspiracy boards with muller and clinton as the head of two different crime families and whatever the is happening on this one night after night Hannity paints a picture where the investigation is itself one gigantic scandal with the Democrats the FBI the deep state and establishment Republicans teaming up to take down Trump and he's got a favorite phrase to convey its scope this is bigger than Watergate that's like watergate's like stealing a Snickers bar makes Watergate look look like stealing a Snickers this makes Watergate like stealing a Snickers bar that's just an odd number of mentions for Snickers considering it doesn't sponsor Hannity show presumably Snickers simply couldn't hang with big hitters like his actual advertisers my pillow recta care cream and of course sock slider it's true take a look you scream you scream you're so far away just bending over to put on your socks is brutally painful every day we'll not anymore introducing sock slider the pain breed no bend over way to comfortably put on your socks every day waiting for someone to invent a gadget that I can preload with a sock condom and then thought my way to comfort everyone unsurprisingly Hannity's narratives tend to fall apart pretty quickly take two of the names on his family feud board Peter struck and Lisa Paige they are FBI agents who worked on the investigations into both Hillary and Trump and the key thing you learn about them if you follow conservative media at all is that they were making sex at each other did these two cheating lovebirds who are still married as other people at the time have any opportunity to actually do their jobs at the FBI there she is FBI love bird Lisa Paige Peter struck and is in office fellow FBI agent and secret lover Lisa Paige Peter struck who along with his girl mod Lisa Paige another FBI lawyer are getting off in their fight to save the country of Donald Trump oh yeah they were they were doing the nasty doing the slam bam in the ham stuffing the muffin fishing for kippers they were poking them in 44 and piecing them in 52 they slid the wand into the Goblet of Fire they were dining at the all you can bong buffet at pjo parkington's they were having an affair and in doing that in having that affair they apparently relied on FBI work phones to hide it from one of their spouses which is undeniably bad judgment plus texts like these made it clear that they very much preferred a Hillary presidency to a Trump on which is a political opinion they're entitle to as long as it doesn't affect their work at all and the DOJ is looking into that question right now but Robert Mueller himself didn't wait he removed struck from the investigation immediately when he learned about the text and Paige had already left so these two people haven't been part of this investigation for nearly a year now and the Wall Street Journal read these 7,000 messages between them and found that they show no evidence of a conspiracy against Trump and just for a moment spare a thought for the reporter who had to read 7,000 sets between two horny FBI agents that's not why they got into the game but Hannity still brings up striking page all the time as just two of the many threads in this elaborate counter narrative his latest obsession is something called spy gate the inaccurate claim that the FBI planted a mole in the Trump campaign now here is what the spy gate story is actually based on as part of the effort to investigate Russia's meddling in the election FBI agents sent an informant to talk to two Trump campaign advisers who have suspicious contacts linked to Russia that's it that is the whole thing but here is how their theory is Republican congressman trey Gowdy who you may remember let a more than two-year inquiry into Benghazi so he's someone who is no stranger to digging for dirt on Hillary even he says this is nonsense you believe the FBI acted properly in this matter based on what I have seen I don't know what the FBI could have done or should have done other than run out a lead that someone loosely connected with the campaign was making assertions about Russia I would think you would want the FBI to find out whether or not there was any validity to what those people were saying right he's saying the FBI did what they were supposed to do and the headline FBI investigates possible crime it's like the headline Domino's delivers pizza or harley-davidson sells midlifecrisis 'mobile to local dad yep no kidding that's their whole reason for existence and yet rather than accept that push back some Trump supporters turned on Gaudi instead I'm naming names here I'm through with it I mean trey gowdy is really schizophrenic he he is absolutely in the service of the establishment and and the deep state where they're intentionally consciously or purposefully he is exactly that and that's the problem anyone who questions the conspiracy becomes part of the conspiracy itself and for the record the only thing that is completely schizophrenic about trey Gowdy is his hairstyle over the years I mean what exactly is happening here look Trey Trey my friend when you are born with bad hair just pick a look and stay with it trust me man I am an expert on this the point here is this machine is now running so aggressively that even evidence can't slow it down and if you want more proof of that just watch Hannity actively admit it in real time no evidence of Trump Russia collusion Muller if you got it come on the show and tell America and by the way if the media if you have more proof that this is not a witch hunt okay I don't believe you Wow give me facts and even if you do I won't believe them he's basically bragging that he's proof proof which is a superpower that no one should want to have like the ability to throw a baby a hundred yards with a perfect spiral sure it's technically impressive but maybe don't do it and all this can make it easy to forget just how bad what we actually do know already is just as one example we know that in 2016 Don junior knowingly set up a meeting in Trump Tower with a person described to him as a Russian government attorney with the promise that the person would provide information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia as part of Russia and it's government supports for mr. Trump and we oh this not because of the Malheur investigation or because there was a spy in the campaign or because these two fuck-buddies teamed up to frame anyone we know it because Don jr. tweeted out the emails setting up the meeting ahead of a newspaper publishing them so that story's just a fact and one that looks very bad for Trump but if you think Hannity isn't up to the challenge of deflecting that one as well just watch him go to work remember the now-infamous 2016 trump tower meeting between Donald Trump jr. Russian lawyer a Russian American lobbyist and a few others oh we have new information recently unearthed a transcript from a 2017 Senate hearing that the Russian American lobbyists admitted to personally knowing Hillary Clinton so let me get this one straight you seem to be employing Hillary Clinton sent someone in to Trump Tower to offer her opponent dirt on herself you know what congratulations Sean Hannity you have officially come up with the shittiest conspiracy theory ever and none of this even addresses the most obvious question if absolutely everyone from Hillary to the FBI to tri-county was in on a deep state plan to sabotage Trump how the is he president right now basically everyone in the country got together to steal an election and then for some reason forgot to do it and look we could pick apart conspiracies all nights but there is really at the end of the day no point because they'll always be another rabbit hole a metaphorical rabbit hole that is not to be confused with the rabbit hole the gay club where years ago a young Marlon bundo finally allowed his curiosity to overpower shyness [Applause] really special himself but creating rabbit holes is kind of the point here because I would argue the Hannity Trump and all the rest aren't really interested in getting to the bottom of any of these questions they're just trying to sow enough doubt that this number dips far enough below 50% to enable the whole investigation to be shut down they are just working the jury and if you've seen any focus groups on TV you know that at least some jurors are really listening they call the first by created by the deeps team it was a witch-hunt to overturning election all of this stuff that they say that Trump did they're finding out that the Democrats did it's been going on for a year and a half they've found nothing where he told oh there's something there's something we'll find a bull fighter there's nothing exactly in this piece we've argued that the taxes that you've seen tonight are transparent illogical and dumb but the other thing they definitely are is depressingly effective and the thing is these tactics have worked in the past quite famously in fact think about it a sociopathic misogynist millionaire evolved from celebrity to undeserving folk hero suddenly has evidence piling up that he may have done something terrible and he puts the whole system on trial if that sounds familiar at all to you it's because it's basically the story of OJ all over again Trump is going full o je and it's working now what does it mean to go full o je well at once sense it means to murder two people but but it also means to sway a jury by building a wild implausible conspiracy that the system is corrupted the reason haniss he throws out so many theories may well be that he knows if he can discredit any part of mullahs investigation he convinced people the whole thing is a total sham and that is the same angle that OJ's lawyers took just listen to one of them tried to discredit all evidence because of doubts that he'd raised over a blood-soaked sock if they manufactured evidence on the sock how can you trust anything else and the jury bought that although I will say I also do have questions over how police got their hands on those socks because the sock slider hadn't even been invented back it's impossible and sure sure there are differences between the two defenses the OJ trial had if it doesn't fit you must acquit we have collusion delusion conclusion illusion which if anything is even dumber and look I am NOT saying that Trump is guilty we honestly don't know but even if the mullet investigation doesn't prove that Trump personally colluded with the Russians that doesn't mean the whole thing was a witch-hunt or a waste of time the process of finding out is really important and it needs to be seen through to its conclusion and my fear right now is that we are headed in a direction where even if Muller comes back with irrefutable evidence trunk could just pardon himself and put out a book called if I did it and a very large portion of the country would buy it you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 7,065,803

Rating: 4.8338332 out of 5

Keywords: last week tonight stupid watergate, john oliver stupid watergate, mueller investigation, last week tonight mueller investigation, john oliver mueller investigation

Id: mOVPStnVgvU

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 10 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Labyrinthy]

I love how his list of names includes “The Olsen Twin”. Got a good chuckle from me.

[u/SupportVectorMachine]

When he got to the O.J. example, I'm surprised he didn't mention the "Chewbacca defense" by name.

[u/[deleted]]

Mirror please? Why don’t they let us Australians watch :(

[u/NextChamp]

It is starting to get frustrating how well the disinformation machine is working against Mueller. Not only that though: Apathy is another big part why people are slowly giving up. I’ve seen far too many comments all over Reddit saying either “Mueller doesn’t matter cause of Congress” and “The other side is no better so why bother?”.

Sometimes I understand just why we got to where we are now. Cause most voters are either too ignorant or just don’t want to be informed out of spite. I suspect a lot will be revealed once Mueller is finally ready. But I have this great fear it will not lead to anything to start this right the ship.

Basically: Please vote if you care about this country and its future come November this year.

[u/Nuaua]

Here's an in-depth Sock Slider review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSFGkFCw5jM

[u/NewClayburn]

I honestly need to find a way to counter this sort of brainwashing. Like how do you even fix it? You can't fault the people who fall for this. Human nature is literally be exploited against them to convince them of nonsense and to throw out reality.

Aside from improving our public school system, which would take too long even if we made an effort today, what can we do?

Edit: Ignore the troll brigade.

[u/_Echoes_]

Mirror please? some of us arent in the US and want to watch this at instead of working.

[u/Gato1980]

Trey Gowdy looks exactly like what I would expect an adult Draco Malfoy to look like.

[u/PhAnToM444]

I'm going to need that full-length Gilbert Gottfried clip ASAP...