John Oliver mocked — who else? — President Donald Trump within the opening phase of Sunday’s Final Week Tonight, specifically criticizing his plan to put at the least 10 % tariffs on good from each nation that trades with the U.S.
Oliver confirmed a video clip of Trump saying, “This will probably be certainly the golden age of America. It’s coming again.”
Oliver’s response: “If you happen to imply ‘golden age,’ the way in which we have a tendency to explain the final decade earlier than an outdated particular person dies, then sure, it appears like we’re very a lot within the golden age of America proper now. Thanks.”
The HBO host then went on to point out video of Trump holding up a small chart as his visible help (which was mocked in the cold open of NBC’s Saturday Night Live over the weekend). Trump famous the small measurement of the chart, saying he had a much bigger one to convey however the wind made it difficult and it “had no probability of standing.”
Mused Oliver: “That’s sensible, and it reveals they actually considered every little thing which may go flawed whereas asserting their plan to shoot the financial system within the dick. Though, I’ll level out, if wind was an issue there, and we checked with consultants on this, the White Home does have an ‘inside half.’”
Oliver went on to notice that there was some criticism of the chart and the way the administration arrived at a few of its information.
“Sadly, that chart is ridiculous for quite a few causes,” he mentioned. “For one factor, it options an estimate of tariffs charged to the USA by different international locations that nobody may determine till a monetary journalist realized it was simply how a lot we export to that nation minus how a lot we import from them, divided by how a lot we import, which is simply stunningly dumb as a result of these issues don’t have anything to do with tariffs. It it’d be like attempting to determine the sq. footage of your private home by dividing your telephone quantity by your canine’s age, or taking your temperature by measuring your head’s distance to the solar. It’s not gonna get you the reply that you just’re searching for.”
He went on to notice that the White Home launched a “extra complicated-looking equation they mentioned they’d used, however individuals rapidly identified that one image meant exports, one meant imports, and the opposite two numbers had been variables set at 4 and 1/4, in order that they canceled one another out, which means it’s the identical silly equation everybody mentioned it was within the first place.”
However the entire tariffs plan “will get even dumber,” Oliver mentioned, noting that among the many international locations going through tariffs are the Heard and McDonald Islands, that are distant islands close to Antarctica that include a wholesome penguin inhabitants however no people.
Mentioned Oliver “Oh my God. Think about going again to 2015 and telling your youthful self, ‘President Trump will enter a commerce warfare with a distant island of penguins.’ You’d have a variety of comprehensible questions like, ‘What are you speaking about?’”
In the meantime, after Trump introduced the tariffs, the inventory market took a dive. He performed audio of a Restoration {Hardware} earnings name, wherein chairman and CEO Gary Friedman was studying of what was occurring to his personal firm’s inventory worth in actual time.
“What’s our inventory now?” Friedman mentioned throughout the name. “I imply, I assume, , the inventory went down, , primarily based on among the numbers we reported, after which it received killed due to, uh, um, oh actually? Oh shit. OK.”
Joked Oliver: “Yeah, that sums it up fairly effectively. In actual fact, I’m unsure there’s a greater encapsulation of what it feels prefer to stay by this Trump presidency than these 5 phrases. ‘Oh actually? Oh shit. OK.’”
Later within the present, Oliver acknowledged one other HBO present, The White Lotus, which aired its season finale earlier Sunday, by joking that HBO is the “incest community,” referring to one of many present’s largest story traces this season (to not point out story traces in two different HBO sequence, Recreation of Thrones and Home of the Dragon).
