John Oliver has one piece of advice for Republicans who don’t want to be called “weird” by Democrats: “Stop being so fucking weird,” he pleaded on the latest episode of Last Week Tonight.
Ahead of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, who helped pioneer the “these guys are weird” movement, have strategically pointed out when Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance are being strange. It’s a tactic that Vance has tried and failed to deploy, but it’s also irritated Trump, says Oliver. “You know it’s getting to him,” Oliver said, noting how Trump tried to reject the label in a recent interview, claiming that no one had ever used that word to describe him before. “Nobody’s ever called you weird?” Oliver continued. “Babe, be serious.”
“You tried to buy Greenland. You stared at the sun during a solar eclipse. And you did this,” Oliver said, showing photos of Trump hugging and kissing the American flag. “That’s not something a normal guy does.” The late-night host argued that any “‘weird’ label has been particularly hard to shake because Republican candidates further down the ballot keep compounding it, including some who won primaries just this week.”
Case in point: Minnesota Republican US Senate candidate Royce White, a former professional basketball player, far-right podcaster, and “die-hard Trump supporter as he will tell you,” Oliver said, before playing a clip where White declared to the camera: “Donald Trump could get up on stage, pull his pants down, take a shit up at the podium, and I still would never vote for you fucking Democrats again,” adding, “Let that sink in.” Oliver then asked, “Is there a place where Trump could take a shit that would make you vote for Democrats again?” suggesting a merry-go-round, inside of a gumball machine, and even “White’s own toilet lid.”
Retired Navy captain Hung Cao, who is a GOP Senate candidate in Virginia, is “also a very strange man,” as on display during an interview in which Cao shared concern over Lovers Point; an area in Monterey, California, he claimed had been seized by Wiccans. “If Monterey is actually overrun by witches—which it’s not—I’m frankly furious there wasn’t a witchcraft storyline on Big Little Lies!” Oliver exclaimed. “How could you deprive us of Nicole Kidman showing up to a moonlit orgy and announcing, ‘We come to this place for magic?’” he added, referencing the Oscar-winner’s viral AMC advertisement. “Everyone’s head would have exploded.”
Wisconsin is—allegedly—home to Senator Tammy Baldwin’s Republican opponent, banking CEO Eric Hovde, or as Oliver called him, “Ned Flanders without the raw sexual charisma.” Amid accusations that he spends a lot of his time in California, Hovde released footage of himself bathing in a frozen lake as proof of his Wisconsin ties. “Challenging someone to meet you in a frozen lake to score political points is pathetic,” said Oliver. “I’d say it was a dick-measuring contest, but I’m guessing given the temperature of that water yours has disappeared into your body right now.”
Oliver, who has devoted recent episodes to digging into Trump’s remarks about race and calling Vance’s campaign to confirm a certain couch rumor, attempted to reason with the GOP. “Look,” he said. “I get Republicans want to get out from under accusations of weirdness. But the way to do that is by stop being so fucking weird. Because fantasizing about your party’s presidential candidate shitting in front of you? That’s weird. Warning everyone about the influence of Monterey witches? Weird. Inviting your female opponent to join you in a frozen lake? That is very weird,” Oliver said. “And I do apologize for laughing at these people. Partly because I know it’s not nice, but mainly because as we all now know, JD Vance,” whom Oliver said “looks like he got stuck 10% of the way to transforming into a werewolf” elsewhere in the episode, “believes every time someone laughs somewhere in the world, a child loses their groceries for some reason.”
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