John Oliver to Donald Trump: ‘Drop Out’

John Oliver apologized on Last Week Tonight because he once again found a need to talk about Donald Trump, or as Oliver prefers to call him, “a racist voodoo doll made of discarded cat hair.” (That name doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily as Oliver’s other nickname for the Republican presidential nominee: “Donald Drumpf.”)

Oliver felt he could not avoid the subject, though, because he’s going to be off the air for a month, and felt compelled to offer a few parting thoughts. In light of the fact that Trump is having a rough week — his campaign manager resigned and he’s reportedly receiving advice from former Fox News chief Roger Ailes — Oliver feels that Trump’s presidential campaign is at a crossroads. In Oliver’s opinion Trump has hit bottom, from which he will either rebound to victory or, it’s basically the beginning of the end. Losing, particularly to Hillary Clinton would be disastrous for a man who, according to Oliver (and a helpful video montage), has built his brand on winning. But Oliver seems to believe that winning the presidency would be equally bad for Trump and so proposed a third path for the presidential nominee: “Drop out.”

Oliver believes that Trump should simply quit the race and claim his entire candidacy was a “stunt” meant to expose the flaws in America’s political system. According to Oliver, Trump’s campaign has succeeded at that, even as the rest of his campaign was “the political equivalent of a bigoted clown’s blazing funeral fire.”

Oliver even found Trump a how-to guide for dropping out taken from the The Kid Who Ran For President, as read by Will Arnett. To sweeten the deal, Oliver even extended an olive branch to Trump saying that if he did drop out of the presidential race, Oliver would lift his Trump ban and invite him on the show.