--- title: John Oliver Compares Trump Presidency to Sloth Murder description: "[Trump's] presidency is like one of his handshakes, it pulls you in whether you want it or not,” says Oliver. canonical: https://time.com/5021063/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-season-finale-trump/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-13T07:59:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T00:23:05.000Z og:title: John Oliver Has the Most Brutal Explanation for the Trump Presidency og:description: According to Oliver, it's the same thing as being murdered by this creature og:url: https://time.com/5021063/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-season-finale-trump/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John Oliver Has the Most Brutal Explanation for the Trump Presidency twitter:description: According to Oliver, it's the same thing as being murdered by this creature twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Allow John Oliver to Explain How the Trump Presidency Is Like Being Murdered by a Sloth > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=65edb858-c8ba-43fc-b589-77fdd704e514&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 1 Year Later: President Donald Trump's Most Controversial Remarks [Watch (HLS stream): 1 Year Later: President Donald Trump's Most Controversial Remarks](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/KXGhnVO8.m3u8) (3:29)  _Published 2017-11-08. 1 Year Later: President Donald Trump's Most Controversial Remarks_ by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Updated: Dec 13, 2023 12:23 AM UTCPublished: Nov 13, 2017 7:59 AM UTC by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Updated: Dec 13, 2023 12:23 AM UTCPublished: Nov 13, 2017 7:59 AM UTC On the season finale of _Last Week Tonight,_ John Oliver turned his gimlet eye on his favorite topic, Donald Trump or, as Oliver calls him, “the man voted least edible by _Cannibal Magazine_ for the last six years in a row.” While Oliver bemoans the amount of attention that he has spent on [Trump](http://time.com/5017280/hillary-clinton-seth-meyers-election-anniversary-jokes/?xid=homepage), “His presidency is like one of his handshakes, it pulls you in whether you want it or not.” In his look back over at [Trump’s](http://time.com/5020477/donald-trump-paris-climate-deal/?xid=homepage) first year in office, Oliver looks at the norms that [Trump](http://time.com/5020705/trump-putin-election-meddling/?xid=homepage) has broken—like never releasing his tax returns, hiring his daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House, and never putting his companies in a blind trust—as well as his transcripts. “It is staggering how incoherent he is,” says Oliver after reading a transcript. “That is a drunk driver crashing a pick-up truck full of alphabet soup.” While those broken norms are frustrating, according to Oliver, there are three things that Trump does that could permanently harm American politics. He undermined the media by crying “fake news” and [governs by trolling](http://time.com/5020694/donald-trump-kim-jong-un-twitter/?xid=homepage). According to Oliver, Trump also uses “whataboutism” or the practice of changing the subject to someone else’s perceived wrongdoing, which Oliver describes as an “old Soviet propaganda tool” of creating false moral equivalency. “There is nothing new about any of these techniques, but they are now coming out of the Oval Office,” explains Oliver, who notes that these changes are insidious and hard to notice, like being “murdered by a sloth—it happens very slowly and you might not notice until it’s too late.” While the last year has seemed long, according to Oliver, “The Trump presidency is basically a marathon—painful, pointless, and the majority of you didn’t agree to run, but were signed up by your dumbest friend.” See the video above. ## Transcript [00:00] [ MUSIC ] [00:02] Do [00:05] you [00:08] want to include the Congressional Black Caucus and [00:11] the Congressional [ CROSSTALK ] Well, I would. I tell [00:12] you what. Do you want to set up the meeting? Do you [00:14] want to set up the meeting? No, no, no. I'm just a [00:16] reporter. Are they friends of yours? No, set up the [00:18] meeting. I know some of [00:26] them. [00:33] [ MUSIC ] [00:40] [ MUSIC ] [00:47] The past 17 years Obamacare has wreaked havoc on [00:51] the lives of innocent hard- working Americans. [01:20] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] Best not make anymore threats [01:24] to the United States. They will be met with [01:28] fire and fury like the world has never [01:33] seen. I think there's blame on both sides, and I have [01:36] no doubt about it. And you had some very bad people [01:39] in that group. But you also had people that were Very [01:44] fine people on both sides. The only people giving a [01:48] platform to these hate groups is the media itself [01:52] and the fake news. Sheriff Joe, he's done a great [01:56] job for the people of Arizona. He is very strong on [01:59] borders. [ MUSIC ] I thought he was treated [02:01] unbelievably unfairly. Wouldn't you love to see one [02:04] these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our [02:08] flag, to say get that son of a [ BLEEP ] off the field right [02:12] now. Out. He's fired. He's fired. If [02:17] you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina [02:22] and you look at the tremendous hundreds and [02:24] hundreds and hundreds of people that died. Now what [02:27] is your death count as of this moment? 17. 16 [02:31] certified. Sixteen people certified. 16 people versus in [02:35] the thousands. Obamacare's finished, it's dead, it's [02:39] gone. It's no longer, you shouldn't even mention it. [02:42] Mention it, it's gone. There is no such thing as [02:44] Obamacare anymore. If you look at President Obama [02:47] and other presidents, most of them didn't make calls, [02:52] a lot of them didn't make calls. I like to call when it's [02:54] appropriate, when I think I am able to do it. Earlier you [02:57] said that President Obama never called the families of [03:00] fallen soldiers, how can you make that claim? I don't [03:02] know if he did did, no, no, no. Between 1 and 10, how [03:02] would you grade the White House response so far to [03:04] [ UNKNOWN ] I'd say it was a 10. This [03:08] is a mental health problem at the highest level. This [03:12] isn't a guns situation, I mean we could [03:16] go into it, but it's a little bit soon to go into it, but [03:19] Fortunately somebody else had a gun that was [03:21] shooting in the opposite direction. Otherwise it [03:23] wouldn't have been as bad as it was, it would have [03:25] been much worse. 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