Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Trump vs. Truth

February 13, 2017 1:57 PM - Season 4, Episode 1

The first episode of season four! And so let's get right on to THIS WEEK....

• The inauguration of Donald Trump, and his whirlwind of activity, which Oliver describes as "the tip of the shitberg."
• AND NOW: Donald Trump Can't Shake Hands Right.
• MAIN STORY: Trump vs. Truth (24m, NSFW). While just over a quarter of Obama's statements rated Mostly False or worse by Politifact.com, nearly 70% of Trumps rate so. In the process of covering this rich topic, we visit a Fox News commercial with a "cowboy," Breitbart, Alex Jones (apparently a primary source of information for him). They cover the history of the "three million voted illegally" lie from Twitter rando to President-Elect Trump to clueless person parroting it, creating a hideously self-reinforcing echo chamber that is currently driving policy in the United States.

At the end LWT, noting that Trump gets a disturbing amount of his news from certain programs, has put together a number of short commercial bits with useful information in them (like what the Nuclear Triad is, how the Unemployment Rate is derived, and "Tiffany"), and paid to put them into ad time in those shows.

If you take Half True statements out of Politifact's "True" column, President Trump tells the truth less than one time in five.

A personal note: in helping to sift facts from fake news, I suggest the browser extension BS Detector.

The fake commercial presented is "Paid for by Partially Important Productions, LLC." The reason the clip in the post is marked NSFW is because of a diagram of female anatomy, and Helpful Information Cowboy pointing out what the clitoris is. BTW, can Helpful Information Cowboy please become a thing? Thx memegods.

--- Opening changes ---
There are more animations in the opening now! There also may be a second different-every-week element. More for me to do!

F.5: "Fiasco", Animation of fence springing up in desert, THE WALL
and
F.37 "Callingit Earlyum", image of digits exploding, 2017

Some other changes:
F. 2: "Requiescat In Pace", STATUE OF LIBERTY
F.7: "Domus Bannon", WHITE HOUSE
F.9: "POTUS Operandi" PUTIN
F.(unreadable): "Caesar" TRUMP
F.17: "E Pluribus Zero" NUCLEAR EXPLOSION
F.35: "Exeunt" BREXIT

A number of other illustrations have changed as well, many to references to past episodes. My favorite is: F.36: "Est Haec Vestra Cattus?" KADYROV

posted by JHarris (6 comments total)

I'm wondering if trump is going to be dumb enough to bite on the ads.

Also, he surely looks like he learned how to shake hands from some shitty self-help book for businessmen, with the aggressive pull to assert dominance and make his opponent look weak and all that. Trudeau was ready for it.
posted by lmfsilva at 8:06 AM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

He surely looks like he learned how to shake hands everything he knows from some shitty self-help book for businessmen.

Couldn't resist!
posted by Frayed Knot at 1:41 PM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

God, that commercial was great.

TIFFANY!
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:34 PM on February 14, 2017

Was that Thomas Kopache in the commerical?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:10 PM on February 14, 2017

It was! Imdb credits him as Cowboy.
posted by mochapickle at 11:51 AM on February 15, 2017

I've missed Last Week Tonight so much. I also watch Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah, and Stephen Colbert, but John Oliver's show is my favourite of them all, probably because I love the format.
posted by orange swan at 4:28 PM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]