John Oliver Responds to Trump’s Election Victory: ‘It Is Crazy’
On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver recapped the results of the 2024 presidential election, acknowledging the grief many have felt about Donald Trump’s win.
The late-night host noted that Trump beat Kamala Harris on Election Day, saying, “which is, to put it mildly, not what I was personally hoping would happen. And honestly, in Trump’s victory speech, he couldn’t seem to believe it either.”
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He then played a clip of Trump’s victory speech, during which the Republican candidate said, “We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible, and it is now clear that we’ve achieved the most incredible political thing … Look what happened. Is this crazy?”
“Yeah, it is crazy,” Oliver replied. “It’s really fucking crazy. He’s basically one sentence away from saying, ‘I mean, you guys saw what I did, right? And you still voted for this. That doesn’t make any sense.’ I know being a shambling verbal mess is part of Trump’s brand, but it is still incredible to see an incoming president ad-lib a victory speech with the same energy as the best man who didn’t realize he had to give a toast: ‘What a beautiful day. What, what a beautiful beauty today. My brother and his girlfriend — wife, sorry — today they … they did the thing you all saw it. I thought my part was done with the bachelor party, but here we go. Marriage is crazy, right? It’s crazy.’”
Oliver described the mixed reactions to the election, explaining that for many it has been a “rough week.” He added that “the tiniest moments this week, where the world was going on like nothing had happened could be suddenly enraging,” citing a Hello Kitty word-search puzzle on social media with the caption, “What are you looking forward to this month?”
“Hey, Hello Kitty — not fucking now,” Oliver responded. “I would love to tell you what I’m looking forward to, but I cannot seem to find ‘drinking my lights out and [having] some grief mac and cheese’ on your stupid puzzle. Get the fuck out of here.”
He said that he understood if viewers weren’t ready for his show. “Honestly, if you are watching this right now and thinking, ‘You know what, I’m not actually ready for this either,’ I totally get it,” Oliver said. “It is understandable not to want yet another guy in a suit doom-squawking at you. So if you are too angry, depressed, or worried to watch the rest of this show, no problem. I have been in each of those places this week, and they are all a correct reaction because look, we did a show like this after the election in 2016 when no one expected Trump to win. This time, though, his winning felt like a real possibility all year long, lots of people mobilized to stop it, but it happened anyway, which feels somehow worse.”
The host spoke about the grief people are feeling, saying “there is no right reaction right now.”
“Lots of us are grieving, and grief has stages,” Oliver said. “We take different amounts of time for different people. The stage I’m currently locked in is anger. I am mad for trans people who’ve been threatened. I’m disgusted at the prospect of mass deportation. I’m furious at Biden for not dropping out earlier, and that the egos and inaction of two men older than credit cards themselves have led us to this point. I’m mad that women have to hear ‘your body, my choice’ from right-wing dipshits. I’m mad that Elon Musk is apparently sitting in on meetings with the president of Ukraine. I’m mad about the myriad of damage Trump will do that cannot easily be undone like setting back efforts to fight climate change and appointing more Supreme Court justices. And I’m mad at the prospect of four more years of people saying, ‘So is your job like so much easier with Trump as president?’ No, it is not! No, it fucking isn’t! Fuck you so much!”
Oliver also acknowledged the instinct for everyone to play the “blame game” following the election, but said it was “too early” to have a definitive answer. “People are pointing the finger in all directions, from Latino voters to young men to Joe Rogan,” he said. “You can basically play your own ‘Wheel of Blame’ and generally make sure it lands on whoever you were mad at in the first place. And to be honest, I get the appeal. It’s fun to blame people. Trump was literally just elected president again on a platform of doing exactly that.”
He added, joking about Katy Perry’s performance at Harris’ final rally, “I’d personally like to imagine that everything that happened is Katy Perry’s fault. Why would you try to cover Whitney Houston?”
Ultimately, Oliver concluded that of all the stages of grief it’s not useful to linger in despair. “Try not to completely obliterate yourself in despair,” he said as he ended the show. “Despair doesn’t help anything. If anything, it makes things worse.”
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