A one-week hiatus of “Last Week Tonight” fell during the completion of Robert Mueller’s Russia report and as such, comedian John Oliver had to wait until Sunday night to voice his views on the completion of Mueller’s investigation.
J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
David Bernhardt, acting interior secretary
Oliver began his Sunday show with a clip from a confirmation hearing for David Bernhardt, President Trump acting secretary of the interior and the president’s nominee to take on the job full time. During Bernhardt’s hearing, audience members behind him donned “swamp creature” masks, meant to signify the creatures’ “support” for the former oil and gas lobbyist.
The audience members, a trio of Greenpeace activists protesting Bernhardt’s nomination, remained at the hearing in full view of C-Span cameras for more than a hour.
Oliver chuckled at the sight of the swamp creatures and went on to make the point about ongoing trickle of news reports about Mueller’s investigation and the still-unreleased report itself.
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The special counsel charged dozens of people during the course of his investigation, including 12 Russian intelligence officers, the president’s former campaign manager, his national security adviser, and his personal lawyer.
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One of the swamp creatures at David Bernhardt’s confirmation hearing last week.
While under oath Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, accused the president of a pattern of lying and law-breaking surrounding not only the 2016 election but hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
All of this, Oliver said, would be overwhelming in one sitting, but because news stories about Mueller’s findings have come out in short bursts, the public is having trouble processing the investigation.
“This scandal has been sitting in plain sight for so long, we’ve stopped noticing it,” Oliver said. “Much like a woman in an increasingly sweaty fish mask. And as with her, the weirdest thing about this situation is how somehow not-weird this objectively ridiculous state of affairs is starting to feel.”
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During the second segment of his show Sunday, Oliver addressed next week’s “Wrestlemania” event and what he called the “morally subterranean” employment practices of World Wrestling Entertainment and its CEO, billionaire Vince McMahon.
You can watch that segment here.
Peter Bailey-Wells can be reached at peter.bailey-wells@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @pbaileywells.
