The Last Week Tonight host called the taped comments ‘entirely in character’ for the businessman, condemning Paul Ryan and Billy Bush in the process

John Oliver once again offered a searing critique of Donald Trump on Last Week Tonight – not for his performance during the second, restive presidential debate (he taped the show prior to its live airing), but for the Republican nominee’s vulgar comments about women that threaten to derail his campaign.

“Yes, that is audio of Donald Trump in 2005 telling a giggling Billy Bush that one of the perks of fame is that he can grab women’s genitalia without permission,” Oliver said after playing the 2005 recording of the billionaire business man bragging about attempting to “fuck” married women. “Since [last week], we have sunk so low we are breaking through the earth’s crust where drowning in boiling magma will come as sweet, sweet relief.”

Oliver also went in on Bush, who has been suspended from NBC’s Today show as a result of the release of the video. The former Access Hollywood host is seen in the clip encouraging Trump’s lewd behavior, at one point telling actor Arianne Zucker to “choose between me and the Donald”.

“Fuck Billy Bush! Fuck that guy!” Oliver said. “It is gross enough that he’s serving as Donald Trump’s hug pimp, but let’s not gloss over the fact that he just said: ‘How about a little hug for the Bushy,’ a phrase that, if it’s not already, should be a felony offense in all 50 states.”

As for Trump’s rambling late-night apology, during which he dismissed his sexist comments as “locker room talk” and said his words “don’t reflect who I am”, Oliver shot back: “They could not capture his essence more if they were spoken by a spray-tanned Furby eating KFC and screaming at a Gold Star family.”

Oliver didn’t go soft on the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, who has denounced Trump’s remarks by releasing a statement saying: “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified. I hope Mr Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests.”

“Championed and revered? You do know that women are human beings and not pedigreed show dogs, right?” Oliver said. “You hope he works to demonstrate respect for women? What are you talking about? It’s too late in absolutely every way. First, it’s October of an election year, and second, he’s fucking 70!”

Oliver also criticized John McCain, despite the senator’s decision to no longer vote for Trump in wake of the controversy (“He alone bears the burden of his conduct and alone should suffer the consequences”).



Trump “alone does not bear the burden of his conduct, because he alone did not make himself your party’s nominee”, responded Oliver. “All of you have consistently supported him through some absolutely heinous shit. In his very first campaign speech, he called Mexicans ‘rapists’, and that was just the beginning.

John Oliver rips into 'sociopathic narcissist' Donald Trump over Khan Read more

“All of you still thought he should be president,” Oliver said, taking aim at the GOP leadership. “So the only way you get to be shocked and outraged now is if you were cryogenically frozen until Friday afternoon and that Access Hollywood tape was the first thing you saw upon being reanimated. Anything less than that, and this is on you too.”



Oliver concluded by reiterating what Clinton argued in the debate: that the contents of the video are “entirely in character” for Trump. Oliver warned that Trump isn’t going anywhere, even as GOP members flee his ticket.

“This is happening,” Oliver said. “And, in a way, perhaps we have been always heading towards this historic moment. The first female presidential nominee versus the human embodiment of every backwards, condescending, Mad Men-esque boys’ club attitude that has ever existed, rolled into one giant, salivating dick-size-referencing, pussy-grabbing warthog in a red power tie.

“I’ll put it this way: if American democracy is a computer game, and Hillary is completing women’s 100-year quest to get to the Oval Office, it kind of makes sense that this would be the final boss.”