The Last Week Tonight host discusses White House aide’s John McCain remarks and reports that Michael Cohen tried to sell access to Trump

On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver discussed a chaotic week at the White House, from chief of staff John Kelly’s comments about immigrants to Michael Cohen’s mounting legal troubles.

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“We begin tonight with the Trump White House,” Oliver said, “the only home in America where the next occupant will have to ask: ‘What’s the best way to get cum stains out of Abe Lincoln’s ghost?’”



Oliver continued, summarizing the events of yet another newsworthy week in the Trump White House: “They got three American detainees out of North Korea, which was great. They pulled out of the Iran deal, which may turn out to be catastrophic. John Kelly said immigrants lack the skills to assimilate, which is ironic coming from someone with the surname ‘Kelly’. The first lady announced her anti-cyberbullying program, appealing to people to be kind, which was a little jarring considering this.”

Oliver then mentioned leaked comments attributed to the White House aide Kelly Sadler, who reportedly said that John McCain’s opposition to Gina Haspel, Trump’s nominee to direct the CIA, doesn’t matter because “he’s dying anyway”.

“That is shocking, but it’s also not really surprising,” Oliver said. “These days, Trump aide says something awful isn’t really news; it’s just an assumed fact, like gravity, or the fact that Young Sheldon will someday grow up and look nothing like Jim Parsons, and then all hell will break loose because the world can’t handle an inconsistency like that.”



Oliver continued: “Tonight, let’s ignore all of that and instead focus on the busy week for one person in particular, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and a lawyer so shitty he made Trump say: ‘I need someone good, get me Rudy Giuliani.’”

The host went on to briefly summarize the Cohen saga, which most recently involves revelations about a Delaware-based shell company through which Cohen paid off porn star Stormy Daniels and also received payments from Korea Aerospace Industries, pharmaceutical giant Novartis and AT&T. More recently, Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti alleged that Cohen was “selling access” to Trump.

“Millions of dollars for access to Trump,” Oliver said, “which is just bizarre because I naturally assumed you gained access to the president by finding a golden ticket in your Maga hat.”



Oliver then explained that, shortly after the 2016 election, Trump’s “fixer” Cohen began to make a lot of money. “Cohen’s pitch to potential clients was pretty brazen,” the host added, reading it aloud: “I don’t know who’s been representing you, but you should fire them all. I’m the guy you should hire. I’m closest to the president. I’m his personal lawyer.

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“That is a little bit weird, because lawyers don’t generally pitch themselves by offering up info on their other clients,” Oliver said. “It’s like a doctor saying: if you hire me, I’ll tell you about all of Larry King’s birthmarks.”



Oliver concluded: “Now, we probably don’t know the full significance of these payments but I would argue that, at heart, these companies got exactly what they paid for, because they wanted to understand how the Trump administration worked, and think about it: they put their trust in a political novice who turned out to be a total moron and was actually just bilking them for personal gain. So, you wanna know how the Trump administration works? Congratulations, you just got a fucking master class.”