On Sunday's 'Last Week Tonight,' the host also briefly addressed Boris Johnson, Baby Yoda, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the coronavirus, 'Parasite's' big night at the Oscars and Bernie Sanders' win in New Hampshire, among other topics.
John Oliver had a lot of catching up to do in his first episode of Last Week Tonight following a long hiatus, so he dispensed with three months' worth of news in about 30 seconds at the top of Sunday night's show, briefly addressing Boris Johnson, Baby Yoda, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the coronavirus, Parasite's big night at the Oscars and Bernie Sanders' win in New Hampshire, among other topics.
While Oliver's main segment of his first new episode since November focused on the debate about Medicare for all, the HBO host did save some more time after his brief recap to talk about President Donald Trump's recent acquittal and the Roger Stone case.
After Trump was acquitted on charges of abuse of power charge and obstruction of Congress, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who voted in favor of acquittal, appeared on CBS News to say that she thinks the president had learned something from the process.
"I believe that the president has learned from this case," she said in a clip Oliver showed his viewers. "...The president has been impeached, that's a pretty big lesson.... I believe that he will be much more cautious in the future."
Opined Oliver in response: "Trump never learns his lesson. This is a man whose first child was Donald Trump Jr., and kept having children. There's no lesson-learning capacity in the man."
He then moved on to Trump's longtime adviser Stone, who was convicted of seven felony counts in November that he impeded the government's investigations into Russian interference in the 2019 election. Four prosecutors recently quit from the case abruptly after Attorney General Bill Barr intervened to rescind their suggested sentence of seven to nine years for Stone, which came just hours after Trump tweeted that the recommended sentence was "horrible and unfair" and a "miscarriage of justice."
Said Oliver: "To have DOJ leadership interfering in a case involving a Trump ally hours after Trump directly commented on it is appalling. This is America. Your experience with the criminal justice system should not depend on how much the president likes you. It should depend on how much money you have, what color your skin is and whether all the judges already had lunch," he quipped. "That is how we do things in the United States, buddy!"
He then circled back to Collins' comments about Trump, saying the president "did learn a lesson: 'I can get away with anything, because no one will hold me accountable."
