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Sunday, April 30
· Recap of the Week – Matthew McConnaughey’s “The Art of Livin’” seminar, preparations for Charles III’s coronation
o John was utterly delighted to share a bizarre clip from Matthew McConnaughey’s seminar – “The event was, and this is true, five-and-a-half hours long. And I’m not sure what you’re supposed to learn from it, other than if you try to do drugs with Matthew McConnaughey, you will die.”
o It was announced that Camilla will not be wearing the Queen Mother’s crown at the coronation, because it holds the Kohinoor diamond – John said, “Google it. It’s not that I don’t want to explain it to you. It’s just that a person who sounds like me Britsplaining the Kohinoor diamond is technically a war crime.”
o I enjoyed John’s response to Nigel Farage railing against Charles’ planned coronation quiche, calling it an “austerity” dish – “I do kinda get where he’s coming from there. You could argue this is a belt-tightening dish for a country whose economy is struggling, and it kind of makes you wonder what pack of absolute dipshits drove Britain off a financial cliff in the first place? But I guess a ‘former Brexit leader’ wouldn’t know anything about that.”
· And Now This – Is Matthew McConnaughey Okay?
o More clips from McConnaughey’s seminar – Choice quotes included, “My appetite may be your indigestion,” and, “I step in a pile of shit, I keep running, while I’m cleaning that shit off my shoe on the go.”
o He also shared an analogy about a caterpillar being afraid to become a butterfly, which involved a very emphatic pronunciation of the word “cocoooon.”
· Main Story – Biden and the Border
o We started with some of the sentiments Biden expressed about migration during the 2020 campaign, contrasting his promises with Trump’s policies – He said, “The idea you can’t even seek asylum on American soil? Can’t even seek asylum on American soil? When did that happen? Trump. It’s wrong.”
o So, before we delved deeply into Biden, we reviewed some of the lows of the Trump administration’s immigration policies – “It is impossible to assess what Biden has done at the border without looking at what he inherited. Trump campaigned on high-octane xenophobia, and his policies reflected that.”
o One such policy was Title 42, a public health policy that allowed Trump to quickly expel migrants without giving them the opportunity to make an asylum claim – “That ‘threat to our public health’ line was bullshit. While Trump claimed that the order originated with the CDC, one former health official said that they were effectively forced to implement it, adding, ‘It is either do it or get fired.’”
o The problem is, Biden really hasn’t moved to end Title 42, and now that it’s set to expire with the COVID National Emergency Declaration, his follow-up plan is inadequate and restrictive.
o The administration has launched an app for people to make appointments for asylum claims, but it’s glitchy, incompatible with some migrants’ phones, and relies on facial recognition but struggles to recognize darker skin.
o One worker at a migrant shelter talked about watching mothers frantically refresh the app trying to secure appointments that fill up in a 5-minute span every morning – “It’s lotteries with people’s lives: with people’s families, with people’s livelihoods, with people’s wellbeing.”
o John had a humorous min-tangent describing a number of other apps – I especially loved describing Twitter as, “This one is for watching democracy crumble while Cher tweets the most baffling series of emojis that you’ve ever seen,” and Instagram as, “This one is for looking at pugs who make a better living than you do.”
o Meanwhile, people have called the administration’s new app “asylum Ticketmaster” – “Just take a moment to appreciate quite how shitty of a company Ticketmaster is. People saw vulnerable migrants being robbed of their ability to seek asylum and thought, ‘Hey, you know what this reminds me of? Ticketmaster, a company about concerts.’”
o It wouldn’t be Last Week Tonight without horrifying statistics - Immigration courts in the U.S. currently have a backlog of over 2,000,000 cases.
o This was the crux of the matter – “Basically, we badly need actual immigration reform, which means congressional action. But that hasn’t happened in decades, and until it does, our immigration system will remain fundamentally broken. But that is no excuse for making things even worse with bad policy and shitty apps.”
· And Now This – Wait, Did Tucker Carlson Know This Was Coming?
o This was just a montage of Tucker Carlson expressing the sentiment that everyone is at risk of being fired merely for speaking their mind – The most on-the-nose one was, “Most of us don’t have job security. I’ve been fired. I say whatever I feel like saying, perhaps I’ll be fired again.”
· Finally – Radiant Plumbing & Air Conditioning ad
o Radiant took the show up on their offer to premiere their newest ad (and make a $10,000 food bank donation,) making a parody ad for a movie of Last Week Tonight’s choosing – The chosen film was Magnolia, and John was thrilled with Radiant’s interpretation of it for their new ad.
o I laughed out loud at the title Magtoiletolia.
o The ad transposed storylines about two different parents dying of cancer onto a toilet and a water heater – The toilet wore a wig and was labeled, “I have corrosion. It is in my porcelain, only have a couple of months.” The water heater wore a hospital gown and was labeled, “I have corrosion too =( “
o Naturally, there was only one way for Radiant to parody the plot about raining toads – “Toilets are falling from the sky.”
o John loved the attention to detail and numerous little touches woven through the ad – “There are more easter eggs in this ad than in a ten-episode Marvel TV show!”
Next up on The Daily Show was Dulcé Sloan! She told the audience, “I’m gonna be honest with y’all, I’m nervous…that I might crush this too hard!”
Monday, May 1
· Headlines – Brittany Griner swears off overseas basketball, controversy over Cleopatra documentary on Netflix, “sexy” mermaid statue in Italy, penis-shaped iceberg in Newfoundland, proposed social media ban for kids
o Dulcé sympathized with Brittany Griner – “I feel you, sis. If that shit happened to me, forget overseas. I wouldn’t play basketball anywhere! Not in America, not in my backyard—I wouldn’t even watch basketball! I’d become the first Black woman to watch hockey.”
o Some people are upset over the decision to have a Black woman play Cleopatra in the dramatizations in an upcoming documentary about her – Dulcé asked, “Like, what are you Egyptians so afraid of? You think Cleopatra’s gonna turn your history into a blacksploitation film? You think she’s gonna be cruising down the Nile in a Cadillac yelling, ‘Freeze, jive turkeys, this is my pyramid now!’”
o Great line about the mermaid statue – “I mean, look at that thing. You got Mermaid Thee Stallion over here.”
o Also great, about the penis iceberg – “ ‘Just the tip of the iceberg’ has a whole new meaning!”
o This made me crack up – “You see why we can’t be making these mermaid statues. The Earth got one look at that mermaid, and look what happened!”
o Dulcé was down with a social media ban for kids under 13 – “And none of this bullshit that they can get their parents’ permission. That just makes the cyberbullying worse, because now when Jessica calls you a bitch, you know her mom and her dad signed off on it.”
o She discussed the social media issue with Roy, saying, “Do you know how productive I’d be if I didn’t have social media? I’d be Oprah, a billionaire telling white women what to read.”
· Host Piece – Black people surfing
o This was part of Dulcé’s We Don’t Do That series – she talked with a Black surfing instructor who tries to get more Black people into the sport.
o When one of the instructor’s young students showed Dulcé how to do a pushup popup onto her board, Dulcé wasn’t having it – “You show me. I want someone who remembers the Clinton administration to show me how to do this.”
o This was a nice point – “We have this segment on the show called We Don’t Do That ‘cause there’s a lot of stuff we don’t do. But I think sometimes we don’t know why we don’t do it.”
· Interview – Drag queen Sasha Colby
o Colby, the latest winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, had some nice words about how important it is to her to provide “happy” trans representation – “All that media has been concerned about a lot of the time is telling the transition story. Telling the trauma, telling the effect that it did on the family, but not showing why we go through all that.”
o Colby and Dulcé discussed some of the recent drag bans that have been proposed and passed in different states – Colby pointed out that the laws are written vaguely enough that just being a trans woman in public could be enough to get her in trouble.
Dulcé’s week was unfortunately cut short due to the WGA strike. Standing with the writers and hoping she’ll have another opportunity to do a full week after the strike is settled. Since we got truncated, I decided to include Roy Wood Jr.’s remarks from the White House Correspondents Dinner. I thought he did a fantastic job.
o After complimenting everyone on their nice outfits/jewelry, Roy said, “You look like everybody got a little piece of that settlement money from Fox News.”
o To that end, Roy wanted to stay on Dominion’s good side – “If your election needs the truth, put Dominion in your booth!”
o Loved this line – “Let’s just address the elephant in the room, I know what it is. Half this room think I’m Keenan Thompson. Other half think I’m Louis Armstrong. President Biden thinks I’m the daddy on Family Matters.”
o Awesome – “We gotta get Tucker back on the air, Mr. President, ‘cause right now there’s millions of Americans that don’t even know why they hate you.”
o This was a great bit – “I think we should give credit where credit is due. Tucker Carlson is the first host from Fox News to get fired for something that’s only partially about how he treats women. That’s progress! He shattered the asshole ceiling.”
o This was an interesting observation – “Can we all be honest and say that the Trump arrest didn’t hit like we thought it was gonna hit? We’re so desensitized to scandals now. That Trump arrest, it didn’t do what I thought it was gonna do. The Trump arrest is like a pot brownie you ate four hours ago. ‘Do I feel justice? This don’t feel like justice. Let me try one of them Georgia arraignment brownies, maybe that’d hit.’”
o Great line – “There’s too many Trump scandals to keep up with. Keeping up with Trump scandals is like watching Star Wars movies. You gotta watch the third one to understand the first one, then you can’t miss the second one ‘cause it’s got easter eggs for the fifth one. Donald Trump is the only politician whose scandals got spinoffs on Disney+.”
o Roy pointed out that the media intently covered Trump’s classified documents scandal…until it came out that Biden had classified documents, too – Then, all of the sudden, it was, “Ooh, look, a Chinese spy balloon! Everybody look at that!”
o I loved this – “You realize how rich you have to be to buy a Supreme Court justice? And a Black one at that! There’s only two in stock!”
o Roy thought Americans could stand to be a bit more like the French – “They rioted when the retirement age went up two years, to 64. They rioted ‘cause they didn’t want to work ‘til 64. Meanwhile in America, we have an 80-year-old man begging us for four more years of work.”
o I really appreciated this point – “The issue with good media is that most people can’t afford that. All the essential fair and nuanced reporting, it’s all stuck behind a paywall. People can’t afford rent, people can’t afford food—not healthy food—they can’t afford an education, they damn sure can’t afford to pay for the truth. Say what you want about a conspiracy theory, but at least it’s affordable.”
o Roy ended with a salute to local newspapers, which are under threat right now but which supply national outlets with many of their important stories—As an example, he pointed to the local papers in Alabama who reported on segregation and activism back when his mother was fighting for civil rights. He argued that these local stories gaining national attention was critical to putting pressure on Congress to act and combat discriminatory laws.
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