On Sunday’s edition of “Last Week Tonight,” John Oliver aimed his ire at President Trump’s Department of Justice that has — under former attorney general Pam Bondi, designate attorney general Todd Blanche (Trump’s personal lawyer who defended him for concealing hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels) and attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro — seemingly transformed into a unit that carries out legal retribution at the behest of Trump.
“Many of the cases and investigations I’ve mentioned so far have since fallen apart,” offered Oliver, before throwing to an eye-opening clip of NBC News’ Laura Jarrett grilling Blanche about the department’s failings during a sit-down interview.
“The record has been tough,” Jarrett tells Blanche. “For both [James] Comey and [Letitia] James, the indictments get dismissed; the indictment against Congressman Adam Schiff that he called for never gets off the ground; the probe into those six Democratic lawmakers, the grand jury declines to indict; a judge in D.C. tosses out a subpoena for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. That’s bad news for the department, no?”
“It means that we’re working hard,” Blanche responded, adding, “I’m dancing around the conversation a little bit, but we’re not going to run away from hard cases — even if the media doesn’t like it.”
Cue Oliver: “OK, first: No one’s accusing you of ‘running away’; they’re accusing you of losing. Rest assured, everyone believes you ran cock-first as hard as you could straight into a brick wall. And second, I didn’t realize the existence of repeated unsuccessful attempts was actually good news — that’s huge for DC movies, if true.”
The comedian then pointed to a collage of DC superhero movie posters that included “Birds of Prey,” “The Flash,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” “Black Adam” and “Supergirl,” the latter grossing only $126 million worldwide against a $170+ million budget and another $120 million in marketing expenses, standing to lose up to $100 million for the studio.
That studio, of course, is Warner Bros., which not only belongs to the same parent company as Oliver’s HBO show, but may be taken over by the pro-Trump Ellison family if Paramount Skydance’s acquisition goes through.