John Oliver compared Donald Trump to a 6-year-old boy as he mocked the president over his description of the war in Iran.
The president has repeatedly failed to call the conflict a “war” since the conflict began in late February with Israel and the U.S. launching joint strikes on Iran. Trump issued a bizarre explanation for this at an annual House Republicans fundraising event last Wednesday.
“I won’t use the word ‘war’ because they say if you use the word war, that’s maybe not a good thing to do,” he rambled. “They don’t like the word war because you’re supposed to get approval, so I’ll use the word ‘military operation,’ which is really what it is.”
After playing a clip of Trump’s inadvertent confession on Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, host Oliver fired back with a merciless roast of the president.
“He really just talks like a 6-year-old speaking stream-of-consciousness to a stranger: ‘And my mum says I’m not allowed to talk about my penis with other people, even though everybody has one, well, not her and not my sister, but my dad and I both have penises, but I can’t say that when there are too many people around, even though everyone knows ’cause they have their own penises unless they don’t, but I do,’” the host said.
Oliver said that “Trump tries not to use the word ‘war’ for reasons he probably shouldn’t be saying out loud.” The 79-year-old president’s issues with the semantics of the conflict have not gone unnoticed: both Democrats and Republicans have said the administration has kept Congress in the dark about ongoing operations.
But no matter what word Trump and his supporters deem appropriate, Oliver said the war, now in its fifth week, “has been chaos.” The late-night host referred to Trump’s recent threat to attack Iran’s power grid in a bid to open the Strait of Hormuz. Humanitarian organizations sounded the alarm on his threat, with Amnesty International calling it “deeply irresponsible” and “a threat to commit war crimes.”
Oliver echoed this, saying the act “would be a war crime if this was a war, but luckily we now know it isn’t.”
The Emmy Award-winning host summarized weeks of conflict for his audience: “It sure feels like we’re in an unnecessary war with no endgame.”
The war has cost billions of dollars and claimed thousands of lives. Public approval of Trump’s handling of Iran has plummeted.
Last Week Tonight airs every Sunday on HBO.
