John Oliver tore into a Fox News host’s attempt to defend President Trump’s botched renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, calling the network’s sabotage theory “pathetic.”
On Last Week Tonight, Oliver revisited the ongoing saga surrounding the iconic Washington landmark’s renovation, which has drawn unflattering coverage for weeks. “Trump’s renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool continues to be an absolute trainwreck,” Oliver said, citing reporting that the pool has been “plagued by enormous pools of algae,” while “large chunks of blue sealant have been peeling off.”
He then turned to Fox News host Jesse Watters, who had aired grainy footage of two unidentified people reaching into the pool while floating the idea that the damage was the result of vandalism rather than poor construction.
“We don’t know who these people are,” Watters said in the clip. “But what are they doing with their hands in the pool? Are they cutting the lining? Are they peeling off the paint? We don’t know if they’re committing a crime. They’ll probably tell you they dropped their wedding ring.”
Oliver wasted no time. “Wait, is that the best you’ve got? God, that is pathetic,” he said, before dredging up Watters’ dodgy history. “As for ‘they’ll probably tell you they dropped their wedding ring,’ yeah, maybe they did. Maybe those people at the reflecting pool dropped their ring after leaving their wife for a 25-year-old coworker. Jesse would know what that is like.”
The dig referenced Watters’ 2018 divorce, which followed revelations that he had been involved with a 25-year-old Fox News producer while still married. He later married that same colleague.
Oliver wasn’t finished. He also revisited a separate admission from Watters, who revealed in 2024 that his mother, a staunch Democrat, did not invite him to Thanksgiving dinner after Trump’s election victory that year.
“I do not blame his mom for that; she’s a child psychologist, and she tried her best,” Oliver said. “Sometimes you just get one that sucks.”
He continued, twisting the knife further. “It does now make much more sense that Jesse will willingly humiliate himself by pursuing the approval of a withholding parental figure that will simply never come, and sadly, he’ll now die starving for it while his mom spends Thanksgiving in a warm home surrounded by people that she loves.”
Oliver capped it off with one final comparison. “It’s basically A Christmas Carol if Scrooge had ignored all the ghosts, even though one was literally his mom.”
