Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s12e12 Episode Script
Trump and the Press
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight!"
I'm John Oliver, thank you for
joining us. It has been a busy week.
Trump backed down
on his China tariffs,
RFK swam in a creek flowing
with sewage and bacteria,
and the Eurovision
Song Contest took place.
And, as ever,
there were controversies,
from protestors trying to disrupt
Israel's dress rehearsal,
to claims Estonia's singer drew
on a series of Italian stereotypes
in his song "Espresso Macchiato",
which to be honest,
not no, to my personal favorite, Malta's
song having a key word censored,
reportedly
after the BBC complained.
And its performer actually
went on the BBC to defend herself.
It's a Maltese word
that holds a lot of meaning to us
and we never
intended to offend anyone.
You must have known
that, at some level,
some people might find
aversion or hearing
of that word or that phrase,
difficult to deal with,
on a family show,
I'll put it like that.
Okay, he's doing a lot
to not say the word in question.
And if you're thinking,
"How bad could it possibly be?",
well, this bad.
I do it all the time,
yeah, I do it all the time.
Serving kant.
Yeah. Serving "kant".
K-A-N-T. It's apparently
the Maltese word for "singing".
So, what she's doing there
is she's serving singing.
Or serving kant.
Or arguably serving both.
I could talk about Eurovision all night,
but we're actually going to start
with our main story tonight,
which concerns Trump's
relationship with the press.
It's always been antagonistic,
and this week, we got
yet another reminder,
when he was asked a perfectly
reasonable question about reports
that he planned to accept
a luxury jet from Qatar.
What do you say
to people who view
that luxury jet as a personal
gift to you? Why not leave it behind?
You're ABC Fake News, right?
Only ABC, a few of you would.
Let me tell you: you should be
embarrassed asking that question.
They're giving us a free jet.
It's not a gift to me,
it's a gift to
the Department of Defense.
You should know better, because
you've been embarrassed enough,
and so has your network. Your network
is a disaster. ABC is a disaster.
That is pretty hostile!
Though I actually agree
that ABC should be embarrassed,
just not for that legitimate question,
but for the fact, as of taping,
they still haven't renewed
"Doctor Odyssey" for season two.
What the fuck are you doing, ABC?
It's sexy "ER" on a boat.
It's "The Pitt" with sharks.
It's got,
and I'm not even gonna try
and beat their tagline on this,
"big deck energy."
In its pilot episode alone,
it featured a waterslide injury,
someone overdosing on shrimp
and this.
What happened?
- It broke.
- He's in shock.
What broke, Mr. Harrington?
Is it a bone?
Penile fracture.
Are you not entertained?!
How is ABC renewing shows
called "The Rookie" and "Will Trent",
whose premise is apparently
just, "Despite being dyslexic,
he's become a special agent"
"in the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation." What?!
But they haven't renewed
the only show brave enough
to answer the question,
"What if sick but boat?"
I shouldn't complain
about the other shows.
I shouldn't care that a show
called and about a "rookie"
is returning for its
premise-defying eighth season,
and I don't begrudge
any audience members
for sticking around to find out
if their favorite characters
will or won't Trent.
All I'm saying is
ABC's "The View" has been
on since 1997
and Doctor Hot Boat is still in limbo.
You're a disgrace, ABC.
Your network is a disaster!
The problem is,
Trump clearly only likes
when people are nice to him,
and the press, by covering
the things he says and does
in the way he says and does them,
is, in his opinion, being mean.
Back in his first campaign,
he attacked journalists constantly,
calling Jake Tapper "Fake Tapper",
Maggie Haberman "Maggot Hagerman",
and Katy Tur "Little Katy."
Which, compared to the others,
is just lazy.
"Little Katy" sounds like a doll
from the 1970s
that was discontinued for giving
children lead poisoning.
But in his second term,
Trump's administration escalated
those attacks on the press,
from making it easier
to subpoena journalists' records,
to detaining a Tufts University student
after she co-authored
an op-ed on Gaza,
to Trump calling for
Republicans to defund NPR and PBS,
calling them "radical left monsters
that so badly hurt our country."
And in March, he even
went to the DOJ
to issue
this chilling announcement.
I believe
that CNN and MSDNC,
who literally
write 97.6% bad about me,
are political arms
of the Democrat Party.
And in my opinion, they're
really corrupt and they're illegal.
What they do is illegal.
And it has to stop.
It has to be illegal.
"What the press does has to be illegal"
is obviously extremely bad.
But I also want to talk
about that 97.6% real quick,
because I'm genuinely surprised
that he knew that made-up number
would sound more authentic
if he added a decimal point.
A decimal just feels more
like a real number, even if it isn't.
If I tell you 20%
of Taco Bell ground beef
is actually horse, you're like,
"No way, number's too round."
But if I say 21.6% is horse,
you'd be like,
"He wouldn't make up
a number that specific."
Now, to be clear, I wouldn't say
either of those numbers, though,
because we all know that
the real number is significantly higher.
But apparently, legally,
I can't say that, so I won't.
And unfortunately, even
as Trump's aggression has gone up,
some owners of press outlets
have gotten more submissive.
During Trump's first term,
a lot of outlets positioned themselves
as fierce watchdogs for truth.
The Washington Post, for instance,
adopted the slogan
"Democracy Dies in Darkness."
But this time,
even before the election,
they seemed noticeably gentler.
The Post's owner, Jeff Bezos,
killed the paper's endorsement
of Kamala Harris.
He also ordered
that its op-ed page focus
purely on the importance of
"personal liberties and free markets".
Bezos has seemingly gone out
of his way to cozy up to Trump,
with his company paying 40 million
to license a documentary on Melania,
the most Amazon has
ever spent on a documentary,
and even standing behind Trump
at his inauguration.
And, come on.
That's not just bending the knee.
That's bending both knees, arching
your back and relaxing your holes.
And Bezos isn't the only
media owner
making notable concessions.
The billionaire owner
of the Los Angeles Times
has reportedly asked
the paper's editorial board to,
quote, "take a break" from writing
about President-elect Donald Trump.
Patrick Soon-Shiong has reportedly
required editors to send him the text
of every editorial and the name
of its writer before publishing.
That is pretty chilling.
And as for "taking a break"
from writing about Trump,
to be clear:
I also don't want to hear
about him all the time.
I don't love that I'm talking
about him right now.
Especially when I could be talking
about the recent headline,
"Ohio Police Find Raccoon
Holding Meth Pipe During Traffic Stop,"
which was good enough, until they made
it even better, pointing out,
"When an officer took the pipe away,
the raccoon pulled out another."
Pulled out another? From where?!
You don't think I want to talk
about this raccoon
with multiple meth pipes
for the next 25 solid minutes?
Of course I do. But I can't.
Because, even as threats
to the free press seem to be on the rise,
resistance to them seems to be waning,
and in some corners
to a worrying extent.
So, given that, tonight,
let's talk about Trump and the press:
how he's tried to reshape his coverage,
the levers of power he's using
to threaten them, and
how we should be responding.
And let's start with,
if not the most important,
the most visible sign
that things have changed:
the White House Press Corps.
Back in February,
the White House picked
a high-profile fight
with The Associated Press,
for the dumbest imaginable reason.
You may remember,
after taking office,
Trump announced
that he'd renamed the Gulf of Mexico
the Gulf of America,
and while some outlets
started using the new name,
the AP didn't, which led
to them being banned
from the Oval Office,
something Press Secretary
Karoline Leavitt justified like this.
If we feel that there are lies
being pushed by outlets in this room,
we are going to hold
those lies accountable.
And it is a fact that the body of water
off the coast of Louisiana
is called the Gulf of America,
and I'm not sure why
news outlets don't want to call
it that, but that is what it is.
Okay, to you, maybe.
But not to everyone.
As the AP pointed out,
it has clients all over the world,
and lots of them still use
the term "the Gulf of Mexico".
So, it's not as simple
as you're making out there.
Especially because it can take time
for people to adjust
to a stupid name change.
Sometimes, hypothetically,
before we can even
get used to one dumb name,
some genius comes along
and only makes it dumber,
then somehow it gets dumber still,
and then against all the odds,
somehow it becomes even worse,
before inexplicably going back
to the stupid thing
it was before.
Incidentally, earlier this week,
my parent company apparently said
they "cannot wait" for my "hot take
on this whole rebrand,"
believing that whatever I say
about this change
was "going to be pretty hot."
So, please, look me in the eyes
when I say this: fuck you.
Don't tell me what to do.
I'm not gonna do it if you want,
unless, wait, maybe you thought
baiting me like that
would be a good way
to stop me from doing it.
But on the other hand,
how could a company be that smart,
when they're the same people
that came up with so many
stupid fucking names?
Now, after a legal battle,
the White House began allowing
the AP back into the Oval Office.
And as you just saw
with that ABC reporter,
other traditional outlets are still
allowed access to the president,
primarily so that
he can shit on them.
But increasingly,
he is managing
to get the sycophantic questions
he'd prefer.
And even if you haven't
noticed that,
he definitely has.
What has made you and your team
so effective in finding, locating,
apprehending and deporting
these violent, illegal migrants?
I love this guy.
I wish more people
would ask questions like that.
Do you think it shows how out of touch
they are with the American people,
especially given that 79%,
according to a CBS poll,
approved of your speech?
I love this guy.
How come when these Democrat
elites want tariffs, all's hunky-dory,
but when President Trump wants
tariffs, all hell breaks loose?
Do you see this double standard?
I love this guy,
whoever the hell that is.
That's really nice.
I appreciate that question.
That is pretty humiliating,
and not just because,
"I love this guy,
whoever the hell that is",
is almost definitely how Trump
opened a toast at Eric's wedding.
But it's not a coincidence that Trump's
been getting more flattering questions.
Because the White House
has increasingly let
far-right news outlets and influencers
into press events.
A recent review of briefings found
that four of the five reporters
Leavitt called on
most were from right-wing outlets.
She's also added
a seat for "new media,"
and the person in that seat
is always called on first.
Meaning the press room now features
figures like Cara Castruonova,
who works for LindellTV,
an internet news network
bankrolled by the MyPillow guy,
who asks questions like this.
Will you guys also consider
releasing the president's fitness plan?
He actually looks healthier
than ever before.
Healthier than he did
eight years ago,
and I'm sure everybody
in this room could agree.
Is he working out with Bobby Kennedy,
and is he eating less McDonald's?
That is an actual question
a White House reporter asked.
And everything
about that is unsettling,
from the fact
she was essentially asking,
"The president's looking
hotter than ever, right?"
To the absolutely cursed smile
of that ghostly twink presence
of the business Malfoy
hovering behind her.
You can all see him, too, right?
Please tell me you can see him.
And when she was asked to spell
out her approach to journalism,
it didn't go great.
You are a Trump fan, right?
Yes, I'm definitely
a supporter of President Trump.
So, will you be able to hold him
to account, then, call him out?
I will be able to hold
100% him to account.
There's things that will
happen that I disagree with.
And I have said plenty of times,
you know, on the record
when I disagreed with his decisions.
Is there anything so far in this
administration you've disagreed with?
Let me put some thought
into that for a second.
I'm just overwhelmed with how
well I perceive things to be going.
What?
"I'm just overwhelmed with how well
I perceive things to be going."
That sounds less like what
a White House correspondent
should be saying to a reporter,
and more like something
you say to an acquaintance at coffee
before crying in your car for an hour.
Stocking the press room
with suck-ups would be bad enough.
But that's just one of the ways
the White House has found
to thumb the scale of its coverage.
Another has been attempting
to weaponize the FCC.
Historically, it's at least pretended
to be an independent commission,
but that is now changing fast under
its new chair, Brendan Carr.
Trump elevated him to run
the commission after the election
and Carr made no secret
of what he was going to do.
I want to start by expressing
my thanks and appreciation again
to President Trump and to congratulate
him on his historic election victory.
For me, as I go forward,
the first thing is
to get together
with the president's team
and make sure that
I 100% understand his agenda.
It's gonna be his administration
and it's going to be his agenda
that we'll be pushing.
Okay, but that's not
what your job is supposed to be.
You never want to hear something
as obsequious as that
coming from someone in a role
that's supposed to be independent,
for the same reason
you don't want to see
an NBA ref wearing
one of the teams' uniforms,
or a Supreme Court justice flying an
insurrection flag outside of his house.
Hypothetically, of course,
you understand.
And Carr does seem deep
in the tank for the president.
Trump supporters have celebrated
this image of him
wearing a gold Trump pin.
And after The Hollywood Reporter
published an article titled
"Trump's Media Pit Bull
Is 'Off the Leash,'"
that included this horrifying
picture of Carr as a pit bull,
he tweeted it saying,
"Woof, woof!"
One past FCC commissioner
has said,
"I'm about as worried as I can be
about the future of the FCC."
"I would say Carr is the most
ideological chairman we've ever had"
"and the most political."
And he's wasted no time
pursuing Trump's agenda.
His FCC is now investigating
all the major broadcast outlets,
except for Fox.
And Carr's stewardship of the FCC
has also been part
of a new squeeze Trump's
been putting on the networks,
with the FCC on one side,
and lawsuits on the other.
Here is how it works:
the FCC has the ability
to regulate the broadcast licenses
of local TV and radio stations.
The big networks each
own a bunch of those.
CBS, for instance,
owns all of these.
And while the FCC revoking
a license is incredibly hard,
what it can do is make it very hard
for networks to sell those stations.
Which, given the frequency of media
mergers and acquisitions,
can be a real problem.
So, networks now have
that threat hanging over them,
while at the same time,
Trump is applying legal pressure
by filing lawsuits to put
them on the defensive.
It is pretty flagrant: Trump files
a lawsuit demanding money.
At the same time, his FCC starts
making noises
about plans to make
that company's life unpleasant.
So, the networks settle,
in the hopes it'll keep Trump happy
and get everyone off their back.
And maybe they think twice
about the tone of their coverage
in the future.
Right now, CBS is caught
in this exact squeeze,
largely arising from a "60 Minutes"
segment that aired before the election,
featuring an interview
with Kamala Harris,
which Trump maintains
was misleadingly edited.
He has sued the network in a lawsuit
First Amendment lawyers have called
"frivolous and dangerous"
and "ridiculous junk".
To understand just how true that is,
it's worth looking at the specifics.
Very basically, it involves Harris'
answer to a question about Gaza.
And here is Trump's version
of what happened.
They took Kamala's answer,
which was a crazy answer,
a horrible answer, and they
took the whole answer out,
and they replaced it with something
else she said later in the interview,
which wasn't a great answer,
but it wasn't like the first one.
The first was grossly incompetent,
it was weird.
And that was fraud
and election interference
by their news magazine,
a big part of CBS News.
Trump's theory is that CBS
secretly replaced Harris's answer
to a question to get her
to win the presidency.
And straight away, complaining
about that is a bit like accusing me
of hiding the secrets
of my skincare routine.
One, I don't have one. And two, even
if I did, it doesn't matter,
'cause it's not like it worked,
did it?
But it's worth knowing: the only reason
he's aware of that "weird answer"
is that it aired in a promo
for that "60 Minutes" interview
on "Face the Nation".
So, CBS aired it.
They weren't trying to hide anything.
And if you're curious,
here are the two versions. Here is
what aired on "Face the Nation".
It seems that Prime Minister
Netanyahu is not listening.
Bill, the work that we have done
has resulted in a number
of movements in that region by Israel
that were very much prompted by
or a result of many things,
including our advocacy for what
needs to happen in the region.
That is a pretty shitty answer.
Like she's trying to express a thought
in English but with French grammar.
It sounds like someone just shook her
awake and yelled "Israel?" at her.
So, Trump is not wrong,
that was bad.
But here's the supposedly
much better answer
that "60 Minutes" aired that night.
It seems that Prime Minister
Netanyahu is not listening.
We're not gonna stop pursuing
what is necessary for the United States
to be clear about where we stand
on the need for this war to end.
I guess that sounds
slightly more coherent.
But they are both fundamentally
celebrations of prepositional phrases
and the passive voice.
In both, she's talking like a high
schooler trying to hit the word count.
The letter of scarlet worn
by Hester Prynne in the novel
"The Scarlet Letter"
written by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
published in 1850, symbolizes shame
and punishment symbolically.
And the underlying fact is,
the answers seem to be broadly saying
the same amount of absolute
nothing about the same topic,
which isn't surprising,
because under pressure from the FCC,
CBS actually released the full
transcript of the interview,
and it turns out,
this is her full answer
to the question she was asked
about Israel,
this is what aired
on "Face the Nation"
and this is what aired
on "60 Minutes".
So, the network didn't
take her whole answer out
and replace it with something
from later in the interview,
as Trump claimed, they basically
aired both halves of a single answer.
And that sort of editing decision,
for time or clarity,
happens on TV all the time.
As Semafor pointed out:
earlier last year,
Fox actually
massaged a Trump interview.
Because in the version that they
initially aired, this was the exchange.
Would you declassify
the Epstein files?
Yeah, yeah, I would.
Okay, then! That is a firm,
unequivocal answer.
And at that point, they cut away
to the next question.
But when they later aired
a longer clip from that interview,
it became clear that his full
answer played out a little differently.
Would you
declassify the Epstein files?
Yeah, yeah, I would.
I guess I would.
I think that less so because,
you know,
you don't want to affect people's
lives if it's phony stuff in there,
'cause there's a lot of phony stuff
with that whole world.
Yeah, in one version,
Trump's answer was edited down.
And people who saw that
missed out on the fuller context
of watching his thought
process go in real time
from "of course, we should
absolutely release the files,"
"people deserve to know the truth"
to "wait, you mean that Epstein?"
to "Yeah, you can't believe
everything that you read about people."
The point is, CBS engaged
in a pretty standard practice
of editing an interview
for length and clarity.
Trump sued them for fraud,
demanding 20 billion in damages.
CBS initially fought back, calling
the claims "completely without merit"
and saying that they intended to
"vigorously defend against the lawsuit."
Which makes sense, as legal experts
have called it baseless
and an easy victory for CBS.
But here's the thing:
while that lawsuit was going on,
the FCC began investigating
the network
over claims it engaged in
"news distortion" with the interview.
And that is a problem for CBS,
especially as its parent company,
Paramount, is in the middle of
a massive merger with Skydance Media.
And as I mentioned earlier,
transferring its broadcast licenses
will require FCC approval, and it can
sit on that approval indefinitely.
That may well be why Shari Redstone,
Paramount's controlling shareholder,
has said
"she favors settling the case."
She and Paramount have also
apparently indicated to "60 Minutes"
they were very interested to know
the segments the show
was going to be running
on Trump for the rest of the season,
which feels like a big overstep.
Bill Owens, the head of "60 Minutes",
actually resigned in the wake of that,
saying it had become clear
he would not be allowed
to make independent decisions
at the show.
All of which makes it pretty
galling that just a few years ago,
Shari Redstone chaired an event for
CPJ, group that defends press freedom.
And had the nerve to position herself
as a defender of a free press.
It is truly an honor to be here
representing Paramount Global
and the thousands of hard-working
journalists at CBS News
who fight every day for the freedom
and integrity of the press.
The honorees in this room are living
embodiments of these values.
They remind us that press freedom
is never guaranteed,
that it must constantly be defended,
and that it often comes
at a significant cost,
both personal and professional.
Powerful words about the need
to defend press freedom at any cost,
from someone who has seemed
to stop doing that
as soon as there was
a financial one to her.
And that kind of undercuts
the strength of her statement there.
Imagine FDR saying, "The only thing
we have to fear is fear itself",
only to flip out after he saw a bug.
It undermines his point!
And maybe Redstone's calculating
that if she just gives Trump
what he wants now, he'll back down.
But I seriously doubt that.
Just look at what happened to ABC.
They settled a defamation lawsuit
with Trump in December,
over how George Stephanopoulos
characterized
the E. Jean Carroll verdict,
paying 15 million to Trump's private
foundation for his presidential museum,
despite experts saying ABC
might well have won at trial.
But since then, Carr's FCC has
pushed ABC for more concessions,
like threatening its broadcast
license over Disney's DEI practices.
As bad as these examples are,
you might already be aware of them.
But fights happening at the local level
aren't getting the same attention,
but are just as worrying.
Take a look at what Carr's FCC
is doing to KCBS,
a San Francisco radio station.
Very basically, on the afternoon
of January 26th,
a local community group made
this post to Facebook,
concerning ICE agents
being spotted in the area.
A city council member also
posted about the ICE activities.
Around 15:40, the community group
posted that ICE had left.
And around two hours after that,
KCBS ran a story about it,
in the classic sedate tone
of every radio news broadcast ever.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and
Council Member Peter Ortiz
confirmed today that U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement agents
are currently carrying out an operation
on the east side of town.
The county's response network
says agents in San Jose
were in unmarked vehicles,
including a black Dodge Durango,
a gray Nissan Maxima
and white Nissan truck.
ICE agents were also reported
outside a residence
on South White and Tully roads,
and officers were reportedly at
the Target on King and Story roads.
Okay, first: that is a remarkably
soothing voice for a news report
describing something as alarming
as ICE agents in unmarked vehicles.
It's like listening
to a YouTube video titled
"Lofi Sounds of a Man Getting Mauled
by a Tiger to Relax-slash-Study to".
But crucially,
that report's also pretty basic.
ICE was in the community,
community groups and government
officials were talking about it
and local news covered it.
That radio station was
actually one of several outlets
that covered it
around the same time.
Here it is on the six o'clock
news on NBC,
which actually showed images
of the cars and agents in question,
and here's the same footage
being aired on Telemundo.
But it was the radio report that got
the attention of a right-wing activist,
who pointed out that KCBS was
owned by Soros' investment firm
and claimed that it had put
ICE agents "at serious risk"
"while an operation was ongoing",
which it very much did not.
Nevertheless, that complaint made
its way to Brendan Carr,
who later got himself in front
of a camera to say this.
So, what happened was you had ICE
agents undercover doing operations
in east San Jose and part of the town
known for violent gang activity.
And you had this radio station
broadcasting the live location,
identifying the unmarked
vehicles that they were in.
So, we have sent a letter of inquiry,
a formal investigation into that matter.
And they have just a matter of days
left to respond to that inquiry
and explain how this could
possibly be consistent
with their public interest
obligations.
What are you talking about?
Covering stories like that
is literally the whole point
of local news radio.
That and delivering
the driest imaginable ad read
for a local
deck-staining company.
Legal scholars will tell you, this
FCC investigation is also meritless.
As one First Amendment
expert put it,
"Law enforcement
operations, immigration or otherwise,"
"are matters of public interest."
So, if it comes to a court case,
and KCBS chooses to fight,
it will almost certainly win.
But it's a little worrying that,
so far, they haven't openly
defended their journalists,
who, again,
did absolutely nothing wrong.
And on one hand, I get it:
fighting the FCC costs money
and opens the station up to risk
when their license comes up again.
But staying silent
has real cost, too.
As that First Amendment expert says,
"Even if charges are never filed,"
"people have to look over
their shoulder to wonder,"
"is the government going
to come after me"
"because I report something that
the government doesn't like me to say?"
Sadly, that is a reasonable
question to ask now.
Much more reasonable,
you could argue,
than "When's the president's
workout DVD dropping?"
And this feels like where the biggest
potential harm may be done.
Because the government, directly
or indirectly, is controlling criticism.
And that is, to put it bluntly,
authoritarianism.
We've seen countries backslide,
and the press tends to be
one of the first casualties.
It happened under
Viktor Orban in Hungary
and Rodrigo Duterte
in the Philippines.
And those who've watched it
happen in person will tell you:
this is where it starts, and this is
also the one chance you get to stop it.
Maria Ressa's a journalist who was
arrested in the Philippines
for standing up
to the Duterte regime.
She ultimately won
a Nobel Prize for doing that.
And she's said she sees parallels here
with what happened there
and her warning to people like
Shari Redstone is pretty stark.
Don't voluntarily
give up your rights, right?
Again, I'll give you
our example in the Philippines,
where the newspaper gave up,
the television station gave up,
largest, it lost its franchise
or license to operate.
And guess what? It never regained it,
even after the time of Duterte.
I guess what I'm saying is,
"hold the line" is the phrase we use,
because it's connected to the rights
that you deserve as a citizen.
And if you do not hold the line
at this crucial moment,
this is the moment
when you are strongest,
you will only get weaker over time.
Exactly. Fundamental rights and
freedoms are worth fighting for.
And this is one of the fights that
nerds who work in newsrooms
can win, mostly because it doesn't
require any upper body strength.
So, what can we do?
Obviously, public support
for organizations like the AP
and "60 Minutes" is important.
We also need to pay attention to
what's happening at places like KCBS.
And I'd argue there's a special
obligation here to any outlets
owned by extremely wealthy people
like this lot to fight back.
Don't comply with Trump's
ridiculous demands prematurely.
I know he and the FCC are making
intimidating-sounding threats
and fighting them will undeniably
take time, effort and money.
But I'd argue it is
very much worth it,
especially when the likeliest
outcome is that you win definitively.
If I may quote someone who I hope
meant it when she said it,
"Press freedom is never guaranteed,
it must constantly be defended"
"and that often comes
at a significant cost."
The point is, if media owners enjoy
the applause they get
when they say things like that,
now is the time to pay for it.
Think of it this way: a free press
is a lot like "Doctor Odyssey".
It's rare, it's special,
we're very lucky to have it,
and if we're not extremely careful,
we're all gonna miss it terribly
when it's gone. And now, this.
And Now: Local News Has Some Pretty
Hot Takes on HBO's Latest Rebranding.
The streaming platform Max
is changing its name again.
This time it's going back
to the HBO Max.
It was HBO Max.
And then it became Max.
And now it's gonna go back
to HBO Max.
Cool.
Streaming service Max
is changing its name again.
Why?
Remember, it was HBO,
then it was HBO Max,
and then it was Max.
It's HBO Max again.
Pick a thing, man!
Pick a lane and stick with it!
I'm not, like, the king of all,
protecting your brand, but my lord.
What are you doing,
Warner Brothers?
Warner Brothers Studio says
this change puts a focus
on quality rather than quantity.
Why change it?
Some new marketing guy
needed to justify his job.
"Look what I came up with, guys!"
I have to wonder too, did they bring in
a focus group to make the change back,
and how much money
did that cost?
Now if you really want to get upset,
just stop and think for a second
about the collective salaries of
the people that sat around the table
and came up with the decision.
Max, I'm sorry,
the derivative of Cinemax,
was always associated
with late-night porn.
Let's call it what it is.
I mean, seriously!
Sometimes when you get the knob
and you adjust it a certain way,
I don't know where we was going
with getting the knob.
Moving on.
Finally tonight, a quick update.
You may remember, two weeks ago,
we did a segment about
the incredible institution
that is Minor League Baseball,
which is really just baseball
but with a staggering amount
of younger sibling energy.
In it, we walked you through some
of the spectacular team names
like the Rumble Ponies, Trash Pandas
and the Modesto Nuts,
whose logo features what appears
to be a sporty nut throuple.
We also mentioned some of their
amazing theme nights,
like the Charleston River Dogs'
Helen McGuckin night,
which was dedicated entirely
to impressing a random woman
who gave the ballpark a two-star review
without ever setting foot inside it,
a level of pettiness
I can only aspire to.
It turns out, a lot of teams and their
fans were excited to be mentioned,
including this north Alabama news
anchor who added an extra detail.
Did anyone catch John Oliver's
shout-out to the Trash Pandas?
Go Trash Pandas, TPs for life!
The comedian gave the Trash Pandas
a shout-out during his weekly show,
"Last Week Tonight", while the main
story was about deportation.
Yeah!
Yeah. It sure was!
And that right there is the face
of a woman who is suddenly wondering
if the word "comedian"
was the right choice there.
At the end of that episode,
we mentioned that not all teams
seem to be pulling their weight
in the eccentricity department.
So, we offered to rebrand
one minor league team
with a new name, mascot,
and theme night as long as they,
one, promised to do whatever
we told them,
and two, emailed
John-Oliver-at-Bunt-Stuff-dot-com,
an email address that I promise
made sense in context.
And I will admit, when
we do things like this,
we're not always sure what level
of response we're going to get.
Which is why I'm happy to tell you,
we got so many emails.
And I will say: a bunch were
for non-baseball reasons,
including one guy who simply wrote,
"I'd like to say that you look like
the wrinkles on my nutsack"
"and the makeup you put on isn't
working, accounting boy,"
then, miraculously, signed off
with "best wishes, mate."
Which, thanks?
And honestly, you know which insult
hurts the most there? "Accounting boy."
Because I can brush off the nutsack
thing, maybe yours is exquisite.
And if you saw me without TV makeup,
you'd realize it is actually working.
This is, unfortunately,
the makeup working.
But "accounting boy?" I'm afraid
that is just a bullseye-right there.
I also got an invitation to
a wedding at the Indianapolis Zoo,
from Zac and Mckenna, who wrote,
"No choice on food."
"You will eat what we have
and like it."
Which I like very much
but I'm thrilled to say:
we also had 47 Minor League Baseball
teams reach out to take our offer.
That is 40% of all of them!
We got so many emails
we had to make a beautiful spreadsheet
with multiple tabs
to keep track of them.
And the very fact I'm bragging
about a spreadsheet
clearly means I'm not beating
the "accounting boy" allegations.
Some teams were endearingly
self-deprecating,
like the Buffalo Bisons,
who wrote,
"We were named
the Buffalo Bisons in 1877"
"and not only was that name probably
the 'boring' first thought"
"back in the late 19th century,
it's also grammatically incorrect!"
Which is, of course, true!
Bison is one of those words where
the plural doesn't have an S,
like "sheep" or "Cher".
Yeah, this right here? That's a bunch
of "Cher," not "Chers".
I don't make the rules,
I just follow them.
Some teams even sent videos,
like the Lake County Captains,
whose magnificent toilet seating
we featured.
They made us a video that began with
the words "Pick us John Oliver"
and escalated from there.
We have nine mascots.
Not one, nine.
When we needed a new one,
we brought back the most hated
mascot in Cleveland history.
The baseball bug!
We gave him a second chance.
America loves a redemption arc.
Our mascots try to do something
big to get your attention.
It looks like we're doing
the Oliver wave here.
It's always a lot of fun, but you
don't often see this many mascots,
sitting on a row of toilets
in any other place.
That is pretty good,
but I'll be honest:
the Lake County Captains
have a row of toilet seats,
and nine mascots,
one of which looks like
someone placed a baseball cap
on top of Elmo's genitals.
On top of that,
they've clearly got the kind of printer
that can do full-head-printing
on a pretty tight turnaround,
so, I'm not sure what you really
need us to do for you.
I think we'd just be
holding you back.
They're not the only team that reached
out despite not needing our help.
We also heard
from the Amarillo Sod Poodles,
and what are you doing
in our inbox?
You want us to rebrand
Ruckus the Sod Poodle,
a giant ground squirrel dressed like
he's attending the Cowboy Carter tour?
Absolutely not. We also heard
from the Quad City River Bandits
who emphasized their bonafides,
saying,
"We were the first team to fill
a helicopter with candy,"
"then drop it all over the field
after a game."
"Then, as the children ran out onto
the field to grab the candy,"
"we'd have the helicopter circle back"
"and drop thousands of giant
marshmallows all over the children."
And if you think we're gonna
find a way to one-up the idea
of "chopper-shitting a bunch
of candy on some kids,"
"and then when they get all excited,"
"buzz back around to bombard
them with marshmallows",
you're out
of your fucking minds!
Incredibly, the Eugene Emeralds
also contacted us with an email
in which they called me
"Mr. One John Oliver",
which is not how
the English language works.
But we're obviously not gonna even
attempt to top their alternate identity
of the Exploding Whales,
or indeed come up with a mascot
that's better than this cheeky bitch
whose smirk says,
"Guess who's about to go boom!"
Honestly, part of this whole process
was learning more about the mascots
that already exist,
some of which are really good.
The Fredericksburg Nationals,
for instance, told us,
"Our mascot, Gus,"
"is literally George Washington's
imaginary childhood friend."
"We don't fully understand that
either, but kids love him."
And picture in your mind
what you think George Washington's
imaginary friend would look like.
Are you picturing it right now?
Have you got it in your head now?
You're wrong, it's this.
That's Gus.
That's who America's father
hung around with as a boy.
We're not touching that!
Overall, picking the team
turned out to be really difficult.
And before we reveal our choice,
let me just say this:
if you haven't been to a Minor League
Baseball game, you should really go.
Because Minor League Baseball
is clearly both incredibly special
and inescapably stupid,
in the very best way.
But in the end, we have made
a choice, so please come with me.
Because as hard as it was,
we did pick one of the 47 entries
and we're excited
to get to work.
The Erie SeaWolves,
in Erie, Pennsylvania!
They wrote to us with a list
of 11 good reasons to pick them,
one of which was "the SeaWolves
play baseball nowhere near the sea."
Which, yeah, that's a problem,
Erie. We can help you fix that.
Congratulations to the SeaWolves,
you're about
to be called something else.
We are going to research your area
and come up with a new name,
mascot, and theme night for you
that no one else in the league has,
and that could
only come from Erie.
As per our original offer,
you will get no input into this.
If I may paraphrase my now favorite
wedding invitation of all time,
you will take what we have
and you will like it.
All you have to do is sign the contract
we're about to send you
so we can get started, but I promise,
this is going to be great.
That is our show, thank you
so much for watching.
We're off next week,
back June 1st, good night!
I'm John Oliver, thank you for
joining us. It has been a busy week.
Trump backed down
on his China tariffs,
RFK swam in a creek flowing
with sewage and bacteria,
and the Eurovision
Song Contest took place.
And, as ever,
there were controversies,
from protestors trying to disrupt
Israel's dress rehearsal,
to claims Estonia's singer drew
on a series of Italian stereotypes
in his song "Espresso Macchiato",
which to be honest,
not no, to my personal favorite, Malta's
song having a key word censored,
reportedly
after the BBC complained.
And its performer actually
went on the BBC to defend herself.
It's a Maltese word
that holds a lot of meaning to us
and we never
intended to offend anyone.
You must have known
that, at some level,
some people might find
aversion or hearing
of that word or that phrase,
difficult to deal with,
on a family show,
I'll put it like that.
Okay, he's doing a lot
to not say the word in question.
And if you're thinking,
"How bad could it possibly be?",
well, this bad.
I do it all the time,
yeah, I do it all the time.
Serving kant.
Yeah. Serving "kant".
K-A-N-T. It's apparently
the Maltese word for "singing".
So, what she's doing there
is she's serving singing.
Or serving kant.
Or arguably serving both.
I could talk about Eurovision all night,
but we're actually going to start
with our main story tonight,
which concerns Trump's
relationship with the press.
It's always been antagonistic,
and this week, we got
yet another reminder,
when he was asked a perfectly
reasonable question about reports
that he planned to accept
a luxury jet from Qatar.
What do you say
to people who view
that luxury jet as a personal
gift to you? Why not leave it behind?
You're ABC Fake News, right?
Only ABC, a few of you would.
Let me tell you: you should be
embarrassed asking that question.
They're giving us a free jet.
It's not a gift to me,
it's a gift to
the Department of Defense.
You should know better, because
you've been embarrassed enough,
and so has your network. Your network
is a disaster. ABC is a disaster.
That is pretty hostile!
Though I actually agree
that ABC should be embarrassed,
just not for that legitimate question,
but for the fact, as of taping,
they still haven't renewed
"Doctor Odyssey" for season two.
What the fuck are you doing, ABC?
It's sexy "ER" on a boat.
It's "The Pitt" with sharks.
It's got,
and I'm not even gonna try
and beat their tagline on this,
"big deck energy."
In its pilot episode alone,
it featured a waterslide injury,
someone overdosing on shrimp
and this.
What happened?
- It broke.
- He's in shock.
What broke, Mr. Harrington?
Is it a bone?
Penile fracture.
Are you not entertained?!
How is ABC renewing shows
called "The Rookie" and "Will Trent",
whose premise is apparently
just, "Despite being dyslexic,
he's become a special agent"
"in the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation." What?!
But they haven't renewed
the only show brave enough
to answer the question,
"What if sick but boat?"
I shouldn't complain
about the other shows.
I shouldn't care that a show
called and about a "rookie"
is returning for its
premise-defying eighth season,
and I don't begrudge
any audience members
for sticking around to find out
if their favorite characters
will or won't Trent.
All I'm saying is
ABC's "The View" has been
on since 1997
and Doctor Hot Boat is still in limbo.
You're a disgrace, ABC.
Your network is a disaster!
The problem is,
Trump clearly only likes
when people are nice to him,
and the press, by covering
the things he says and does
in the way he says and does them,
is, in his opinion, being mean.
Back in his first campaign,
he attacked journalists constantly,
calling Jake Tapper "Fake Tapper",
Maggie Haberman "Maggot Hagerman",
and Katy Tur "Little Katy."
Which, compared to the others,
is just lazy.
"Little Katy" sounds like a doll
from the 1970s
that was discontinued for giving
children lead poisoning.
But in his second term,
Trump's administration escalated
those attacks on the press,
from making it easier
to subpoena journalists' records,
to detaining a Tufts University student
after she co-authored
an op-ed on Gaza,
to Trump calling for
Republicans to defund NPR and PBS,
calling them "radical left monsters
that so badly hurt our country."
And in March, he even
went to the DOJ
to issue
this chilling announcement.
I believe
that CNN and MSDNC,
who literally
write 97.6% bad about me,
are political arms
of the Democrat Party.
And in my opinion, they're
really corrupt and they're illegal.
What they do is illegal.
And it has to stop.
It has to be illegal.
"What the press does has to be illegal"
is obviously extremely bad.
But I also want to talk
about that 97.6% real quick,
because I'm genuinely surprised
that he knew that made-up number
would sound more authentic
if he added a decimal point.
A decimal just feels more
like a real number, even if it isn't.
If I tell you 20%
of Taco Bell ground beef
is actually horse, you're like,
"No way, number's too round."
But if I say 21.6% is horse,
you'd be like,
"He wouldn't make up
a number that specific."
Now, to be clear, I wouldn't say
either of those numbers, though,
because we all know that
the real number is significantly higher.
But apparently, legally,
I can't say that, so I won't.
And unfortunately, even
as Trump's aggression has gone up,
some owners of press outlets
have gotten more submissive.
During Trump's first term,
a lot of outlets positioned themselves
as fierce watchdogs for truth.
The Washington Post, for instance,
adopted the slogan
"Democracy Dies in Darkness."
But this time,
even before the election,
they seemed noticeably gentler.
The Post's owner, Jeff Bezos,
killed the paper's endorsement
of Kamala Harris.
He also ordered
that its op-ed page focus
purely on the importance of
"personal liberties and free markets".
Bezos has seemingly gone out
of his way to cozy up to Trump,
with his company paying 40 million
to license a documentary on Melania,
the most Amazon has
ever spent on a documentary,
and even standing behind Trump
at his inauguration.
And, come on.
That's not just bending the knee.
That's bending both knees, arching
your back and relaxing your holes.
And Bezos isn't the only
media owner
making notable concessions.
The billionaire owner
of the Los Angeles Times
has reportedly asked
the paper's editorial board to,
quote, "take a break" from writing
about President-elect Donald Trump.
Patrick Soon-Shiong has reportedly
required editors to send him the text
of every editorial and the name
of its writer before publishing.
That is pretty chilling.
And as for "taking a break"
from writing about Trump,
to be clear:
I also don't want to hear
about him all the time.
I don't love that I'm talking
about him right now.
Especially when I could be talking
about the recent headline,
"Ohio Police Find Raccoon
Holding Meth Pipe During Traffic Stop,"
which was good enough, until they made
it even better, pointing out,
"When an officer took the pipe away,
the raccoon pulled out another."
Pulled out another? From where?!
You don't think I want to talk
about this raccoon
with multiple meth pipes
for the next 25 solid minutes?
Of course I do. But I can't.
Because, even as threats
to the free press seem to be on the rise,
resistance to them seems to be waning,
and in some corners
to a worrying extent.
So, given that, tonight,
let's talk about Trump and the press:
how he's tried to reshape his coverage,
the levers of power he's using
to threaten them, and
how we should be responding.
And let's start with,
if not the most important,
the most visible sign
that things have changed:
the White House Press Corps.
Back in February,
the White House picked
a high-profile fight
with The Associated Press,
for the dumbest imaginable reason.
You may remember,
after taking office,
Trump announced
that he'd renamed the Gulf of Mexico
the Gulf of America,
and while some outlets
started using the new name,
the AP didn't, which led
to them being banned
from the Oval Office,
something Press Secretary
Karoline Leavitt justified like this.
If we feel that there are lies
being pushed by outlets in this room,
we are going to hold
those lies accountable.
And it is a fact that the body of water
off the coast of Louisiana
is called the Gulf of America,
and I'm not sure why
news outlets don't want to call
it that, but that is what it is.
Okay, to you, maybe.
But not to everyone.
As the AP pointed out,
it has clients all over the world,
and lots of them still use
the term "the Gulf of Mexico".
So, it's not as simple
as you're making out there.
Especially because it can take time
for people to adjust
to a stupid name change.
Sometimes, hypothetically,
before we can even
get used to one dumb name,
some genius comes along
and only makes it dumber,
then somehow it gets dumber still,
and then against all the odds,
somehow it becomes even worse,
before inexplicably going back
to the stupid thing
it was before.
Incidentally, earlier this week,
my parent company apparently said
they "cannot wait" for my "hot take
on this whole rebrand,"
believing that whatever I say
about this change
was "going to be pretty hot."
So, please, look me in the eyes
when I say this: fuck you.
Don't tell me what to do.
I'm not gonna do it if you want,
unless, wait, maybe you thought
baiting me like that
would be a good way
to stop me from doing it.
But on the other hand,
how could a company be that smart,
when they're the same people
that came up with so many
stupid fucking names?
Now, after a legal battle,
the White House began allowing
the AP back into the Oval Office.
And as you just saw
with that ABC reporter,
other traditional outlets are still
allowed access to the president,
primarily so that
he can shit on them.
But increasingly,
he is managing
to get the sycophantic questions
he'd prefer.
And even if you haven't
noticed that,
he definitely has.
What has made you and your team
so effective in finding, locating,
apprehending and deporting
these violent, illegal migrants?
I love this guy.
I wish more people
would ask questions like that.
Do you think it shows how out of touch
they are with the American people,
especially given that 79%,
according to a CBS poll,
approved of your speech?
I love this guy.
How come when these Democrat
elites want tariffs, all's hunky-dory,
but when President Trump wants
tariffs, all hell breaks loose?
Do you see this double standard?
I love this guy,
whoever the hell that is.
That's really nice.
I appreciate that question.
That is pretty humiliating,
and not just because,
"I love this guy,
whoever the hell that is",
is almost definitely how Trump
opened a toast at Eric's wedding.
But it's not a coincidence that Trump's
been getting more flattering questions.
Because the White House
has increasingly let
far-right news outlets and influencers
into press events.
A recent review of briefings found
that four of the five reporters
Leavitt called on
most were from right-wing outlets.
She's also added
a seat for "new media,"
and the person in that seat
is always called on first.
Meaning the press room now features
figures like Cara Castruonova,
who works for LindellTV,
an internet news network
bankrolled by the MyPillow guy,
who asks questions like this.
Will you guys also consider
releasing the president's fitness plan?
He actually looks healthier
than ever before.
Healthier than he did
eight years ago,
and I'm sure everybody
in this room could agree.
Is he working out with Bobby Kennedy,
and is he eating less McDonald's?
That is an actual question
a White House reporter asked.
And everything
about that is unsettling,
from the fact
she was essentially asking,
"The president's looking
hotter than ever, right?"
To the absolutely cursed smile
of that ghostly twink presence
of the business Malfoy
hovering behind her.
You can all see him, too, right?
Please tell me you can see him.
And when she was asked to spell
out her approach to journalism,
it didn't go great.
You are a Trump fan, right?
Yes, I'm definitely
a supporter of President Trump.
So, will you be able to hold him
to account, then, call him out?
I will be able to hold
100% him to account.
There's things that will
happen that I disagree with.
And I have said plenty of times,
you know, on the record
when I disagreed with his decisions.
Is there anything so far in this
administration you've disagreed with?
Let me put some thought
into that for a second.
I'm just overwhelmed with how
well I perceive things to be going.
What?
"I'm just overwhelmed with how well
I perceive things to be going."
That sounds less like what
a White House correspondent
should be saying to a reporter,
and more like something
you say to an acquaintance at coffee
before crying in your car for an hour.
Stocking the press room
with suck-ups would be bad enough.
But that's just one of the ways
the White House has found
to thumb the scale of its coverage.
Another has been attempting
to weaponize the FCC.
Historically, it's at least pretended
to be an independent commission,
but that is now changing fast under
its new chair, Brendan Carr.
Trump elevated him to run
the commission after the election
and Carr made no secret
of what he was going to do.
I want to start by expressing
my thanks and appreciation again
to President Trump and to congratulate
him on his historic election victory.
For me, as I go forward,
the first thing is
to get together
with the president's team
and make sure that
I 100% understand his agenda.
It's gonna be his administration
and it's going to be his agenda
that we'll be pushing.
Okay, but that's not
what your job is supposed to be.
You never want to hear something
as obsequious as that
coming from someone in a role
that's supposed to be independent,
for the same reason
you don't want to see
an NBA ref wearing
one of the teams' uniforms,
or a Supreme Court justice flying an
insurrection flag outside of his house.
Hypothetically, of course,
you understand.
And Carr does seem deep
in the tank for the president.
Trump supporters have celebrated
this image of him
wearing a gold Trump pin.
And after The Hollywood Reporter
published an article titled
"Trump's Media Pit Bull
Is 'Off the Leash,'"
that included this horrifying
picture of Carr as a pit bull,
he tweeted it saying,
"Woof, woof!"
One past FCC commissioner
has said,
"I'm about as worried as I can be
about the future of the FCC."
"I would say Carr is the most
ideological chairman we've ever had"
"and the most political."
And he's wasted no time
pursuing Trump's agenda.
His FCC is now investigating
all the major broadcast outlets,
except for Fox.
And Carr's stewardship of the FCC
has also been part
of a new squeeze Trump's
been putting on the networks,
with the FCC on one side,
and lawsuits on the other.
Here is how it works:
the FCC has the ability
to regulate the broadcast licenses
of local TV and radio stations.
The big networks each
own a bunch of those.
CBS, for instance,
owns all of these.
And while the FCC revoking
a license is incredibly hard,
what it can do is make it very hard
for networks to sell those stations.
Which, given the frequency of media
mergers and acquisitions,
can be a real problem.
So, networks now have
that threat hanging over them,
while at the same time,
Trump is applying legal pressure
by filing lawsuits to put
them on the defensive.
It is pretty flagrant: Trump files
a lawsuit demanding money.
At the same time, his FCC starts
making noises
about plans to make
that company's life unpleasant.
So, the networks settle,
in the hopes it'll keep Trump happy
and get everyone off their back.
And maybe they think twice
about the tone of their coverage
in the future.
Right now, CBS is caught
in this exact squeeze,
largely arising from a "60 Minutes"
segment that aired before the election,
featuring an interview
with Kamala Harris,
which Trump maintains
was misleadingly edited.
He has sued the network in a lawsuit
First Amendment lawyers have called
"frivolous and dangerous"
and "ridiculous junk".
To understand just how true that is,
it's worth looking at the specifics.
Very basically, it involves Harris'
answer to a question about Gaza.
And here is Trump's version
of what happened.
They took Kamala's answer,
which was a crazy answer,
a horrible answer, and they
took the whole answer out,
and they replaced it with something
else she said later in the interview,
which wasn't a great answer,
but it wasn't like the first one.
The first was grossly incompetent,
it was weird.
And that was fraud
and election interference
by their news magazine,
a big part of CBS News.
Trump's theory is that CBS
secretly replaced Harris's answer
to a question to get her
to win the presidency.
And straight away, complaining
about that is a bit like accusing me
of hiding the secrets
of my skincare routine.
One, I don't have one. And two, even
if I did, it doesn't matter,
'cause it's not like it worked,
did it?
But it's worth knowing: the only reason
he's aware of that "weird answer"
is that it aired in a promo
for that "60 Minutes" interview
on "Face the Nation".
So, CBS aired it.
They weren't trying to hide anything.
And if you're curious,
here are the two versions. Here is
what aired on "Face the Nation".
It seems that Prime Minister
Netanyahu is not listening.
Bill, the work that we have done
has resulted in a number
of movements in that region by Israel
that were very much prompted by
or a result of many things,
including our advocacy for what
needs to happen in the region.
That is a pretty shitty answer.
Like she's trying to express a thought
in English but with French grammar.
It sounds like someone just shook her
awake and yelled "Israel?" at her.
So, Trump is not wrong,
that was bad.
But here's the supposedly
much better answer
that "60 Minutes" aired that night.
It seems that Prime Minister
Netanyahu is not listening.
We're not gonna stop pursuing
what is necessary for the United States
to be clear about where we stand
on the need for this war to end.
I guess that sounds
slightly more coherent.
But they are both fundamentally
celebrations of prepositional phrases
and the passive voice.
In both, she's talking like a high
schooler trying to hit the word count.
The letter of scarlet worn
by Hester Prynne in the novel
"The Scarlet Letter"
written by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
published in 1850, symbolizes shame
and punishment symbolically.
And the underlying fact is,
the answers seem to be broadly saying
the same amount of absolute
nothing about the same topic,
which isn't surprising,
because under pressure from the FCC,
CBS actually released the full
transcript of the interview,
and it turns out,
this is her full answer
to the question she was asked
about Israel,
this is what aired
on "Face the Nation"
and this is what aired
on "60 Minutes".
So, the network didn't
take her whole answer out
and replace it with something
from later in the interview,
as Trump claimed, they basically
aired both halves of a single answer.
And that sort of editing decision,
for time or clarity,
happens on TV all the time.
As Semafor pointed out:
earlier last year,
Fox actually
massaged a Trump interview.
Because in the version that they
initially aired, this was the exchange.
Would you declassify
the Epstein files?
Yeah, yeah, I would.
Okay, then! That is a firm,
unequivocal answer.
And at that point, they cut away
to the next question.
But when they later aired
a longer clip from that interview,
it became clear that his full
answer played out a little differently.
Would you
declassify the Epstein files?
Yeah, yeah, I would.
I guess I would.
I think that less so because,
you know,
you don't want to affect people's
lives if it's phony stuff in there,
'cause there's a lot of phony stuff
with that whole world.
Yeah, in one version,
Trump's answer was edited down.
And people who saw that
missed out on the fuller context
of watching his thought
process go in real time
from "of course, we should
absolutely release the files,"
"people deserve to know the truth"
to "wait, you mean that Epstein?"
to "Yeah, you can't believe
everything that you read about people."
The point is, CBS engaged
in a pretty standard practice
of editing an interview
for length and clarity.
Trump sued them for fraud,
demanding 20 billion in damages.
CBS initially fought back, calling
the claims "completely without merit"
and saying that they intended to
"vigorously defend against the lawsuit."
Which makes sense, as legal experts
have called it baseless
and an easy victory for CBS.
But here's the thing:
while that lawsuit was going on,
the FCC began investigating
the network
over claims it engaged in
"news distortion" with the interview.
And that is a problem for CBS,
especially as its parent company,
Paramount, is in the middle of
a massive merger with Skydance Media.
And as I mentioned earlier,
transferring its broadcast licenses
will require FCC approval, and it can
sit on that approval indefinitely.
That may well be why Shari Redstone,
Paramount's controlling shareholder,
has said
"she favors settling the case."
She and Paramount have also
apparently indicated to "60 Minutes"
they were very interested to know
the segments the show
was going to be running
on Trump for the rest of the season,
which feels like a big overstep.
Bill Owens, the head of "60 Minutes",
actually resigned in the wake of that,
saying it had become clear
he would not be allowed
to make independent decisions
at the show.
All of which makes it pretty
galling that just a few years ago,
Shari Redstone chaired an event for
CPJ, group that defends press freedom.
And had the nerve to position herself
as a defender of a free press.
It is truly an honor to be here
representing Paramount Global
and the thousands of hard-working
journalists at CBS News
who fight every day for the freedom
and integrity of the press.
The honorees in this room are living
embodiments of these values.
They remind us that press freedom
is never guaranteed,
that it must constantly be defended,
and that it often comes
at a significant cost,
both personal and professional.
Powerful words about the need
to defend press freedom at any cost,
from someone who has seemed
to stop doing that
as soon as there was
a financial one to her.
And that kind of undercuts
the strength of her statement there.
Imagine FDR saying, "The only thing
we have to fear is fear itself",
only to flip out after he saw a bug.
It undermines his point!
And maybe Redstone's calculating
that if she just gives Trump
what he wants now, he'll back down.
But I seriously doubt that.
Just look at what happened to ABC.
They settled a defamation lawsuit
with Trump in December,
over how George Stephanopoulos
characterized
the E. Jean Carroll verdict,
paying 15 million to Trump's private
foundation for his presidential museum,
despite experts saying ABC
might well have won at trial.
But since then, Carr's FCC has
pushed ABC for more concessions,
like threatening its broadcast
license over Disney's DEI practices.
As bad as these examples are,
you might already be aware of them.
But fights happening at the local level
aren't getting the same attention,
but are just as worrying.
Take a look at what Carr's FCC
is doing to KCBS,
a San Francisco radio station.
Very basically, on the afternoon
of January 26th,
a local community group made
this post to Facebook,
concerning ICE agents
being spotted in the area.
A city council member also
posted about the ICE activities.
Around 15:40, the community group
posted that ICE had left.
And around two hours after that,
KCBS ran a story about it,
in the classic sedate tone
of every radio news broadcast ever.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and
Council Member Peter Ortiz
confirmed today that U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement agents
are currently carrying out an operation
on the east side of town.
The county's response network
says agents in San Jose
were in unmarked vehicles,
including a black Dodge Durango,
a gray Nissan Maxima
and white Nissan truck.
ICE agents were also reported
outside a residence
on South White and Tully roads,
and officers were reportedly at
the Target on King and Story roads.
Okay, first: that is a remarkably
soothing voice for a news report
describing something as alarming
as ICE agents in unmarked vehicles.
It's like listening
to a YouTube video titled
"Lofi Sounds of a Man Getting Mauled
by a Tiger to Relax-slash-Study to".
But crucially,
that report's also pretty basic.
ICE was in the community,
community groups and government
officials were talking about it
and local news covered it.
That radio station was
actually one of several outlets
that covered it
around the same time.
Here it is on the six o'clock
news on NBC,
which actually showed images
of the cars and agents in question,
and here's the same footage
being aired on Telemundo.
But it was the radio report that got
the attention of a right-wing activist,
who pointed out that KCBS was
owned by Soros' investment firm
and claimed that it had put
ICE agents "at serious risk"
"while an operation was ongoing",
which it very much did not.
Nevertheless, that complaint made
its way to Brendan Carr,
who later got himself in front
of a camera to say this.
So, what happened was you had ICE
agents undercover doing operations
in east San Jose and part of the town
known for violent gang activity.
And you had this radio station
broadcasting the live location,
identifying the unmarked
vehicles that they were in.
So, we have sent a letter of inquiry,
a formal investigation into that matter.
And they have just a matter of days
left to respond to that inquiry
and explain how this could
possibly be consistent
with their public interest
obligations.
What are you talking about?
Covering stories like that
is literally the whole point
of local news radio.
That and delivering
the driest imaginable ad read
for a local
deck-staining company.
Legal scholars will tell you, this
FCC investigation is also meritless.
As one First Amendment
expert put it,
"Law enforcement
operations, immigration or otherwise,"
"are matters of public interest."
So, if it comes to a court case,
and KCBS chooses to fight,
it will almost certainly win.
But it's a little worrying that,
so far, they haven't openly
defended their journalists,
who, again,
did absolutely nothing wrong.
And on one hand, I get it:
fighting the FCC costs money
and opens the station up to risk
when their license comes up again.
But staying silent
has real cost, too.
As that First Amendment expert says,
"Even if charges are never filed,"
"people have to look over
their shoulder to wonder,"
"is the government going
to come after me"
"because I report something that
the government doesn't like me to say?"
Sadly, that is a reasonable
question to ask now.
Much more reasonable,
you could argue,
than "When's the president's
workout DVD dropping?"
And this feels like where the biggest
potential harm may be done.
Because the government, directly
or indirectly, is controlling criticism.
And that is, to put it bluntly,
authoritarianism.
We've seen countries backslide,
and the press tends to be
one of the first casualties.
It happened under
Viktor Orban in Hungary
and Rodrigo Duterte
in the Philippines.
And those who've watched it
happen in person will tell you:
this is where it starts, and this is
also the one chance you get to stop it.
Maria Ressa's a journalist who was
arrested in the Philippines
for standing up
to the Duterte regime.
She ultimately won
a Nobel Prize for doing that.
And she's said she sees parallels here
with what happened there
and her warning to people like
Shari Redstone is pretty stark.
Don't voluntarily
give up your rights, right?
Again, I'll give you
our example in the Philippines,
where the newspaper gave up,
the television station gave up,
largest, it lost its franchise
or license to operate.
And guess what? It never regained it,
even after the time of Duterte.
I guess what I'm saying is,
"hold the line" is the phrase we use,
because it's connected to the rights
that you deserve as a citizen.
And if you do not hold the line
at this crucial moment,
this is the moment
when you are strongest,
you will only get weaker over time.
Exactly. Fundamental rights and
freedoms are worth fighting for.
And this is one of the fights that
nerds who work in newsrooms
can win, mostly because it doesn't
require any upper body strength.
So, what can we do?
Obviously, public support
for organizations like the AP
and "60 Minutes" is important.
We also need to pay attention to
what's happening at places like KCBS.
And I'd argue there's a special
obligation here to any outlets
owned by extremely wealthy people
like this lot to fight back.
Don't comply with Trump's
ridiculous demands prematurely.
I know he and the FCC are making
intimidating-sounding threats
and fighting them will undeniably
take time, effort and money.
But I'd argue it is
very much worth it,
especially when the likeliest
outcome is that you win definitively.
If I may quote someone who I hope
meant it when she said it,
"Press freedom is never guaranteed,
it must constantly be defended"
"and that often comes
at a significant cost."
The point is, if media owners enjoy
the applause they get
when they say things like that,
now is the time to pay for it.
Think of it this way: a free press
is a lot like "Doctor Odyssey".
It's rare, it's special,
we're very lucky to have it,
and if we're not extremely careful,
we're all gonna miss it terribly
when it's gone. And now, this.
And Now: Local News Has Some Pretty
Hot Takes on HBO's Latest Rebranding.
The streaming platform Max
is changing its name again.
This time it's going back
to the HBO Max.
It was HBO Max.
And then it became Max.
And now it's gonna go back
to HBO Max.
Cool.
Streaming service Max
is changing its name again.
Why?
Remember, it was HBO,
then it was HBO Max,
and then it was Max.
It's HBO Max again.
Pick a thing, man!
Pick a lane and stick with it!
I'm not, like, the king of all,
protecting your brand, but my lord.
What are you doing,
Warner Brothers?
Warner Brothers Studio says
this change puts a focus
on quality rather than quantity.
Why change it?
Some new marketing guy
needed to justify his job.
"Look what I came up with, guys!"
I have to wonder too, did they bring in
a focus group to make the change back,
and how much money
did that cost?
Now if you really want to get upset,
just stop and think for a second
about the collective salaries of
the people that sat around the table
and came up with the decision.
Max, I'm sorry,
the derivative of Cinemax,
was always associated
with late-night porn.
Let's call it what it is.
I mean, seriously!
Sometimes when you get the knob
and you adjust it a certain way,
I don't know where we was going
with getting the knob.
Moving on.
Finally tonight, a quick update.
You may remember, two weeks ago,
we did a segment about
the incredible institution
that is Minor League Baseball,
which is really just baseball
but with a staggering amount
of younger sibling energy.
In it, we walked you through some
of the spectacular team names
like the Rumble Ponies, Trash Pandas
and the Modesto Nuts,
whose logo features what appears
to be a sporty nut throuple.
We also mentioned some of their
amazing theme nights,
like the Charleston River Dogs'
Helen McGuckin night,
which was dedicated entirely
to impressing a random woman
who gave the ballpark a two-star review
without ever setting foot inside it,
a level of pettiness
I can only aspire to.
It turns out, a lot of teams and their
fans were excited to be mentioned,
including this north Alabama news
anchor who added an extra detail.
Did anyone catch John Oliver's
shout-out to the Trash Pandas?
Go Trash Pandas, TPs for life!
The comedian gave the Trash Pandas
a shout-out during his weekly show,
"Last Week Tonight", while the main
story was about deportation.
Yeah!
Yeah. It sure was!
And that right there is the face
of a woman who is suddenly wondering
if the word "comedian"
was the right choice there.
At the end of that episode,
we mentioned that not all teams
seem to be pulling their weight
in the eccentricity department.
So, we offered to rebrand
one minor league team
with a new name, mascot,
and theme night as long as they,
one, promised to do whatever
we told them,
and two, emailed
John-Oliver-at-Bunt-Stuff-dot-com,
an email address that I promise
made sense in context.
And I will admit, when
we do things like this,
we're not always sure what level
of response we're going to get.
Which is why I'm happy to tell you,
we got so many emails.
And I will say: a bunch were
for non-baseball reasons,
including one guy who simply wrote,
"I'd like to say that you look like
the wrinkles on my nutsack"
"and the makeup you put on isn't
working, accounting boy,"
then, miraculously, signed off
with "best wishes, mate."
Which, thanks?
And honestly, you know which insult
hurts the most there? "Accounting boy."
Because I can brush off the nutsack
thing, maybe yours is exquisite.
And if you saw me without TV makeup,
you'd realize it is actually working.
This is, unfortunately,
the makeup working.
But "accounting boy?" I'm afraid
that is just a bullseye-right there.
I also got an invitation to
a wedding at the Indianapolis Zoo,
from Zac and Mckenna, who wrote,
"No choice on food."
"You will eat what we have
and like it."
Which I like very much
but I'm thrilled to say:
we also had 47 Minor League Baseball
teams reach out to take our offer.
That is 40% of all of them!
We got so many emails
we had to make a beautiful spreadsheet
with multiple tabs
to keep track of them.
And the very fact I'm bragging
about a spreadsheet
clearly means I'm not beating
the "accounting boy" allegations.
Some teams were endearingly
self-deprecating,
like the Buffalo Bisons,
who wrote,
"We were named
the Buffalo Bisons in 1877"
"and not only was that name probably
the 'boring' first thought"
"back in the late 19th century,
it's also grammatically incorrect!"
Which is, of course, true!
Bison is one of those words where
the plural doesn't have an S,
like "sheep" or "Cher".
Yeah, this right here? That's a bunch
of "Cher," not "Chers".
I don't make the rules,
I just follow them.
Some teams even sent videos,
like the Lake County Captains,
whose magnificent toilet seating
we featured.
They made us a video that began with
the words "Pick us John Oliver"
and escalated from there.
We have nine mascots.
Not one, nine.
When we needed a new one,
we brought back the most hated
mascot in Cleveland history.
The baseball bug!
We gave him a second chance.
America loves a redemption arc.
Our mascots try to do something
big to get your attention.
It looks like we're doing
the Oliver wave here.
It's always a lot of fun, but you
don't often see this many mascots,
sitting on a row of toilets
in any other place.
That is pretty good,
but I'll be honest:
the Lake County Captains
have a row of toilet seats,
and nine mascots,
one of which looks like
someone placed a baseball cap
on top of Elmo's genitals.
On top of that,
they've clearly got the kind of printer
that can do full-head-printing
on a pretty tight turnaround,
so, I'm not sure what you really
need us to do for you.
I think we'd just be
holding you back.
They're not the only team that reached
out despite not needing our help.
We also heard
from the Amarillo Sod Poodles,
and what are you doing
in our inbox?
You want us to rebrand
Ruckus the Sod Poodle,
a giant ground squirrel dressed like
he's attending the Cowboy Carter tour?
Absolutely not. We also heard
from the Quad City River Bandits
who emphasized their bonafides,
saying,
"We were the first team to fill
a helicopter with candy,"
"then drop it all over the field
after a game."
"Then, as the children ran out onto
the field to grab the candy,"
"we'd have the helicopter circle back"
"and drop thousands of giant
marshmallows all over the children."
And if you think we're gonna
find a way to one-up the idea
of "chopper-shitting a bunch
of candy on some kids,"
"and then when they get all excited,"
"buzz back around to bombard
them with marshmallows",
you're out
of your fucking minds!
Incredibly, the Eugene Emeralds
also contacted us with an email
in which they called me
"Mr. One John Oliver",
which is not how
the English language works.
But we're obviously not gonna even
attempt to top their alternate identity
of the Exploding Whales,
or indeed come up with a mascot
that's better than this cheeky bitch
whose smirk says,
"Guess who's about to go boom!"
Honestly, part of this whole process
was learning more about the mascots
that already exist,
some of which are really good.
The Fredericksburg Nationals,
for instance, told us,
"Our mascot, Gus,"
"is literally George Washington's
imaginary childhood friend."
"We don't fully understand that
either, but kids love him."
And picture in your mind
what you think George Washington's
imaginary friend would look like.
Are you picturing it right now?
Have you got it in your head now?
You're wrong, it's this.
That's Gus.
That's who America's father
hung around with as a boy.
We're not touching that!
Overall, picking the team
turned out to be really difficult.
And before we reveal our choice,
let me just say this:
if you haven't been to a Minor League
Baseball game, you should really go.
Because Minor League Baseball
is clearly both incredibly special
and inescapably stupid,
in the very best way.
But in the end, we have made
a choice, so please come with me.
Because as hard as it was,
we did pick one of the 47 entries
and we're excited
to get to work.
The Erie SeaWolves,
in Erie, Pennsylvania!
They wrote to us with a list
of 11 good reasons to pick them,
one of which was "the SeaWolves
play baseball nowhere near the sea."
Which, yeah, that's a problem,
Erie. We can help you fix that.
Congratulations to the SeaWolves,
you're about
to be called something else.
We are going to research your area
and come up with a new name,
mascot, and theme night for you
that no one else in the league has,
and that could
only come from Erie.
As per our original offer,
you will get no input into this.
If I may paraphrase my now favorite
wedding invitation of all time,
you will take what we have
and you will like it.
All you have to do is sign the contract
we're about to send you
so we can get started, but I promise,
this is going to be great.
That is our show, thank you
so much for watching.
We're off next week,
back June 1st, good night!