Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s13e04 Episode Script
USAID
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver, thank you
so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week.
We learned that the U.S. lost
92,000 jobs last month,
Kristi Noem was replaced
as head of DHS, and of course,
last Saturday, the U.S. and Israel
launched air strikes on Iran.
And since then, it's been hard
to discern exact facts on the ground,
although some outlets,
like this British morning show,
did manage to make
some pretty avoidable mistakes.
We have to show you footage
here, by the way, from Iran,
of people dancing like Trump.
Is this in Iran? It's in Iran.
So, I gather that's in Iran,
and they're doing the Trump dance,
which is just basically
a very slight move of the hips.
Where is it?
It's not Iran.
It's crucially not Iran.
That's very important,
because if it was in Iran,
they might all be killed.
Exactly, but that does feel
important, doesn't it?
It seems their editorial process is,
"Step one, see video.
Doesn't matter where."
Step two, immediately play
video to millions of people
and have some fun with it.
And finally, step three, which has
to happen midway through step two,
check if video real.
It's perfect journalism, and yes,
before you ask, that is my son.
Meanwhile, the White House
and its supporters
have been all over the place this
week explaining why we did this.
At various points, they've claimed
Iran was going to attack us,
Israel was going to attack Iran,
which would've led
to them attacking us,
Iran was going to assassinate Trump,
so we assassinated the ayatollah first,
Iran was gonna obtain
nuclear weapons, or ICBMs,
and we just did this
to free the Iranian people
out of the kindness
of our hearts.
As for the question of who's
going to lead Iran now,
that seems to have no clear answer,
either.
Trump's insisted he must be
involved in that decision,
and apparently he had some
potential contenders for the role.
But as he explained,
there was just one slight problem.
Well, most of the people we had
in mind are dead.
So, you know, we had some in mind
And now we have another group.
They may be dead also,
based on reports.
So, I guess you have
a third wave coming in.
Pretty soon, we're not
gonna know anybody.
Yeah, not ideal!
"Everyone keeps dying and soon
we're not gonna know anyone"
isn't how you should be
describing your foreign policy.
At best, it's how you describe
the experience
of being a Grateful Dead fan.
The war has already spiraled out
to include over a dozen other countries,
and it now appears
the U.S. bombed a school,
killing at least 175 people,
many of them children.
This all seems reckless, chaotic,
and not remotely well-thought-through.
In fact, Trump, in that weird way in
which he's occasionally very honest,
seemed to acknowledge what
the future could look like.
What's the worst-case scenario
that you have planned for in Iran?
I don't know if there's a worst case.
We have them very much
beaten militarily,
from the military standpoint.
I guess the worst case
would be we do this,
and then somebody takes over who's
as bad as the previous person.
That could happen.
We don't want that to happen.
It would probably be the worst.
You go through this and then
in five years you realize you put
somebody in who is no better.
Right.
That's exactly right.
And it's jarring to hear
such a lucid analysis
of his own actions
in the Middle East there.
You don't expect that from him.
It's like hearing him say,
"Have you read the latest issue
of The New Yorker?"
or seeing him
in the Criterion Closet.
Wait, he picked "Persona"?
It's his favorite Bergman?
I don't think I understand
anything anymore!
Obviously, there'll be much more
to say about Iran going forward.
But for now, we're gonna dive in
with our main story this week,
concerning something
Donald Trump absolutely hates,
and even more than finding makeup
that'll match his complexion.
Go to Sephora, dude,
it'll take 10 minutes!
Specifically, we're gonna talk
about the United States Agency for
International Development, or USAID.
It was once described as "the world's
single largest humanitarian donor,"
providing aid in the form
of disaster relief, global health,
food assistance, climate resilience,
education, and much more.
And when Trump returned
to the White House last year,
he made it clear
that the agency was in his sights.
USAID, run by radical lunatics.
It sounds so nice.
USAID, isn't it beautiful?
But it's a whole big scam.
When you look at USAID,
that's a fraud,
the whole thing is a fraud.
Very little being put to good use.
Okay, so set aside the irony
of Donald Trump, of Trump University,
accusing anything of being a fraud,
you can't just call something a scam
because you don't like it. I want
to call low-rise jeans a scam.
I feel like Peppa Pig's a fraud.
I believe radical lunatics
run Jamba Juice,
liquid fruit isn't a treat,
it's cough syrup at best.
But even I acknowledge that my feelings
don't make any of those thoughts true.
But Trump was fixated on USAID
and its spending,
which is a little surprising,
given it amounted to less
than 1% of the federal budget.
Yet Trump and Elon Musk
quickly dismantled the agency,
with Elon at one point
proudly tweeting
he'd "spent the weekend feeding USAID
into the wood chipper."
And a lot of MAGA Republicans
were ecstatic about that.
Right-wing influencer
Benny Johnson
even made a trip to D.C.
to celebrate.
I just got into Washington, D.C.,
I had to see it myself to believe it.
USAID is no more.
Check it out.
There we go.
Got the duct tape, got the doors
all closed off.
Got everything
all blacked out up there.
Had to see it to believe it!
The consequences of DOGE.
They're not effing around.
I encourage you come here.
Probably the number one selfie
spot in all of Washington.
First, congratulations
to Benny Johnson
on winning
2026's Most Punchable Glasses,
and I say that as the former
holder of that title.
But also, that's clearly not the number
one selfie spot in D.C.,
that'd of course be
the Washington Monument,
taken at an angle
so it looks like a dick,
or a cherry blossom tree
so that it looks like a dick,
or one of those pandas
at the National Zoo,
so that it looks like a dick.
But it's not just Benny Johnson,
the House Foreign Affairs
Committee Republicans
celebrated the collapse of USAID by
posting this incredibly shitty meme.
Now, that is obviously gross,
but it does say something
about how annoying JD Vance is
that even in that context,
one of my first thoughts was,
"JD made the cut? Good for him."
And if you think
that meme's in bad taste now,
just wait until you see
the consequences of these cuts.
Because they've had real impacts
on people around the world
engaged in the act of saving lives.
Like this nurse who,
among other things,
vaccinates children
in remote areas of Uganda.
To reach the isolated eastern Uganda
mountain communities that need help,
nurse Agnes Nambozo scales
a treacherous 1.000-foot ladder.
It's too steep for small children,
mothers carrying babies,
and the sick to climb down.
Now Nambozo's path
has gotten tougher.
USAID cuts have eliminated
many jobs at her clinic.
As she and those who remain
try to take up the slack,
avoiding burnout could be
as much of a challenge
as getting to the isolated communities
that need her help.
Holy shit!
That image of her on the ladder
is absolutely incredible.
It's like "Free Solo," except,
unlike Alex Honnold,
she's not going out of her way to make
such a big fucking deal about it.
But the point is, they took what
appears to be the hardest job on Earth
and somehow made it
even harder.
And that is just the beginning
of the consequences here.
Because these cuts are estimated
to have led to hundreds of thousands
of deaths last year alone.
So given all that, tonight, we thought
we'd take a look at USAID,
specifically, what we've lost, why it
happened, and who is responsible.
Let's start with the fact that USAID
was created in 1961 by JFK,
for both humanitarian reasons,
and also to increase
U.S. soft power abroad.
And since then, it's come to take
a leading role in everything,
from fighting disease
to disaster assistance.
In fact, when there were
devastating earthquakes
in Turkey and Syria
just three years ago,
the agency sent a response team
that at one point comprised
more than 200 people,
many of whom assisted with search
and rescue efforts like this.
With signs of a survivor, the USAID
team calls in reinforcements.
And then we witness the impossible.
Turkish rescue workers managed
to recover a living victim.
This is extraordinary.
You can see
what looks like a middle-aged man
being pulled out of this wreckage.
Okay, that is obviously incredible.
But was it completely necessary
to describe him as "what looks
like a middle-aged man"?
Was that pertinent? I hope
he's right about that guy's age,
because if it turns out
he's actually 19,
the last thing he needs
is some reporter calling him old.
"My hair is white from the dust
of the building"
"I've been stuck under for days,
you asshole!"
It's frankly no wonder that,
thanks to scenes like that,
USAID's enjoyed broad,
bipartisan support.
When the agency turned 60,
Lindsey Graham
sent this video message.
Happy anniversary to all
my friends at USAID.
You've made
a big difference in the world,
you're a force for good,
create a great impression for our
country and you change lives.
I've been a big champion
for a long time.
Enjoy this anniversary,
and when it comes to USAID,
the best is yet to come.
That's nice, isn't it? And I'm sure
it motivated employees
back then beyond belief.
Imagine suddenly getting a message
from the man who succeeded
Strom Thurmond
speaking with all the enthusiasm
of someone who just got
paid 6.50 dollars on Cameo.
But it wasn't just Lindsey Graham,
Marco Rubio was also a huge supporter,
praising the agency's work
on at least two dozen occasions
over more than a decade.
In fact, when he was named
secretary of state,
many USAID employees were hopeful,
thinking he'd help protect them.
But that is not what has happened.
Because this administration
quickly brought USAID
to its knees.
By February 1st of last year,
its website had been taken down,
by February 7th, almost all its 10.000
employees were placed on leave,
and by mid-March, after a supposed
six-week review,
"83% of USAID programs
had been terminated."
And in a sign of just how thoroughly
the agency had been destroyed,
when there was a massive
earthquake in Myanmar last March,
instead of getting hundreds of
U.S. rescuers, this is what happened.
Aid workers say help, from the US
at least, is nowhere to be found.
No American rescue teams.
No visible U.S. presence in Mandalay.
No American flags
on the food trucks.
For the US only to send
a paltry amount of assistance,
it sent only three workers, which
then subsequently were fired.
It's true,
we sent three workers and then
fired them while they were there.
And not only is that not enough
people to send to an earthquake,
for what it's worth,
it is exactly the wrong number
to send on any trip, even
under the best circumstances.
Two people?
Sure, that's intimate,
but you can both spend time
alone if it's feeling tense.
Four? More combinations,
more vibe possibilities.
Don't want to window shop in
the commercial district with Casey?
No problem, you can hang
by the hotel pool with Leanne.
But three?
That is a nightmare.
You're either shit-talking Tamara
for being annoying
about the street food tour
or you're alone, knowing that the
other two are shit-talking you
for being so annoying
about the river boat thing.
And at this point,
it is worth engaging with the arguments
for dismantling USAID.
And let's start with the claim
that there was,
to use conservatives' favorite phrase,
"waste, fraud and abuse."
Elon claimed that the vast majority
of the agency's spending
was either wasteful or nefarious,
and here is his response
when Joe Rogan
pressed him on that.
So, is there a way to audit
all this stuff and find out,
these people are actually just
sending food to poor people.
These people are actually
just helping people with water
in third-world countries.
There's a way to do that
and keep funding those?
Yeah. We have continued to fund
things that appear to be legitimate,
even with the flimsiest,
if there's even the flimsiest excuse.
Like, I just say, like,
"Send me a picture of the thing."
Like, you could literally
have AI generate the picture.
But if you're not even willing
to try to trick me,
then we're, like,
not gonna send the money.
What the fuck
are you talking about?
"Send me a picture"?
You can't treat foreign aid
like it's a Grubhub delivery.
I don't even think Grubhub drivers
should have to do that either.
Enough is asked of them already
without making them
take an awkward photo of me
accepting my bag of ramen.
And to address Rogan's question,
there actually was an army of staffers,
including auditors and lawyers,
both inside the agency
and in its Inspector General's Office,
whose job it was to track spending.
And for what it's worth,
one review found,
in the last six IG reports
of USAID,
94% of the spending
had been audited,
and only
"0.3% were found to have issues"
and even then,
"half of that was reclaimed."
But even without knowing that,
it's tough to take waste allegations
from Elon seriously,
given his DOGE team
seemed to have no idea
what the programs
they were cutting even did.
ProPublica recently revealed
that people at the agency watched
as their brand-new chief of staff
scrolled down a spreadsheet
of programs,
"turning rows red, yellow,
or green every few seconds,"
"never asking a single question."
Then, "realizing that the red
programs were slated to be cut,"
"they frantically started
editing descriptions"
"so he'd at least know what
those programs did."
And while the administration
at one point insisted
the programs would be spared if they
were considered "life-saving",
just listen to this former USAID
employee tell a Senate roundtable
how those decisions got made.
When we kept-flagged
a long list of awards
that were needed
for life-saving activities,
we were told that the problem was
the names of those awards
didn't make clear
that they were life-saving.
It didn't have the word
"life-saving" in the name,
and therefore it was very hard
for the secretary's team
to understand which award should
or should not be terminated.
The implication was that if we
had been more clear in the names
that these were life-saving awards,
maybe they would have been saved.
Obviously that is stupid
for a thousand reasons.
First, because everybody knows
that names aren't usually literal
descriptions of what you are getting.
It's the reason ketchup isn't
called "salty tomato-inspired glop",
conjunctivitis isn't called
"shit on your finger
then touched your eye disease"
and this show isn't called
"Facts You Read in The New Yorker
18 Months Ago"
"with What Seems
to Be a Middle-Aged Man."
It's called poetic license.
And it is notable that,
for all the talk of fraud,
even Jeremy Lewin, a DOGE guy
who eventually served
as deputy administrator
and COO of the agency,
and who "often personally decided
which programs should be axed",
later admitted his team
didn't find much.
People talk about fraud, right?
DOGE didn't find that much fraud
at USAID.
It's sort of a definitional question.
What is fraud in the sense
of, well, maybe I defrauded you.
The grant says I do X and I do Y.
That's a very narrow conception
of fraud.
But is it a fraud to say
you have this organization
that the New York Times
has painted
as feeding all sorts of poor and
destitute people around the world,
but in fact, a significant portion
of the money is going to pay
400,000 dollars salaries
at UC Berkeley
to do climate and sort
of race science research, right?
Is that a fraud
on the American people?
I would say it kind of is.
Okay, so radicalized Young Sheldon
there is basically answering,
"Did DOGE find fraud?"
with "It's a definitional question."
Which isn't a great look.
If you ask a detective,
"Did you find the killer?"
and he says, "It depends how you
define the words 'killer' and 'find,'"
it would be safe to say the Tulsa
Strangler is still definitely at large.
As for his claim about fraudulent
"race science research projects",
we tried to find out what the fuck
he was talking about and we couldn't.
We even asked him and the State
Department for more information,
and they didn't provide any.
But if the very phrase "race science"
set off alarm bells,
you should know, people
who knew Lewin in high school
said he had a history of "violent
outbursts and racist remarks"
and that
"he believed non-white people"
"were inherently of 'lower value'
than white people,"
which seems like a whole lot
of words for "racist"
and I don't think
that's a definitional issue.
Before Lewin got that job at USAID,
his position was held
by a different member of the Trump
administration called Pete Marocco.
He actually worked there
during Trump's first term, too,
and attempted to delay
or halt dozens of programs,
but ultimately wasn't successful.
Which is why, when he came back
last year, one former official said,
"What we're seeing right now
is Pete's revenge tour."
And for the record,
"Pete's Revenge Tour"
sounds like a band composed of
former middle school football coaches
who got fired because kids kept
getting heat stroke,
and all of whom were
at the Capitol on January 6th.
And I only say that
because Marocco did apparently storm
the Capitol on January 6th.
With his wife, by the way!
Couple goals!
But the thing is, as eager
as this administration has been
to eradicate any funding it claimed
was going to "woke" causes,
and singling out small individual
expenditures for ridicule,
it still doesn't explain wholly
dismantling this agency.
Because traditionally,
administrations have been free
to make sure foreign aid
reflects their values,
whatever those values are.
Just listen to the man who ran
USAID under George W. Bush
explain that to Congress.
When the Democrats took over,
they moved the agency to the left.
I moved it to the right.
The Obama people actually said
I was very right-wing.
I was the most right-wing administrator
in the history of the agency
and yet the career people followed
what I wanted to do in the agency.
We put heavy emphasis
on economic growth.
I believe in economic growth.
I believe in the private sector.
I believe in free markets.
That's what AID does.
The notion that AID is some kind
of a Marxist institution
is absolutely ridiculous, okay?
Exactly. Think of USAID
like the Cha Cha Slide.
You can slide it to the left.
You can slide it to the right.
And the next administration can
then take it back now, y'all.
Even during Trump's first term,
he didn't take USAID apart,
he just shifted its focus
by "deprioritizing areas like maternal
health and family planning",
while increasing funding for emergency
responses and digital infrastructure.
All of which raises the question:
what changed this time
to make them want to put
the agency through a woodchipper?
Well, I'm afraid the answer
to that is incredibly dumb.
Because many observers think it has
something to do with this guy,
Mike Benz,
a far-right conservative activist.
Elon's fixation on USAID
appears to date to late 2024,
when Benz appeared on Joe Rogan's
podcast and shit all over the agency.
Elon then retweeted, replied to,
or mentioned Benz
over 160 times in the next year,
sharing things like,
"USAID was a viper's nest of radical
left Marxists who hate America"
and "USAID
is a criminal organization."
Even that "wood chipper" tweet
was in reply to Mike Benz.
It's worth taking a minute to explain
who Mike Benz is.
He worked a few jobs
during Trump's first term,
including a brief stint
at the State Department,
and he is, to put it mildly,
a chronically online lunatic.
Among the things he's posted
are this portrait of Trump
made out of charcuterie,
and this AI slop video
where he farts in former
FBI director Chris Wray's mouth.
He also once posted about
the jeans he got for his birthday.
And if you're thinking, "Hold on,
that doesn't seem so bad to me",
These were the jeans.
That's right, he got
9/11 jeans for his birthday!
You could apparently buy those
jeans online for 180 dollars,
Fuck you,
how little do you think of me?
But it gets worse.
Benz apparently used to be a content
creator who went by "Frame Game"
and pushed a variety
of far-right narratives
including the great replacement theory
and made montages
urging white viewers to unite
under the banner of race.
And he is fixated on the notion
that USAID is basically a front.
Here is how he put it to Rogan in that
interview that got Elon's attention.
There's no aid in USAID,
by the way.
Your brain is being tricked
when you see the phrase USAID.
It's not an aid organization.
The aid in USAID stands for
U.S. Agency
for International Development.
Yeah, it's an acronym, Mike.
It's an acronym.
We all know how those work.
You haven't exactly blown
Roswell open there.
But that's just the beginning.
Benz has also said,
"When it's too dirty for the CIA,
you give it to USAID."
Which for the record,
is obviously not the case.
We all know, when a job
is too dirty for the CIA,
you arm Afghan mujahideen
and train them in cell warfare
with the stated goal of beating
back Soviet influence in the region,
and then coincidentally they team up
with Osama bin Laden
who will later carry out the attack
Mike Benz is so obsessed with,
he got birthday denim merch.
That is not to say
there aren't small grains of truth
underneath all of Benz's bullshit.
USAID was not perfect.
As one of its former heads
of global health wrote,
"It sometimes fostered dependency.
It could be inefficient."
"Too much of its funding"
"went to international institutions
rather than local ones."
And, yes,
"its history does include"
"episodes in which aid was bent to
American military and political aims",
including an incident in 2010,
when "it created a social-networking
service in Cuba"
"designed to kindle opposition
to the government."
And I do not like the fact
that the agency did that.
In general, I like my regime changes
the way I like my produce:
locally sourced.
But let's not pretend instances
like that were anything other
than a tiny portion
of what USAID did.
Also, as the people of Venezuela
and Iran can attest,
when the U.S. wants regime
change nowadays,
it tends to do so
pretty fucking directly.
So, it's not like
any of those criticisms
justify getting rid
of the agency entirely.
But to hear Benz tell it,
USAID is basically the root
of all this world's problems.
USAID is one of the most disturbing
organizations
in the entire federal government.
It may rank number one, in fact.
Many people think they live in
the world they think they live in,
but in some respects, it's a
carefully constructed "Truman Show"
made up of movie characters
around them produced by USAID.
And what I mean by that
is USAID has infected
the institutional architecture
of every aspect of American
society and world society.
"The whole world has been
'Truman Show'-ed by USAID",
is not something you expect
to hear someone say on TV.
At best, it's something you expect
to hear them muttering on a city bus.
"Yeah. They've infected
the institutional architecture."
"You know what,
I think I'm gonna get off here."
"I know we're halfway
across a bridge,"
"but I'm pretty sure
that this is my stop."
It's no wonder Benz took a victory
lap when USAID was gutted,
posting this image of himself
celebrating at its grave.
And at this point,
you should probably see
some of the damage that's been
done, because it is vast.
As one expert put it,
"I think the best evidence
that USAID works"
"is how quickly people started
dying when it went away."
Now, it is hard to get exact
counts on deaths,
partly because these cuts have,
among other things,
halted data monitoring,
but researchers have estimated
over 262,000 adults and over half
a million children died last year
as a result of these cuts.
Though I do have to tell you:
Marco Rubio strongly denies
claims like those.
Anybody who tells you that somehow
it's the United States,
if we cut a dollar,
somehow we're responsible
for some horrific thing that's going on
in the world, is just not true.
Are you standing by your contention
No one has died because
the US has cut aid. No.
Okay, so, is he telling
the truth there?
I would argue
that the answer to that
is the same as the answer
to the question,
"Are Marco Rubio's ears
proportional to the size of his head?"
which is to say,
"Absolutely, demonstrably not."
And maybe the best way
to rebut that
is to show you some of the specific
places and programs
that have been impacted
by these cuts.
And let's start with food
and nutrition assistance,
which have been devastated.
For instance, in Nigeria, clinics
which provided malnutrition treatment
for more than 300,000 children
below the age of two,
were shut down at the end of July.
And in Afghanistan,
NGO warehouses were bare,
despite 900,000 children
being in desperate need of treatment
for severe acute malnutrition.
And it is not just cuts
to the food itself.
The administration also disrupted
the global supply chain
that moves food for desperate
people all over the world.
And that means, even when
the food's actually there,
the ability to get it to people
who need it can be gone.
For instance, last summer,
disruptions led to some food
spoiling in a warehouse.
The Trump administration
is planning to destroy a massive
amount of emergency food.
500 metric tons or over a million
pounds of high-energy biscuits
meant to feed hungry kids
in Afghanistan and Pakistan
will now be incinerated.
That first reported
by the Atlantic.
We have a kind of a standard
procedure that if food is expired,
it will be destroyed.
Federal workers had requested approval
from USAID leadership
to move the emergency food
before it spoiled.
But their memos went unanswered.
That is just maddening.
Especially not even
answering the memos.
Leaving someone on read
is always unforgivable,
but especially when the text is,
"Shorty, one million pounds of high
energy biscuits about to expire, u up?"
And scenes like that
are playing out all over the world.
At one refugee camp in Kenya that
had relied on USAID funding,
reporters found mothers who'd had
to choose which of their kids to feed,
and pregnant women
who were so desperate for calories
that they ate mud.
But it's not just food assistance
that's been cut.
It's estimated more than 2,000
health clinics have closed
in crisis zones around the world.
Here is what happened at just one.
Before, the NGO Action Against
Hunger ran this center here,
providing life-saving
medical assistance.
But it closed down in February,
along with seven others in the area,
when USAID stopped
funding the organization.
Within just over a month,
29 children in the district died
of malnutrition and illness.
We've never had such a high
death rate. It was catastrophic.
These are deaths
that we could have avoided
if funding had been maintained
and we continued our activities.
Yeah, it's appalling.
And it makes it even worse
when you remember
House Republicans literally
celebrated these cuts with this shit.
Yeah, it's true, you are
killing a lot of people in Africa,
you jib-jabbed fucks!
The point is,
these cuts have cost lives.
And perhaps one of the clearest
examples of this concerns PEPFAR,
or the President's Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief.
It was created during
the George W. Bush administration
and is often described
as one of the most successful
global health programs in history.
It's credited
with saving 26 million lives
and enabling 7.8 million babies
to be born without HIV
since it was created.
It is as close to a miracle as this
government has ever accomplished.
If I had to say one nice thing
about George W. Bush,
this program would be it.
And if I had to say two,
I would go quiet.
And while the administration will
stress that PEPFAR still exists,
its crucial aid delivery mechanism
has been severely disrupted.
As soon as the cuts
started last January,
clinics were forced
to shut their doors,
essential frontline health workers
were furloughed,
and community programs reaching
the most vulnerable people stopped.
And while PEPFAR was
"granted a limited waiver"
"to implement urgent life-saving HIV
treatment services",
a lot got left out
of that waiver.
Because while it allowed
the prevention medication PrEP
for pregnant
and breastfeeding women,
it didn't include it
for anyone else,
including those
who were already on it.
It also left out funding for HIV
prevention more generally,
and most programming for
orphans and vulnerable children.
And a major casualty
of cuts to PEPFAR
were "locally rooted programs"
"tailored to the needs
of specific groups of people",
like "specialized clinics
for sex workers,"
"men who have sex with men,
and people who inject drugs."
Infuriatingly, to some Republicans,
that seemed to be sort of the point.
This stuff about PEPFAR. My God,
you're gonna destroy the world.
Now, there's a part of PEPFAR
that deals with money for
life-saving care, isn't there?
Absolutely.
And there's a part of PEPFAR
that,
you look at it and you want to say,
"Pass me the sick bucket," isn't it?
Yes, sir.
And you're getting rid
of the sick bucket stuff.
Yes, sir.
You're getting rid of 5.5 million
to lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, queer, and intersex
advocacy in Uganda, aren't you?
Yes, sir.
I can't believe
we're arguing about this.
I can't believe we're
arguing about this!
That is some pretty homophobic stuff
coming from a man
wearing the single cuntiest pair
of glasses I think I've ever seen.
Also, for what it's worth, if
anything is gonna make me say,
"Pass the sick bucket", it isn't
the critical work of "pep-four",
it is the memory,
rattling eternally around my head
of Senator John Kennedy
saying this.
I can't wait
to have your cock in my mouth.
Well, that certainly
makes one of us.
But despite what Kennedy said there,
cuts to PEPFAR are absolutely
affecting life-saving care,
and for a huge amount of people,
and not just those
whose lives seem to make him
want to "reach for the sick bucket".
Even short disruptions to HIV care
can be deadly
and have already resulted
in stories like this.
The cut off of the medication,
of the HIV ARVs,
has really affected us so much.
The eight HIV-positive orphans
he cared for
used to get their medicine
from the local hospital for free.
After the cuts, he was told
he'd have to pay,
and because he couldn't afford
to do so, the orphanage ran out.
Without this medication,
14-year-old Megonde Andrew
quickly fell ill.
He got weaker and weaker every day,
and lost his life in the process.
The community he loved,
gathering to say their goodbyes,
burying him on February 21st.
That photo is absolutely gutting.
And since Elon seems to genuinely want
pictures of what USAID
does around the world
to somehow prove to him
that it's worthwhile,
I hope a day
of that fucking ghoul's life
does not go by without someone
sending him that photo.
And you know who cannot claim
he didn't know the value
of USAID's work,
especially when it comes to HIV?
Marco Rubio.
Because back in 2015, while running
for president, he said this.
Foreign aid can make a difference
when properly used.
And if you ever have a chance,
travel to the African continent
and you will meet people
who are alive today
because the American taxpayer
funded antiviral HIV medications
that kept them alive.
It will not be easy to radicalize
people who are alive,
because the American taxpayer
saved their lives and their children.
That's a really good point, Marco!
And that is clearly a very
different Rubio back then,
one who seemed to have
political aspirations
beyond disassociating on a couch
while JD Vance yells at Zelensky
like a kid stuck at a sleepover
while his friend's parents fight.
And incredibly, I'm still only
scratching the surface here.
There are programs concerning
treatment and prevention of cholera
and neglected tropical diseases,
clean water and climate resiliency,
and many others
that have also been butchered.
But there is one more area worth
mentioning. And that is education.
Because without funding for that,
there are children around the world
who no longer have
a safe place to learn.
And while these stories
may not be captured
when you hear
about the numbers of deaths,
that does not mean
the impacts aren't horrific.
Just look at this massive
refugee camp in Bangladesh
populated by Rohingya refugees
from Myanmar.
The U.S. slashed its funding
by nearly half.
And just one of the consequences
is that many kids
no longer have a school to attend,
and have been forced
into dire circumstances.
There's been a sharp rise in girls
being forced into prostitution,
and UNICEF has estimated that
cases of child marriage rose by 21%
compared to the same period
the year prior.
And without school to attend,
young boys like this one were
suddenly forced to go to work.
10-year-old Mohammed Arfan
spends all day selling snacks,
missing the classroom where
he once felt safe.
I returned home crying and my family
asked, "Why are you crying?"
The school has been closed.
I am crying because of that.
I will no longer be able to study in
the school. That is why I was crying.
Arfan worries about being targeted by
kidnappers or thieves while at work.
But he has no other option.
Yeah, it's awful. And honestly,
I would not be at all surprised
if Benny Johnson traveled there
to post a thrilled video
where he says that kid's snack stand
is the best selfie spot
in all of southeastern Bangladesh,
but if he does that,
I'm warning you now, I'm taking
down the electrical grid.
What this administration has done
is beyond cruel.
I haven't shown you anywhere
close to the worst footage
we had to watch
putting this story together.
And after seeing
and reading about all of this,
it is actually stomach-churning
to think about coffin memes,
or gravestone Instagram posts,
or overjoyed selfie videos.
Because you have to be
an absolute ashtray of a person
to cheer this kind of thing on.
I should say: the Trump administration
has announced a new approach,
called the America First
Global Health Strategy.
It's supposed to restart some forms
of health-related foreign aid,
though no other kinds,
and only in some countries,
with the central idea being
that they want local governments
to take more agency
over foreign aid.
And honestly?
I genuinely hope it works.
But we have very little
in the way of specifics,
and it's gonna be difficult
to implement,
given this administration
just detonated
the decades worth of expertise, good
will, and institutional scaffolding
that'd help them deliver the aid.
They've also insisted, by the way,
that any foreign aid
should "further the national interests
of the United States",
though I will point out, that's exactly
what USAID was already doing.
Because even if you are a sociopath
and don't think
saving millions of lives is a good
thing in and of itself,
you should know: the agency brought
us good will around the world,
while also tracking and preventing
global disease outbreaks.
Which, as this man who worked
alongside USAID in Ghana
correctly points out,
is sort of in our own interest.
If we are able to prevent pandemics,
it's a global good.
Any infection that you can pick from
Ghana, as an American citizen,
you take it back there.
- Or a little mosquito on the plane.
- Mosquito on the plane.
Now, more than ever,
it's easier to transmit disease across
the globe within a day.
Yeah, he's right.
And anyone familiar with
the phrases "sourdough starter"
or "Animal Crossing" or
"Carole Baskin" knows
how painfully true that is.
I know the Trump administration's
constantly spitting out disasters.
And I'm sure they'd like nothing more
than for people to move on from this.
But it is crucial not to let
what they've done be forgotten,
because while the numbers of those
hurt or killed by these cuts
can be genuinely hard
to wrap your head around,
the individual people aren't.
USAID was not perfect,
but it was working miracles,
and this government decided
to retract those miracles, on purpose.
This is a man-made disaster.
And when you remember these faces,
I want you to think
of these, too.
People like
Elon "Send Me a Pic" Musk,
Pete "Revenge Tour" Marocco,
Mike "9/11 Jeans" Benz,
Jeremy "Please Define Fraud For Me"
Lewin, and Marco fucking Rubio.
Because in the future,
I'm sure they're gonna want
to try and spin their work
destroying USAID
into something
a lot more palatable.
But we cannot let them do that.
The very least we can do going forward
is to remember
what they fucking did.
And now, this.
And Now: Winter Weather Makes
Meteorologists Get a Little Defensive.
I'm going to say this, I don't
want you to hate me for this,
but we haven't seen
the coldest weather yet.
- Single-digits, that is brutal.
- Sorry.
Yeah, I'm reminded of that old
saying, "Don't shoot the messenger."
This is one of those "don't shoot
the messenger" situations.
I don't control the rain, I'm just
telling you that it's on the way.
People are gonna start to hate me
over the coming days,
because it's just gonna get worse,
and there's more snow.
Someone just texted me
that I'm dead to them.
Yes! Exactly!
Please don't hate me for this.
I didn't bring the cold weather,
it just happens to be here.
It's Mother Nature's fault.
It's not my fault.
It's gonna snow.
It's not his fault.
It is not my fault. We are
here to keep everybody prepared.
We're not doing this on purpose.
I've told you before.
If I could control the weather,
it'd be 70 degrees year-round,
with just the right amount of rainfall
when we need it,
but that's not how it works.
If I had the ability to make it
warmer, I would love to.
I'm just the messenger,
I don't make the weather.
I'm sorry. I'm the messenger.
I don't make the weather.
I don't make the trash,
I just drive the truck.
Please don't shoot the messenger,
just know that I gotta tell you
what the forecast is.
And it's cold!
I'm gonna let Caleb be the bearer
of the bad news, though.
It's not my fault.
Is it my fault?
- No.
- No, is it yours?
No, it's not your fault, either.
Moving on. Before we go, a quick
word about soap operas.
I love them. They're a place for
compelling, decades-long dramas,
as well as occasional
spectacular twists.
Who can forget when Sheila
on "The Bold and the Beautiful"
released bees into Lance's
apartment to sting him to death?
Or when Skye Newman
fell into a volcano
on "The Young and the Restless",
and I hate to break it to you,
did not survive that.
Or when on "Days of Our Lives",
Cassie Brady's body
was discovered after falling out
of a turkey-shaped pinata
on Thanksgiving.
Or when on "Passions",
Dr. Eve Russell got so drunk
she re-attached her lover's penis
upside down.
Or on "Guiding Light",
when Reva,
known as the "slut of Springfield"
became obsessed
with a time-traveling painting,
launching herself
into Edwardian England, the Civil
War, and World War II Paris,
all of which was years after she
was cloned, for unrelated reasons.
And let's please never forget this
moment on "Days of our Lives",
when Stefano found Marlena
tied up, and helped get her free.
You fool!
You have interfered
for the last time!
Marlena?
Spectacular. I'm not gonna
give you any context for that.
I'll merely point out this
is why we have TV:
for breaking news, and this.
Honestly, if HBO said, "Fuck it,
cancel everything,"
"we only show Marlena transforming
into the devil now",
I'd roll over willingly. I might even
start watching this network.
The point is, soaps are fun!
That may be why they are
a magnet for celebrity cameos.
From musicians like Rihanna,
Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry
and Smokey Robinson,
to actors like Elizabeth Taylor,
Dick van Dyke, and Betty White,
to even future presidents.
Yeah, Trump cameo-ed
on "Days of Our Lives" in 2005.
And fun fact, the infamous
"Access Hollywood" tape
was from Billy Bush visiting Trump
on that set,
a moment that changed
the course of history not at all.
Sometimes there are cameos from
celebrities you'd expect even less,
like this one from "General Hospital"
a few years back.
And I guarantee,
you won't be able to predict
a single thing
about what you are about to see.
Colonel Sanders is coming over?
Here?
You set this up.
Maxie, my dear.
It's wonderful to see you again.
- Been a minute!
- That it has!
I'm so happy you could join us.
Come on in.
- Who's your friend?
- Lulu Falconerie.
Lulu, this is
the Colonel Harlan Sanders.
How'd you do?
It's just excellent.
And you should know,
the woman in blue there,
Lulu Falconerie, is a journalist,
which becomes important
during their conversation.
I'm sorry, I just cannot believe
that I am sitting with Colonel Sanders.
How do you know each other?
That's a whale of a tale.
- The Colonel tells the best stories.
- Okay, I have to get this down.
I'm afraid this is gonna
have to stay off the record.
Of course.
This is just a conversation
between friends, right Lulu?
Absolutely, yes.
It all started when a syndicate
tried to hack
into the KFC mainframe with
plans to steal my secret recipe.
It's perfect.
First, let's just agree,
these two are fucking, right?
The energy was very,
"We've hooked up, we'll do it again,"
"we don't want
this other girl to know,"
"but also we kind of do
because that is part of it for us."
Honestly,
until he said the words
"a syndicate tried to hack
into the KFC mainframe",
I thought they were about
to have a threesome.
And this isn't the point,
but any current TV drama
that hasn't shoehorned
Colonel Sanders in are cowards.
Throw him into Lumon,
see what that shakes up.
Give him an opioid addiction
on "The Pitt".
Mike White, I am begging you,
please, check Harlan in.
Now, often, celebrity cameos
like that are one-offs,
appearing in a single scene, or staying
for a week, never to return.
But there is one individual who's
been doing quite a bit more than that
for a while now. Here he is,
in a scene from "General Hospital".
You up for an adventure?
San Juan, Hong Kong, Marrakesh?
No, not adventure. Monica has
declared Jason legally dead,
so we're all gonna be going
to the memorial service.
May he rest in peace.
Yeah, now for those who don't know,
that is sports pundit Stephen A. Smith,
playing a character called Brick.
No last name, just Brick.
If you are not familiar with
Stephen A., he's famous
for having a million hot takes
and being unafraid to voice them.
We talking about the GOAT here,
the greatest of all time,
Michael Jordan,
and you running your mouth
talking about you gonna
beat him one on one?
Why would you say something
so blasphemous?
Ya'll won two playoff games
in 25 years,
and you're gonna sit up here,
sticking out your chest,
talking about it's the dawn of
a new day? Ya'll ain't nothin'!
His very first move as the executive
was to sign Lamar Odom,
who was on crack!
Who do you think is winning
in a street fight,
Stuart Little or Ratatouille?
That's an easy one,
it's Ratatouille.
Ratatouille?
No, that's them big ass rats in the
sewers of the New York subway system.
Y'know,
the kind that cats run from.
Yeah, if you only knew
Stephen A. Smith from sports,
it's genuinely disorienting
seeing him in a soap opera.
It'd be like seeing Alex Jones
in the cast of "Downton Abbey",
this was not in God's plan for you.
But here is the thing:
that wasn't a one-time appearance.
Stephen A. has played Brick
since 2016,
and he always acts
the shit out of the role.
The map isn't easily accessible.
At least not without
the proper security clearance.
I'm gonna say it for you, whether
you want to hear it or not.
One man, two women.
Sonny, that's one too many.
I've personally vetted every single
person that works for you.
I guess I gotta question
the source.
What?
It is amazing to me that,
for nearly a decade,
Stephen A. Smith has been a recurring
character on "General Hospital"
and we've barely heard
anything about it!
I'm guessing that is because
people who know Stephen A. Smith
aren't watching soap operas.
And people who watch soap operas,
don't know who Stephen A. Smith is.
That is actually
how we found out about this.
One of our writer's mothers was
watching "General Hospital" one day
and when our writer asked,
"Hey, that actor looks really
familiar, who is it?"
Her mother responded, simply,
"That's Brick."
The point is, for almost 10 years,
in between Stephen A. Smith
picking fights with athletes,
shit-talking politicians,
and, by the way,
repeatedly threatening to run for
president, which he should not do,
he's also been playing Brick,
the right-hand man to Sonny Corinthos,
head of the Corinthos crime family.
Over the last 10 years,
he's car-bombed an enemy's limo,
tampered with evidence
in a custody case,
forged records to state
that a Turkish orphan
was actually a member
of his boss' family,
and just this past season,
he did this.
Sorry to interrupt, I'm gonna
need to see some ID.
Of course.
Holy shit! Everything about
that clip is insane!
From the music to the slow motion
shoot out to the gun that,
much like Stephen A. Smith's acting
career, came out of fucking nowhere.
And yes, that woman
ended up being an assassin,
but for the record, you can't
just walk into a hospital room
and ask to see a nurse's ID.
That's not how anything works!
I will admit, the reason I'm bringing
this up is because I am jealous.
I have a genuine love
for soaps.
Where else can an imposter nurse
be shot in a hospital?
Or a woman be possessed
by the devil?
Or Colonel Sanders have a kiki
with his best blondes?
Not to sound like
an iconic tits-out mermaid,
but I want to be a part
of that world.
So, to all the soap operas
out there, let me say this:
I am officially
offering myself to you.
Write me a role and I will be
on your set so fast,
it'll make your head spin.
I only have a few conditions:
first, I don't want to play myself.
I want to be a character, and I want
his name to be ridiculous.
Also, I want to do something juicy,
like murder, or slapping,
or being slapped, or being someone's
long-lost something.
And ideally, I'd like a dramatic
close-up of my face.
But in return, trust me, I will
give my all to this performance.
And to prove I can do it,
please, come with me.
License and registration, nurse!
Are you insane?
I'm not showing you my license,
I'm a real nurse.
Got her!
The point is, call me, soaps,
I am available,
I'm willing to travel, and I want this
more than you can possibly understand.
And now, if you would please
Colonel?
Yes, John!
Help me pack up this body.
Gladly! It's not my first time
and it won't be my last!
KFC's always looking
for more ingredients.
I know you are, Harlan. It is
okay if I call you Harlan, isn't it?
Only if that's what
you want as your last words.
Wait, what?!
That's his show, thank you so
much for watching, goodnight!
Now this is a whale of a tale!
I'm John Oliver, thank you
so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week.
We learned that the U.S. lost
92,000 jobs last month,
Kristi Noem was replaced
as head of DHS, and of course,
last Saturday, the U.S. and Israel
launched air strikes on Iran.
And since then, it's been hard
to discern exact facts on the ground,
although some outlets,
like this British morning show,
did manage to make
some pretty avoidable mistakes.
We have to show you footage
here, by the way, from Iran,
of people dancing like Trump.
Is this in Iran? It's in Iran.
So, I gather that's in Iran,
and they're doing the Trump dance,
which is just basically
a very slight move of the hips.
Where is it?
It's not Iran.
It's crucially not Iran.
That's very important,
because if it was in Iran,
they might all be killed.
Exactly, but that does feel
important, doesn't it?
It seems their editorial process is,
"Step one, see video.
Doesn't matter where."
Step two, immediately play
video to millions of people
and have some fun with it.
And finally, step three, which has
to happen midway through step two,
check if video real.
It's perfect journalism, and yes,
before you ask, that is my son.
Meanwhile, the White House
and its supporters
have been all over the place this
week explaining why we did this.
At various points, they've claimed
Iran was going to attack us,
Israel was going to attack Iran,
which would've led
to them attacking us,
Iran was going to assassinate Trump,
so we assassinated the ayatollah first,
Iran was gonna obtain
nuclear weapons, or ICBMs,
and we just did this
to free the Iranian people
out of the kindness
of our hearts.
As for the question of who's
going to lead Iran now,
that seems to have no clear answer,
either.
Trump's insisted he must be
involved in that decision,
and apparently he had some
potential contenders for the role.
But as he explained,
there was just one slight problem.
Well, most of the people we had
in mind are dead.
So, you know, we had some in mind
And now we have another group.
They may be dead also,
based on reports.
So, I guess you have
a third wave coming in.
Pretty soon, we're not
gonna know anybody.
Yeah, not ideal!
"Everyone keeps dying and soon
we're not gonna know anyone"
isn't how you should be
describing your foreign policy.
At best, it's how you describe
the experience
of being a Grateful Dead fan.
The war has already spiraled out
to include over a dozen other countries,
and it now appears
the U.S. bombed a school,
killing at least 175 people,
many of them children.
This all seems reckless, chaotic,
and not remotely well-thought-through.
In fact, Trump, in that weird way in
which he's occasionally very honest,
seemed to acknowledge what
the future could look like.
What's the worst-case scenario
that you have planned for in Iran?
I don't know if there's a worst case.
We have them very much
beaten militarily,
from the military standpoint.
I guess the worst case
would be we do this,
and then somebody takes over who's
as bad as the previous person.
That could happen.
We don't want that to happen.
It would probably be the worst.
You go through this and then
in five years you realize you put
somebody in who is no better.
Right.
That's exactly right.
And it's jarring to hear
such a lucid analysis
of his own actions
in the Middle East there.
You don't expect that from him.
It's like hearing him say,
"Have you read the latest issue
of The New Yorker?"
or seeing him
in the Criterion Closet.
Wait, he picked "Persona"?
It's his favorite Bergman?
I don't think I understand
anything anymore!
Obviously, there'll be much more
to say about Iran going forward.
But for now, we're gonna dive in
with our main story this week,
concerning something
Donald Trump absolutely hates,
and even more than finding makeup
that'll match his complexion.
Go to Sephora, dude,
it'll take 10 minutes!
Specifically, we're gonna talk
about the United States Agency for
International Development, or USAID.
It was once described as "the world's
single largest humanitarian donor,"
providing aid in the form
of disaster relief, global health,
food assistance, climate resilience,
education, and much more.
And when Trump returned
to the White House last year,
he made it clear
that the agency was in his sights.
USAID, run by radical lunatics.
It sounds so nice.
USAID, isn't it beautiful?
But it's a whole big scam.
When you look at USAID,
that's a fraud,
the whole thing is a fraud.
Very little being put to good use.
Okay, so set aside the irony
of Donald Trump, of Trump University,
accusing anything of being a fraud,
you can't just call something a scam
because you don't like it. I want
to call low-rise jeans a scam.
I feel like Peppa Pig's a fraud.
I believe radical lunatics
run Jamba Juice,
liquid fruit isn't a treat,
it's cough syrup at best.
But even I acknowledge that my feelings
don't make any of those thoughts true.
But Trump was fixated on USAID
and its spending,
which is a little surprising,
given it amounted to less
than 1% of the federal budget.
Yet Trump and Elon Musk
quickly dismantled the agency,
with Elon at one point
proudly tweeting
he'd "spent the weekend feeding USAID
into the wood chipper."
And a lot of MAGA Republicans
were ecstatic about that.
Right-wing influencer
Benny Johnson
even made a trip to D.C.
to celebrate.
I just got into Washington, D.C.,
I had to see it myself to believe it.
USAID is no more.
Check it out.
There we go.
Got the duct tape, got the doors
all closed off.
Got everything
all blacked out up there.
Had to see it to believe it!
The consequences of DOGE.
They're not effing around.
I encourage you come here.
Probably the number one selfie
spot in all of Washington.
First, congratulations
to Benny Johnson
on winning
2026's Most Punchable Glasses,
and I say that as the former
holder of that title.
But also, that's clearly not the number
one selfie spot in D.C.,
that'd of course be
the Washington Monument,
taken at an angle
so it looks like a dick,
or a cherry blossom tree
so that it looks like a dick,
or one of those pandas
at the National Zoo,
so that it looks like a dick.
But it's not just Benny Johnson,
the House Foreign Affairs
Committee Republicans
celebrated the collapse of USAID by
posting this incredibly shitty meme.
Now, that is obviously gross,
but it does say something
about how annoying JD Vance is
that even in that context,
one of my first thoughts was,
"JD made the cut? Good for him."
And if you think
that meme's in bad taste now,
just wait until you see
the consequences of these cuts.
Because they've had real impacts
on people around the world
engaged in the act of saving lives.
Like this nurse who,
among other things,
vaccinates children
in remote areas of Uganda.
To reach the isolated eastern Uganda
mountain communities that need help,
nurse Agnes Nambozo scales
a treacherous 1.000-foot ladder.
It's too steep for small children,
mothers carrying babies,
and the sick to climb down.
Now Nambozo's path
has gotten tougher.
USAID cuts have eliminated
many jobs at her clinic.
As she and those who remain
try to take up the slack,
avoiding burnout could be
as much of a challenge
as getting to the isolated communities
that need her help.
Holy shit!
That image of her on the ladder
is absolutely incredible.
It's like "Free Solo," except,
unlike Alex Honnold,
she's not going out of her way to make
such a big fucking deal about it.
But the point is, they took what
appears to be the hardest job on Earth
and somehow made it
even harder.
And that is just the beginning
of the consequences here.
Because these cuts are estimated
to have led to hundreds of thousands
of deaths last year alone.
So given all that, tonight, we thought
we'd take a look at USAID,
specifically, what we've lost, why it
happened, and who is responsible.
Let's start with the fact that USAID
was created in 1961 by JFK,
for both humanitarian reasons,
and also to increase
U.S. soft power abroad.
And since then, it's come to take
a leading role in everything,
from fighting disease
to disaster assistance.
In fact, when there were
devastating earthquakes
in Turkey and Syria
just three years ago,
the agency sent a response team
that at one point comprised
more than 200 people,
many of whom assisted with search
and rescue efforts like this.
With signs of a survivor, the USAID
team calls in reinforcements.
And then we witness the impossible.
Turkish rescue workers managed
to recover a living victim.
This is extraordinary.
You can see
what looks like a middle-aged man
being pulled out of this wreckage.
Okay, that is obviously incredible.
But was it completely necessary
to describe him as "what looks
like a middle-aged man"?
Was that pertinent? I hope
he's right about that guy's age,
because if it turns out
he's actually 19,
the last thing he needs
is some reporter calling him old.
"My hair is white from the dust
of the building"
"I've been stuck under for days,
you asshole!"
It's frankly no wonder that,
thanks to scenes like that,
USAID's enjoyed broad,
bipartisan support.
When the agency turned 60,
Lindsey Graham
sent this video message.
Happy anniversary to all
my friends at USAID.
You've made
a big difference in the world,
you're a force for good,
create a great impression for our
country and you change lives.
I've been a big champion
for a long time.
Enjoy this anniversary,
and when it comes to USAID,
the best is yet to come.
That's nice, isn't it? And I'm sure
it motivated employees
back then beyond belief.
Imagine suddenly getting a message
from the man who succeeded
Strom Thurmond
speaking with all the enthusiasm
of someone who just got
paid 6.50 dollars on Cameo.
But it wasn't just Lindsey Graham,
Marco Rubio was also a huge supporter,
praising the agency's work
on at least two dozen occasions
over more than a decade.
In fact, when he was named
secretary of state,
many USAID employees were hopeful,
thinking he'd help protect them.
But that is not what has happened.
Because this administration
quickly brought USAID
to its knees.
By February 1st of last year,
its website had been taken down,
by February 7th, almost all its 10.000
employees were placed on leave,
and by mid-March, after a supposed
six-week review,
"83% of USAID programs
had been terminated."
And in a sign of just how thoroughly
the agency had been destroyed,
when there was a massive
earthquake in Myanmar last March,
instead of getting hundreds of
U.S. rescuers, this is what happened.
Aid workers say help, from the US
at least, is nowhere to be found.
No American rescue teams.
No visible U.S. presence in Mandalay.
No American flags
on the food trucks.
For the US only to send
a paltry amount of assistance,
it sent only three workers, which
then subsequently were fired.
It's true,
we sent three workers and then
fired them while they were there.
And not only is that not enough
people to send to an earthquake,
for what it's worth,
it is exactly the wrong number
to send on any trip, even
under the best circumstances.
Two people?
Sure, that's intimate,
but you can both spend time
alone if it's feeling tense.
Four? More combinations,
more vibe possibilities.
Don't want to window shop in
the commercial district with Casey?
No problem, you can hang
by the hotel pool with Leanne.
But three?
That is a nightmare.
You're either shit-talking Tamara
for being annoying
about the street food tour
or you're alone, knowing that the
other two are shit-talking you
for being so annoying
about the river boat thing.
And at this point,
it is worth engaging with the arguments
for dismantling USAID.
And let's start with the claim
that there was,
to use conservatives' favorite phrase,
"waste, fraud and abuse."
Elon claimed that the vast majority
of the agency's spending
was either wasteful or nefarious,
and here is his response
when Joe Rogan
pressed him on that.
So, is there a way to audit
all this stuff and find out,
these people are actually just
sending food to poor people.
These people are actually
just helping people with water
in third-world countries.
There's a way to do that
and keep funding those?
Yeah. We have continued to fund
things that appear to be legitimate,
even with the flimsiest,
if there's even the flimsiest excuse.
Like, I just say, like,
"Send me a picture of the thing."
Like, you could literally
have AI generate the picture.
But if you're not even willing
to try to trick me,
then we're, like,
not gonna send the money.
What the fuck
are you talking about?
"Send me a picture"?
You can't treat foreign aid
like it's a Grubhub delivery.
I don't even think Grubhub drivers
should have to do that either.
Enough is asked of them already
without making them
take an awkward photo of me
accepting my bag of ramen.
And to address Rogan's question,
there actually was an army of staffers,
including auditors and lawyers,
both inside the agency
and in its Inspector General's Office,
whose job it was to track spending.
And for what it's worth,
one review found,
in the last six IG reports
of USAID,
94% of the spending
had been audited,
and only
"0.3% were found to have issues"
and even then,
"half of that was reclaimed."
But even without knowing that,
it's tough to take waste allegations
from Elon seriously,
given his DOGE team
seemed to have no idea
what the programs
they were cutting even did.
ProPublica recently revealed
that people at the agency watched
as their brand-new chief of staff
scrolled down a spreadsheet
of programs,
"turning rows red, yellow,
or green every few seconds,"
"never asking a single question."
Then, "realizing that the red
programs were slated to be cut,"
"they frantically started
editing descriptions"
"so he'd at least know what
those programs did."
And while the administration
at one point insisted
the programs would be spared if they
were considered "life-saving",
just listen to this former USAID
employee tell a Senate roundtable
how those decisions got made.
When we kept-flagged
a long list of awards
that were needed
for life-saving activities,
we were told that the problem was
the names of those awards
didn't make clear
that they were life-saving.
It didn't have the word
"life-saving" in the name,
and therefore it was very hard
for the secretary's team
to understand which award should
or should not be terminated.
The implication was that if we
had been more clear in the names
that these were life-saving awards,
maybe they would have been saved.
Obviously that is stupid
for a thousand reasons.
First, because everybody knows
that names aren't usually literal
descriptions of what you are getting.
It's the reason ketchup isn't
called "salty tomato-inspired glop",
conjunctivitis isn't called
"shit on your finger
then touched your eye disease"
and this show isn't called
"Facts You Read in The New Yorker
18 Months Ago"
"with What Seems
to Be a Middle-Aged Man."
It's called poetic license.
And it is notable that,
for all the talk of fraud,
even Jeremy Lewin, a DOGE guy
who eventually served
as deputy administrator
and COO of the agency,
and who "often personally decided
which programs should be axed",
later admitted his team
didn't find much.
People talk about fraud, right?
DOGE didn't find that much fraud
at USAID.
It's sort of a definitional question.
What is fraud in the sense
of, well, maybe I defrauded you.
The grant says I do X and I do Y.
That's a very narrow conception
of fraud.
But is it a fraud to say
you have this organization
that the New York Times
has painted
as feeding all sorts of poor and
destitute people around the world,
but in fact, a significant portion
of the money is going to pay
400,000 dollars salaries
at UC Berkeley
to do climate and sort
of race science research, right?
Is that a fraud
on the American people?
I would say it kind of is.
Okay, so radicalized Young Sheldon
there is basically answering,
"Did DOGE find fraud?"
with "It's a definitional question."
Which isn't a great look.
If you ask a detective,
"Did you find the killer?"
and he says, "It depends how you
define the words 'killer' and 'find,'"
it would be safe to say the Tulsa
Strangler is still definitely at large.
As for his claim about fraudulent
"race science research projects",
we tried to find out what the fuck
he was talking about and we couldn't.
We even asked him and the State
Department for more information,
and they didn't provide any.
But if the very phrase "race science"
set off alarm bells,
you should know, people
who knew Lewin in high school
said he had a history of "violent
outbursts and racist remarks"
and that
"he believed non-white people"
"were inherently of 'lower value'
than white people,"
which seems like a whole lot
of words for "racist"
and I don't think
that's a definitional issue.
Before Lewin got that job at USAID,
his position was held
by a different member of the Trump
administration called Pete Marocco.
He actually worked there
during Trump's first term, too,
and attempted to delay
or halt dozens of programs,
but ultimately wasn't successful.
Which is why, when he came back
last year, one former official said,
"What we're seeing right now
is Pete's revenge tour."
And for the record,
"Pete's Revenge Tour"
sounds like a band composed of
former middle school football coaches
who got fired because kids kept
getting heat stroke,
and all of whom were
at the Capitol on January 6th.
And I only say that
because Marocco did apparently storm
the Capitol on January 6th.
With his wife, by the way!
Couple goals!
But the thing is, as eager
as this administration has been
to eradicate any funding it claimed
was going to "woke" causes,
and singling out small individual
expenditures for ridicule,
it still doesn't explain wholly
dismantling this agency.
Because traditionally,
administrations have been free
to make sure foreign aid
reflects their values,
whatever those values are.
Just listen to the man who ran
USAID under George W. Bush
explain that to Congress.
When the Democrats took over,
they moved the agency to the left.
I moved it to the right.
The Obama people actually said
I was very right-wing.
I was the most right-wing administrator
in the history of the agency
and yet the career people followed
what I wanted to do in the agency.
We put heavy emphasis
on economic growth.
I believe in economic growth.
I believe in the private sector.
I believe in free markets.
That's what AID does.
The notion that AID is some kind
of a Marxist institution
is absolutely ridiculous, okay?
Exactly. Think of USAID
like the Cha Cha Slide.
You can slide it to the left.
You can slide it to the right.
And the next administration can
then take it back now, y'all.
Even during Trump's first term,
he didn't take USAID apart,
he just shifted its focus
by "deprioritizing areas like maternal
health and family planning",
while increasing funding for emergency
responses and digital infrastructure.
All of which raises the question:
what changed this time
to make them want to put
the agency through a woodchipper?
Well, I'm afraid the answer
to that is incredibly dumb.
Because many observers think it has
something to do with this guy,
Mike Benz,
a far-right conservative activist.
Elon's fixation on USAID
appears to date to late 2024,
when Benz appeared on Joe Rogan's
podcast and shit all over the agency.
Elon then retweeted, replied to,
or mentioned Benz
over 160 times in the next year,
sharing things like,
"USAID was a viper's nest of radical
left Marxists who hate America"
and "USAID
is a criminal organization."
Even that "wood chipper" tweet
was in reply to Mike Benz.
It's worth taking a minute to explain
who Mike Benz is.
He worked a few jobs
during Trump's first term,
including a brief stint
at the State Department,
and he is, to put it mildly,
a chronically online lunatic.
Among the things he's posted
are this portrait of Trump
made out of charcuterie,
and this AI slop video
where he farts in former
FBI director Chris Wray's mouth.
He also once posted about
the jeans he got for his birthday.
And if you're thinking, "Hold on,
that doesn't seem so bad to me",
These were the jeans.
That's right, he got
9/11 jeans for his birthday!
You could apparently buy those
jeans online for 180 dollars,
Fuck you,
how little do you think of me?
But it gets worse.
Benz apparently used to be a content
creator who went by "Frame Game"
and pushed a variety
of far-right narratives
including the great replacement theory
and made montages
urging white viewers to unite
under the banner of race.
And he is fixated on the notion
that USAID is basically a front.
Here is how he put it to Rogan in that
interview that got Elon's attention.
There's no aid in USAID,
by the way.
Your brain is being tricked
when you see the phrase USAID.
It's not an aid organization.
The aid in USAID stands for
U.S. Agency
for International Development.
Yeah, it's an acronym, Mike.
It's an acronym.
We all know how those work.
You haven't exactly blown
Roswell open there.
But that's just the beginning.
Benz has also said,
"When it's too dirty for the CIA,
you give it to USAID."
Which for the record,
is obviously not the case.
We all know, when a job
is too dirty for the CIA,
you arm Afghan mujahideen
and train them in cell warfare
with the stated goal of beating
back Soviet influence in the region,
and then coincidentally they team up
with Osama bin Laden
who will later carry out the attack
Mike Benz is so obsessed with,
he got birthday denim merch.
That is not to say
there aren't small grains of truth
underneath all of Benz's bullshit.
USAID was not perfect.
As one of its former heads
of global health wrote,
"It sometimes fostered dependency.
It could be inefficient."
"Too much of its funding"
"went to international institutions
rather than local ones."
And, yes,
"its history does include"
"episodes in which aid was bent to
American military and political aims",
including an incident in 2010,
when "it created a social-networking
service in Cuba"
"designed to kindle opposition
to the government."
And I do not like the fact
that the agency did that.
In general, I like my regime changes
the way I like my produce:
locally sourced.
But let's not pretend instances
like that were anything other
than a tiny portion
of what USAID did.
Also, as the people of Venezuela
and Iran can attest,
when the U.S. wants regime
change nowadays,
it tends to do so
pretty fucking directly.
So, it's not like
any of those criticisms
justify getting rid
of the agency entirely.
But to hear Benz tell it,
USAID is basically the root
of all this world's problems.
USAID is one of the most disturbing
organizations
in the entire federal government.
It may rank number one, in fact.
Many people think they live in
the world they think they live in,
but in some respects, it's a
carefully constructed "Truman Show"
made up of movie characters
around them produced by USAID.
And what I mean by that
is USAID has infected
the institutional architecture
of every aspect of American
society and world society.
"The whole world has been
'Truman Show'-ed by USAID",
is not something you expect
to hear someone say on TV.
At best, it's something you expect
to hear them muttering on a city bus.
"Yeah. They've infected
the institutional architecture."
"You know what,
I think I'm gonna get off here."
"I know we're halfway
across a bridge,"
"but I'm pretty sure
that this is my stop."
It's no wonder Benz took a victory
lap when USAID was gutted,
posting this image of himself
celebrating at its grave.
And at this point,
you should probably see
some of the damage that's been
done, because it is vast.
As one expert put it,
"I think the best evidence
that USAID works"
"is how quickly people started
dying when it went away."
Now, it is hard to get exact
counts on deaths,
partly because these cuts have,
among other things,
halted data monitoring,
but researchers have estimated
over 262,000 adults and over half
a million children died last year
as a result of these cuts.
Though I do have to tell you:
Marco Rubio strongly denies
claims like those.
Anybody who tells you that somehow
it's the United States,
if we cut a dollar,
somehow we're responsible
for some horrific thing that's going on
in the world, is just not true.
Are you standing by your contention
No one has died because
the US has cut aid. No.
Okay, so, is he telling
the truth there?
I would argue
that the answer to that
is the same as the answer
to the question,
"Are Marco Rubio's ears
proportional to the size of his head?"
which is to say,
"Absolutely, demonstrably not."
And maybe the best way
to rebut that
is to show you some of the specific
places and programs
that have been impacted
by these cuts.
And let's start with food
and nutrition assistance,
which have been devastated.
For instance, in Nigeria, clinics
which provided malnutrition treatment
for more than 300,000 children
below the age of two,
were shut down at the end of July.
And in Afghanistan,
NGO warehouses were bare,
despite 900,000 children
being in desperate need of treatment
for severe acute malnutrition.
And it is not just cuts
to the food itself.
The administration also disrupted
the global supply chain
that moves food for desperate
people all over the world.
And that means, even when
the food's actually there,
the ability to get it to people
who need it can be gone.
For instance, last summer,
disruptions led to some food
spoiling in a warehouse.
The Trump administration
is planning to destroy a massive
amount of emergency food.
500 metric tons or over a million
pounds of high-energy biscuits
meant to feed hungry kids
in Afghanistan and Pakistan
will now be incinerated.
That first reported
by the Atlantic.
We have a kind of a standard
procedure that if food is expired,
it will be destroyed.
Federal workers had requested approval
from USAID leadership
to move the emergency food
before it spoiled.
But their memos went unanswered.
That is just maddening.
Especially not even
answering the memos.
Leaving someone on read
is always unforgivable,
but especially when the text is,
"Shorty, one million pounds of high
energy biscuits about to expire, u up?"
And scenes like that
are playing out all over the world.
At one refugee camp in Kenya that
had relied on USAID funding,
reporters found mothers who'd had
to choose which of their kids to feed,
and pregnant women
who were so desperate for calories
that they ate mud.
But it's not just food assistance
that's been cut.
It's estimated more than 2,000
health clinics have closed
in crisis zones around the world.
Here is what happened at just one.
Before, the NGO Action Against
Hunger ran this center here,
providing life-saving
medical assistance.
But it closed down in February,
along with seven others in the area,
when USAID stopped
funding the organization.
Within just over a month,
29 children in the district died
of malnutrition and illness.
We've never had such a high
death rate. It was catastrophic.
These are deaths
that we could have avoided
if funding had been maintained
and we continued our activities.
Yeah, it's appalling.
And it makes it even worse
when you remember
House Republicans literally
celebrated these cuts with this shit.
Yeah, it's true, you are
killing a lot of people in Africa,
you jib-jabbed fucks!
The point is,
these cuts have cost lives.
And perhaps one of the clearest
examples of this concerns PEPFAR,
or the President's Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief.
It was created during
the George W. Bush administration
and is often described
as one of the most successful
global health programs in history.
It's credited
with saving 26 million lives
and enabling 7.8 million babies
to be born without HIV
since it was created.
It is as close to a miracle as this
government has ever accomplished.
If I had to say one nice thing
about George W. Bush,
this program would be it.
And if I had to say two,
I would go quiet.
And while the administration will
stress that PEPFAR still exists,
its crucial aid delivery mechanism
has been severely disrupted.
As soon as the cuts
started last January,
clinics were forced
to shut their doors,
essential frontline health workers
were furloughed,
and community programs reaching
the most vulnerable people stopped.
And while PEPFAR was
"granted a limited waiver"
"to implement urgent life-saving HIV
treatment services",
a lot got left out
of that waiver.
Because while it allowed
the prevention medication PrEP
for pregnant
and breastfeeding women,
it didn't include it
for anyone else,
including those
who were already on it.
It also left out funding for HIV
prevention more generally,
and most programming for
orphans and vulnerable children.
And a major casualty
of cuts to PEPFAR
were "locally rooted programs"
"tailored to the needs
of specific groups of people",
like "specialized clinics
for sex workers,"
"men who have sex with men,
and people who inject drugs."
Infuriatingly, to some Republicans,
that seemed to be sort of the point.
This stuff about PEPFAR. My God,
you're gonna destroy the world.
Now, there's a part of PEPFAR
that deals with money for
life-saving care, isn't there?
Absolutely.
And there's a part of PEPFAR
that,
you look at it and you want to say,
"Pass me the sick bucket," isn't it?
Yes, sir.
And you're getting rid
of the sick bucket stuff.
Yes, sir.
You're getting rid of 5.5 million
to lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, queer, and intersex
advocacy in Uganda, aren't you?
Yes, sir.
I can't believe
we're arguing about this.
I can't believe we're
arguing about this!
That is some pretty homophobic stuff
coming from a man
wearing the single cuntiest pair
of glasses I think I've ever seen.
Also, for what it's worth, if
anything is gonna make me say,
"Pass the sick bucket", it isn't
the critical work of "pep-four",
it is the memory,
rattling eternally around my head
of Senator John Kennedy
saying this.
I can't wait
to have your cock in my mouth.
Well, that certainly
makes one of us.
But despite what Kennedy said there,
cuts to PEPFAR are absolutely
affecting life-saving care,
and for a huge amount of people,
and not just those
whose lives seem to make him
want to "reach for the sick bucket".
Even short disruptions to HIV care
can be deadly
and have already resulted
in stories like this.
The cut off of the medication,
of the HIV ARVs,
has really affected us so much.
The eight HIV-positive orphans
he cared for
used to get their medicine
from the local hospital for free.
After the cuts, he was told
he'd have to pay,
and because he couldn't afford
to do so, the orphanage ran out.
Without this medication,
14-year-old Megonde Andrew
quickly fell ill.
He got weaker and weaker every day,
and lost his life in the process.
The community he loved,
gathering to say their goodbyes,
burying him on February 21st.
That photo is absolutely gutting.
And since Elon seems to genuinely want
pictures of what USAID
does around the world
to somehow prove to him
that it's worthwhile,
I hope a day
of that fucking ghoul's life
does not go by without someone
sending him that photo.
And you know who cannot claim
he didn't know the value
of USAID's work,
especially when it comes to HIV?
Marco Rubio.
Because back in 2015, while running
for president, he said this.
Foreign aid can make a difference
when properly used.
And if you ever have a chance,
travel to the African continent
and you will meet people
who are alive today
because the American taxpayer
funded antiviral HIV medications
that kept them alive.
It will not be easy to radicalize
people who are alive,
because the American taxpayer
saved their lives and their children.
That's a really good point, Marco!
And that is clearly a very
different Rubio back then,
one who seemed to have
political aspirations
beyond disassociating on a couch
while JD Vance yells at Zelensky
like a kid stuck at a sleepover
while his friend's parents fight.
And incredibly, I'm still only
scratching the surface here.
There are programs concerning
treatment and prevention of cholera
and neglected tropical diseases,
clean water and climate resiliency,
and many others
that have also been butchered.
But there is one more area worth
mentioning. And that is education.
Because without funding for that,
there are children around the world
who no longer have
a safe place to learn.
And while these stories
may not be captured
when you hear
about the numbers of deaths,
that does not mean
the impacts aren't horrific.
Just look at this massive
refugee camp in Bangladesh
populated by Rohingya refugees
from Myanmar.
The U.S. slashed its funding
by nearly half.
And just one of the consequences
is that many kids
no longer have a school to attend,
and have been forced
into dire circumstances.
There's been a sharp rise in girls
being forced into prostitution,
and UNICEF has estimated that
cases of child marriage rose by 21%
compared to the same period
the year prior.
And without school to attend,
young boys like this one were
suddenly forced to go to work.
10-year-old Mohammed Arfan
spends all day selling snacks,
missing the classroom where
he once felt safe.
I returned home crying and my family
asked, "Why are you crying?"
The school has been closed.
I am crying because of that.
I will no longer be able to study in
the school. That is why I was crying.
Arfan worries about being targeted by
kidnappers or thieves while at work.
But he has no other option.
Yeah, it's awful. And honestly,
I would not be at all surprised
if Benny Johnson traveled there
to post a thrilled video
where he says that kid's snack stand
is the best selfie spot
in all of southeastern Bangladesh,
but if he does that,
I'm warning you now, I'm taking
down the electrical grid.
What this administration has done
is beyond cruel.
I haven't shown you anywhere
close to the worst footage
we had to watch
putting this story together.
And after seeing
and reading about all of this,
it is actually stomach-churning
to think about coffin memes,
or gravestone Instagram posts,
or overjoyed selfie videos.
Because you have to be
an absolute ashtray of a person
to cheer this kind of thing on.
I should say: the Trump administration
has announced a new approach,
called the America First
Global Health Strategy.
It's supposed to restart some forms
of health-related foreign aid,
though no other kinds,
and only in some countries,
with the central idea being
that they want local governments
to take more agency
over foreign aid.
And honestly?
I genuinely hope it works.
But we have very little
in the way of specifics,
and it's gonna be difficult
to implement,
given this administration
just detonated
the decades worth of expertise, good
will, and institutional scaffolding
that'd help them deliver the aid.
They've also insisted, by the way,
that any foreign aid
should "further the national interests
of the United States",
though I will point out, that's exactly
what USAID was already doing.
Because even if you are a sociopath
and don't think
saving millions of lives is a good
thing in and of itself,
you should know: the agency brought
us good will around the world,
while also tracking and preventing
global disease outbreaks.
Which, as this man who worked
alongside USAID in Ghana
correctly points out,
is sort of in our own interest.
If we are able to prevent pandemics,
it's a global good.
Any infection that you can pick from
Ghana, as an American citizen,
you take it back there.
- Or a little mosquito on the plane.
- Mosquito on the plane.
Now, more than ever,
it's easier to transmit disease across
the globe within a day.
Yeah, he's right.
And anyone familiar with
the phrases "sourdough starter"
or "Animal Crossing" or
"Carole Baskin" knows
how painfully true that is.
I know the Trump administration's
constantly spitting out disasters.
And I'm sure they'd like nothing more
than for people to move on from this.
But it is crucial not to let
what they've done be forgotten,
because while the numbers of those
hurt or killed by these cuts
can be genuinely hard
to wrap your head around,
the individual people aren't.
USAID was not perfect,
but it was working miracles,
and this government decided
to retract those miracles, on purpose.
This is a man-made disaster.
And when you remember these faces,
I want you to think
of these, too.
People like
Elon "Send Me a Pic" Musk,
Pete "Revenge Tour" Marocco,
Mike "9/11 Jeans" Benz,
Jeremy "Please Define Fraud For Me"
Lewin, and Marco fucking Rubio.
Because in the future,
I'm sure they're gonna want
to try and spin their work
destroying USAID
into something
a lot more palatable.
But we cannot let them do that.
The very least we can do going forward
is to remember
what they fucking did.
And now, this.
And Now: Winter Weather Makes
Meteorologists Get a Little Defensive.
I'm going to say this, I don't
want you to hate me for this,
but we haven't seen
the coldest weather yet.
- Single-digits, that is brutal.
- Sorry.
Yeah, I'm reminded of that old
saying, "Don't shoot the messenger."
This is one of those "don't shoot
the messenger" situations.
I don't control the rain, I'm just
telling you that it's on the way.
People are gonna start to hate me
over the coming days,
because it's just gonna get worse,
and there's more snow.
Someone just texted me
that I'm dead to them.
Yes! Exactly!
Please don't hate me for this.
I didn't bring the cold weather,
it just happens to be here.
It's Mother Nature's fault.
It's not my fault.
It's gonna snow.
It's not his fault.
It is not my fault. We are
here to keep everybody prepared.
We're not doing this on purpose.
I've told you before.
If I could control the weather,
it'd be 70 degrees year-round,
with just the right amount of rainfall
when we need it,
but that's not how it works.
If I had the ability to make it
warmer, I would love to.
I'm just the messenger,
I don't make the weather.
I'm sorry. I'm the messenger.
I don't make the weather.
I don't make the trash,
I just drive the truck.
Please don't shoot the messenger,
just know that I gotta tell you
what the forecast is.
And it's cold!
I'm gonna let Caleb be the bearer
of the bad news, though.
It's not my fault.
Is it my fault?
- No.
- No, is it yours?
No, it's not your fault, either.
Moving on. Before we go, a quick
word about soap operas.
I love them. They're a place for
compelling, decades-long dramas,
as well as occasional
spectacular twists.
Who can forget when Sheila
on "The Bold and the Beautiful"
released bees into Lance's
apartment to sting him to death?
Or when Skye Newman
fell into a volcano
on "The Young and the Restless",
and I hate to break it to you,
did not survive that.
Or when on "Days of Our Lives",
Cassie Brady's body
was discovered after falling out
of a turkey-shaped pinata
on Thanksgiving.
Or when on "Passions",
Dr. Eve Russell got so drunk
she re-attached her lover's penis
upside down.
Or on "Guiding Light",
when Reva,
known as the "slut of Springfield"
became obsessed
with a time-traveling painting,
launching herself
into Edwardian England, the Civil
War, and World War II Paris,
all of which was years after she
was cloned, for unrelated reasons.
And let's please never forget this
moment on "Days of our Lives",
when Stefano found Marlena
tied up, and helped get her free.
You fool!
You have interfered
for the last time!
Marlena?
Spectacular. I'm not gonna
give you any context for that.
I'll merely point out this
is why we have TV:
for breaking news, and this.
Honestly, if HBO said, "Fuck it,
cancel everything,"
"we only show Marlena transforming
into the devil now",
I'd roll over willingly. I might even
start watching this network.
The point is, soaps are fun!
That may be why they are
a magnet for celebrity cameos.
From musicians like Rihanna,
Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry
and Smokey Robinson,
to actors like Elizabeth Taylor,
Dick van Dyke, and Betty White,
to even future presidents.
Yeah, Trump cameo-ed
on "Days of Our Lives" in 2005.
And fun fact, the infamous
"Access Hollywood" tape
was from Billy Bush visiting Trump
on that set,
a moment that changed
the course of history not at all.
Sometimes there are cameos from
celebrities you'd expect even less,
like this one from "General Hospital"
a few years back.
And I guarantee,
you won't be able to predict
a single thing
about what you are about to see.
Colonel Sanders is coming over?
Here?
You set this up.
Maxie, my dear.
It's wonderful to see you again.
- Been a minute!
- That it has!
I'm so happy you could join us.
Come on in.
- Who's your friend?
- Lulu Falconerie.
Lulu, this is
the Colonel Harlan Sanders.
How'd you do?
It's just excellent.
And you should know,
the woman in blue there,
Lulu Falconerie, is a journalist,
which becomes important
during their conversation.
I'm sorry, I just cannot believe
that I am sitting with Colonel Sanders.
How do you know each other?
That's a whale of a tale.
- The Colonel tells the best stories.
- Okay, I have to get this down.
I'm afraid this is gonna
have to stay off the record.
Of course.
This is just a conversation
between friends, right Lulu?
Absolutely, yes.
It all started when a syndicate
tried to hack
into the KFC mainframe with
plans to steal my secret recipe.
It's perfect.
First, let's just agree,
these two are fucking, right?
The energy was very,
"We've hooked up, we'll do it again,"
"we don't want
this other girl to know,"
"but also we kind of do
because that is part of it for us."
Honestly,
until he said the words
"a syndicate tried to hack
into the KFC mainframe",
I thought they were about
to have a threesome.
And this isn't the point,
but any current TV drama
that hasn't shoehorned
Colonel Sanders in are cowards.
Throw him into Lumon,
see what that shakes up.
Give him an opioid addiction
on "The Pitt".
Mike White, I am begging you,
please, check Harlan in.
Now, often, celebrity cameos
like that are one-offs,
appearing in a single scene, or staying
for a week, never to return.
But there is one individual who's
been doing quite a bit more than that
for a while now. Here he is,
in a scene from "General Hospital".
You up for an adventure?
San Juan, Hong Kong, Marrakesh?
No, not adventure. Monica has
declared Jason legally dead,
so we're all gonna be going
to the memorial service.
May he rest in peace.
Yeah, now for those who don't know,
that is sports pundit Stephen A. Smith,
playing a character called Brick.
No last name, just Brick.
If you are not familiar with
Stephen A., he's famous
for having a million hot takes
and being unafraid to voice them.
We talking about the GOAT here,
the greatest of all time,
Michael Jordan,
and you running your mouth
talking about you gonna
beat him one on one?
Why would you say something
so blasphemous?
Ya'll won two playoff games
in 25 years,
and you're gonna sit up here,
sticking out your chest,
talking about it's the dawn of
a new day? Ya'll ain't nothin'!
His very first move as the executive
was to sign Lamar Odom,
who was on crack!
Who do you think is winning
in a street fight,
Stuart Little or Ratatouille?
That's an easy one,
it's Ratatouille.
Ratatouille?
No, that's them big ass rats in the
sewers of the New York subway system.
Y'know,
the kind that cats run from.
Yeah, if you only knew
Stephen A. Smith from sports,
it's genuinely disorienting
seeing him in a soap opera.
It'd be like seeing Alex Jones
in the cast of "Downton Abbey",
this was not in God's plan for you.
But here is the thing:
that wasn't a one-time appearance.
Stephen A. has played Brick
since 2016,
and he always acts
the shit out of the role.
The map isn't easily accessible.
At least not without
the proper security clearance.
I'm gonna say it for you, whether
you want to hear it or not.
One man, two women.
Sonny, that's one too many.
I've personally vetted every single
person that works for you.
I guess I gotta question
the source.
What?
It is amazing to me that,
for nearly a decade,
Stephen A. Smith has been a recurring
character on "General Hospital"
and we've barely heard
anything about it!
I'm guessing that is because
people who know Stephen A. Smith
aren't watching soap operas.
And people who watch soap operas,
don't know who Stephen A. Smith is.
That is actually
how we found out about this.
One of our writer's mothers was
watching "General Hospital" one day
and when our writer asked,
"Hey, that actor looks really
familiar, who is it?"
Her mother responded, simply,
"That's Brick."
The point is, for almost 10 years,
in between Stephen A. Smith
picking fights with athletes,
shit-talking politicians,
and, by the way,
repeatedly threatening to run for
president, which he should not do,
he's also been playing Brick,
the right-hand man to Sonny Corinthos,
head of the Corinthos crime family.
Over the last 10 years,
he's car-bombed an enemy's limo,
tampered with evidence
in a custody case,
forged records to state
that a Turkish orphan
was actually a member
of his boss' family,
and just this past season,
he did this.
Sorry to interrupt, I'm gonna
need to see some ID.
Of course.
Holy shit! Everything about
that clip is insane!
From the music to the slow motion
shoot out to the gun that,
much like Stephen A. Smith's acting
career, came out of fucking nowhere.
And yes, that woman
ended up being an assassin,
but for the record, you can't
just walk into a hospital room
and ask to see a nurse's ID.
That's not how anything works!
I will admit, the reason I'm bringing
this up is because I am jealous.
I have a genuine love
for soaps.
Where else can an imposter nurse
be shot in a hospital?
Or a woman be possessed
by the devil?
Or Colonel Sanders have a kiki
with his best blondes?
Not to sound like
an iconic tits-out mermaid,
but I want to be a part
of that world.
So, to all the soap operas
out there, let me say this:
I am officially
offering myself to you.
Write me a role and I will be
on your set so fast,
it'll make your head spin.
I only have a few conditions:
first, I don't want to play myself.
I want to be a character, and I want
his name to be ridiculous.
Also, I want to do something juicy,
like murder, or slapping,
or being slapped, or being someone's
long-lost something.
And ideally, I'd like a dramatic
close-up of my face.
But in return, trust me, I will
give my all to this performance.
And to prove I can do it,
please, come with me.
License and registration, nurse!
Are you insane?
I'm not showing you my license,
I'm a real nurse.
Got her!
The point is, call me, soaps,
I am available,
I'm willing to travel, and I want this
more than you can possibly understand.
And now, if you would please
Colonel?
Yes, John!
Help me pack up this body.
Gladly! It's not my first time
and it won't be my last!
KFC's always looking
for more ingredients.
I know you are, Harlan. It is
okay if I call you Harlan, isn't it?
Only if that's what
you want as your last words.
Wait, what?!
That's his show, thank you so
much for watching, goodnight!
Now this is a whale of a tale!