Last Week Tonight with John Oliver talks pardons, Joe Arpaio, and DACA

We know that Last Week Tonight with John Oliver had a great deal of material to pull from on Sunday night’s new episode. DACA, of course, was fairly high on the list.

While Oliver of course kicked off the show by discussing some of President Trump’s shocking decision on government funding, things really got more interesting when the subject of DACA and the Dreamers came up. There wasn’t a lot of substance here, beyond that sending everyone back is completely absurd, but Oliver did make an incredible meal out of Trump’s use of the word “happy.” This is a word that Trump has used in many different speeches over the years, and also uses to conveniently get out of interviews when he doesn’t know anything else to say in the moment. Splicing together all of the various uses of this was a really classic move.

After a brief segment all about the NFL’s hypocrisy when it comes to Colin Kaepernick, we then got to the meat of the episode … and it’s a topic that we actually suggested for the show at this point two weeks ago. We’re talking about Presidential pardons.

Why is this so important? Well, Joe Arpaio was pardoned by Trump last month, and this is still a heated topic of conversation. Why did this happen, and why are Presidents allowed to pardon people without much in the way of recourse? Arpaio is a noted figure, one known for controversial acts. He is also a man who even Republicans felt should have gone on trial and through the legal process. They didn’t want to see him pardoned.

The real takedown on Arpaio began when Oliver started to list off some of the terrible things that this man has done over time, including extremely hot and horrible conditions in his jails plus invasive cameras for a stretch of time. There have been millions of dollars in settlements paid out over time to people who have stayed in his jail and mistreated by his guards. There is also the issue of the multiple sex-crime violations that were botched. He apologized, but it was a fairly weak apology.

Was this an informative segment in the end? – We do think that it was a very good segment when it comes to taking down Arpaio the man, and Oliver proved further just how many infractions this man had on his record. The one thing that we wish the show had done a better job at was explaining the Presidential pardon process and what some of the rules are here in the first place. We like to think of this show, at times, as funny government class. We could’ve used a little more on that.

Best random reference of the night – Oliver proclaiming that Peter Kraus will always be his Bachelor, regardless of whatever or not ABC tends to agree.

What did you think about this week’s Last Week Tonight episode, and our analysis of it here at CarterMatt? Be sure to share in the comments below. (Photo: HBO.)