Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s11e17 Episode Script
Migrant Crime
1
Welcome, welcome, welcome
to Last Week Tonight! I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
We are back!
We've been away for nearly a month,
but luckily, we didn't miss much.
The U.K. kicked the Tories
out after 14 years,
France narrowly managed to keep
the far right out of power,
and Kendrick Lamar released the video
for the spectacularly hostile
"Not Like Us" on the Fourth of July,
and that is the end of the good
things that happened.
Because there was also
a catastrophic debate
where Biden gave a performance
that, in any other context,
would've prompted a family group chat
about Grandpa's mental state so tense
it'd rival 2010's meltdown
over the question,
"why don't we have a vegan
Thanksgiving this year?"
Also, notably,
Trump got shot in the ear,
then Biden said he'd consider dropping
out if he had a medical condition,
just before it was announced
that he'd got Covid.
The news is moving so fast,
we are taping on Saturday,
and who knows where things will be
by the time you actually watch this?
We don't even have time to get into
the possible attempt at a military coup
in Bolivia after soldiers rammed
the doors of the presidential palace,
an incident that led one local sandwich
shop to produce this bold promotion.
This is the moment to make the most
of your coup platter promo.
In your list of staple foods,
you can't miss your changuchón.
Make the most of this promo,
and if you place your order mentioning
that you want to stock up
for the next coup, as a gift,
we will add an extra crunchy
pork rind, totally free.
That is real!
They launched a coup-themed
promotion to sell more sandwiches,
a level of turning national instability
into a fast-food opportunity
that should frankly
put America to shame.
Where the fuck is Pizza Hut's
post assassination-attempt
stuffed crust special?
This country is coasting!
We used to be good at this!
But we're gonna jump right
into our main story tonight,
which concerns
the Republican National Convention,
the worst thing to happen
to Milwaukee since Jeffrey Dahmer.
This week saw the usual pageant
of prominent politicians onstage,
and abject weirdos in the audience
from attendees wearing bandages
on their ears to match Trump's,
to this guy crashing a reporter's shot
in a "Where is the Epstein client list?"
T-shirt,
to this woman
in a "Bride to Be" sash,
having the most cursed bachelorette
party in existence.
It feels like she told her bridesmaids
she wanted to see a bunch of dicks
on stage, and they tragically
misunderstood the assignment.
Although to be fair, if anything
screams "last night of freedom",
it is the Republican
National Convention.
There was also Hulk Hogan
tearing his shirt off,
Kid Rock scream-singing to a crowd
that was either not into it
or way too into it,
and a speech from Perry Johnson,
a failed presidential candidate
from Michigan,
who put his all into rallying the crowd,
only to be played off by the band
with the best possible song choice.
President Trump is ready
to save our country,
to make America great again, again!
I'm ready to do whatever is necessary
to get Trump back in the White House!
Are you with me? Yes!
Trump! Trump! Trump! Let's do it!
Somebody once told me the world
is gonna roll me,
I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.
Yeah, he got Smash Mouthed!
And while there is never a good time
to play that song,
the funniest time for the lyric
"not the sharpest tool in the shed"
is immediately following
a pro-Trump speech by a man
who apparently showed both
his plastic surgeon and hair stylist
a photo of Holland Taylor
and said, "This, please."
Now, going into the week,
we were repeatedly told that,
in the wake of the assassination
attempt on Trump,
we should expect something
very different from this convention.
Trump claims the moment
has now changed him.
He says he will adopt a different tone
going forward in this campaign.
Look, this is going to be
a different tone.
The attack on Trump has changed
the storyline
and the tone of this convention, with
the former president calling for unity.
Yeah, but that was never gonna happen.
Because you expect to see
certain things at the RNC,
elephant logos, cowboy hats,
a massive spike in Grindr usage,
but a message of unity is not something
traditionally associated
with that event, or indeed, this man.
And unsurprisingly,
the RNC was in no way toned down.
The Democrats' disastrous record
on crime, trade,
and regulation has ruined the lives
of countless Minnesotans.
Democrats come for your kids.
They're indoctrinating them with
poisonous attitudes on race and gender.
We'll become totally unhinged
if Donald Trump is not elected
in November.
All of that was awful, but that last
camera cut was just spectacular.
If you had asked me, "What is next
to this guy, just out of the frame?"
and given me a thousand guesses,
there is no way I'm saying,
"a lumpy bulldog lounging
in an armchair
like it's being interviewed
at the 92nd Street Y".
And do not drag a bulldog to the RNC.
Life is hard enough for them.
To have the soul of a wolf trapped
inside the body
of a wrinkly bowling ball?
To be inbred over centuries into
the perfect genetic car crash?
That dog doesn't deserve to be made
into a prop at the RNC.
It deserves a rawhide bone
and an apology from humanity.
And that was all before
we got to Trump's bonkers
90-minute-plus speech on Thursday,
in which he initially promised that
he was running
to be "president of all of America,
not half of America,"
but quickly went off-prompter
to rant about "crazy Nancy Pelosi"
and the "China virus," and repeatedly
suggest the 2020 election was stolen.
But the big theme that he and so many
other speakers kept returning to
this week was this.
We have to stop the invasion
into our country
that's killing hundreds of thousands
of people a year.
Biden has welcomed into our country
rapists,
murderers, even terrorists.
And we are facing an unprecedented
invasion of millions of illegal aliens
across our southern border.
It looks like and it feels like
an invasion because it is.
We are facing an invasion
on our southern border.
Not figuratively, a literal invasion.
I do not like that man Ted Cruz.
I do not like his toxic views.
I do not like his nasty speeches.
I do not like the shit he preaches.
I do not like him when he fishes.
I do not like him when he kisses.
Pulling off that beard, he ain't.
That man Ted Cruz looks like a taint.
I know the Republican Party gets
a lot of shit for only landing
D-list celebrities,
but I do have to hand it to them:
booking the actual pair from
the American Gothic painting
was a pretty good get.
And look, it's no accident Republicans
were focusing so hard on immigration,
recent polling shows it's the second
most important issue among Americans.
But a big reason for that is the
relentless, bad-faith fearmongering
around the issue
by the Republican Party itself,
perhaps best summed up
by the startling growth this year
of the toxic phrase "migrant crime".
Now, starting in late January,
Fox began using it a lot,
and always to build
a very specific narrative.
Concerns of a migrant crime wave
are growing across New York City.
Every third day, there's a story
about some sort of migrant crime.
There's a migrant crime spree
killing Americans,
and the president's an accessory
to murder.
Yeah. Out of nowhere, there was
a surge in talk of "migrant crime,"
which went from occasional mentions
in December and January
to over 300 mentions in February.
Basically, "migrant crime" is a phrase
that seemed to come out of nowhere,
and then was suddenly
all over the place,
like "what the sigma"
and "skibidi toilet".
And by the way, those are real phrases
used by the younger generations.
Or, they were, until I just ruined them
by having them slide out
of my old mouth.
And as the use of that term
skyrocketed,
there was a correlating spike
in concern about immigration,
with the number of Americans who
viewed it as their number one issue
jumping eight points
between January and February.
But this wasn't reflecting anything
happening in the real world,
because to be very clear,
there is no "migrant crime wave"
happening right now.
In fact, there is no crime wave at all.
Crime in general has been trending
downward in recent years,
including this one, with murder,
rape, robbery, and property crime
all decreasing, even as talk of migrants
committing those crimes has exploded.
As for migrant crime specifically,
experts will tell you there
is no evidence of a relationship
between somebody's immigrant status
and their involvement in crime.
In fact, while most states don't track
crime data by immigration status,
in the one state that does, Texas,
researchers have found
"the illegal immigrant criminal
conviction rate is roughly 45% below
that of native-born Americans."
And yet, despite that, there has been
a wave of conservatives claiming
there is a wave of migrant crime
and that is almost definitely going
to be continuing until November.
So, given that, tonight, let's talk
about migrant crime.
And let's start with where exactly
the term came from.
Because if you listen to Trump,
which obviously you should not,
he'll say it was all his idea.
It's a new, it's a new category.
I don't know if you've heard this,
but I came up with this one:
migrant crime.
There's crime. There's violent
crime. There's migrant crime.
We have a new category of crime.
It's called migrant crime.
And it's gonna be worse
than any other form of crime.
Okay, obviously,
that is not a new category of crime,
and obviously he didn't invent it,
because you can't invent putting
two words together.
Although, I will say, he has tried
to innovate the phrase.
At one point this year,
he told an audience
that "it should be called Biden
migrant crime, but that's too long,"
which is true.
And luckily, he workshopped a solution
to that problem in real time.
Because Joe Biden allowed this
to happen, we will call it from now on
"Biden migrant crime".
It's Bigrant crime.
I got it, Bigrant.
Let's call it Bigrant. Biden crime.
That's good. That's smart.
Bigrant crime.
Okay, I'll give him this: he did coin
the term "Bigrant crime".
You can have that one, Doniel.
It is the stupidest term
I've ever heard, but it is all yours.
And I love the fact that he literally
pointed to his head when he said,
"That's smart."
Almost like he was saying,
"I know where thoughts come from,
and it's not here, or here.
Here. It's here.
This is where the smart comes from.
I call it my smart lump, or smump.
I came up with that one, too."
But if you go back and actually look,
the event that prompted first Fox,
and then Trump, to start pushing
the term "migrant crime"
was a brawl that happened on January
27th of this year in Times Square.
You may even remember the police
released this 45-second clip of officers
fighting with a group of migrants.
It got a ton of play on Fox,
where one particular detail about what
happened afterward got extra attention.
A gang of migrants broke into the
country, pummeled two NYPD officers,
and while walking out of jail
without bail,
flipped the double bird to the country
that let them in.
The two birds heard around the world.
The symbol of the Biden presidency,
right there.
Okay, for the record,
the symbol for the Biden presidency
is absolutely not two birds.
As we all know, it is a bunch
of piss-stained Democrats
nervously Googling, "How old
is a person allowed to be?"
But that image of the guy flipping off
the camera was used constantly on Fox
from February through early March.
It was used in at least 66 segments
during that period,
with the man's fingers blurred out,
presumably to protect the eyes
of the innocent children
who are forced to watch Fox News
at Grandma's
while they eat their "dinosaurs lived
with humans" nuggets.
Fox kept hammering their coverage
of that incident,
with perhaps the apex being
a segment where Sean Hannity
did an interview with Curtis Sliwa,
the head of the vigilante group
the Guardian Angels,
live from Times Square.
Now, during the interview, Sliwa's
fellow Angels suddenly mobilized
toward something off-camera.
And he later explained they'd had
to get physical with a migrant
whom they'd seen committing a crime.
Well, he had been shoplifting first.
The Guardian Angel spotted 'em,
stopped him, he resisted,
and let's just say we gave him
a little pain compliance.
His mother back in Venezuela felt
the vibrations.
He's sucking concrete, the cops
scraped him off the asphalt,
he's on his way to jail.
But they'll cut him loose.
We gotta take 42nd Street back,
Sean.
These illegals think they own this
street, they think they rule the night.
This is our country.
If they can't abide by the rules,
then we're gonna kick 'em back
from where they came.
Hold on. First, rule the night
on 42nd Street? I call bullshit.
Anyone who lives here knows
the night there is ruled
by groups of 13-year-olds leaving
"Aladdin" on their way
to the Red Lobster one block away.
Let me say this clearly, immigrants
are not invading our country,
and they are not taking over
42nd Street.
But if they are,
they can fucking have it.
But there's a few other things that
feel important to mention about that.
First, you can't just beat someone up
if you think they're committing a crime.
And second, you should never go out
in public dressed like that.
He looks like Alan Arkin playing
one of the Angry Birds.
He looks like a divorced strawberry.
He looks like if the G.I. Joes had
an off-hours bowling team.
But it gets worse.
Because it turned out,
the man they'd beaten up wasn't
actually a migrant at all,
and there was "no evidence to support
the allegation" he was shoplifting.
It seems like what actually happened
is that Sliwa's goons apprehended
a guy for allegedly attempting
to disrupt a live interview,
which is not a crime
and also not what he did,
since surveillance footage
apparently shows
"he was just trying to maneuver
through the crowd
when the vigilantes confronted him."
But Sliwa said he believed the man
was a migrant
because he was speaking Spanish,
something that could be said
of about roughly 25% of this city.
Including, by the way, me.
Qué vas a hacer, Curtis Sliwa?
Soy inmigrante
y estoy hablando español.
Me vas a mandar tus pendejos,
hijo de puta?
Tu gorra es demasiado estúpida
y tu cara también.
Eres una mierda y no creo
que tu mamá esté orgullosa de ti.
And it turns out, even the "facts"
of the original Times Square incident
that started all of this
fell apart in similar fashion.
Because when more camera
footage came out,
it revealed how the whole incident
had begun,
and made the NYPD look less like
the unwitting victims
and more like the instigators.
NYPD bodycam video takes us inside
that Times Square brawl
that made national headlines.
That and new surveillance video police
released raising more questions
whether the January altercation
should have happened at all.
The two officers approached
a group of men.
Vamos! What's going on?
The crowd is given direction
to please disperse,
that they're blocking the sidewalk.
The video doesn't support that,
as people are seen walking by.
Most of the group immediately moves,
but Yohenry Brito, in yellow,
is the last to leave, telling police,
"Don't touch me."
But when he starts to finally obey
the officer's orders,
pushing the stroller away, the group
begins singing a derogatory song.
And then this.
Immediately after Brito yells,
"Looks like Ugly Betty" to the group,
the officer is shown pushing him
up against a wall.
Yeah, if you watch the wide shot,
it becomes clear
that what set the whole scuffle off
is one cop choosing
to push that guy up against a wall
after the other got called Ugly Betty.
And for what it's worth,
this is what the cop looked like.
And if you're thinking, "Well, he only
kind of looks like Ugly Betty,"
let me remind you, in Latin America,
Ugly Betty looks like this,
and that is a fair hit.
And violence is not an acceptable
response
to someone being insulted
that correctly.
You think there haven't been moments
when I haven't wanted to throw
someone against a wall because
they called me "worst Sheldon"
or "a less sexual Screech"
or "what would happen if the rat and
the chef from 'Ratatouille' fucked?"
Sure, it hurts my feelings, Mom,
but it's also fair,
and it doesn't justify violence.
But wait, because there is one
more twist here.
Remember the guy flipping the double
birds who was on Fox News
at least 66 times?
The symbol of Bigrant crime?
Well, funny story: the Manhattan DA
ended up dismissing the charges
against him because it turned out
he had nothing to do with the incident.
He wasn't even there!
The NYPD apparently mistook him
for a completely different person
for a mystery reason that
I'm sure wasn't racist at all.
So, he was arrested for something
he didn't do, spent two nights in jail,
and then had cameras shoved
in his face.
And I personally cannot think
of a scenario
in which flipping two middle fingers
is more appropriate there.
Honestly, if he could've grown
another hand in that moment,
I wouldn't have blamed him for throwing
up a third bird for good measure.
But the facts that came out
afterwards didn't really matter,
because by then, "migrant crime"
was already out there as a phrase.
Ever since, Fox and the Republicans
have been hammering the idea
that migrants are dangerous.
And because, again, there is no data
to back up claims
of a "migrant crime wave,"
they've instead had to resort
to anecdotes or exaggeration.
For instance, the Republican National
Committee made a website
tracking alleged examples of migrant
crime, called Biden-Bloodbath-dot-com.
If you go to it, you'll find the names
of 13 different states,
which you can click on to find evidence
of so-called "migrant crime" there.
But for four of those states,
when you click through,
you'll find all they're able to cite
is those states' overall rates
of fentanyl deaths.
And look, those deaths were tragic.
But you cannot connect them
to migrant crime, given that,
to the extent fentanyl has been
seized at the border,
90% of the time, it was seized
during legal crossings,
and 91% of those seizures
were from U.S. citizens.
Which, of course they were. If you want
to move drugs across the border,
you're going to do it
with American citizens,
because they attract less attention
from authorities.
I'm not telling you how to move drugs,
but if you are going to,
that is the only smart way to do it.
I have just told you
how to move drugs.
As for people crossing illegally,
just 0.009% of people arrested by
Border Patrol last year were found
to possess any fentanyl whatsoever.
So, and I cannot believe
I'm saying this,
but I don't know if Biden-Bloodbath
dot-com is the reliable source of news
that we all thought it was.
And look, I am not saying that there
haven't been individual migrants
who've committed crimes.
Of course, there have.
Because migrants are people,
and some people do bad things.
In the same way some ABBA fans,
and some people with SpongeBob
tattoos have committed crimes.
And if it so happens that there
is someone out there
who is a migrant ABBA fan
with multiple SpongeBob tattoos,
the only thing they're likely
to be guilty of
is being an utterly fascinating human
being. What is your story, dude?
I have so many questions about
what brought you to this point.
The thing is, if you want to prevent
crime and death,
that's a great idea, and there
are absolutely ways to do that.
But when you draw a circle around
a few members of a particular group,
especially one identifiable
by race or nationality,
then generalize about what
this means about all of them,
no matter what you say,
you're not having a reasoned debate
about crime or safety.
You're being racist.
And the depressing thing is, all this
fearmongering has been effective.
Over 70% of Republicans now believe
there is a high risk
of people illegally coming
to the U.S. and committing crimes,
something which, again, is
demonstrably and provably false.
As we know, immigrants aren't
causing more crime in this country.
If they're leading to more of anything,
it's more good food
and more people who cannot believe
how mean we are to our moms.
And what is doubly infuriating
is that too many Democrats have
been willing to go along
with this false narrative.
Biden has repeatedly been pressured
into imposing
stricter immigration restrictions,
most recently in June,
when he imposed sweeping
new asylum restrictions
for the U.S.-Mexico border.
Earlier this year, he actually pushed
for an even tougher immigration bill,
which Trump explicitly told
Republicans not to support,
"arguing it would give the Democrats
a political victory",
suggesting none of this is about safety
at all, it's entirely self-serving.
And that absurd Times Square incident
that supercharged
this whole migrant crime panic
nonsense ended up pushing
some Democratic leaders into stupid
public statements, like this one,
from Governor Kathy Hochul,
who had this to say about
the migrants who'd been blamed.
Get them all and send them back.
You don't touch our police officers.
You don't touch anyone.
Yeah, it's true, you don't touch anyone
in New York City, do you?
Unless, it seems, someone
calls your friend "Ugly Betty,"
or you happen to be dressed
as a Parisian tomato
and hear someone speaking Spanish,
in which case, all bets are off.
And the thing is, even after so much
of that Times Square story unraveled,
some of the people caught up in it have
continued to pay a significant price.
Two of the people who were there,
neither of whom were accused
of touching the officers
were detained for months
on Rikers Island.
And one is still there.
Look, for the last time,
migrant crime is not on the rise.
That is a fact.
What is also a fact, though,
is that people now feel that it is.
And that feeling has the potential
to cause massive harm.
And all of this is making solving the
genuine issues around immigration,
like dealing with the massive backlog
in our immigration courts,
and providing cities help in sheltering
and supporting migrants
awaiting asylum hearings
that much harder.
So, what can we do?
Well, I don't know if you've noticed,
but we're currently four months out
from an election,
so just assume that the underlying "what
can we do" for most of our U.S. stories
from now until then is gonna be
"do not vote for Donald Trump".
Again, that seems like that should
be barely worth saying,
like "drink water"
or "go to the dentist,"
but it does bear repeating because,
be honest,
when was the last time you drank water
or, indeed, went to the dentist?
Exactly. And look, I'm not saying
by any means that Biden is perfect,
or even good when it comes
to immigration.
But he, or whoever winds up being
the Democratic candidate,
because who on Earth knows
anything about that right now,
is going to be incontrovertibly better
than the alternative.
And I know this has been
a bleak few weeks.
And it's been incredibly depressing
to see reports
of anonymous Democrat leaders
saying things like,
"We've all resigned ourselves
to a second Trump presidency."
Because frankly, fuck that!
There is just too much on the line here
to give up like that.
Trump and the bigots around him plan
to use his victory
to make immigrants' lives hell.
And he is not exactly hiding that.
They're sending their murderers
to the United States of America.
This is gonna be very bad.
And bad things are going to happen,
you're seeing it happen all the time.
That's why, to keep our families safe,
the Republican platform promises
to launch
the largest deportation operation
in the history of our country.
Yeah. I mean, he's saying it pretty
much all out loud there,
to enthusiastic cheers from a crowd,
some of whom have cheese
on their heads.
And he's not making that up, either,
that is the Republican Party's
official position now.
Their new platform calls for
"the largest deportation operation
in American history."
They even made official signs
for people to wave,
reading "Mass deportation now!"
And even if the courts slow
that attempt down,
which is by no means a guarantee,
Project 2025 offers them lots of other
bureaucratic ways to hurt immigrants,
from terminating the legal status
of half a million DREAMers
by eliminating staff time to review and
process their renewal applications,
to barring U.S. citizens from qualifying
for federal housing subsidies
if they live with anyone who
is not a U.S. citizen
or legal permanent resident.
Those plans are outrageous,
and if Trump wins,
they could be public policy.
And Democratic leaders cannot sit back
and resign themselves to that.
There are so many things that we,
as Americans,
do have to resign ourselves to:
airline cancellations, a national
anthem with too many high notes,
Glen Powell inevitably starring
in a "Field of Dreams" remake.
We can't fight those things.
But we can and must fight this.
And at the end of this week, it should
be clear to absolutely everyone:
it doesn't matter if Trump and his party
say they have a "new tone"
or nominally call for "unity," or throw
a cute dog onstage for some reason.
They have told us who they are,
they've told us what they want,
they literally put it on a sign
and waved it in everyone's face.
They are trying to win this election
by pointing a finger at immigrants,
and the only appropriate response
is to take a cue
from the so-called
"symbol of the Biden presidency"
and say, "fuck that shit".
And now, this.
And Now: A Few More Highlights from
the Republican National Convention.
You didn't really expect that, did you?
We were at Mar-a-Lago,
and someone came up to him, said,
"Mr. Trump, Rod Stewart just walked in."
And he said, "I don't care.
This is Ben Carson."
Donald Trump, 21 club championships.
Joe Biden, zero.
You want to be a rebel?
You want to be a hippie?
You want to stick it to the man?
Show up on your college campus and
try calling yourself a conservative.
I soon went from making waffles
to making history.
The only speech or poem or song that
I ever made my kids memorize
when they were young,
when they were little,
it was the Gettysburg Address.
You'll never hear me say
I'm on God's side, or God's with me,
or even I'm with God.
This morning, I did walk out
of a federal prison.
And I haven't even started my hot
flashes yet, guys. Just wait.
No Rogaine in the propane flows!
The chosen one, I'm the living proof!
This is our last chance
to make America great again!
I was bleeding like a pig, and I'd won
the world title,
right in front of Donald J. Trump.
Thank you, Kid Rock,
sometimes referred to as Bob.
Say fight! Fight!
Say Trump! Trump!
Moving on. Finally, tonight,
a quick word about sports:
everyone loves the big, popular sports
in this country, like "real football,"
"fake football," "ping pong, but big,"
"let's see how quickly
we need an ambulance,"
"waiting for something to happen
while standing patiently in a field,"
and, of course, pickleball,"
the thing that keeps white suburban
moms off QAnon subreddits."
As you probably know, the Summer
Olympics open in Paris on Friday,
and while they're about
to get a ton of attention,
I'd like to focus on a different
international sporting event
that's actually coming up
a year from now:
The World Games. And I'll let
CBS News explain what they are.
You may not have heard
of the World Games,
but they've been held
for more than 40 years.
34 sports, most you're probably
seeing for the first time.
Swimming, but with fins.
Speed skating using inline skates.
And drone racing through gates,
around obstacles, against the clock.
They're the emerging sports.
These are the fastest-growing sports
under the Olympic movement,
and this is their proving ground.
So, these sports are auditioning
for a spot in the Olympics.
This is their audition to be on
the Summer Olympic platform.
The World Games features a wide
array of unconventional sports,
from drone racing,
to angry kayak traffic jams,
to swimming while dressed in what
I can only describe as fish drag.
If the regular Olympics
are Disney World,
think of the World Games as an
alleyway near Times Square
filled with four angry Olafs.
And by the way, I'm not saying that
as a bad thing.
The World Games are amazing.
They started in 1981,
and have traditionally involved
some sports so obscure,
even announcers during the opening
ceremonies have had to explain
what they are, as they did
at the 1997 Games in Finland.
Floorball, cross between
field hockey and bandy.
Military pentathlon, very much based
on modern pentathlon,
but with a military feel.
Grenade throwing
is one of the elements.
Pesapallo, which is a Finnish game
based on baseball.
I'm sorry,
did he just say, "grenade throwing"?
And he's not actually kidding
about that.
There is a grenade-throwing component
to the military pentathlon,
which sounds cool until you see it
in action, and realize, disappointingly,
they're not using live grenades,
and nothing is exploding.
So, honestly, they could be throwing
any round object
that weighs around a pound.
They could be tossing guinea pigs, and
it'd essentially be the same event.
Now, to be fair, some sports are
more familiar, like tug-of-war,
or self-explanatory,
like sport climbing.
And fun fact: one of that sport's stars
is Adam Ondra,
a Czech climber who won The World
Games Athlete of the Year award
in 2014, and who's been described
as "a bit of yeller"
because he's known for getting his
vocal cords involved when he climbs,
like this.
Holy shit! That sounds less
like someone climbing rocks,
and more like Jim Cramer
reaching a sexual climax.
Now, other sports are a twist
on familiar events,
like artistic roller skating, basically,
figure skating on roller skates,
while wearing outfits
that ask the question
"What if Iron Man shared Bob
Mackie's passion for sequins?"
But others are less flashy,
like orienteering,
where you essentially jog through
the woods to find checkpoints
using a map and a compass.
It's a sport described by a former
member of the U.S. national team
like this.
So, there's these orange and white
flags hanging in the woods
with an electronic beeper on top.
So, at each control,
you punch in, and it goes beep.
A course that's three kilometers long
could take you, you know, 20 minutes.
Gotta cross the line.
It appeals to a certain type of person.
I call them young nerds.
Yeah, that makes sense.
To be good at orienteering,
you have to be young enough
to run through the woods without
hurting yourself, and nerdy enough
to be good at using paper maps
in the present day,
a time when, if you Google, "Where
can I buy a paper map?"
it just replies, "Why?"
If you're only interested in watching
a bunch of people fighting over a ball,
The World Games
has you covered there, too!
There's fistball,
which is like volleyball, but angrier,
floorball, which is like hockey,
but less angry;
and korfball, a mixed-gender
basketball-adjacent sport.
There are also water-based
competitions, like lifesaving,
which includes an element
called "manikin carry"
where swimmers rescue a water-logged
dummy and schlep it to safety;
and trick waterskiing, which, frankly,
just looks like Jesus showing off.
And finally, there are air sports, like
skydiving, either solo or in a group,
and paramotoring, which is when
you mount a propeller onto your body
with a harness and try your best
not to die.
And I'm sorry, but even Boeing
is looking at that and thinking,
"I dunno, man, that doesn't seem
like a safe aircraft."
Fun fact: if you Google "paramotoring,"
one of the first results you get is,
and this is true,
a website for injury attorneys.
But it's not just The World Games
events that can be magnificently weird.
It's also the pageantry around them.
Because while the Olympics is likely
to be lauded for its opening ceremony
on Friday,
I guarantee you that Paris won't
be able to produce anything
as unforgettably weird as this moment
from the closing ceremony
of the '93 World Games in the Hague,
featuring a frog character
that's both lackluster
and somehow wildly culturally
insensitive.
Sodachi the frog goes on a journey.
The World Games 1993 in the Hague
are over and done with.
South Africa is the next stop in 1997.
You know what,
I don't usually do this,
but I want you to pause this right now
and write down what
you think you just saw.
I don't want to do this for you,
just write down what you feel
you just witnessed there.
Then come back and I'll tell you
what to think. Okay?
You back?
Here's what I think that was.
Someone in not-not blackface dressed
like Eminem from 2008
or Justin Bieber from 2019
is being sealed back up
into what was a lily pad-like platform
and has now taken the shape
of a Georgia O'Keefe vagina flower
cosplaying Audrey II
from "Little Shop of Horrors".
Audrey the Clit is then wheeled
on what is probably one of those
little gym scooters from gym class
into a coven of sewn-in ghosts
in their lair
like what looks like
a gossamer placenta,
all while two '50s bellhops
and/or Polar Express conductors
wave a stoic goodbye.
That's what I got from that.
I don't know what you had,
but there are no wrong answers
when it comes to that shit!
Next year's World Games will
apparently be in Chengdu, China,
and they've already been promoting it
with a panda named Mr. Panda
who's been filmed enjoying activities
like playing tug-of-war,
hugging people on mass transit,
and seeming to beat the ever-living
shit out of someone.
You might be thinking, "Why are you
telling me about any of this right now?"
Well, first, I dunno. The world's
a pretty shitty place right now.
Do you not want to be told
about Mr. Panda?
Would you rather talk about
how someone managed
to get a semiautomatic rifle
past the Secret Service?
Or are we allowed to have some
fucking fun for a second!?
Please let me have this!
But also, that's not actually
the only reason.
Because it turns out, The World Games'
website includes a suggestion box,
where fans are able to "submit
your idea" for literally anything.
That's right, they take requests.
And while they apparently already
have a list of sports for next year,
I'm hoping that if we engage now, we
can persuade them to add another.
Because while I love every
batshit event you've seen so far,
I do think they can get even weirder.
Perhaps they can include BladeSports,
a real form of competition where
you run around with a sharp blade
and chop up random objects.
Here is a taste.
Yeah, it's really good!
From the water bottle slashing
to a man in jeans elegantly performing
a rope bris.
It's basically celebrating what would
happen if a chef went off the deep end,
and I think it needs to be on the
global stage. Or, you know what?
How about combat juggling?
Another real sport
that's exactly as incredible
as it sounds.
This is the sport of combat juggling.
An aggressive form
of object manipulation
combined with debilitating attacks.
Each player must maintain control
over three clubs at all times.
The temptation to smash the other guy
in the face must be overwhelming.
That is an absolute masterclass in
saying what your entire audience
is thinking. "Yeah, thanks
for rehashing the rules, Dave,
but I think we can all agree,
it's incredible that the primitive urge
to fucking smash is being restrained
at this moment."
And that is just the start.
What about bog snorkeling?
Basically, snorkeling,
but in filthy water.
Or chess boxing,
which asks the question,
"Can you play chess
with a concussion?"
Or even toe wrestling?
Wrestling with toes!
It was apparently invented in 1976
in "an attempt to find a new sport
for British people to dominate.
Look, we took the end of empire hard.
The point is, there are
no bad suggestions here.
Though, I'll be honest, the one I want
to see is BladeSports.
Because who doesn't want to see
people all over the world, in denim,
competing to see
who does this the best?
Yes! I love that so much!
So, whatever sport you want to see,
but definitely BladeSports
just go to The-World-Games-dot-org,
scroll down to the suggestion box,
and type "BladeSports!"
or "BladeSports please,"
or "BladeSports, chop chop!",
which is both a directive
and a fun description
for other BladeSports fans,
which I have been ever since I learned
about BladeSports exactly 36 hours ago.
Do it right now, and we can have a
World Games next year that we want,
but deep down know
we don't fully deserve.
And what better way to end this show
than in the traditional
World Games manner
that is, by having two bellhops
escort me
toward a swarm of undulating freaks
dressed like sentient sheets
of wet toilet paper
while my bellhops wave me goodbye.
That is our show,
thank you so much for watching.
We will see you next week,
good night!
Thank you. Goodbye, bellhops!
Farewell! I must leave you now.
Thank you, freaks!
Thank you, undulating sheets!
We must go! Farewell!
I want BladeSports!
Give me BladeSports!
Welcome, welcome, welcome
to Last Week Tonight! I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
We are back!
We've been away for nearly a month,
but luckily, we didn't miss much.
The U.K. kicked the Tories
out after 14 years,
France narrowly managed to keep
the far right out of power,
and Kendrick Lamar released the video
for the spectacularly hostile
"Not Like Us" on the Fourth of July,
and that is the end of the good
things that happened.
Because there was also
a catastrophic debate
where Biden gave a performance
that, in any other context,
would've prompted a family group chat
about Grandpa's mental state so tense
it'd rival 2010's meltdown
over the question,
"why don't we have a vegan
Thanksgiving this year?"
Also, notably,
Trump got shot in the ear,
then Biden said he'd consider dropping
out if he had a medical condition,
just before it was announced
that he'd got Covid.
The news is moving so fast,
we are taping on Saturday,
and who knows where things will be
by the time you actually watch this?
We don't even have time to get into
the possible attempt at a military coup
in Bolivia after soldiers rammed
the doors of the presidential palace,
an incident that led one local sandwich
shop to produce this bold promotion.
This is the moment to make the most
of your coup platter promo.
In your list of staple foods,
you can't miss your changuchón.
Make the most of this promo,
and if you place your order mentioning
that you want to stock up
for the next coup, as a gift,
we will add an extra crunchy
pork rind, totally free.
That is real!
They launched a coup-themed
promotion to sell more sandwiches,
a level of turning national instability
into a fast-food opportunity
that should frankly
put America to shame.
Where the fuck is Pizza Hut's
post assassination-attempt
stuffed crust special?
This country is coasting!
We used to be good at this!
But we're gonna jump right
into our main story tonight,
which concerns
the Republican National Convention,
the worst thing to happen
to Milwaukee since Jeffrey Dahmer.
This week saw the usual pageant
of prominent politicians onstage,
and abject weirdos in the audience
from attendees wearing bandages
on their ears to match Trump's,
to this guy crashing a reporter's shot
in a "Where is the Epstein client list?"
T-shirt,
to this woman
in a "Bride to Be" sash,
having the most cursed bachelorette
party in existence.
It feels like she told her bridesmaids
she wanted to see a bunch of dicks
on stage, and they tragically
misunderstood the assignment.
Although to be fair, if anything
screams "last night of freedom",
it is the Republican
National Convention.
There was also Hulk Hogan
tearing his shirt off,
Kid Rock scream-singing to a crowd
that was either not into it
or way too into it,
and a speech from Perry Johnson,
a failed presidential candidate
from Michigan,
who put his all into rallying the crowd,
only to be played off by the band
with the best possible song choice.
President Trump is ready
to save our country,
to make America great again, again!
I'm ready to do whatever is necessary
to get Trump back in the White House!
Are you with me? Yes!
Trump! Trump! Trump! Let's do it!
Somebody once told me the world
is gonna roll me,
I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.
Yeah, he got Smash Mouthed!
And while there is never a good time
to play that song,
the funniest time for the lyric
"not the sharpest tool in the shed"
is immediately following
a pro-Trump speech by a man
who apparently showed both
his plastic surgeon and hair stylist
a photo of Holland Taylor
and said, "This, please."
Now, going into the week,
we were repeatedly told that,
in the wake of the assassination
attempt on Trump,
we should expect something
very different from this convention.
Trump claims the moment
has now changed him.
He says he will adopt a different tone
going forward in this campaign.
Look, this is going to be
a different tone.
The attack on Trump has changed
the storyline
and the tone of this convention, with
the former president calling for unity.
Yeah, but that was never gonna happen.
Because you expect to see
certain things at the RNC,
elephant logos, cowboy hats,
a massive spike in Grindr usage,
but a message of unity is not something
traditionally associated
with that event, or indeed, this man.
And unsurprisingly,
the RNC was in no way toned down.
The Democrats' disastrous record
on crime, trade,
and regulation has ruined the lives
of countless Minnesotans.
Democrats come for your kids.
They're indoctrinating them with
poisonous attitudes on race and gender.
We'll become totally unhinged
if Donald Trump is not elected
in November.
All of that was awful, but that last
camera cut was just spectacular.
If you had asked me, "What is next
to this guy, just out of the frame?"
and given me a thousand guesses,
there is no way I'm saying,
"a lumpy bulldog lounging
in an armchair
like it's being interviewed
at the 92nd Street Y".
And do not drag a bulldog to the RNC.
Life is hard enough for them.
To have the soul of a wolf trapped
inside the body
of a wrinkly bowling ball?
To be inbred over centuries into
the perfect genetic car crash?
That dog doesn't deserve to be made
into a prop at the RNC.
It deserves a rawhide bone
and an apology from humanity.
And that was all before
we got to Trump's bonkers
90-minute-plus speech on Thursday,
in which he initially promised that
he was running
to be "president of all of America,
not half of America,"
but quickly went off-prompter
to rant about "crazy Nancy Pelosi"
and the "China virus," and repeatedly
suggest the 2020 election was stolen.
But the big theme that he and so many
other speakers kept returning to
this week was this.
We have to stop the invasion
into our country
that's killing hundreds of thousands
of people a year.
Biden has welcomed into our country
rapists,
murderers, even terrorists.
And we are facing an unprecedented
invasion of millions of illegal aliens
across our southern border.
It looks like and it feels like
an invasion because it is.
We are facing an invasion
on our southern border.
Not figuratively, a literal invasion.
I do not like that man Ted Cruz.
I do not like his toxic views.
I do not like his nasty speeches.
I do not like the shit he preaches.
I do not like him when he fishes.
I do not like him when he kisses.
Pulling off that beard, he ain't.
That man Ted Cruz looks like a taint.
I know the Republican Party gets
a lot of shit for only landing
D-list celebrities,
but I do have to hand it to them:
booking the actual pair from
the American Gothic painting
was a pretty good get.
And look, it's no accident Republicans
were focusing so hard on immigration,
recent polling shows it's the second
most important issue among Americans.
But a big reason for that is the
relentless, bad-faith fearmongering
around the issue
by the Republican Party itself,
perhaps best summed up
by the startling growth this year
of the toxic phrase "migrant crime".
Now, starting in late January,
Fox began using it a lot,
and always to build
a very specific narrative.
Concerns of a migrant crime wave
are growing across New York City.
Every third day, there's a story
about some sort of migrant crime.
There's a migrant crime spree
killing Americans,
and the president's an accessory
to murder.
Yeah. Out of nowhere, there was
a surge in talk of "migrant crime,"
which went from occasional mentions
in December and January
to over 300 mentions in February.
Basically, "migrant crime" is a phrase
that seemed to come out of nowhere,
and then was suddenly
all over the place,
like "what the sigma"
and "skibidi toilet".
And by the way, those are real phrases
used by the younger generations.
Or, they were, until I just ruined them
by having them slide out
of my old mouth.
And as the use of that term
skyrocketed,
there was a correlating spike
in concern about immigration,
with the number of Americans who
viewed it as their number one issue
jumping eight points
between January and February.
But this wasn't reflecting anything
happening in the real world,
because to be very clear,
there is no "migrant crime wave"
happening right now.
In fact, there is no crime wave at all.
Crime in general has been trending
downward in recent years,
including this one, with murder,
rape, robbery, and property crime
all decreasing, even as talk of migrants
committing those crimes has exploded.
As for migrant crime specifically,
experts will tell you there
is no evidence of a relationship
between somebody's immigrant status
and their involvement in crime.
In fact, while most states don't track
crime data by immigration status,
in the one state that does, Texas,
researchers have found
"the illegal immigrant criminal
conviction rate is roughly 45% below
that of native-born Americans."
And yet, despite that, there has been
a wave of conservatives claiming
there is a wave of migrant crime
and that is almost definitely going
to be continuing until November.
So, given that, tonight, let's talk
about migrant crime.
And let's start with where exactly
the term came from.
Because if you listen to Trump,
which obviously you should not,
he'll say it was all his idea.
It's a new, it's a new category.
I don't know if you've heard this,
but I came up with this one:
migrant crime.
There's crime. There's violent
crime. There's migrant crime.
We have a new category of crime.
It's called migrant crime.
And it's gonna be worse
than any other form of crime.
Okay, obviously,
that is not a new category of crime,
and obviously he didn't invent it,
because you can't invent putting
two words together.
Although, I will say, he has tried
to innovate the phrase.
At one point this year,
he told an audience
that "it should be called Biden
migrant crime, but that's too long,"
which is true.
And luckily, he workshopped a solution
to that problem in real time.
Because Joe Biden allowed this
to happen, we will call it from now on
"Biden migrant crime".
It's Bigrant crime.
I got it, Bigrant.
Let's call it Bigrant. Biden crime.
That's good. That's smart.
Bigrant crime.
Okay, I'll give him this: he did coin
the term "Bigrant crime".
You can have that one, Doniel.
It is the stupidest term
I've ever heard, but it is all yours.
And I love the fact that he literally
pointed to his head when he said,
"That's smart."
Almost like he was saying,
"I know where thoughts come from,
and it's not here, or here.
Here. It's here.
This is where the smart comes from.
I call it my smart lump, or smump.
I came up with that one, too."
But if you go back and actually look,
the event that prompted first Fox,
and then Trump, to start pushing
the term "migrant crime"
was a brawl that happened on January
27th of this year in Times Square.
You may even remember the police
released this 45-second clip of officers
fighting with a group of migrants.
It got a ton of play on Fox,
where one particular detail about what
happened afterward got extra attention.
A gang of migrants broke into the
country, pummeled two NYPD officers,
and while walking out of jail
without bail,
flipped the double bird to the country
that let them in.
The two birds heard around the world.
The symbol of the Biden presidency,
right there.
Okay, for the record,
the symbol for the Biden presidency
is absolutely not two birds.
As we all know, it is a bunch
of piss-stained Democrats
nervously Googling, "How old
is a person allowed to be?"
But that image of the guy flipping off
the camera was used constantly on Fox
from February through early March.
It was used in at least 66 segments
during that period,
with the man's fingers blurred out,
presumably to protect the eyes
of the innocent children
who are forced to watch Fox News
at Grandma's
while they eat their "dinosaurs lived
with humans" nuggets.
Fox kept hammering their coverage
of that incident,
with perhaps the apex being
a segment where Sean Hannity
did an interview with Curtis Sliwa,
the head of the vigilante group
the Guardian Angels,
live from Times Square.
Now, during the interview, Sliwa's
fellow Angels suddenly mobilized
toward something off-camera.
And he later explained they'd had
to get physical with a migrant
whom they'd seen committing a crime.
Well, he had been shoplifting first.
The Guardian Angel spotted 'em,
stopped him, he resisted,
and let's just say we gave him
a little pain compliance.
His mother back in Venezuela felt
the vibrations.
He's sucking concrete, the cops
scraped him off the asphalt,
he's on his way to jail.
But they'll cut him loose.
We gotta take 42nd Street back,
Sean.
These illegals think they own this
street, they think they rule the night.
This is our country.
If they can't abide by the rules,
then we're gonna kick 'em back
from where they came.
Hold on. First, rule the night
on 42nd Street? I call bullshit.
Anyone who lives here knows
the night there is ruled
by groups of 13-year-olds leaving
"Aladdin" on their way
to the Red Lobster one block away.
Let me say this clearly, immigrants
are not invading our country,
and they are not taking over
42nd Street.
But if they are,
they can fucking have it.
But there's a few other things that
feel important to mention about that.
First, you can't just beat someone up
if you think they're committing a crime.
And second, you should never go out
in public dressed like that.
He looks like Alan Arkin playing
one of the Angry Birds.
He looks like a divorced strawberry.
He looks like if the G.I. Joes had
an off-hours bowling team.
But it gets worse.
Because it turned out,
the man they'd beaten up wasn't
actually a migrant at all,
and there was "no evidence to support
the allegation" he was shoplifting.
It seems like what actually happened
is that Sliwa's goons apprehended
a guy for allegedly attempting
to disrupt a live interview,
which is not a crime
and also not what he did,
since surveillance footage
apparently shows
"he was just trying to maneuver
through the crowd
when the vigilantes confronted him."
But Sliwa said he believed the man
was a migrant
because he was speaking Spanish,
something that could be said
of about roughly 25% of this city.
Including, by the way, me.
Qué vas a hacer, Curtis Sliwa?
Soy inmigrante
y estoy hablando español.
Me vas a mandar tus pendejos,
hijo de puta?
Tu gorra es demasiado estúpida
y tu cara también.
Eres una mierda y no creo
que tu mamá esté orgullosa de ti.
And it turns out, even the "facts"
of the original Times Square incident
that started all of this
fell apart in similar fashion.
Because when more camera
footage came out,
it revealed how the whole incident
had begun,
and made the NYPD look less like
the unwitting victims
and more like the instigators.
NYPD bodycam video takes us inside
that Times Square brawl
that made national headlines.
That and new surveillance video police
released raising more questions
whether the January altercation
should have happened at all.
The two officers approached
a group of men.
Vamos! What's going on?
The crowd is given direction
to please disperse,
that they're blocking the sidewalk.
The video doesn't support that,
as people are seen walking by.
Most of the group immediately moves,
but Yohenry Brito, in yellow,
is the last to leave, telling police,
"Don't touch me."
But when he starts to finally obey
the officer's orders,
pushing the stroller away, the group
begins singing a derogatory song.
And then this.
Immediately after Brito yells,
"Looks like Ugly Betty" to the group,
the officer is shown pushing him
up against a wall.
Yeah, if you watch the wide shot,
it becomes clear
that what set the whole scuffle off
is one cop choosing
to push that guy up against a wall
after the other got called Ugly Betty.
And for what it's worth,
this is what the cop looked like.
And if you're thinking, "Well, he only
kind of looks like Ugly Betty,"
let me remind you, in Latin America,
Ugly Betty looks like this,
and that is a fair hit.
And violence is not an acceptable
response
to someone being insulted
that correctly.
You think there haven't been moments
when I haven't wanted to throw
someone against a wall because
they called me "worst Sheldon"
or "a less sexual Screech"
or "what would happen if the rat and
the chef from 'Ratatouille' fucked?"
Sure, it hurts my feelings, Mom,
but it's also fair,
and it doesn't justify violence.
But wait, because there is one
more twist here.
Remember the guy flipping the double
birds who was on Fox News
at least 66 times?
The symbol of Bigrant crime?
Well, funny story: the Manhattan DA
ended up dismissing the charges
against him because it turned out
he had nothing to do with the incident.
He wasn't even there!
The NYPD apparently mistook him
for a completely different person
for a mystery reason that
I'm sure wasn't racist at all.
So, he was arrested for something
he didn't do, spent two nights in jail,
and then had cameras shoved
in his face.
And I personally cannot think
of a scenario
in which flipping two middle fingers
is more appropriate there.
Honestly, if he could've grown
another hand in that moment,
I wouldn't have blamed him for throwing
up a third bird for good measure.
But the facts that came out
afterwards didn't really matter,
because by then, "migrant crime"
was already out there as a phrase.
Ever since, Fox and the Republicans
have been hammering the idea
that migrants are dangerous.
And because, again, there is no data
to back up claims
of a "migrant crime wave,"
they've instead had to resort
to anecdotes or exaggeration.
For instance, the Republican National
Committee made a website
tracking alleged examples of migrant
crime, called Biden-Bloodbath-dot-com.
If you go to it, you'll find the names
of 13 different states,
which you can click on to find evidence
of so-called "migrant crime" there.
But for four of those states,
when you click through,
you'll find all they're able to cite
is those states' overall rates
of fentanyl deaths.
And look, those deaths were tragic.
But you cannot connect them
to migrant crime, given that,
to the extent fentanyl has been
seized at the border,
90% of the time, it was seized
during legal crossings,
and 91% of those seizures
were from U.S. citizens.
Which, of course they were. If you want
to move drugs across the border,
you're going to do it
with American citizens,
because they attract less attention
from authorities.
I'm not telling you how to move drugs,
but if you are going to,
that is the only smart way to do it.
I have just told you
how to move drugs.
As for people crossing illegally,
just 0.009% of people arrested by
Border Patrol last year were found
to possess any fentanyl whatsoever.
So, and I cannot believe
I'm saying this,
but I don't know if Biden-Bloodbath
dot-com is the reliable source of news
that we all thought it was.
And look, I am not saying that there
haven't been individual migrants
who've committed crimes.
Of course, there have.
Because migrants are people,
and some people do bad things.
In the same way some ABBA fans,
and some people with SpongeBob
tattoos have committed crimes.
And if it so happens that there
is someone out there
who is a migrant ABBA fan
with multiple SpongeBob tattoos,
the only thing they're likely
to be guilty of
is being an utterly fascinating human
being. What is your story, dude?
I have so many questions about
what brought you to this point.
The thing is, if you want to prevent
crime and death,
that's a great idea, and there
are absolutely ways to do that.
But when you draw a circle around
a few members of a particular group,
especially one identifiable
by race or nationality,
then generalize about what
this means about all of them,
no matter what you say,
you're not having a reasoned debate
about crime or safety.
You're being racist.
And the depressing thing is, all this
fearmongering has been effective.
Over 70% of Republicans now believe
there is a high risk
of people illegally coming
to the U.S. and committing crimes,
something which, again, is
demonstrably and provably false.
As we know, immigrants aren't
causing more crime in this country.
If they're leading to more of anything,
it's more good food
and more people who cannot believe
how mean we are to our moms.
And what is doubly infuriating
is that too many Democrats have
been willing to go along
with this false narrative.
Biden has repeatedly been pressured
into imposing
stricter immigration restrictions,
most recently in June,
when he imposed sweeping
new asylum restrictions
for the U.S.-Mexico border.
Earlier this year, he actually pushed
for an even tougher immigration bill,
which Trump explicitly told
Republicans not to support,
"arguing it would give the Democrats
a political victory",
suggesting none of this is about safety
at all, it's entirely self-serving.
And that absurd Times Square incident
that supercharged
this whole migrant crime panic
nonsense ended up pushing
some Democratic leaders into stupid
public statements, like this one,
from Governor Kathy Hochul,
who had this to say about
the migrants who'd been blamed.
Get them all and send them back.
You don't touch our police officers.
You don't touch anyone.
Yeah, it's true, you don't touch anyone
in New York City, do you?
Unless, it seems, someone
calls your friend "Ugly Betty,"
or you happen to be dressed
as a Parisian tomato
and hear someone speaking Spanish,
in which case, all bets are off.
And the thing is, even after so much
of that Times Square story unraveled,
some of the people caught up in it have
continued to pay a significant price.
Two of the people who were there,
neither of whom were accused
of touching the officers
were detained for months
on Rikers Island.
And one is still there.
Look, for the last time,
migrant crime is not on the rise.
That is a fact.
What is also a fact, though,
is that people now feel that it is.
And that feeling has the potential
to cause massive harm.
And all of this is making solving the
genuine issues around immigration,
like dealing with the massive backlog
in our immigration courts,
and providing cities help in sheltering
and supporting migrants
awaiting asylum hearings
that much harder.
So, what can we do?
Well, I don't know if you've noticed,
but we're currently four months out
from an election,
so just assume that the underlying "what
can we do" for most of our U.S. stories
from now until then is gonna be
"do not vote for Donald Trump".
Again, that seems like that should
be barely worth saying,
like "drink water"
or "go to the dentist,"
but it does bear repeating because,
be honest,
when was the last time you drank water
or, indeed, went to the dentist?
Exactly. And look, I'm not saying
by any means that Biden is perfect,
or even good when it comes
to immigration.
But he, or whoever winds up being
the Democratic candidate,
because who on Earth knows
anything about that right now,
is going to be incontrovertibly better
than the alternative.
And I know this has been
a bleak few weeks.
And it's been incredibly depressing
to see reports
of anonymous Democrat leaders
saying things like,
"We've all resigned ourselves
to a second Trump presidency."
Because frankly, fuck that!
There is just too much on the line here
to give up like that.
Trump and the bigots around him plan
to use his victory
to make immigrants' lives hell.
And he is not exactly hiding that.
They're sending their murderers
to the United States of America.
This is gonna be very bad.
And bad things are going to happen,
you're seeing it happen all the time.
That's why, to keep our families safe,
the Republican platform promises
to launch
the largest deportation operation
in the history of our country.
Yeah. I mean, he's saying it pretty
much all out loud there,
to enthusiastic cheers from a crowd,
some of whom have cheese
on their heads.
And he's not making that up, either,
that is the Republican Party's
official position now.
Their new platform calls for
"the largest deportation operation
in American history."
They even made official signs
for people to wave,
reading "Mass deportation now!"
And even if the courts slow
that attempt down,
which is by no means a guarantee,
Project 2025 offers them lots of other
bureaucratic ways to hurt immigrants,
from terminating the legal status
of half a million DREAMers
by eliminating staff time to review and
process their renewal applications,
to barring U.S. citizens from qualifying
for federal housing subsidies
if they live with anyone who
is not a U.S. citizen
or legal permanent resident.
Those plans are outrageous,
and if Trump wins,
they could be public policy.
And Democratic leaders cannot sit back
and resign themselves to that.
There are so many things that we,
as Americans,
do have to resign ourselves to:
airline cancellations, a national
anthem with too many high notes,
Glen Powell inevitably starring
in a "Field of Dreams" remake.
We can't fight those things.
But we can and must fight this.
And at the end of this week, it should
be clear to absolutely everyone:
it doesn't matter if Trump and his party
say they have a "new tone"
or nominally call for "unity," or throw
a cute dog onstage for some reason.
They have told us who they are,
they've told us what they want,
they literally put it on a sign
and waved it in everyone's face.
They are trying to win this election
by pointing a finger at immigrants,
and the only appropriate response
is to take a cue
from the so-called
"symbol of the Biden presidency"
and say, "fuck that shit".
And now, this.
And Now: A Few More Highlights from
the Republican National Convention.
You didn't really expect that, did you?
We were at Mar-a-Lago,
and someone came up to him, said,
"Mr. Trump, Rod Stewart just walked in."
And he said, "I don't care.
This is Ben Carson."
Donald Trump, 21 club championships.
Joe Biden, zero.
You want to be a rebel?
You want to be a hippie?
You want to stick it to the man?
Show up on your college campus and
try calling yourself a conservative.
I soon went from making waffles
to making history.
The only speech or poem or song that
I ever made my kids memorize
when they were young,
when they were little,
it was the Gettysburg Address.
You'll never hear me say
I'm on God's side, or God's with me,
or even I'm with God.
This morning, I did walk out
of a federal prison.
And I haven't even started my hot
flashes yet, guys. Just wait.
No Rogaine in the propane flows!
The chosen one, I'm the living proof!
This is our last chance
to make America great again!
I was bleeding like a pig, and I'd won
the world title,
right in front of Donald J. Trump.
Thank you, Kid Rock,
sometimes referred to as Bob.
Say fight! Fight!
Say Trump! Trump!
Moving on. Finally, tonight,
a quick word about sports:
everyone loves the big, popular sports
in this country, like "real football,"
"fake football," "ping pong, but big,"
"let's see how quickly
we need an ambulance,"
"waiting for something to happen
while standing patiently in a field,"
and, of course, pickleball,"
the thing that keeps white suburban
moms off QAnon subreddits."
As you probably know, the Summer
Olympics open in Paris on Friday,
and while they're about
to get a ton of attention,
I'd like to focus on a different
international sporting event
that's actually coming up
a year from now:
The World Games. And I'll let
CBS News explain what they are.
You may not have heard
of the World Games,
but they've been held
for more than 40 years.
34 sports, most you're probably
seeing for the first time.
Swimming, but with fins.
Speed skating using inline skates.
And drone racing through gates,
around obstacles, against the clock.
They're the emerging sports.
These are the fastest-growing sports
under the Olympic movement,
and this is their proving ground.
So, these sports are auditioning
for a spot in the Olympics.
This is their audition to be on
the Summer Olympic platform.
The World Games features a wide
array of unconventional sports,
from drone racing,
to angry kayak traffic jams,
to swimming while dressed in what
I can only describe as fish drag.
If the regular Olympics
are Disney World,
think of the World Games as an
alleyway near Times Square
filled with four angry Olafs.
And by the way, I'm not saying that
as a bad thing.
The World Games are amazing.
They started in 1981,
and have traditionally involved
some sports so obscure,
even announcers during the opening
ceremonies have had to explain
what they are, as they did
at the 1997 Games in Finland.
Floorball, cross between
field hockey and bandy.
Military pentathlon, very much based
on modern pentathlon,
but with a military feel.
Grenade throwing
is one of the elements.
Pesapallo, which is a Finnish game
based on baseball.
I'm sorry,
did he just say, "grenade throwing"?
And he's not actually kidding
about that.
There is a grenade-throwing component
to the military pentathlon,
which sounds cool until you see it
in action, and realize, disappointingly,
they're not using live grenades,
and nothing is exploding.
So, honestly, they could be throwing
any round object
that weighs around a pound.
They could be tossing guinea pigs, and
it'd essentially be the same event.
Now, to be fair, some sports are
more familiar, like tug-of-war,
or self-explanatory,
like sport climbing.
And fun fact: one of that sport's stars
is Adam Ondra,
a Czech climber who won The World
Games Athlete of the Year award
in 2014, and who's been described
as "a bit of yeller"
because he's known for getting his
vocal cords involved when he climbs,
like this.
Holy shit! That sounds less
like someone climbing rocks,
and more like Jim Cramer
reaching a sexual climax.
Now, other sports are a twist
on familiar events,
like artistic roller skating, basically,
figure skating on roller skates,
while wearing outfits
that ask the question
"What if Iron Man shared Bob
Mackie's passion for sequins?"
But others are less flashy,
like orienteering,
where you essentially jog through
the woods to find checkpoints
using a map and a compass.
It's a sport described by a former
member of the U.S. national team
like this.
So, there's these orange and white
flags hanging in the woods
with an electronic beeper on top.
So, at each control,
you punch in, and it goes beep.
A course that's three kilometers long
could take you, you know, 20 minutes.
Gotta cross the line.
It appeals to a certain type of person.
I call them young nerds.
Yeah, that makes sense.
To be good at orienteering,
you have to be young enough
to run through the woods without
hurting yourself, and nerdy enough
to be good at using paper maps
in the present day,
a time when, if you Google, "Where
can I buy a paper map?"
it just replies, "Why?"
If you're only interested in watching
a bunch of people fighting over a ball,
The World Games
has you covered there, too!
There's fistball,
which is like volleyball, but angrier,
floorball, which is like hockey,
but less angry;
and korfball, a mixed-gender
basketball-adjacent sport.
There are also water-based
competitions, like lifesaving,
which includes an element
called "manikin carry"
where swimmers rescue a water-logged
dummy and schlep it to safety;
and trick waterskiing, which, frankly,
just looks like Jesus showing off.
And finally, there are air sports, like
skydiving, either solo or in a group,
and paramotoring, which is when
you mount a propeller onto your body
with a harness and try your best
not to die.
And I'm sorry, but even Boeing
is looking at that and thinking,
"I dunno, man, that doesn't seem
like a safe aircraft."
Fun fact: if you Google "paramotoring,"
one of the first results you get is,
and this is true,
a website for injury attorneys.
But it's not just The World Games
events that can be magnificently weird.
It's also the pageantry around them.
Because while the Olympics is likely
to be lauded for its opening ceremony
on Friday,
I guarantee you that Paris won't
be able to produce anything
as unforgettably weird as this moment
from the closing ceremony
of the '93 World Games in the Hague,
featuring a frog character
that's both lackluster
and somehow wildly culturally
insensitive.
Sodachi the frog goes on a journey.
The World Games 1993 in the Hague
are over and done with.
South Africa is the next stop in 1997.
You know what,
I don't usually do this,
but I want you to pause this right now
and write down what
you think you just saw.
I don't want to do this for you,
just write down what you feel
you just witnessed there.
Then come back and I'll tell you
what to think. Okay?
You back?
Here's what I think that was.
Someone in not-not blackface dressed
like Eminem from 2008
or Justin Bieber from 2019
is being sealed back up
into what was a lily pad-like platform
and has now taken the shape
of a Georgia O'Keefe vagina flower
cosplaying Audrey II
from "Little Shop of Horrors".
Audrey the Clit is then wheeled
on what is probably one of those
little gym scooters from gym class
into a coven of sewn-in ghosts
in their lair
like what looks like
a gossamer placenta,
all while two '50s bellhops
and/or Polar Express conductors
wave a stoic goodbye.
That's what I got from that.
I don't know what you had,
but there are no wrong answers
when it comes to that shit!
Next year's World Games will
apparently be in Chengdu, China,
and they've already been promoting it
with a panda named Mr. Panda
who's been filmed enjoying activities
like playing tug-of-war,
hugging people on mass transit,
and seeming to beat the ever-living
shit out of someone.
You might be thinking, "Why are you
telling me about any of this right now?"
Well, first, I dunno. The world's
a pretty shitty place right now.
Do you not want to be told
about Mr. Panda?
Would you rather talk about
how someone managed
to get a semiautomatic rifle
past the Secret Service?
Or are we allowed to have some
fucking fun for a second!?
Please let me have this!
But also, that's not actually
the only reason.
Because it turns out, The World Games'
website includes a suggestion box,
where fans are able to "submit
your idea" for literally anything.
That's right, they take requests.
And while they apparently already
have a list of sports for next year,
I'm hoping that if we engage now, we
can persuade them to add another.
Because while I love every
batshit event you've seen so far,
I do think they can get even weirder.
Perhaps they can include BladeSports,
a real form of competition where
you run around with a sharp blade
and chop up random objects.
Here is a taste.
Yeah, it's really good!
From the water bottle slashing
to a man in jeans elegantly performing
a rope bris.
It's basically celebrating what would
happen if a chef went off the deep end,
and I think it needs to be on the
global stage. Or, you know what?
How about combat juggling?
Another real sport
that's exactly as incredible
as it sounds.
This is the sport of combat juggling.
An aggressive form
of object manipulation
combined with debilitating attacks.
Each player must maintain control
over three clubs at all times.
The temptation to smash the other guy
in the face must be overwhelming.
That is an absolute masterclass in
saying what your entire audience
is thinking. "Yeah, thanks
for rehashing the rules, Dave,
but I think we can all agree,
it's incredible that the primitive urge
to fucking smash is being restrained
at this moment."
And that is just the start.
What about bog snorkeling?
Basically, snorkeling,
but in filthy water.
Or chess boxing,
which asks the question,
"Can you play chess
with a concussion?"
Or even toe wrestling?
Wrestling with toes!
It was apparently invented in 1976
in "an attempt to find a new sport
for British people to dominate.
Look, we took the end of empire hard.
The point is, there are
no bad suggestions here.
Though, I'll be honest, the one I want
to see is BladeSports.
Because who doesn't want to see
people all over the world, in denim,
competing to see
who does this the best?
Yes! I love that so much!
So, whatever sport you want to see,
but definitely BladeSports
just go to The-World-Games-dot-org,
scroll down to the suggestion box,
and type "BladeSports!"
or "BladeSports please,"
or "BladeSports, chop chop!",
which is both a directive
and a fun description
for other BladeSports fans,
which I have been ever since I learned
about BladeSports exactly 36 hours ago.
Do it right now, and we can have a
World Games next year that we want,
but deep down know
we don't fully deserve.
And what better way to end this show
than in the traditional
World Games manner
that is, by having two bellhops
escort me
toward a swarm of undulating freaks
dressed like sentient sheets
of wet toilet paper
while my bellhops wave me goodbye.
That is our show,
thank you so much for watching.
We will see you next week,
good night!
Thank you. Goodbye, bellhops!
Farewell! I must leave you now.
Thank you, freaks!
Thank you, undulating sheets!
We must go! Farewell!
I want BladeSports!
Give me BladeSports!