Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s11e27 Episode Script
Mass Deportation/Lee Greenwood
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver,
thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week!
Israel attacked military targets
in Iran,
and an E. coli outbreak
was tied to McDonald's,
yet was still somehow the second most
revolting thing inside of one this week.
But with the election
just nine days away,
we're gonna do something a bit different
tonight, and cover two main stories,
both related to immigration.
The subject of the Statue
of Liberty's famous inscription:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses, yearning
to breathe free,"
which I believe replaced the original,
"Come in bitches, let's get twisted",
after it was deemed simply too good.
In the final campaign stretch,
Trump's focused relentlessly
on immigration, and it has gotten ugly.
They're coming from 181 countries
as of yesterday.
We're a dumping ground,
we're like a garbage can for the world.
These are stone-cold killers.
They'll walk into your kitchen,
they'll cut your throat.
I don't know if you'd call them people.
In some cases, they're not people,
in my opinion,
but I'm not allowed to say that,
because the radical left says
that's a terrible thing to say.
They're destroying
the blood of our country.
That's what they're doing.
They're destroying our country.
They don't like it when I said that,
and I never read "Mein Kampf".
They said, "Oh, Hitler said that
in a much different way."
For a start, immigrants aren't
destroying the blood of our country.
If anything, Mountain Dew Baja Blast
is doing that,
and let me be the first to say I,
for one, welcome the poison.
But it is wild that Trump's response
to being told he's quoting Hitler is,
"No, he said it differently."
Especially because,
not that differently.
Hitler wrote, "All great cultures
of the past perished
only because the original creative race
died out from blood poisoning."
So, same general idea,
just a bit more coherent.
I guess what I'm saying is, when it
comes to rhetoric, Trump is no Hitler.
But let him cook?
But it is more than just talk
about immigrants.
Trump's also made
a very specific promise.
As soon as I take the oath of office,
we will begin the largest deportation
operation in the history of our country.
Even larger than that of President
Dwight D. Eisenhower many years ago.
He was a big deportation person.
Okay. First, it's a hell of a thing
to be citing Eisenhower,
given his program, which deported
hundreds of thousands of Mexicans,
is widely seen as both a fiasco
and a stain on U.S. history,
while also having a name
I'm literally unwilling to say on TV.
It is one of many facts you may not
have known about Eisenhower,
along with: he was the first president
to ride in a helicopter,
and the first to pose for an official
photo like he's on the cover
of Women's Health Magazine
under the headline,
"How to Feel Fabulous at Any Age!"
Mass deportation is a cornerstone
pledge for the Trump campaign.
It was promoted on signs
at the Republican convention,
and is referenced
in the party's platform.
And it seems
to have widespread backing,
given one survey found it has at least
some support from 54% of Americans,
and 86% of Republicans.
And Trump supporters will tell you they
love the idea of mass deportation,
even if they haven't thought much
about the details.
Those people that are breaking
the laws of this country,
that came across here illegal,
are going to be mass deported.
Mass deportations,
that's what Trump's calling for.
That's millions of people
we're talking about.
The people that are here illegally.
My grandparents came here,
but they did it the right way.
- Millions of people, though.
- I don't care.
I think it has to happen and I think
citizens have to be behind it.
How do you think it's possible to do
that humanely?
I don't know that,
but I'm confident Trump can do it.
Are you? Look, there are things I'm
confident Trump can and will do,
paraphrase Hitler,
emotionally abuse his children,
eventually die on the toilet.
But unlike Aunt Bedazzlehat here,
I don't think figuring out
how to humanely deport millions
of people is one of them.
The fact is, a lot of people seem
to be supporting something right now
whose implications
they may not fully understand.
So given that, tonight, let's talk about
Trump's mass deportation plan.
And before we go any further,
we'll be talking a lot about
the logistics of mass deportation,
but for the record,
the morality of it is despicable.
Immigrants are human beings,
no matter what McDonald's
worst employee says.
Let's start with the sheer size
of what Trump is proposing.
Because his campaign claims there
are 20 to 25 million "illegal aliens",
despite experts saying it's roughly
half that,
with one group placing the number
around 13 million people.
So, they're already off
by the population of Ohio.
But that still leaves the task
of removing 13 million people,
many of whom, incidentally,
are spread throughout the country
and have lived here for decades.
Also, deporting someone isn't
as simple as finding them,
not liking their paperwork,
and putting them on a plane.
It usually requires an arrest,
detention, legal processing,
and only then, removal.
And to carry out over 13 million
arrests in a short period of time,
it's been estimated the government
would need to hire
between 220 and 409,000
new government employees
and law enforcement officers.
As for the detention part,
think for a second what it would
entail to detain 13 million people.
Bear in mind, the most recent data
has the entire U.S. prison and jail
population at around 1.9 million.
And we have a lot of prisons
and jails in this country.
They are kind of our thing.
If we had a slogan,
it should probably be
"America: home of jails
and the KFC Double Down."
And the Trump campaign will sometimes
pretend they've taken this
into consideration. Here's JD Vance
gaming out a possible approach.
Now you've got 20 million,
25 million people.
You have to figure out
what to do with them.
And I guess the way that I think
about it, Bill,
it's kind of like being asked,
"Well, you have a sandwich, and it's
10 times the size of your mouth.
How do you actually eat
the whole thing?"
You take it one bite at a time, right?
And I think you start with
the million most violent,
most criminal illegal alien element.
There's probably, of the 20 million,
there's probably a million
who've committed some violent crime.
That's an estimate. But I think
it's pretty close to the truth.
You deport them first
and you focus on them first.
First, and I know this isn't the point,
but I didn't know Bill O'Reilly
still had a show.
I had the vague, uninterrogated sense
that he died when Roger Ailes did,
either because I thought
they were the same person
or because that seemed like
a plausible murder-suicide.
The subconscious is hard to pin down.
But second, "one bite at a time"
is an incredibly callous way
to refer to mass deportation,
even before you get
to his casual "one million of them
are probably violent criminals,"
a statistic sourced
to "that's an estimate,
but I think it's pretty close
to the truth."
And for the record, to deport just
a million people a year would still cost
an estimated 88 billion annually,
with the majority of that going
toward building detention camps.
Over a decade, that'd cost nearly
a trillion dollars.
To be clear here, my biggest problem
with "we'd spend nearly a trillion
on detention camps for immigrants"
is not the trillion-dollar part.
I don't want to see a headline tomorrow
that says
"John Oliver Blasts Detention
Camps as Too Expensive".
But I do think it's worth recognizing
the extent
to which Trump and Vance are full
of shit from a practical standpoint
as well as a moral one.
But just for the sake of argument,
let's say mass deportation
were a realistic policy.
It still wouldn't solve the problems the
Trump campaign's claiming it would.
In fact, it would make them worse.
Because they're constantly claiming
deportations are the solution
to unemployment, housing prices,
and crime.
So let's take each of those in turn,
starting with jobs.
Historically, deportation has actually
increased unemployment in this country.
A study of the Obama years found
that "when 500,000 undocumented
immigrant workers were forced out
of the country, 44,000 fewer jobs
were held by U.S.-born workers."
Which may seem counterintuitive.
But what's often happened is,
companies that rely on immigrants
for their customer base or their
workforce end up shutting down.
And as immigrants themselves
will tell you,
they might be the only ones willing
to do certain work.
The thing is, if he wins, he kicks out
all the immigrants.
Those who work here in construction
and everything, they're immigrants.
You're not going to see a gringo
filling his feet with cement
or carrying bricks or carrying this
or cleaning.
You're not going to see it.
That's blunt, but it's true.
There are certain jobs, and whole
industries, reliant on immigrant labor.
In our piece on farm workers,
we showed you a viral video
of a farmer explaining he couldn't hire
enough people to harvest his fields,
so the produce was rotting.
Now, in that particular case,
it was asparagus,
so it was a minor tragedy at best.
But the broader point here stands.
And removing 13 million people who
spend money in their communities
would badly hurt the economy.
In fact, experts have said mass
deportation would lead to a loss
of somewhere between four
and 7% of annual GDP,
which would be a crash on par
with the Great Recession.
And look, I'm not an economist,
despite looking like I was left on
the doorstep of an auditor's office
as a baby, but my understanding is
that the Great Recession was bad.
So that's unemployment.
What about housing?
Because the Trump campaign
is promising mass deportation
will also fix our housing crisis.
This is simple supply and demand,
my friends.
We've got to do two things
to lower the price of housing,
two things to lower the price
of housing for Nevadans.
We've got to build more houses
and we've got to deport
the illegal aliens
so that American homes
go to American citizens.
Okay, even if that wasn't
total bullshit,
JD Vance's very existence is proof
that supply and demand
doesn't always work.
There was no demand for
a business-pilled bearded sycophant
that gets routinely ignored by Trump,
we already have two of those
and we barely even use them.
And yet, here we are with
an unnecessary third.
The fact is, many economists think
"large-scale deportations
could actually backfire
and make the housing crisis worse,"
since, as you just saw pointed out,
undocumented migrants are a key part
of the construction industry,
and "nationally, mass deportation
would remove
one and a half million workers
from the construction workforce,"
including "more than one
in three roofers, ceiling tilers,
stucco masons, plasterers,
and drywall installers."
In fact, one professor who studies
immigration says
that "in the long run, immigrants are
the solution to the housing crisis.
Without immigrants, you can't
increase the supply of housing."
And for what it's worth, JD Vance,
that is actually supply and demand
in action,
not just some bullshit you dreamed up
while between drafts of your next
memoir, "Dingus Sonata",
where I'm guessing you'll solve poverty
by comparing it to a turkey
fucking Reuben.
And finally, there's the claim mass
deportation will reduce violent crime.
As we've discussed before, for all
the coverage isolated incidents get,
research shows immigrants
are less likely to commit crimes
than U.S.-born people,
and FBI data shows violent crime
has actually gone down since 2020.
It's one of the genuinely
good decreases since then,
along with the amount
of Zoom family dinners
and the number of alive
Henry Kissingers.
One was still one too many.
But despite that, Trump's continued
making lurid accusations.
There were his bullshit claims
of pet-eating in Springfield, Ohio,
but he's also falsely claimed Aurora,
Colorado, is the victim
of a Venezuelan gang takeover.
It's an accusation that originated
with this viral video
of men with guns knocking
on an apartment door.
That clip frightened a lot of people,
but to be clear,
the Republican mayor of Aurora
has flat-out said,
"A Venezuelan gang is not in control
of those apartment complexes,"
and the city has not been taken over or
invaded or occupied by migrant gangs.
But none of that stopped Trump
from going to Aurora
to push for mass deportation,
with the help of Stephen Miller,
who even brought along
some visual aids.
Look at all these photos around me.
Are these the kids you grew up with?
Are these the neighbors
you were raised with?
Are these the neighbors
that you want in your city?
No. These are the criminal migrants
that Kamala Harris brought
into your community.
And as swiftly as they came,
Donald Trump will send them back.
Okay, for the record,
if we're talking about someone
you don't want as your neighbor,
Stephen Miller would be top of my list.
Imagine getting up in the morning,
looking across your yard,
and seeing that fucking guy standing
there, looking like a Minion's penis.
Also, quick side note,
if you're wondering what this thing is,
it's a fair question,
and that's a Trumpy Bear.
A stuffed bear with Trump's hair, a tie,
and disturbingly human eyes.
It looks like Paddington Bear
if he had multiple hemorrhoids.
It looks like a Care Bear
that won't stop calling
the other Care Bears gay.
But don't let that bear distract you
from the fact you just saw
a crowd baited into booing pictures
of Hispanic people
who don't look like your neighbors.
At that event, Trump announced plans
for something he calls
"Operation Aurora,"
and his campaign has since
described the city as "a war zone".
That specific language points to what
his real endgame here might look like.
Because while, again, Trump can't
deport 13 million,
or even one million, people overnight,
and mass deportation won't fix any
of the problems he says it will,
he could still use Aurora-style panics
to give himself a ton of power.
Here he is, at that rally,
gaming out a key piece of it.
I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act
of 1798.
Think of that. 1798.
This was put there, 1798,
that's a long time ago, right?
To target and dismantle every migrant
criminal network
operating on American soil.
Okay, 1798 is "a long time ago."
I reluctantly concede that point.
But the act he's describing there
is terrifying.
It's a law that allows for summary
deportation of people
from countries with which
the United States is at war,
that have invaded the U.S.,
or that have engaged
in "predatory incursions".
It was last used during World War II
as the legal authority
for interning immigrants of Japanese,
German, and Italian descent.
And experts are concerned that
a president like Trump could recognize
a cartel as the de facto government
of Mexican territory,
then proclaim a migrant "invasion"
perpetrated by the cartel "government",
and in doing so give himself a
turbocharged deportation authority.
That way, he could quickly
remove non-citizens,
even green card holders,
without any due process.
And while there'd be legal challenges,
the courts are now much more
Trump-friendly
than they were eight years ago.
And even if Trump doesn't choose
to go that far,
or does get stopped by the courts,
it's worth remembering what he was
able to do in his first term anyway.
Because in addition to the endless
circus of outrageous nonsense,
like hosting a fast-food banquet,
or staring directly into the sun,
or doing a loud honk-honk
in a big vroom-vroom,
he also aggressively ramped up
immigration enforcement,
using large-scale "work-site raids",
which involved immigration agents
storming workplaces.
That's what happened in 2019,
when ICE carried out massive raids
on chicken processing plants
across central Mississippi,
arresting 680 workers
in what may have been the largest-ever
workplace operation in any single state.
And these weren't sweeps
for violent criminals.
They were attacks on working people
whose only offense
was being undocumented.
More than 350 were deported,
and many others are still awaiting
court decisions.
Many of the families broken up that day
remain separated half a decade later.
And the trauma of those raids on
families and children was truly awful,
and I will warn you,
this is hard to watch.
I'm scared and I'm crying because
of my dad and mom.
I want my dad.
These Hispanic people,
they aren't doing nothing bad.
They're not stealing nothing.
My dad bought me everything for me
to live over here.
I don't know where I'm going to eat.
I don't know what I'm going
to do right now.
I need my dad for me. My dad didn't
do nothing, he's not a criminal.
Yeah, we did that.
And we're apparently a coin-flip away
from going even further.
And a lot of Trump supporters seem
to be in denial
about exactly what a plan
of mass deportation would entail.
And that's a frustrating pattern here.
In Trump's first term,
this local business owner in Indiana
was deported,
to the apparent shock of the people
in his community.
It just feels wrong.
The community is better
for having someone like him.
He showed up here
with just the shirt on his back,
and he's a restaurant owner
20 years later.
And he worked his butt off
to get there, I've seen it.
They're all strong supporters
of Roberto Beristain,
though four out of six of them voted
for President Trump.
I voted for him because he said
he was going to get rid
of the bad hombres.
Roberto is a good hombre.
Well, a couple of things about that:
first, if showing up with the shirt
on your back and working hard
for 20 years makes someone
a good hombre,
I've got some news for you about
a whole lot of fucking immigrants.
But also, how do those people
even begin to apologize
for a situation like that?
I don't think Hallmark sells cards
that say,
"Sorry we inadvertently got you
deported because we assumed
Trump would only be racist against
Hispanics we didn't know personally."
And I really want to hope people
are waving around signs
without understanding what mass
deportation actually means in practice.
But make no mistake, the people
campaigning on it absolutely do,
and it's horrendous.
So, what can we do here?
Well, there's the obvious,
and that is vote.
But it's also worth talking to people
in your life who are concerned
about immigration, about what
they really want to happen here.
Because our system definitely
does need fixing,
but there are much more humane ways
to do that,
and even some Republicans seem
open to that idea.
Because while as I mentioned earlier,
the slogan "mass deportation"
polls depressingly well,
a recent study showed that when
people were actually given
a specific choice between mass
deportation and pathways
to citizenship
as an immigration policy,
specifically outlining
how each might work,
majorities in every swing state
preferred the path to citizenship.
In fact, even among Republicans,
in five of six swing states,
it was preferred.
Which suggests that when people
genuinely understand
what these policies look like, they
tend to choose the less punitive one.
And I do believe the vast majority
want to do what is right
for the immigrants they know.
The task is to extend that same
humanity to the immigrants they don't.
And that is a task both parties
would do well to adopt.
Because Democrats have not
been stellar on this issue, either.
Obama holds the record for most
deportations in a single year,
and Biden's immigration policies, as
we've discussed multiple times before,
have been haphazard at best.
So, I would hope a potential Harris
administration would do much better
than the one she's been part of
for the last four years,
and begin a much-needed overhaul
of a system badly in need of repair.
But to be very clear here: immigrants
are not the ones that broke this system.
On the contrary, they're making
the most of the splintered shards
we've given them and continuing
to build lives, communities,
and this country into something
better, richer, and stronger.
And the very least we can do
for them
is to go out on November the 5th
and not pick a president
who demonizes their existence,
advocates for their suffering, and has
proven multiple times that he is,
to put it mildly, a bad fucking
hombre. And now, this.
And Now: Drew Barrymore Would Like
To Tell You About Her Favorite Food.
My number one food on planet Earth
that I could eat every day
for the rest of my life is macaroni
and cheese.
My favorite food on planet Earth
is macaroni and cheese
and I really just use
this as an excuse to eat some.
My favorite food on planet Earth
right here, macaroni and cheese.
Do you know what my very favorite
food is on planet Earth?
Macaroni and cheese.
If I'm having stress,
I totally turn to mac and cheese.
I had to eat a bowl of macaroni and
cheese after a hard day at work.
I don't know if you've heard
this about me,
but macaroni and cheese
is my happy place
and my downfall
and everything in between.
How do you feel about
boxed macaroni and cheese?
- No, no.
- Copy that.
- For real?
I sample my kids' everything,
especially the macaroni and cheese.
I hit that box of macaroni
and cheese real hard.
I just want to motorboat this mac
and cheese.
So, it's just pink and lipstick
and even macaroni and cheese.
My favorite!
Moving on.
For our second story tonight,
we're gonna keep talking
about immigration.
I'm intimately familiar
with the U.S. immigration process,
having finally become a citizen
in 2019.
It was a long, stressful process,
capped by a moving naturalization
ceremony at which, among other things,
I gave this awkward thumbs-up
and also I got this little flag!
But one part of the ceremony
stuck in my head.
It's something millions of naturalized
citizens have experienced.
Here's footage from a different
ceremony that same year,
where they explain
what's about to happen.
At this time, please direct
your attention to the front
for a congratulatory message
from President Donald Trump,
followed by an inspirational
video presentation
of "God Bless the USA",
by Lee Greenwood.
It's true: right after a message
from the president,
everyone there had to sit through
a music video
for Lee Greenwood's
"God Bless the USA".
And it's exactly as weird as it sounds,
here's what it was like in that room.
And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died
who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you,
and defend her still today,
'Cause there ain't no doubt
I love this land,
God bless the USA.
Yeah, at one of the most meaningful
moments of your life,
everyone feels compelled to awkwardly
wave their little flag around,
while thinking,
"How long is this song, exactly?"
And I got curious about the presence
of that song at the ceremony,
so we did some digging,
but before we get into any of that,
a bit of background
on "God Bless the USA",
which is undeniably
a very patriotic song.
Since its release in 1984, it's had
multiple surges in popularity,
usually at difficult moments
for the country.
General Norman Schwarzkopf is said
to have played the song to his staff
the night before
Operation Desert Storm,
and after 9/11,
it was so ubiquitous,
it re-entered the singles charts,
peaking at number 16.
And while Lee Greenwood's repeatedly
claimed his song is apolitical,
he definitely isn't.
He's performed it at a lot of
conservative events over the years.
Here he is singing it for
Ronald Reagan at the 1988 RNC,
here he is modifying the words
to "God Bless the NRA"
for one of their national conventions,
and here he is becoming
the third person ever inducted
into the CPAC Hall of Fame,
while receiving something
that looks less like an award
and more like the world's first
Ferrero Rocher pigeon.
More recently, Greenwood's been
a big booster for President Trump.
He played his inaugural,
introduced Trump
at this year's Republican convention,
and serenaded him earlier this month
when he returned to Butler,
Pennsylvania, making his music
the second-worst thing to happen
to someone's ears there.
Now, interestingly,
Greenwood's never had a hit
anywhere close to "God Bless the USA",
something he insists
he's totally fine with.
He's said, "If you're going to have
to be known for something,
be known for something really
powerful and really good,
I'd hate to have Purple Rain or
Margaritaville be my signature song."
Which is just a wild drive-by against
two objectively better artists.
You'd hate to be known
for "Margaritaville"?
A song that became a restaurant
franchise and a Broadway musical?
Bullshit! And I'm not even touching
the "Purple Rain" thing,
because Prince isn't known
for "Purple Rain",
he's known for being Prince,
except for in the '90s,
when he was known
for being whatever the fuck this is,
but to be clear,
his signature song is all of them.
But the truth is, a lot of people
do love "God Bless the USA"
and Greenwood's found as many ways
as possible to monetize that fact,
selling "God Bless the USA Fireworks",
a children's book,
silver coins, and even this.
Introducing the limited-edition
"God Bless the USA" Bible,
inspired by Lee Greenwood's
patriotic anthem.
"God Bless the USA" large-print,
leather-bound King James Bible
also contains America's founding
documents:
The U.S. Constitution,
the Bill of Rights,
the Declaration of Independence,
and the Pledge of Allegiance,
along with a handwritten chorus
to Lee Greenwood's song
"God Bless the USA".
Now, if doing that to a Bible seems
odd to you, you are not alone.
Even "Christianity Today" published
a blog post criticizing it,
saying, "We agree that it's essential
to know the content
of this nation's founding documents.
We do not believe, however,
that they should be published
as though they are an extension
of God's word."
A line of critique the president of the
marketing company that created
the Bible responded to by saying,
"It's got separation pages."
To which I really hope
"Christianity Today" responded,
"Ooh, separation pages, la di dah.
We didn't know it had
separation pages, fuck you."
But they probably didn't do that,
because, you know.
Also, for what it's worth,
this doesn't really look separated.
That's the printed words of the Bible
next to the handwritten words
of a song chorus, looking like
a yearbook signature
from your worst classmate.
"Proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free?"
Jesus Christ, Dylan C.,
just write 'keep in touch.'
Space is limited,
and you're not even hot."
Oh, one more thing,
that Bible costs $60.
And if you're thinking, "Who'd be
so nakedly crass to be associated
with a $60
Lee Greenwood-branded Bible?",
you already know the answer to that.
I'm proud to be partnering with my
very good friend Lee Greenwood.
Who doesn't love his song
"God Bless the USA," in connection
with promoting
the "God Bless the USA" Bible?
All Americans need a Bible
in their home, and I have many.
It's my favorite book.
It's a lot of people's favorite book.
Sure, yeah, sure,
it's your favorite book.
That is why the most famous time
you were seen with a Bible,
you held it like a model
on "Deal or No Deal",
showing off the briefcase number,
then like you were about to kill
a mosquito with it,
and then just stared at it like
you'd never seen a book before.
Fun fact, Trump apparently made
$300,000 for endorsing that Bible.
We asked Lee Greenwood how much
he made and he declined to answer,
but said, "Yes, I have made money
from the Bible,
it is part of business."
And it doesn't end there.
In 2016, Greenwood filed a trademark
for the phrase "God bless the USA",
stating it'd be used on "accent pillows;
decorative centerpieces of wood;
decorative wall hangings,
not of textile;
home decor and accessories."
Basically, the entire left side
of any HomeGoods store.
That application was rejected in 2017
and again on appeal in 2020
because, as one article put it,
"The trademark office regularly
rejects proposed marks
where consumers would likely perceive
them as merely communicating
the ordinary meaning of words."
A truly fantastic reason to refuse
a trademark.
"We'd love to help you,
but legally speaking, ya basic."
But that does make sense.
"God bless the USA"
is clearly a generic sentiment.
It's certainly no
"it's five o'clock somewhere",
a phrase successfully trademarked,
by the way,
by Margaritaville Enterprises, LLC.
Suck it!
The point is, Lee Greenwood is clearly
very focused on making money
for Lee Greenwood, even when doing
things that might appear altruistic.
Just watch as he makes this special
offer regarding an upcoming concert.
In all of our shows,
we always want to honor our veterans.
We want to make sure that veterans
can come to our performance.
So, if your listeners will go
to our website,
Lee-Greenwood-dot-com
and adopt a vet,
for $100 you can put a vet
and a caregiver in a seat to watch
this amazing television production.
But that's not charity.
He's not giving anything away.
He's just getting a different person to
pay $100 for tickets to his concert,
and telling people to make sure
veterans can come,
at seemingly no financial cost
to himself.
It's like that phrase about our vets:
"All gave some, some gave all,
Lee gets 40% at the door."
And all that brings us back
to his song's presence
at my and many others' citizenship
ceremonies.
Because even that has been
a revenue stream for him.
Because when Greenwood's reps
found out his song was being played
at ceremonies, they apparently
forced USCIS
to enter into settlement negotiations
to compensate him.
We found that sentence in a
government-commissioned report
on intellectual property law,
but it didn't contain much info
on what's happened since.
But we wanted to know more.
So a few years ago,
we filed a Freedom of Information Act
request and found out
the government ultimately paid
$22,000 to Universal Music,
Greenwood's music publisher,
for a six-year licensing contract,
including nearly four years
in back pay.
Which is both a surprisingly small
amount of money, and also,
I would argue,
$22,000 too much.
But it gets much weirder from there.
Because in 2018, the government
signed a new deal to license
the publishing rights
for around $700 a year.
But then, during the pandemic,
there was a snag with payments,
because the government wanted
to pay with a credit card,
but Universal insisted it couldn't
take credit card payments.
I cannot tell you how many emails about
this particular problem there were.
In the wake of that issue, there was
apparently a lot of confusion
about whether the government could
use the song at ceremonies or not.
Because we turned up emails
between immigration employees
like "Is the Lee Greenwood
song allowed now?"
and "I want to make sure
I'm not losing my mind,
have we been given the okay
to play Lee Greenwood again?"
There's even an exchange
with someone asking,
"Am I the only one who loves
that song?"
and getting the very firm reply,
"Yes. You are."
Eventually, it became clear
they didn't have a license
to use the song anymore, and staffers
were told last November,
"It is very important to reiterate that
we no longer have the licensing rights
to play the Lee Greenwood
'God Bless the USA' song".
A message that still didn't seem
to get through,
given a news article from this May
about a New Jersey ceremony
mentions new citizens being
called up one at a time,
as Lee Greenwood's
"God Bless the USA" played.
Honestly, I'm not sure why it's being
played at ceremonies at all.
Not just contractually,
or even musically.
But because Greenwood's past
remarks about immigrants have been,
to say the least, off-message.
Here he is a few years ago,
at CPAC.
Here we are in a free country,
we can do what we want.
We have immigrants who come here all
the time, and they need to know this.
We're still a western country
that believes in God. That's it.
No, that is not it!
And fellow immigrants,
I cannot stress this enough,
do not listen to Lee Greenwood!
Because, among other things,
you will fail your citizenship test.
The fact Americans are free to have
any religion, or none whatsoever,
is an answer
to four separate questions on it,
including
"What is freedom of religion?"
So pay attention to what's actually
on the test,
not the man dressed like a loan shark
in mourning.
And when it comes
to undocumented immigration,
Greenwood will quickly jump
to the negative, like this.
My song "God Bless the USA"
is used in the welcome film
along with the national anthem
and the welcome
from the President of the United States.
That makes me extremely proud.
What does not make me proud
is that anybody,
any administration prior
who has not sealed our border
and stopped people from China,
from Iran,
or any terrorist organization
who would fly to Mexico
and come across the border illegally,
filter into our nation,
and waiting 'til they're told to be
the next terrorist attack. It is coming.
Okay, that is obviously idiotic,
but I love the idea aspiring terrorists
are just sitting around
and waiting to be told they're
"America's Next Terrorist Attack",
like they're on Bravo's most
controversial new reality show.
Maybe you can look past all this.
The fact Greenwood's a tacky Bible
salesman with views completely at odds
with everything a naturalization
ceremony represents.
Maybe you can stomach his song
being used,
on the grounds it's a uniquely American
tribute to this singular country.
But is it? Because it turns out,
just five years after he released
"God Bless the USA",
he released another song.
And it's gonna sound very familiar
to you, until it suddenly doesn't.
And I'm proud to be in Canada,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up, next to you,
and defend her still today.
'Cause there ain't no doubt
I love this land,
God bless you, Canada.
It doesn't even fucking rhyme!
It doesn't rhyme!
You cannot keep
"defend her still today"
if you're not willing to sing
"God bless you Canaday".
You can't do it! But the point is,
he took his quintessentially American
song and switched a few words
so it'd be about Canada instead.
The rest of it is him just
find-and-replacing Canadian places
for American ones. Take a listen.
From the shores of Nova Scotia
to the forests in B.C.,
Montreal to Winnipeg,
from sea to shining sea.
Come on. You can't just pack your song
in with place names
like a Mad Libs and call it a day.
You know why?
Because you'll get real YouTube
comments like this one,
saying, "I am from Rwanda
and Mr. Greenwood has not made
a version for us yet."
See? It's a slippery slope, Lee!
All of this is to say,
for multiple reasons,
I'd argue Lee Greenwood's song
should never again be played
at citizenship ceremonies.
Because they deserve one genuinely
unique to this country.
A song that celebrates the nation
new Americans are about to join,
and the process
that they've been through,
while also not soft-pedaling
some hard truths about it.
And the good news is, I think
we actually have the perfect song,
and it's performed
by an actual American treasure.
And not only will we not charge the
government $700 a year for it,
we're not assholes,
we'll actually pay them $701
a year if they agree to play it
at naturalization ceremonies
from now on.
And I could tell you more about it,
but I think it's probably best
just to show it to you.
You studied hard,
you did your best,
filled out the forms,
and passed the test.
Now you're part of a land
that's so God-blessed,
and starting today,
you're American.
There's corn dogs and apple pie,
fireworks lighting up the sky,
NASCAR, rodeo, barbeque.
That stuff's American,
now so are you.
You've learned our presidents
and our laws,
I think it's time to mention our flaws.
We're a real big county
with real big problems.
We're kinda hoping
you could help us solve them.
Televangelists and fossil fuels,
metal detectors in all our schools,
private prisons and Mountain Dew.
That stuff's American,
now they're your problem too.
Student debt and CTE,
the war on drugs, Scientology,
Boeing Airlines
and Ted fucking Cruz.
They're all American, now so are you.
Nowadays, it's harder to be free.
Hard to be the country
that we ought to be.
You weren't born here,
you volunteered
to join your fate to the great
and the just plain weird.
Just plain weird!
So, get ready for the truck nuts
and jet ski tricks,
SantaCon and food on sticks,
thousands of medical bankruptcies,
plantation weddings
and Chuck E. Cheese.
Big Gulps and L.L. Bean,
tornadoes, Spirit Halloween.
Holy shit, I just remembered the coup.
That stuff's American.
We sure ain't perfect,
but here's to the fight.
The brightest future's the one
you'll write.
Wherever you come from,
wherever you roam,
fellow Americans, fellow Americans,
fellow Americans,
welcome home!
That's our show,
thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next week,
good night!
Truck nuts!
Plantation weddings
and Chuck E. Cheese.
Holy shit, I just remembered the coup.
That stuff's American!
I'm John Oliver,
thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week!
Israel attacked military targets
in Iran,
and an E. coli outbreak
was tied to McDonald's,
yet was still somehow the second most
revolting thing inside of one this week.
But with the election
just nine days away,
we're gonna do something a bit different
tonight, and cover two main stories,
both related to immigration.
The subject of the Statue
of Liberty's famous inscription:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses, yearning
to breathe free,"
which I believe replaced the original,
"Come in bitches, let's get twisted",
after it was deemed simply too good.
In the final campaign stretch,
Trump's focused relentlessly
on immigration, and it has gotten ugly.
They're coming from 181 countries
as of yesterday.
We're a dumping ground,
we're like a garbage can for the world.
These are stone-cold killers.
They'll walk into your kitchen,
they'll cut your throat.
I don't know if you'd call them people.
In some cases, they're not people,
in my opinion,
but I'm not allowed to say that,
because the radical left says
that's a terrible thing to say.
They're destroying
the blood of our country.
That's what they're doing.
They're destroying our country.
They don't like it when I said that,
and I never read "Mein Kampf".
They said, "Oh, Hitler said that
in a much different way."
For a start, immigrants aren't
destroying the blood of our country.
If anything, Mountain Dew Baja Blast
is doing that,
and let me be the first to say I,
for one, welcome the poison.
But it is wild that Trump's response
to being told he's quoting Hitler is,
"No, he said it differently."
Especially because,
not that differently.
Hitler wrote, "All great cultures
of the past perished
only because the original creative race
died out from blood poisoning."
So, same general idea,
just a bit more coherent.
I guess what I'm saying is, when it
comes to rhetoric, Trump is no Hitler.
But let him cook?
But it is more than just talk
about immigrants.
Trump's also made
a very specific promise.
As soon as I take the oath of office,
we will begin the largest deportation
operation in the history of our country.
Even larger than that of President
Dwight D. Eisenhower many years ago.
He was a big deportation person.
Okay. First, it's a hell of a thing
to be citing Eisenhower,
given his program, which deported
hundreds of thousands of Mexicans,
is widely seen as both a fiasco
and a stain on U.S. history,
while also having a name
I'm literally unwilling to say on TV.
It is one of many facts you may not
have known about Eisenhower,
along with: he was the first president
to ride in a helicopter,
and the first to pose for an official
photo like he's on the cover
of Women's Health Magazine
under the headline,
"How to Feel Fabulous at Any Age!"
Mass deportation is a cornerstone
pledge for the Trump campaign.
It was promoted on signs
at the Republican convention,
and is referenced
in the party's platform.
And it seems
to have widespread backing,
given one survey found it has at least
some support from 54% of Americans,
and 86% of Republicans.
And Trump supporters will tell you they
love the idea of mass deportation,
even if they haven't thought much
about the details.
Those people that are breaking
the laws of this country,
that came across here illegal,
are going to be mass deported.
Mass deportations,
that's what Trump's calling for.
That's millions of people
we're talking about.
The people that are here illegally.
My grandparents came here,
but they did it the right way.
- Millions of people, though.
- I don't care.
I think it has to happen and I think
citizens have to be behind it.
How do you think it's possible to do
that humanely?
I don't know that,
but I'm confident Trump can do it.
Are you? Look, there are things I'm
confident Trump can and will do,
paraphrase Hitler,
emotionally abuse his children,
eventually die on the toilet.
But unlike Aunt Bedazzlehat here,
I don't think figuring out
how to humanely deport millions
of people is one of them.
The fact is, a lot of people seem
to be supporting something right now
whose implications
they may not fully understand.
So given that, tonight, let's talk about
Trump's mass deportation plan.
And before we go any further,
we'll be talking a lot about
the logistics of mass deportation,
but for the record,
the morality of it is despicable.
Immigrants are human beings,
no matter what McDonald's
worst employee says.
Let's start with the sheer size
of what Trump is proposing.
Because his campaign claims there
are 20 to 25 million "illegal aliens",
despite experts saying it's roughly
half that,
with one group placing the number
around 13 million people.
So, they're already off
by the population of Ohio.
But that still leaves the task
of removing 13 million people,
many of whom, incidentally,
are spread throughout the country
and have lived here for decades.
Also, deporting someone isn't
as simple as finding them,
not liking their paperwork,
and putting them on a plane.
It usually requires an arrest,
detention, legal processing,
and only then, removal.
And to carry out over 13 million
arrests in a short period of time,
it's been estimated the government
would need to hire
between 220 and 409,000
new government employees
and law enforcement officers.
As for the detention part,
think for a second what it would
entail to detain 13 million people.
Bear in mind, the most recent data
has the entire U.S. prison and jail
population at around 1.9 million.
And we have a lot of prisons
and jails in this country.
They are kind of our thing.
If we had a slogan,
it should probably be
"America: home of jails
and the KFC Double Down."
And the Trump campaign will sometimes
pretend they've taken this
into consideration. Here's JD Vance
gaming out a possible approach.
Now you've got 20 million,
25 million people.
You have to figure out
what to do with them.
And I guess the way that I think
about it, Bill,
it's kind of like being asked,
"Well, you have a sandwich, and it's
10 times the size of your mouth.
How do you actually eat
the whole thing?"
You take it one bite at a time, right?
And I think you start with
the million most violent,
most criminal illegal alien element.
There's probably, of the 20 million,
there's probably a million
who've committed some violent crime.
That's an estimate. But I think
it's pretty close to the truth.
You deport them first
and you focus on them first.
First, and I know this isn't the point,
but I didn't know Bill O'Reilly
still had a show.
I had the vague, uninterrogated sense
that he died when Roger Ailes did,
either because I thought
they were the same person
or because that seemed like
a plausible murder-suicide.
The subconscious is hard to pin down.
But second, "one bite at a time"
is an incredibly callous way
to refer to mass deportation,
even before you get
to his casual "one million of them
are probably violent criminals,"
a statistic sourced
to "that's an estimate,
but I think it's pretty close
to the truth."
And for the record, to deport just
a million people a year would still cost
an estimated 88 billion annually,
with the majority of that going
toward building detention camps.
Over a decade, that'd cost nearly
a trillion dollars.
To be clear here, my biggest problem
with "we'd spend nearly a trillion
on detention camps for immigrants"
is not the trillion-dollar part.
I don't want to see a headline tomorrow
that says
"John Oliver Blasts Detention
Camps as Too Expensive".
But I do think it's worth recognizing
the extent
to which Trump and Vance are full
of shit from a practical standpoint
as well as a moral one.
But just for the sake of argument,
let's say mass deportation
were a realistic policy.
It still wouldn't solve the problems the
Trump campaign's claiming it would.
In fact, it would make them worse.
Because they're constantly claiming
deportations are the solution
to unemployment, housing prices,
and crime.
So let's take each of those in turn,
starting with jobs.
Historically, deportation has actually
increased unemployment in this country.
A study of the Obama years found
that "when 500,000 undocumented
immigrant workers were forced out
of the country, 44,000 fewer jobs
were held by U.S.-born workers."
Which may seem counterintuitive.
But what's often happened is,
companies that rely on immigrants
for their customer base or their
workforce end up shutting down.
And as immigrants themselves
will tell you,
they might be the only ones willing
to do certain work.
The thing is, if he wins, he kicks out
all the immigrants.
Those who work here in construction
and everything, they're immigrants.
You're not going to see a gringo
filling his feet with cement
or carrying bricks or carrying this
or cleaning.
You're not going to see it.
That's blunt, but it's true.
There are certain jobs, and whole
industries, reliant on immigrant labor.
In our piece on farm workers,
we showed you a viral video
of a farmer explaining he couldn't hire
enough people to harvest his fields,
so the produce was rotting.
Now, in that particular case,
it was asparagus,
so it was a minor tragedy at best.
But the broader point here stands.
And removing 13 million people who
spend money in their communities
would badly hurt the economy.
In fact, experts have said mass
deportation would lead to a loss
of somewhere between four
and 7% of annual GDP,
which would be a crash on par
with the Great Recession.
And look, I'm not an economist,
despite looking like I was left on
the doorstep of an auditor's office
as a baby, but my understanding is
that the Great Recession was bad.
So that's unemployment.
What about housing?
Because the Trump campaign
is promising mass deportation
will also fix our housing crisis.
This is simple supply and demand,
my friends.
We've got to do two things
to lower the price of housing,
two things to lower the price
of housing for Nevadans.
We've got to build more houses
and we've got to deport
the illegal aliens
so that American homes
go to American citizens.
Okay, even if that wasn't
total bullshit,
JD Vance's very existence is proof
that supply and demand
doesn't always work.
There was no demand for
a business-pilled bearded sycophant
that gets routinely ignored by Trump,
we already have two of those
and we barely even use them.
And yet, here we are with
an unnecessary third.
The fact is, many economists think
"large-scale deportations
could actually backfire
and make the housing crisis worse,"
since, as you just saw pointed out,
undocumented migrants are a key part
of the construction industry,
and "nationally, mass deportation
would remove
one and a half million workers
from the construction workforce,"
including "more than one
in three roofers, ceiling tilers,
stucco masons, plasterers,
and drywall installers."
In fact, one professor who studies
immigration says
that "in the long run, immigrants are
the solution to the housing crisis.
Without immigrants, you can't
increase the supply of housing."
And for what it's worth, JD Vance,
that is actually supply and demand
in action,
not just some bullshit you dreamed up
while between drafts of your next
memoir, "Dingus Sonata",
where I'm guessing you'll solve poverty
by comparing it to a turkey
fucking Reuben.
And finally, there's the claim mass
deportation will reduce violent crime.
As we've discussed before, for all
the coverage isolated incidents get,
research shows immigrants
are less likely to commit crimes
than U.S.-born people,
and FBI data shows violent crime
has actually gone down since 2020.
It's one of the genuinely
good decreases since then,
along with the amount
of Zoom family dinners
and the number of alive
Henry Kissingers.
One was still one too many.
But despite that, Trump's continued
making lurid accusations.
There were his bullshit claims
of pet-eating in Springfield, Ohio,
but he's also falsely claimed Aurora,
Colorado, is the victim
of a Venezuelan gang takeover.
It's an accusation that originated
with this viral video
of men with guns knocking
on an apartment door.
That clip frightened a lot of people,
but to be clear,
the Republican mayor of Aurora
has flat-out said,
"A Venezuelan gang is not in control
of those apartment complexes,"
and the city has not been taken over or
invaded or occupied by migrant gangs.
But none of that stopped Trump
from going to Aurora
to push for mass deportation,
with the help of Stephen Miller,
who even brought along
some visual aids.
Look at all these photos around me.
Are these the kids you grew up with?
Are these the neighbors
you were raised with?
Are these the neighbors
that you want in your city?
No. These are the criminal migrants
that Kamala Harris brought
into your community.
And as swiftly as they came,
Donald Trump will send them back.
Okay, for the record,
if we're talking about someone
you don't want as your neighbor,
Stephen Miller would be top of my list.
Imagine getting up in the morning,
looking across your yard,
and seeing that fucking guy standing
there, looking like a Minion's penis.
Also, quick side note,
if you're wondering what this thing is,
it's a fair question,
and that's a Trumpy Bear.
A stuffed bear with Trump's hair, a tie,
and disturbingly human eyes.
It looks like Paddington Bear
if he had multiple hemorrhoids.
It looks like a Care Bear
that won't stop calling
the other Care Bears gay.
But don't let that bear distract you
from the fact you just saw
a crowd baited into booing pictures
of Hispanic people
who don't look like your neighbors.
At that event, Trump announced plans
for something he calls
"Operation Aurora,"
and his campaign has since
described the city as "a war zone".
That specific language points to what
his real endgame here might look like.
Because while, again, Trump can't
deport 13 million,
or even one million, people overnight,
and mass deportation won't fix any
of the problems he says it will,
he could still use Aurora-style panics
to give himself a ton of power.
Here he is, at that rally,
gaming out a key piece of it.
I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act
of 1798.
Think of that. 1798.
This was put there, 1798,
that's a long time ago, right?
To target and dismantle every migrant
criminal network
operating on American soil.
Okay, 1798 is "a long time ago."
I reluctantly concede that point.
But the act he's describing there
is terrifying.
It's a law that allows for summary
deportation of people
from countries with which
the United States is at war,
that have invaded the U.S.,
or that have engaged
in "predatory incursions".
It was last used during World War II
as the legal authority
for interning immigrants of Japanese,
German, and Italian descent.
And experts are concerned that
a president like Trump could recognize
a cartel as the de facto government
of Mexican territory,
then proclaim a migrant "invasion"
perpetrated by the cartel "government",
and in doing so give himself a
turbocharged deportation authority.
That way, he could quickly
remove non-citizens,
even green card holders,
without any due process.
And while there'd be legal challenges,
the courts are now much more
Trump-friendly
than they were eight years ago.
And even if Trump doesn't choose
to go that far,
or does get stopped by the courts,
it's worth remembering what he was
able to do in his first term anyway.
Because in addition to the endless
circus of outrageous nonsense,
like hosting a fast-food banquet,
or staring directly into the sun,
or doing a loud honk-honk
in a big vroom-vroom,
he also aggressively ramped up
immigration enforcement,
using large-scale "work-site raids",
which involved immigration agents
storming workplaces.
That's what happened in 2019,
when ICE carried out massive raids
on chicken processing plants
across central Mississippi,
arresting 680 workers
in what may have been the largest-ever
workplace operation in any single state.
And these weren't sweeps
for violent criminals.
They were attacks on working people
whose only offense
was being undocumented.
More than 350 were deported,
and many others are still awaiting
court decisions.
Many of the families broken up that day
remain separated half a decade later.
And the trauma of those raids on
families and children was truly awful,
and I will warn you,
this is hard to watch.
I'm scared and I'm crying because
of my dad and mom.
I want my dad.
These Hispanic people,
they aren't doing nothing bad.
They're not stealing nothing.
My dad bought me everything for me
to live over here.
I don't know where I'm going to eat.
I don't know what I'm going
to do right now.
I need my dad for me. My dad didn't
do nothing, he's not a criminal.
Yeah, we did that.
And we're apparently a coin-flip away
from going even further.
And a lot of Trump supporters seem
to be in denial
about exactly what a plan
of mass deportation would entail.
And that's a frustrating pattern here.
In Trump's first term,
this local business owner in Indiana
was deported,
to the apparent shock of the people
in his community.
It just feels wrong.
The community is better
for having someone like him.
He showed up here
with just the shirt on his back,
and he's a restaurant owner
20 years later.
And he worked his butt off
to get there, I've seen it.
They're all strong supporters
of Roberto Beristain,
though four out of six of them voted
for President Trump.
I voted for him because he said
he was going to get rid
of the bad hombres.
Roberto is a good hombre.
Well, a couple of things about that:
first, if showing up with the shirt
on your back and working hard
for 20 years makes someone
a good hombre,
I've got some news for you about
a whole lot of fucking immigrants.
But also, how do those people
even begin to apologize
for a situation like that?
I don't think Hallmark sells cards
that say,
"Sorry we inadvertently got you
deported because we assumed
Trump would only be racist against
Hispanics we didn't know personally."
And I really want to hope people
are waving around signs
without understanding what mass
deportation actually means in practice.
But make no mistake, the people
campaigning on it absolutely do,
and it's horrendous.
So, what can we do here?
Well, there's the obvious,
and that is vote.
But it's also worth talking to people
in your life who are concerned
about immigration, about what
they really want to happen here.
Because our system definitely
does need fixing,
but there are much more humane ways
to do that,
and even some Republicans seem
open to that idea.
Because while as I mentioned earlier,
the slogan "mass deportation"
polls depressingly well,
a recent study showed that when
people were actually given
a specific choice between mass
deportation and pathways
to citizenship
as an immigration policy,
specifically outlining
how each might work,
majorities in every swing state
preferred the path to citizenship.
In fact, even among Republicans,
in five of six swing states,
it was preferred.
Which suggests that when people
genuinely understand
what these policies look like, they
tend to choose the less punitive one.
And I do believe the vast majority
want to do what is right
for the immigrants they know.
The task is to extend that same
humanity to the immigrants they don't.
And that is a task both parties
would do well to adopt.
Because Democrats have not
been stellar on this issue, either.
Obama holds the record for most
deportations in a single year,
and Biden's immigration policies, as
we've discussed multiple times before,
have been haphazard at best.
So, I would hope a potential Harris
administration would do much better
than the one she's been part of
for the last four years,
and begin a much-needed overhaul
of a system badly in need of repair.
But to be very clear here: immigrants
are not the ones that broke this system.
On the contrary, they're making
the most of the splintered shards
we've given them and continuing
to build lives, communities,
and this country into something
better, richer, and stronger.
And the very least we can do
for them
is to go out on November the 5th
and not pick a president
who demonizes their existence,
advocates for their suffering, and has
proven multiple times that he is,
to put it mildly, a bad fucking
hombre. And now, this.
And Now: Drew Barrymore Would Like
To Tell You About Her Favorite Food.
My number one food on planet Earth
that I could eat every day
for the rest of my life is macaroni
and cheese.
My favorite food on planet Earth
is macaroni and cheese
and I really just use
this as an excuse to eat some.
My favorite food on planet Earth
right here, macaroni and cheese.
Do you know what my very favorite
food is on planet Earth?
Macaroni and cheese.
If I'm having stress,
I totally turn to mac and cheese.
I had to eat a bowl of macaroni and
cheese after a hard day at work.
I don't know if you've heard
this about me,
but macaroni and cheese
is my happy place
and my downfall
and everything in between.
How do you feel about
boxed macaroni and cheese?
- No, no.
- Copy that.
- For real?
I sample my kids' everything,
especially the macaroni and cheese.
I hit that box of macaroni
and cheese real hard.
I just want to motorboat this mac
and cheese.
So, it's just pink and lipstick
and even macaroni and cheese.
My favorite!
Moving on.
For our second story tonight,
we're gonna keep talking
about immigration.
I'm intimately familiar
with the U.S. immigration process,
having finally become a citizen
in 2019.
It was a long, stressful process,
capped by a moving naturalization
ceremony at which, among other things,
I gave this awkward thumbs-up
and also I got this little flag!
But one part of the ceremony
stuck in my head.
It's something millions of naturalized
citizens have experienced.
Here's footage from a different
ceremony that same year,
where they explain
what's about to happen.
At this time, please direct
your attention to the front
for a congratulatory message
from President Donald Trump,
followed by an inspirational
video presentation
of "God Bless the USA",
by Lee Greenwood.
It's true: right after a message
from the president,
everyone there had to sit through
a music video
for Lee Greenwood's
"God Bless the USA".
And it's exactly as weird as it sounds,
here's what it was like in that room.
And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died
who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you,
and defend her still today,
'Cause there ain't no doubt
I love this land,
God bless the USA.
Yeah, at one of the most meaningful
moments of your life,
everyone feels compelled to awkwardly
wave their little flag around,
while thinking,
"How long is this song, exactly?"
And I got curious about the presence
of that song at the ceremony,
so we did some digging,
but before we get into any of that,
a bit of background
on "God Bless the USA",
which is undeniably
a very patriotic song.
Since its release in 1984, it's had
multiple surges in popularity,
usually at difficult moments
for the country.
General Norman Schwarzkopf is said
to have played the song to his staff
the night before
Operation Desert Storm,
and after 9/11,
it was so ubiquitous,
it re-entered the singles charts,
peaking at number 16.
And while Lee Greenwood's repeatedly
claimed his song is apolitical,
he definitely isn't.
He's performed it at a lot of
conservative events over the years.
Here he is singing it for
Ronald Reagan at the 1988 RNC,
here he is modifying the words
to "God Bless the NRA"
for one of their national conventions,
and here he is becoming
the third person ever inducted
into the CPAC Hall of Fame,
while receiving something
that looks less like an award
and more like the world's first
Ferrero Rocher pigeon.
More recently, Greenwood's been
a big booster for President Trump.
He played his inaugural,
introduced Trump
at this year's Republican convention,
and serenaded him earlier this month
when he returned to Butler,
Pennsylvania, making his music
the second-worst thing to happen
to someone's ears there.
Now, interestingly,
Greenwood's never had a hit
anywhere close to "God Bless the USA",
something he insists
he's totally fine with.
He's said, "If you're going to have
to be known for something,
be known for something really
powerful and really good,
I'd hate to have Purple Rain or
Margaritaville be my signature song."
Which is just a wild drive-by against
two objectively better artists.
You'd hate to be known
for "Margaritaville"?
A song that became a restaurant
franchise and a Broadway musical?
Bullshit! And I'm not even touching
the "Purple Rain" thing,
because Prince isn't known
for "Purple Rain",
he's known for being Prince,
except for in the '90s,
when he was known
for being whatever the fuck this is,
but to be clear,
his signature song is all of them.
But the truth is, a lot of people
do love "God Bless the USA"
and Greenwood's found as many ways
as possible to monetize that fact,
selling "God Bless the USA Fireworks",
a children's book,
silver coins, and even this.
Introducing the limited-edition
"God Bless the USA" Bible,
inspired by Lee Greenwood's
patriotic anthem.
"God Bless the USA" large-print,
leather-bound King James Bible
also contains America's founding
documents:
The U.S. Constitution,
the Bill of Rights,
the Declaration of Independence,
and the Pledge of Allegiance,
along with a handwritten chorus
to Lee Greenwood's song
"God Bless the USA".
Now, if doing that to a Bible seems
odd to you, you are not alone.
Even "Christianity Today" published
a blog post criticizing it,
saying, "We agree that it's essential
to know the content
of this nation's founding documents.
We do not believe, however,
that they should be published
as though they are an extension
of God's word."
A line of critique the president of the
marketing company that created
the Bible responded to by saying,
"It's got separation pages."
To which I really hope
"Christianity Today" responded,
"Ooh, separation pages, la di dah.
We didn't know it had
separation pages, fuck you."
But they probably didn't do that,
because, you know.
Also, for what it's worth,
this doesn't really look separated.
That's the printed words of the Bible
next to the handwritten words
of a song chorus, looking like
a yearbook signature
from your worst classmate.
"Proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free?"
Jesus Christ, Dylan C.,
just write 'keep in touch.'
Space is limited,
and you're not even hot."
Oh, one more thing,
that Bible costs $60.
And if you're thinking, "Who'd be
so nakedly crass to be associated
with a $60
Lee Greenwood-branded Bible?",
you already know the answer to that.
I'm proud to be partnering with my
very good friend Lee Greenwood.
Who doesn't love his song
"God Bless the USA," in connection
with promoting
the "God Bless the USA" Bible?
All Americans need a Bible
in their home, and I have many.
It's my favorite book.
It's a lot of people's favorite book.
Sure, yeah, sure,
it's your favorite book.
That is why the most famous time
you were seen with a Bible,
you held it like a model
on "Deal or No Deal",
showing off the briefcase number,
then like you were about to kill
a mosquito with it,
and then just stared at it like
you'd never seen a book before.
Fun fact, Trump apparently made
$300,000 for endorsing that Bible.
We asked Lee Greenwood how much
he made and he declined to answer,
but said, "Yes, I have made money
from the Bible,
it is part of business."
And it doesn't end there.
In 2016, Greenwood filed a trademark
for the phrase "God bless the USA",
stating it'd be used on "accent pillows;
decorative centerpieces of wood;
decorative wall hangings,
not of textile;
home decor and accessories."
Basically, the entire left side
of any HomeGoods store.
That application was rejected in 2017
and again on appeal in 2020
because, as one article put it,
"The trademark office regularly
rejects proposed marks
where consumers would likely perceive
them as merely communicating
the ordinary meaning of words."
A truly fantastic reason to refuse
a trademark.
"We'd love to help you,
but legally speaking, ya basic."
But that does make sense.
"God bless the USA"
is clearly a generic sentiment.
It's certainly no
"it's five o'clock somewhere",
a phrase successfully trademarked,
by the way,
by Margaritaville Enterprises, LLC.
Suck it!
The point is, Lee Greenwood is clearly
very focused on making money
for Lee Greenwood, even when doing
things that might appear altruistic.
Just watch as he makes this special
offer regarding an upcoming concert.
In all of our shows,
we always want to honor our veterans.
We want to make sure that veterans
can come to our performance.
So, if your listeners will go
to our website,
Lee-Greenwood-dot-com
and adopt a vet,
for $100 you can put a vet
and a caregiver in a seat to watch
this amazing television production.
But that's not charity.
He's not giving anything away.
He's just getting a different person to
pay $100 for tickets to his concert,
and telling people to make sure
veterans can come,
at seemingly no financial cost
to himself.
It's like that phrase about our vets:
"All gave some, some gave all,
Lee gets 40% at the door."
And all that brings us back
to his song's presence
at my and many others' citizenship
ceremonies.
Because even that has been
a revenue stream for him.
Because when Greenwood's reps
found out his song was being played
at ceremonies, they apparently
forced USCIS
to enter into settlement negotiations
to compensate him.
We found that sentence in a
government-commissioned report
on intellectual property law,
but it didn't contain much info
on what's happened since.
But we wanted to know more.
So a few years ago,
we filed a Freedom of Information Act
request and found out
the government ultimately paid
$22,000 to Universal Music,
Greenwood's music publisher,
for a six-year licensing contract,
including nearly four years
in back pay.
Which is both a surprisingly small
amount of money, and also,
I would argue,
$22,000 too much.
But it gets much weirder from there.
Because in 2018, the government
signed a new deal to license
the publishing rights
for around $700 a year.
But then, during the pandemic,
there was a snag with payments,
because the government wanted
to pay with a credit card,
but Universal insisted it couldn't
take credit card payments.
I cannot tell you how many emails about
this particular problem there were.
In the wake of that issue, there was
apparently a lot of confusion
about whether the government could
use the song at ceremonies or not.
Because we turned up emails
between immigration employees
like "Is the Lee Greenwood
song allowed now?"
and "I want to make sure
I'm not losing my mind,
have we been given the okay
to play Lee Greenwood again?"
There's even an exchange
with someone asking,
"Am I the only one who loves
that song?"
and getting the very firm reply,
"Yes. You are."
Eventually, it became clear
they didn't have a license
to use the song anymore, and staffers
were told last November,
"It is very important to reiterate that
we no longer have the licensing rights
to play the Lee Greenwood
'God Bless the USA' song".
A message that still didn't seem
to get through,
given a news article from this May
about a New Jersey ceremony
mentions new citizens being
called up one at a time,
as Lee Greenwood's
"God Bless the USA" played.
Honestly, I'm not sure why it's being
played at ceremonies at all.
Not just contractually,
or even musically.
But because Greenwood's past
remarks about immigrants have been,
to say the least, off-message.
Here he is a few years ago,
at CPAC.
Here we are in a free country,
we can do what we want.
We have immigrants who come here all
the time, and they need to know this.
We're still a western country
that believes in God. That's it.
No, that is not it!
And fellow immigrants,
I cannot stress this enough,
do not listen to Lee Greenwood!
Because, among other things,
you will fail your citizenship test.
The fact Americans are free to have
any religion, or none whatsoever,
is an answer
to four separate questions on it,
including
"What is freedom of religion?"
So pay attention to what's actually
on the test,
not the man dressed like a loan shark
in mourning.
And when it comes
to undocumented immigration,
Greenwood will quickly jump
to the negative, like this.
My song "God Bless the USA"
is used in the welcome film
along with the national anthem
and the welcome
from the President of the United States.
That makes me extremely proud.
What does not make me proud
is that anybody,
any administration prior
who has not sealed our border
and stopped people from China,
from Iran,
or any terrorist organization
who would fly to Mexico
and come across the border illegally,
filter into our nation,
and waiting 'til they're told to be
the next terrorist attack. It is coming.
Okay, that is obviously idiotic,
but I love the idea aspiring terrorists
are just sitting around
and waiting to be told they're
"America's Next Terrorist Attack",
like they're on Bravo's most
controversial new reality show.
Maybe you can look past all this.
The fact Greenwood's a tacky Bible
salesman with views completely at odds
with everything a naturalization
ceremony represents.
Maybe you can stomach his song
being used,
on the grounds it's a uniquely American
tribute to this singular country.
But is it? Because it turns out,
just five years after he released
"God Bless the USA",
he released another song.
And it's gonna sound very familiar
to you, until it suddenly doesn't.
And I'm proud to be in Canada,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up, next to you,
and defend her still today.
'Cause there ain't no doubt
I love this land,
God bless you, Canada.
It doesn't even fucking rhyme!
It doesn't rhyme!
You cannot keep
"defend her still today"
if you're not willing to sing
"God bless you Canaday".
You can't do it! But the point is,
he took his quintessentially American
song and switched a few words
so it'd be about Canada instead.
The rest of it is him just
find-and-replacing Canadian places
for American ones. Take a listen.
From the shores of Nova Scotia
to the forests in B.C.,
Montreal to Winnipeg,
from sea to shining sea.
Come on. You can't just pack your song
in with place names
like a Mad Libs and call it a day.
You know why?
Because you'll get real YouTube
comments like this one,
saying, "I am from Rwanda
and Mr. Greenwood has not made
a version for us yet."
See? It's a slippery slope, Lee!
All of this is to say,
for multiple reasons,
I'd argue Lee Greenwood's song
should never again be played
at citizenship ceremonies.
Because they deserve one genuinely
unique to this country.
A song that celebrates the nation
new Americans are about to join,
and the process
that they've been through,
while also not soft-pedaling
some hard truths about it.
And the good news is, I think
we actually have the perfect song,
and it's performed
by an actual American treasure.
And not only will we not charge the
government $700 a year for it,
we're not assholes,
we'll actually pay them $701
a year if they agree to play it
at naturalization ceremonies
from now on.
And I could tell you more about it,
but I think it's probably best
just to show it to you.
You studied hard,
you did your best,
filled out the forms,
and passed the test.
Now you're part of a land
that's so God-blessed,
and starting today,
you're American.
There's corn dogs and apple pie,
fireworks lighting up the sky,
NASCAR, rodeo, barbeque.
That stuff's American,
now so are you.
You've learned our presidents
and our laws,
I think it's time to mention our flaws.
We're a real big county
with real big problems.
We're kinda hoping
you could help us solve them.
Televangelists and fossil fuels,
metal detectors in all our schools,
private prisons and Mountain Dew.
That stuff's American,
now they're your problem too.
Student debt and CTE,
the war on drugs, Scientology,
Boeing Airlines
and Ted fucking Cruz.
They're all American, now so are you.
Nowadays, it's harder to be free.
Hard to be the country
that we ought to be.
You weren't born here,
you volunteered
to join your fate to the great
and the just plain weird.
Just plain weird!
So, get ready for the truck nuts
and jet ski tricks,
SantaCon and food on sticks,
thousands of medical bankruptcies,
plantation weddings
and Chuck E. Cheese.
Big Gulps and L.L. Bean,
tornadoes, Spirit Halloween.
Holy shit, I just remembered the coup.
That stuff's American.
We sure ain't perfect,
but here's to the fight.
The brightest future's the one
you'll write.
Wherever you come from,
wherever you roam,
fellow Americans, fellow Americans,
fellow Americans,
welcome home!
That's our show,
thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next week,
good night!
Truck nuts!
Plantation weddings
and Chuck E. Cheese.
Holy shit, I just remembered the coup.
That stuff's American!