Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s11e29 Episode Script

Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver, thank you
so much for joining us.
It has been very much a week.
Obviously we are gonna get
to the election in a minute.
But if you've been
consumed by it all week,
you may have missed smaller stories
that got buried, like the headline:
"43 Monkeys Remain on the Run
from South Carolina Lab."
"CEO Thinks
They're Having an Adventure".
Or the news
that a message in a bottle
had been found in an Ontario lake
after 26 years.
Or the death of Elwood Edwards,
the voice of AOL's "welcome"
and "you've got mail" notifications,
who died
just "one day shy
of his 75th birthday".
He was by all accounts
a very kind man,
and his last words were,
Goodbye.
Bit of fun! We're having
a little bit of fun, aren't we?
We're having a little taste of fun.
And I hope you enjoyed that fun,
because the rest of this show
is going to be about the fact
that, on Tuesday,
Trump won reelection.
Which is, to put it mildly,
not what I was personally
hoping would happen.
Honestly,
in Trump's victory speech,
he couldn't seem
to believe it either.
We overcame obstacles that
nobody thought possible
and it is now clear
that we've achieved
the most incredible-political
Look what happened!
Is this crazy?
Yeah, it is crazy!
It's really fucking crazy.
He's basically one sentence
away from saying:
"I mean, you guys
saw what I did, right?"
"And you still voted for this?
That doesn't make any sense!"
I know being a shambling verbal
mess is part of Trump's brand,
but it is still incredible to see
an incoming president
ad-lib a victory speech
with the same energy
as a best man who didn't realize
he had to give a toast.
"What a beautiful day,
"Today, my brother and his
girlfriend-wife, sorry!"
"Today, they did the thing,
you all saw it."
"I thought my part was done
with the bachelor party,"
"but here we go. Marriage,
it's crazy, right? It's crazy!"
It has been a rough week.
If you are anything like me,
first, as always,
my deepest sympathies,
but it's probably been hard to deal
with anything other than this.
The tiniest moments this week
where the world was going on
like nothing had happened
could be suddenly enraging.
Whether it was a text
from a relative inviting you
Not now, Aunt Gwen!
Or an alert about a recipe
for roast chicken,
not now, New York Times!
Or Hello Kitty actually posting this
word search on Twitter,
asking followers: "What are you
looking forward to this month?"
Hello Kitty!
Not fucking now!
I would love to tell you what
I'm looking forward to
but I cannot seem to find
"drinking my lights out"
and "housing some grief-mac-and
cheese" on your stupid puzzle.
Get the fuck out of here!
People on Twitter even got mad
at this teaser for a new Tyla song.
That was posted on Twitter
the day after the election,
only to get responses like:
"Not now girl. Not now."
And "Tyla reading the room"
with a GIF of Lea Michele,
before a ton of replies
correctly pointing out:
"She is literally South African?"
"Nobody's happy that Trump won,"
"including me, but she's
literally not an American."
"What do y'all want from her?"
Which is fair!
People in other countries are
allowed to buff their jean shorts.
They didn't put us
in this situation, we did!
If you are watching this right now
and thinking:
"You know what? I'm not
actually ready for this either",
I totally get it!
It is understandable not to want
yet another guy in a suit
doom-squawking at you.
So, if you are too angry,
depressed,
or worried to watch the rest
of this show, no problem.
I have been in each of those
places this week
and they are all
a correct reaction.
We did a show like this
after the election in 2016,
when no one expected
Trump to win.
This time, though,
his winning felt like a real
possibility all year long,
lots of people mobilized to stop it,
but it happened anyway.
Which feels somehow worse.
You've probably seen people
really struggling this week
and my sympathy goes out to all
of them, with one exception.
And that is Trump's former
attorney, Michael Cohen.
He'd claimed that he'd leave
the country if Trump won,
only to quickly walk that back
post-election on a livestream
where he got trolled
by viewers in a very funny way.
Can we stop with that?
I appreciate it.
I don't like the stupid turkeys.
Let's just knock that stupid
shit off please. All right?
I did, I said I was leaving
and then the following day,
get that through your dumb heads,
the following day,
I turned around and I said
that there's no chance in the world
that I'm leaving my country,
thank you very much.
All right?
Not leaving anywhere. You leave!
This is my country.
And I have every right,
every single right within
Two seconds, I'm gonna
end up blocking this idiot.
I love it. Everything about that
is very good,
from the "I don't like
stupid turkeys"
to the "I'm not leaving
anywhere, you leave",
to the perfectly timed Elvis hair.
I have no problem with any of that.
Hold on, no!
It's not okay when it happens
to me. Get this off me.
Come on, I'm trying to make
You know what?
Actually, just leave it.
I've been becoming more
birdlike with every passing year
and frankly, this week,
nothing feels more appropriate
than presenting me as a bird
who is fully and truly cooked.
There are lots of reasons
this result is so depressing,
from what it means
for abortion rights,
to the environment, to Ukraine,
to Gaza,
to the fact Trump's campaign was built
on demonization and revenge.
From the signs calling for mass
deportation at the convention,
to the GOP spending
at least 215 million
just on anti-trans network TV ads.
That's just over 134 dollars
per trans person in this country.
And yet, Trump's about
to be president, again.
So tonight, knowing that we won't
hit all the answers
and some of the ones we do
might not be particularly satisfying,
let's at least try and answer
a few questions.
Specifically: how did this happen,
what comes next
and what do we do now?
And let's start
with "how did this happen?"
The truth is, it is too early to have
a definitive answer to that,
but that has not stopped people
from taking some big swings anyway.
Kamala Harris had this albatross
around her neck, Joe Biden.
The progressive era should be over
if they want to start winning again.
Did Kamala Harris move
too far to the center
and alienate some of the base?
It was Joe Rogan, it was Elon Musk
getting out those young male voters.
They didn't have a message that
attracted working-class voters.
She failed to capture enough
support among white voters,
men, and first-time voters.
A lot of Hispanic voters have
problems with Black candidates.
Okay. I know one thing for sure:
Joe Scarborough is way
too satisfied saying that.
Scapegoating another demographic's
behavior in a way
that you're just
able to pass off as news?
Congratulations to you, Scoldilocks.
You must feel amazing right now.
People are pointing the finger
in all directions,
from Latino voters
to young men to Joe Rogan.
You can basically spin your own
personal Wheel of Blame
and generally make sure it lands
on whoever you were mad at
in the first place.
I'll be honest, I get the appeal.
It is fun to blame people.
Trump was elected president again
on a platform of doing exactly that.
Personally,
I kind of like to imagine
that everything that happened
on Tuesday is Katy Perry's fault,
because at Kamala's election-eve
rally, she did this ill-advised cover.
I decided long ago never to walk
in anyone's shadow.
If I fail, if I succeed,
at least I'll live as I believe.
No matter what
they say about me,
they can't take away my dignity, no!
You are right that they
can't take away your dignity,
but only because you just
surrendered it willingly there.
I know that she's trying to do
a nice thing there,
but why would you try
and cover Whitney Houston?
The voice! Say what you will
about Lee Greenwood,
which in my case is about 18 minutes
of rigorously fact-checked insults,
but at least when he played
Trump rallies,
he wasn't trying to do Freddie
Mercury's part in "Somebody to Love".
Now, did that "drunk bachelorette
party karaoke night" performance
doom the whole Harris campaign?
Probably not.
But it feels good to think so.
Because it's an easy answer to
a difficult question,
which is a lot more appealing now
than finding the difficult answers.
I am not saying
the campaign didn't make mistakes.
But the reasons why specific groups
vote the way they do in elections
tend to be something
you can only puzzle out later,
once all the data comes in.
The tactical decisions by the Harris
campaign will be picked apart.
But it is telling how quickly
some are jumping
to predetermined conclusions
that don't match the campaign
that just wrapped up.
For instance, some Democrats
are loudly claiming
the party
needs to move to the center,
with New York congressman
Tom Suozzi arguing:
"The Democrats have to stop
pandering to the far left",
citing trans rights
as an example, saying:
"I don't want to discriminate
against anybody,"
"but I don't think biological boys
should be playing in girls' sports."
And a few things about that.
First, if what you want
is a centrist campaign that's quiet
on trans issues, tough on the border,
distances itself from Palestinians,
talks a lot about law and order
and reaches out to moderate
Republicans, that candidate existed
and she just lost.
Guess how many trans speakers
there were at the DNC?
I'll give you a hint:
it is a very round number.
Also, I'm not sure how you reach out
to moderate Republicans more
than appearing with Liz Cheney
multiple times,
unless you literally dig up
Henry Kissinger's corpse
and prop it up at a rally in Michigan
as Katy Perry
sings "Rolling in the Deep".
It's okay not to have
the range for a song, Katy!
And finally,
regarding youth sports:
there were a lot of attack ads
on that one issue.
It was frustrating to see
the Harris campaign fail
to formulate a response, especially
because it's pretty easy to do.
Watch,
I'll do it for you right now:
as we've discussed before,
there are vanishingly few trans girls
competing in high schools anywhere.
Even if there were more,
trans kids, like all kids,
vary in athletic ability,
and there's no evidence they pose
any threat to safety or fairness.
It is very weird for you
to be so focused on this subject.
If you genuinely want to address
the biggest concern for most girls
who play high school sports,
you'd be less worried about this
and more about the creepy
assistant volleyball coach
who keeps liking
their posts on fucking Instagram.
The bigger point is,
at least based on what we know now,
anyone pointing the blame
for the election result
at one specific demographic
is missing the mark.
There was an across-the-board
shift to the right on Tuesday.
Trump improved on his 2020 margin
in more than 90% of counties
and his victory was driven
by "gains among seemingly every
possible grouping of Americans."
In fact, the only groups
where I can be absolutely sure
not a single person voted
for Trump are these Avengers,
and people who post poems
to their Instagram stories,
which, all due respect, has gotten
a bit out of hand this week.
One thing that did become clear
was that the economy
was a massive
motivating factor for people.
It ranked number one among issues
voters said they cared about,
with 52% saying it was
"extremely important" to them
and it was frequently mentioned
among those who voted for Trump.
Everything's too expensive.
My wife works two jobs
just to have extra money.
We're waiting for Trump.
I'm voting Trump.
He had catapulted us
into a better lifestyle.
While he was the president,
everything was nice and smooth
and I still had money left
in my pocket.
I would describe myself
as being resigned, I suppose,
to voting for Donald Trump.
Again, I can't vote
for the status quo.
I was absolutely better off during
Trump's presidency than I am today.
Yeah, to hear voters tell it,
the economy is why a lot of them
went with Trump.
He basically wound up winning
with the same mantra
as Bill Clinton did in 1992:
"It's the economy, stupid!"
"Also, by the way, I happen to be
good friends with Jeffrey Epstein."
While a lot of those people may well
gonna vote for Trump anyway,
the truth is, there was understandable
frustration about the inflation
that took place
during Biden's term.
As we discussed at the time in our
exciting and youthful comedy show
that explained inflation
for 24 human minutes,
there were global factors
behind it.
Many U.S. allies also saw
big price increases,
in part because global supply
chains seized up during Covid.
This has led to a wave
of "change" elections.
All over the world,
voters have thrown out incumbent
governments due to higher prices.
And the thing is, I get not wanting
to vote for the status quo.
And Trump,
in his own fucked-up way,
did offer a change, especially as,
even while Harris was blanketing
swing states with ads
talking about grocery prices,
she was also saying there's not much
she'd have done differently than Biden.
While you could argue Biden's
interventions
to shore up the economy were actually
one of his major successes,
I do get when one side is saying:
"Milk is too expensive",
the other is saying:
"Okay, yes, milk is too expensive"
"but we're working on it and also
it's not that expensive"
"when you take a macroeconomic view
of America's recovery"
"in contrast to other Western
economies plus you'll get used to it",
that's not a great position
for an incumbent party to be in
and it makes for
a pretty shitty lawn sign, too.
The irony here is, the U.S. economy
has definitely improved
and the impacts are now being felt.
The Wall Street Journal even ran
this headline before the election:
"The Next President Inherits
a Remarkable Economy."
Which I guess is yet another thing
Trump will now inherit
without having
to actually work for it,
along with money and,
of course, good looks.
You can point to the economy
and still find it unbelievable
that Trump was elected.
We just chose a man who oversaw
a fiasco of a response to the pandemic,
fomented an insurrection,
and since leaving office
has been convicted of 34 counts
of falsifying business records
and found liable for defaming
and sexually abusing a woman.
Not just that,
his campaign was an avalanche
of lies and fearmongering,
when it wasn't outright chaos,
especially toward the end,
when he was miming
a blow job on a microphone,
dancing on stage for 40 minutes,
talking about the size
of Arnold Palmer's dick,
and getting completely distracted,
even in the middle
of one of his signature
rants demonizing migrants.
These are rough, vicious, rougher
than anything you can imagine,
and I say it all the time,
if you want to, do a movie
on some of these people.
If you wanted to do a movie,
there's no actor in Hollywood
that could play the role.
There's nobody that could do it.
These actors, you know,
they're a little bit shaky.
They can't play the role.
They'll bring in a big actor
and you look, you say,
he's got no muscle content.
Got no muscle!
We need a little muscle!
Then they bring in another one.
But he's got a weak face.
No, these guys
have the whole package.
Unfortunately for our country.
Yeah, at one point, his angle
on migrants seemed to be
that they're too chiseled?
And while there's
a lot of notable lines in there,
my underdog favorite is:
"And I say it all the time."
Do you? Do you say:
"We need a little muscle",
in that voice, all the time?
Maybe you do, I don't know,
I cannot fucking believe
you're gonna be president again.
To say the thing many of you
may have been shouting
at your screen for the last
five minutes, it is not news
that Trump's overt
white supremacy and misogyny
appeal to many of his voters.
It's also not news that many
like to hide that by claiming
all they're really worried about
is the economy.
Clearly, for others, there is a willful
denial going on about him.
Because Trump lies so constantly,
people have a sense
that you can pick and choose
which things he actually believes
and create a version of him
that suits you.
And that can be the case even
when his intentions are very clear.
The day after the election,
one reporter spoke with migrants
outside ICE's field office in Atlanta,
and the first person they spoke to,
a woman from Nicaragua, said:
"We're fucked."
Which isn't surprising.
What is surprising is the reporter
then posted an update, saying;
"Several of the migrants
I've been speaking with"
"say they would have voted
for Trump themselves."
"They don't believe Trump
will deport them,"
"because they are here
to work and are 'not criminals.'"
Which is pretty heartbreaking,
because he has made it painfully clear
that he wants to deport migrants
for any reason that he can,
including but not limited to,
"unreasonably sculpted abs."
Maybe those migrants are right.
I hope they are for everyone's sake.
But unfortunately, either way,
we're about to find out.
Which brings us to our second
question: what comes next?
Because as we speak,
Trump is assembling his cabinet.
And the early glimpses into
his process haven't been great.
There are already thousands of
people lined up for potential jobs,
the question is who Trump
picks for those positions,
and to give you a sense of how much
the jockeying is already underway,
Palm Beach is teeming tonight
with potential Trump staffers,
who a lot of them were here
last night at his election night party,
either at Mar-a-Lago
or the convention center
and changed or delayed their
travel plans after last night's victory
and decided to stick around
because that's how quickly
they believe
he can make these decisions.
Okay, first,
let me state the obvious:
that chart fucking sucks.
It looks like a choose-your-fighter
screen where the only thing
they're fighting is the arc
of the moral universe.
It looks like an advent calendar
where every circle opens up
to a tiny piece of literal shit.
It looks like a game board for
"Guess Who: Oops All Assholes."
There is a lot in there,
but let's start
in the lower-right hand corner
with these two guys,
whose potential jobs
are listed as question marks,
like even the chart itself
is surprised that they're there.
And honestly, chart?
Same.
We've already talked about
RFK, enemy to all animals,
friend to all measles,
and Trump's plans to
"let him go wild on medicines."
Really get in there
and mix things up
like a worm in a frontal cortex.
But Elon Musk is on there, too.
One idea floated in
the campaign's closing days
was that he'd be appointed to cut
waste out of the federal budget.
Here he is
at Madison Square Garden,
hyping the plan with the co-chair
of Trump's transition team.
How much do you think
we can rip out
of this wasted 6.5 trillion
Harris-Biden budget?
I think we can do
at least two trillion.
Yeah!
Two trillion!
Your money is being wasted
and the Department of Government
Efficiency is gonna fix that.
Put aside that he's dressed
like the least intimidating
bouncer at a strip club,
that is a concerning amount
of money to be cutting.
And it's likely to come from
slashing government programs.
Musk has said elsewhere
that:
"we have to reduce spending
to live within our means"
and "that necessarily involves
some temporary hardship."
And seeing a man worth 300
billion dollars telling the country
to "endure hardship"
and "live within their means",
fills me with a feeling that I cannot
say out loud for legal reasons.
And even if you think a promise
to cut 2 trillion sounds good,
here is former Treasury Secretary
Larry Summers, pointing out
the obstacles to cutting a full
one-third of the federal budget.
Respectfully, I think it's idiotic.
It's not a serious statement.
Where are they
going to cut it out of?
These people think
it's like some business,
but here's the problem:
only 15% of the federal budget
is for payroll.
Even if you took all the employees,
every single person that works
for the federal government out,
you couldn't save 2 trillion.
It's true, you could fire everyone
who works for the government
and still not hit that number.
I want to compliment the phrase
"respectfully, I think it's idiotic."
He's really stretching "respectfully"
there to breaking point.
"With all due respect, that's
a dumb idea for babies."
"Whilst meaning no offense,"
"what ding-dong dreamt up
this five-alarm fuckfest?"
I don't see Elon going through
the federal budget line by line,
he's just gonna get bored and go back
to something more his speed,
like, I don't know, finding a place
to do another big-boy jump.
But the same cannot be said
for some of the other people
Trump's looking at.
Among his potential attorney
general candidates
is Texas AG Ken Paxton, who's been
under federal investigation
for "alleged bribery
and misuse of office"
and who gave a speech at Trump's
rally on January 6th saying:
"We will not quit fighting."
Ahead of the election, he also
notably did not join 51 other AGs
in signing
a letter condemning violence
and urging a peaceful transition
of power, regardless of the outcome.
When it comes to qualifications
for running the DOJ,
I would argue that
"horny for another insurrection"
probably shouldn't be
one of them.
As for the head of the CIA director,
Kash Patel is apparently an option,
a man so devoted to Trump,
he has a series of children's books
called "The Plot Against the King"
the first of which tells the story
of a wizard named Kash
who sets out to save King Donald
from the sinister machinations
of Hillary Queenton.
One Amazon review said:
"10 stars. Super fan book."
"I think I enjoyed more than
my seven and nine-year-old."
And I am positive that
that is actually true.
Patel was actually
in Trump's first administration,
working in a number of positions
while having an official photo
where he looked like someone
who just realized
he accidentally texted
a dick pic to his mom.
"Oh, god, what did I do?
No. She gave it a thumbs-up."
"I think that's worse. I think
the thumbs-up makes it worse."
There are serious questions over
Patel's qualifications for the job.
It frankly says something that,
during Trump's first term,
when he floated making
Patel deputy FBI director,
Bill Barr apparently said:
"Over my dead body."
Bill Barr isn't there
to stop it anymore,
and if Patel gets in at the CIA,
he's told Steve Bannon
he's got some serious plans.
We will find the conspirators,
not just in government,
but in the media.
Yes, we're gonna come
after the people in the media
who lied
about American citizens,
who helped Joe Biden
rig presidential elections.
We're gonna come after you,
whether it's criminally or civilly,
we'll figure that out.
We're putting you all on notice.
I don't love the sound of that.
From threatening
to come after the media,
to the hoodie
that he's wearing there,
from his own merchandise line
by the way,
featuring a logo that appears to be
this Punisher skull with Trump hair.
And second, all I see on that skull
is a swooping pixie cut,
so to be honest, it could just as
easily be skeleton Dianne Wiest.
And I'm just gonna go ahead
and choose to believe
that he's wearing a spooky
Dianne Wiest hoodie there.
That is just scratching the surface
of the deep bench of idiots,
freaks, and wannabe tough guys
eager to get into the White House
and start breaking things.
In January, things could get
very bad very fast.
Which brings us to our last
question: what do we do now?
Well, that really depends
on who "we" is.
If you happen to be this guy,
first, way to stick the landing, bud!
But there are things that Biden still
could do before leaving office.
He could grant, or extend,
temporary protected status
to some immigrants in the U.S.
to protect them from deportation.
He and the Senate could fill the nine
open inspector general positions
at key agencies like the NSA,
IRS, and Treasury,
which feels very important,
because oversight
is certainly not going to be
a priority for Trump.
He could commute the sentences
of federal prisoners on death row
to life in prison so Trump can't repeat
his agonizing execution spree.
Now, as for the Senate,
it could pass the PRESS Act,
a federal shield law that already
passed the House unanimously.
It would protect the confidentiality
of journalists' sources
and personal devices
from federal law enforcement.
While I am definitely
not a journalist,
there are many great ones
who work here,
and the only time anyone should be
invading their phone
is when I text them research
questions like:
"Have two presidents ever kissed?"
or "If I die on the show,
do I die in real life?"
or "Did Tucker Carlson's mom really
leave him two dollars in her will?"
The answers to those questions,
by the way, are respectively:
twice, unclear, and no,
she only left him one dollar,
and it explains an awful lot.
And finally, the Senate could
and absolutely should,
confirm Biden's remaining
judicial appointments.
There is a lot of important stuff
for them still to do,
making it infuriating to read
news stories saying things like:
"After their losses,
some Democratic senators might want"
"to wrap up remaining business
and move on from Washington"
"as the holidays approach", presenting
attendance problems for votes.
Which is so maddening to me.
These last weeks count.
You can't just fuck off early
because you lost.
I believe Kimberly Kardashian
might have said it best.
Get your fucking ass up
and work.
Yes, Kim. Get your fucking ass up
and work!
But the thing is, even if Biden
and the Senate do all of those things,
it won't stop the fact
that on January 20th,
Trump is getting sworn back
into office.
And that is very depressing.
What do the rest of us do next?
For the next few days, I'd say:
"Whatever you want."
I am not gonna judge you for how
you get through the next week,
for two reasons: one, I'm not
gonna see it. I am in the TV.
This is far away
from where you actually are.
And two, because there is
no right reaction right now.
Lots of us are grieving,
and grief has stages,
which take different amounts
of time for different people.
The stage I'm currently locked in
is anger.
I am mad for trans people
who are being threatened.
I'm disgusted at the prospect
of mass deportation.
I'm furious at Biden
for not dropping out earlier
and that the egos and inaction
of two men older than credit cards
have led us to this point.
I'm mad that women have to hear
"Your body, my choice"
from right-wing dipshits.
I'm mad that Elon Musk
is apparently sitting in on meetings
with the president of Ukraine.
I'm mad about the myriad
of damage Trump'll do
that can't easily be undone, setting
back efforts to fight climate change
and appointing more
Supreme Court justices.
I'm mad at the prospect of four more
years of people saying:
easier with Trump as president?"
No, it is not!
No, it fucking isn't!
Fuck you so much! You don't know
what you are talking about!
Fuck you quite a lot!
Fuck you!
So, whether you're angry right
now, or despairing,
or Googling "New country
no fascists how move?"
Do what you gotta do.
Throw your phone into
the nearest body of water.
Scream into a well. Punch a tree.
Curl up into a ball
and watch "The Princess Diaries"
all the way through
and then at the end when
"Miracles Happen" starts playing,
shriek: "No, they fucking don't!
Don't lie! People can be shits!"
But try not to completely
obliterate yourself in despair.
I know that is hard.
Right now, on the hope meter,
most of us are probably
pretty close to the bottom.
But we just can't afford that.
You can't drink bleach,
even and especially if
this guy tells you to do it again.
Despair doesn't help anything.
If anything,
it makes things worse.
And I'm not trying to push you
into false hope here either.
If your hope meter is up here,
what is wrong with you?
Are you a fucking child?
Things are very bad!
So I'm not gonna tell you
"Everything's gonna be okay"
'cause frankly, it isn't. It wasn't
last time, and it won't be now.
Here is what I guess
I'm trying to say.
A week ago, we mentioned elections
are really just about
choosing who to push and
where you're pushing them from.
Unfortunately, we now know,
we're gonna have to push harder
and from further away
than where we just were.
Which is an exhausting thought.
But I think a lot of times,
movements burn out
by focusing exclusively
on how far we have to go,
without celebrating the small
victories that happen along the way.
For instance, even amid the GOP's
massive anti-trans ad campaign,
on Tuesday, Delaware elected
the country's first openly trans
member of Congress,
and around the country,
35 trans and otherwise gender-
expansive candidates won races,
in places like Montana, Hawaii
and Kentucky,
where Emma Curtis was elected
to the Lexington City Council.
And that is a big deal.
Curtis is hoping this result will set
an example for others in the same boat.
If I could say anything
to my younger self,
it would be the same thing
that I would say to any trans kid
who's watching this now.
Which is that you can succeed
because of who you are,
not for what discriminatory
politicians tell you you have to be.
And you've got a future.
This city, it belongs to you too.
Fuck yeah, it does.
And it is a powerful thing
to have one group saying:
"I don't think you should exist"
and to be able to respond
with: "I am literally
an elected official."
Her being elected is now my
favorite fact about Lexington,
just ahead of the fact that its
tourism website
confidently proclaims it
"the horse capital of the world."
The URL for that, by the way, is:
"Visit-Lex-dot-com
slash-things-to-do-horses".
And let me be the first to say,
don't mind if I do.
And that is not all.
Seven states voted to either
overturn abortion bans
or add protections
to their state constitutions.
Even in Florida, the effort
to protect abortion only failed
because it fell just short of
the 60% that it needed to pass.
And it is brain-breaking
to see 57% be the losing side
of that vote.
And the abortion measures
that did get passed did so
thanks to relentless organizing
at the state level,
from activists
like this woman in Arizona.
This is the best and only way
to make sure
that our state
preserves abortion access.
Chris Love helped create the measure
and get it on the ballot.
She says the overwhelming
support from both parties
now puts rights
back in the hands of women.
This is a resounding victory
for the people of Arizona,
especially people
who can become pregnant,
providers who provide
abortion care.
They can rest easier now knowing
that we've passed Prop 139.
That is great. Although I would
emphasize that she said
rest "easier" there,
not rest "easy".
Unfortunately, as we all know,
there is no resting easy
during a Trump presidency.
Anything can happen,
and not in a good way.
I know that focusing on
the good news this week
feels like finding 20 dollars in your
pocket in the middle of a bear attack.
It is important to take your silver
linings where you can find them.
And it's also worth noting,
Arizona went to Trump,
as did over half the states
that voted to protect abortion.
In fact, Missouri voted not only
to overturn its abortion ban,
but also to increase minimum wage
and require sick leave,
while reelecting both Trump
and Josh Hawley.
Suggesting Democratic policies
are still popular,
even in a year
where their candidate wasn't.
For the next few years,
we're not gonna see much
in the way of gains at
the federal level, at all.
But at the local level, these policies
are clearly resonating.
Political organization,
at the grass roots, is working.
And we're lucky to have groups
working tirelessly to help the people
and causes that Trump
threatens the most.
We spoke to a bunch of them
this week,
and one small positive
thing they told us is
they actually got a head start on
planning for a Trump administration,
because Project 2025 essentially
gave them a 900-page roadmap
for what they need to be ready
to strategize against.
Which is something.
But they're also gonna need help.
And, you know,
Fred Rogers famously told us,
in times of emergency and despair
to "look for the helpers".
It's really good advice, but I will
note, it is advice for children.
And if you're a child
watching me right now,
first, you either have terrible
or fantastic parents,
but second, this next part
isn't actually for you,
so just fuck off for a bit,
will you?
If you're an adult in the coming
crisis, you are the helpers.
And that help can take many forms,
there are people already doing it.
You can use the National Network
of Abortion Funds to find ways
to support people.
You can support trans and
other LGBTQ people
by donating time or money to centers
and organizations in your area.
If you want to help migrants,
there'll be groups where you live
already providing everything
from legal services to supplies.
If you want to support them,
you can just Google
"how to help migrants in"
and add the place where you live.
You can organize politically
around the issues you care about,
at work, at school
and in your community,
to elect
a more responsive government.
If I may quote Lexington's newest
council member:
"your city,
it belongs to you too."
That is all really important work
to be doing
over the next few years
and beyond.
I don't want to do this shit again.
I'm guessing you don't either.
You might well be exhausted,
confused, scared
and running on fucking
fumes right now.
Which is understandable.
But you might actually be surprised
just how far you can still get,
even on fumes.
And don't just take that from me.
Take it from one of the world's
greatest ever singers being covered
by a different singer.
If I fail, if I succeed,
at least I'll live as I believe.
No matter what
they say about me,
they can't take away my dignity,
no!
Thanks, Katy, I couldn't
have sung it better myself.
That is our show, thank you
so much for watching,
we will be back next week,
good night!
No! Don't put it on me!
Don't make me a turkey.
I don't want to be
a fucking turkey right now.
I'm not leaving. You leave!
I'm staying here!
Fuck everybody!
Goodbye.