Oliver Roasts Trump's DOJ, Own Network's DC Flops
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- John Oliver devoted Sunday's "Last Week Tonight" to criticizing President Trump's Department of Justice, which he said has become a vehicle for "legal retribution" under former AG Pam Bondi, designate AG Todd Blanche, and D.C. attorney Jeanine Pirro.
- Todd Blanche was grilled by NBC News' Laura Jarrett over a string of DOJ setbacks — dismissed indictments against James Comey and Letitia James, a stalled case against Rep. Adam Schiff, a grand jury declining to indict six Democratic lawmakers, and a D.C. judge tossing out a subpoena for Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
- Blanche responded "we're working hard" and "we're not going to run away from hard cases"; Oliver mocked that "they're accusing you of losing" and that "everyone believes you ran cock-first as hard as you could straight into a brick wall."
- Oliver then showed a collage of failed DC superhero movie posters including "Supergirl," which grossed just $126 million worldwide against a $170+ million budget and $120 million in marketing, standing to lose up to $100 million for Warner Bros.
- Warner Bros. — the same parent company as Oliver's HBO — may be taken over by the pro-Trump Ellison family if Paramount Skydance's acquisition goes through.
Why it matters: Oliver used his platform to catalog a string of DOJ setbacks — dismissed indictments against Comey and James, a stalled Schiff probe, and a tossed-out subpoena for Fed Chair Jerome Powell — that Blanche tried to spin as "working hard." The irony landed harder given that his parent company Warner Bros. faces a pending acquisition by the pro-Trump Ellison family.
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