John Oliver Roasts Trump DOJ Using Own Company's DC Flops
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- John Oliver on Sunday's 'Last Week Tonight' attacked the Trump Department of Justice under AG Todd Blanche and Jeanine Pirro, accusing the unit of carrying out legal retribution for Trump at the expense of winning cases
- Oliver pointed to a cascade of DOJ setbacks: indictments against James Comey and Letitia James were dismissed, the case Adam Schiff called for never got off the ground, a grand jury declined to indict six Democratic lawmakers, and a D.C. judge tossed out a subpoena for Fed Chair Jerome Powell
- In an NBC News clip, Laura Jarrett confronted Blanche about the department's record, to which Blanche replied 'we're working hard' and dismissed media criticism of the failed cases
- Oliver quipped that repeated unsuccessful attempts would be 'huge for DC movies,' displaying a collage of flops including 'Supergirl,' which grossed just $126 million worldwide against a $170+ million budget and $120 million in marketing — potentially losing up to $100 million
- The studio behind those films, Warner Bros., shares a parent company with Oliver's HBO show and may be acquired by the pro-Trump Ellison family if the Paramount Skydance takeover goes through
- Oliver's broader critique framed Blanche's response — 'we're not going to run away from hard cases' — as evidence the department was 'running cock-first into a brick wall'
Why it matters: Oliver's segment crystallizes a pattern of DOJ losses — four named cases dismissed or never filed, plus a Powell subpoena tossed out — that Blanche defended as working hard. The joke lands harder because Warner's DC film division produced the punchline material, and the Ellisons' pending Paramount Skydance takeover could put Oliver's own employer under pro-Trump ownership.
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