John Oliver mocked President Trump for repeatedly insisting that a photo that appeared to be edited was real during an interview with ABC News last week.
On Sunday’s Last Week Tonight (which was filmed prior to Trump revealing a plan to institute a tariff on movies produced outside the U.S.), Oliver showed a 90-second clip from an interview that Trump gave to ABC News senior national correspondent Terry Moran pegged to the president’s first 100 days in office for his second term.
During the interview, which was filmed in the Oval Office, the subject of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was broached. Abrego Garcia was recently deported to El Salvador, which the Trump administration has since admitted was a mistake due to an “administrative error.”
In his ABC News interview, Trump insisted that Abrego Garcia has the letters and numbers “MS-13” tattooed on his knuckles, which Trump says is proof that he’s part of a dangerous gang. However, the photo showing those letters and numbers appears to be edited to add those in, as more recent photos of Abrego Garcia in El Salvador do not show them on his hand. Experts also point to other factors indicating the photo has been doctored.
In a tense moment of the interview that aired last week, Trump insisted to Moran that the tattoos were real. He also posted that image on social media. In fact, Moran kept trying to move on to another subject, but Trump wouldn’t allow it. Watch below starting at the 7-minute mark.
Opined Oliver: “Terry, Terry, Terry, you’re in hell, Terry. Terry, this is hell right now. I’m genuinely shocked Trump doesn’t drink alcohol because that is the most ‘drunk at an IHOP’ conversation I think I’ve ever heard, and no disrespect to Terry, but maybe don’t move on from that.
“I know you’ve got other questions to get to, but if the President of the United States is trying to tell you that this amateur-hour Photoshop is real, let him go get the picture and make him say it again. Point to that Helvetica-looking ‘M,’ and make the president say, ‘Yes, I believe that artless M that’s weirdly clearer and darker than all the other tattoos is real.’ Make him say, ‘I believe that man went to a tattoo parlor and said, “The skull’s pretty spooky, but what I’d really like is a neatly aligned ‘3’ directly on the bone of my knuckle, and can you please make it so that it doesn’t stretch or bend with the natural curves of the human hand and also make it look like a typewriter did it?’”
“Because Terry, sometimes when Trump’s doing his normal racist blue sky, you do need to cut him off to slow the flow of hatred into the world, but if he wants to tell America that this laughably doctored picture is evidence of a major threat to American safety, you have an obligation to let the man cook.”
Oliver received a round of applause for that latter statement from his studio audience.
“If Trump’s going to hash out those claims, he probably should be doing that in court, not on TV, and after he’s already shipped someone off to a foreign prison,” Oliver added.