John Oliver criticized Donald Trump’s recent speech on the opioid epidemic, calling his solutions “underwhelming”.
The Last Week Tonight host studied the president’s words as he declared the escalating crisis a public health emergency. One of the key elements of his plan is an advertising campaign to deter Americans from taking opioids in the first place.
“So an ad campaign?” Oliver said. “I mean, sure, it is important not to start abusing opioids, but that doesn’t really help the people who are already struggling with addiction. It’s kind of like seeing someone neck deep in quicksand and then putting up a ‘Don’t do quicksand’ sign.”
While some praised Trump finally declaring opioid addiction to be a public health emergency, Oliver was less convinced. “It is good that the president is calling attention to the opioid crisis,” he said. “The problem is that attention is pretty much all he’s giving it because he didn’t put out a detailed strategy and his splashiest step, declaring it a public health emergency, doesn’t actually do very much.”
The actual budget afforded to the fund for public health emergencies is just $56,000 yet opioid addiction costs an estimated $75bn a year.
“Trump has finally chimed in with his two cents on how to tackle this crisis and it involved allotting, for the 2.6 million Americans addicted to opioids, literally about two cents each,” he said. “So Trump’s fix for our opioid epidemic essentially boils down to: ‘Here’s two pennies, go throw them in a fucking mall fountain and wish your addiction away.’”
Elsewhere, Oliver also spoke about the impending news from Robert Mueller’s office after it was revealed that the first set of criminal charges against the Trump campaign would be announced on Monday.
“I know right now all anyone can think about is the reported indictments coming from Robert Mueller,” he said. “Please let it be Jared, please let it be Jared, please let it be Jared!”
