John Oliver reminded his viewers Sunday night that while Donald Trump’s sudden demolition of the White House’s East Wing might be alarming, it is merely the “tip of Trump’s iceberg” and nowhere near as “shocking” as the president’s lethal military strikes on purported drug traffickers off the Venezuelan coast.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has destroyed at least ten boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing at least 43 people whom they have described as “narco-terrorists.” At the same time, the administration has yet to provide any public evidence to support its claims that the boats are being run by cartel members and transporting large quantities of illicit drugs.
International law experts have said that the president’s legal justification for the preemptive strikes “is full of holes,” and essentially “boils down” to him saying he has the “prerogative to kill people based solely on his own say-so.”
“Outside of armed conflict, there is a word for the premeditated killing of people, and that word is ‘murder,’” Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser for the State Department, told NPR. “And just because the administration puts together this fig leaf of a legal justification does not legitimize these premeditated killings in the Caribbean.”
During Sunday’s broadcast of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, Oliver pointed out that the president ramping up his boat strikes very well could be the “most shocking” thing he’s done since returning to the White House, and deserved more attention than some of his other outrageous acts – such as destroying the East Wing for a privately funded ballroom.
Noting that the “administration has not provided public evidence” to back its claims about the boats being full of so-called “narco-terrorists, the late-night comic said that even if they provided proof, it still wouldn’t make their actions legal.
“I’ve watched enough JAG to know the typical approach to drug boats is to intercept them and arrest the suspects, not murder them with no due process,” Oliver quipped.
Noting that the strikes themselves were “distressing enough,” Oliver lamented that the president has also floated the notion of using the military to attack the suspected cartels on land – and without Congressional approval.
Late last week, Trump told reporters that he doesn’t “think we’re necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war,” and instead “we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.” Oliver then aired the president emphasizing that point, which featured Trump flatly declaring: “We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead.”
“You know, the kind of chilling statement you expect to hear from a serial killer or the mastermind behind Panera Bread’s Charged Lemonades, but not ideally the President of the United States,” Oliver snarked.
Trump’s increased boat strikes, which experts feel are a precursor to Trump justifying a regime-changing war in Venezuela, have prompted some Republicans to raise concerns about the legality of the administration’s drug war.
"I would call them extrajudicial killings. This is akin to what China does, what Iran does with drug dealers,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said Sunday. “They summarily execute people without presenting evidence to the public. So it's wrong."
Oliver, meanwhile, framed the ongoing boat strikes within other recent actions by Trump, such as the White House demolition, his response to the massive “No Kings” nationwide protests, reports that Trump wants a $230 million payout from the Justice Department, and the administration’s $40 billion bailout of Argentina to help boost the the sagging popularity of the nation’s Trumpian leader Javier Millei.
“And yet, the demolition of the White House, a metaphor that if anything, is too on the nose,” Oliver declared.
“Between tearing down the White House, trying to use the Justice Department to pay himself, and proudly sharing AI footage of him literally s**tting on Americans, the president now also appointed himself judge, jury and executioner of foreign citizens,” he added. “And it is infuriating that neither Congress nor the courts seem to be interested in putting a stop to any of this, because we are supposed to live in a country of checks and balances.”
While Oliver swiped at the president for his “too on the nose” destruction of the White House, his HBO colleague Bill Maher – once an outspoken Trump critic who has taken a softer approach towards the president in recent months following a Kid Rock-brokered private dinner – largely shrugged it off.
“Presidents do change the buildings. Nixon put in a bowling alley, Obama made the tennis court a basketball court. I can’t get this mad about everything,” Maher said Friday, adding that he was “kind of jealous” of Trump.
