After a few weeks’ hiatus, John Oliver came back in fiery form, ripping into Wells Fargo in the wake of the company’s banking scandal on his HBO series Last Week Tonight.
“Wells Fargo: the only bank ever to be serenaded by an eight-year-old Ron Howard,” said Oliver, before showing a clip of Howard singing about Wells Fargo in the 1962 film The Music Man.
“Just three weeks ago,” Oliver continued, “Wells Fargo was the most valuable bank in the world. But recently, its reputation has taken a massive hit after some alarming revelations.”
Oliver recounted how Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses, affecting more than two million customers. He then quipped: “Hidden fees are bad enough without being hidden inside hidden accounts with hidden pin numbers made with hidden email addresses – because that’s like a Russian nesting doll where the last doll is giving you the middle finger.”
The bank recently announced it was ending the sales quotas at the core of this scandal. About 5,300 employees were fired for opening unauthorized accounts in order to meet their sales quotas.
Despite this, Oliver didn’t go easy on the embattled Wells Fargo CEO, John G Stumpf, taking his cue from the thorough lashing he received from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who last week implored him to resign in front of the Senate banking committee.
“Stumpf actually appeared in front of the Senate banking committee this week with a bandage on his hand, which I legally can’t say is the result of carpal tunnel from typing in so many fake email addresses. And he wanted to be clear: he didn’t know anything about anything,” said Oliver.
“Oh, come on,” added the host. “If he was going to play that dumb, he should have showed up with his shoes on his hands and a Stone Cold Steve Austin T-shirt. Then it would have made sense.”
Oliver dedicated much of the rest of the show to make the case that Donald Trump’s worst scandals “trump” those of opponent Hillary Clinton.
“This campaign has been dominated by scandals, but it is dangerous to think that there is an equal number on both sides,” he said. “And you can be irritated by some of Hillary’s – that is understandable – but you should then be fucking outraged by Trump’s.
“Ethical failings in a politician are like raisins in a cookie,” he explained. “They shouldn’t be there. They disgust people. But most politicians have at least a few raisins.
“Hillary is a cookie like this one,” he said, holding an oatmeal raisin cookie. “She arguably has more raisins than average.”
As for Trump? “The man is a fucking raisin monsoon,” yelled Oliver, as a torrent of raisins rained down on his desk.
