John Oliver opened Sunday’s (August 4) episode of Last Week Tonight by poking fun at comments made by former President Donald Trump last week regarding Vice President Kamala Harris and the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
The late-night host started by focusing on Trump’s interview at the National Association of Black Journalists event, where the Republican presidential nominee said he didn’t know Harris was Black until a few years ago, claiming she identified as Indian and then “became a Black person” for political gain.
“I mean this in the most disparaging way possible: that went about as well as could be expected,” Oliver said, per The Daily Beast. “Putting Trump in front of a Black audience and asking him to speak on race was never going to get more elevated than, ‘the lady said she was both Indian and Black. That is cheating.’”
Oliver added, “So, none of this needs saying, but Harris didn’t ‘make a turn’ into being Black like it’s an interstate off-ramp. Her father’s Black and her mother was Indian.”
He also got a dig in on Trump’s running mate JD Vance, quipping, “I cannot imagine what J.D. Vance, a man with three biracial children was thinking while watching Trump there. Although, you know what? He was probably thinking, ‘Look at that luscious upholstery. Do you think those cushions come all the way off?’”
The Community alum then turned his attention to the Paris Olympics, noting the “incredibly stupid controversies” surrounding “this Algerian boxer supposedly being trans, despite the fact she isn’t” and the “anger over the incredibly French opening ceremony.”
Oliver recapped the opening ceremony, paying particular attention to the drag queen segment, which many Christian groups interpreted as a mockery of The Last Supper.
Trump himself commented on the performance, telling Laura Ingraham, “I thought it was a disgrace… I mean, they can do certain things. I thought it was, uh… terrible.”
Oliver then turned Trump’s own words against him, saying, “It’s always strange to watch Trump act like he cares about religions. Because to echo something I heard someone say recently, I didn’t know he was a Christian until a number of years ago when he happened to turn Christian. All of a sudden, he made a turn and became a Christian person.”
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Sundays, 11/10c, HBO