Though it certainly feels like we've been here a time or two millions of times before, Donald Trump's campaign has had a particularly egregious August. Campaign manager Paul Manafort exited his post just weeks after Trump made a startling suggestion about "Second Amendment people," falsely accused President Barack Obama of being "the founder of ISIS," and then attempted to backpedal on all of that with the umbrella explanation of "sarcasm." Last Week Tonight host John Oliver already told us he wasn't buying that excuse. Now, Oliver is being a bit more direct with his recommendations for the Trump campaign.
"It seems you have two really bad options here," Oliver said during Sunday’s show. "If you keep going, you're going to spend the next 11 weeks ramping up the hatred in speeches, injecting poison into the American bloodstream that will take generations to remove, and denying the country the contest of ideas that a presidential campaign should actually be. After that, you're either going to win or you're going to lose, and both of those scenarios end pretty badly for you." Then dude really turned up the heat.
"I would like to propose to you a third option," Oliver said. "Drop out. Simply drop out and tell America this entire candidacy was a stunt, a satire designed to expose the flaws in the system." In fact, Oliver explained, dropping out would not make Trump a loser. Dropping out would actually make him "a legend."
Oliver was even kind enough to invite Trump to his program, but with one tiny caveat: admission of bullshit. "In February, I stood here and called you a two-bit bullshit artist, conning America to help himself," Oliver said. "Please prove me wrong and reveal yourself to be a three-bit bullshit artist, conning America to help America."
At the time of publication, Trump hadn't yet passive-aggressively tweeted about Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment.
