S4 E16: Coal, Mr. Nutterbutter & AHCA: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

[Music] what welcome welcome welcome to Last Week Tonight I'm John Oliva thank you so much for joining us it has been another bewilderingly busy week uh Jeff sessions testified Trump seemingly admitted he was under investigation Republican politicians and staffers were shot at by an idiot there was a terrible verdict in the fando Castile trial and no verdict at all in the Bill Cosby one a case which incidentally supplied us with one of the single weirdest moments of the Year Tuesday night after 12 hours at the courthouse outside Philadelphia he yelled out his famous Fat Albert [Applause] catchphrase what are you doing shouting your character's catchphrase while you're on trial is a bizarre choice if Renee zelger was on trial for triple murder it would be strange for her to shout you had me at hello no Renee we had you when the blood in the trunk turned out to be a DNA match you're going to jail for a long time but but tonight let's not talk about Cosby let's talk about a different terrible Bill the American Healthcare Act an act which answers the question what if a bus stop ad for a personal injury lawyer was a healthc care policy it this has been somewhat buried by other news but but Senate Republicans have been quietly working on a new version of the bill a task complicated slightly by a surprising new critic we're just getting the Associated Press saying that President Trump told Republican Senators behind closed doors that the house bill is quote mean yes the president called the bill mean and then he presumably folded his arms stamped on the ground screamed until he tuckered himself out and fell asleep right there on the floor nap it off big guy and you know what that that's a little hard to hear coming from a man who celebrated that mean Bill's passage at a Rose Garden ceremony but perhaps he knows that this bill is incredibly unpopular one analysis found it doesn't enjoy a plurality of support in any state in the country which is amazing you can't get all 50 states to agree on anything you can only get 49 states to admit that Delaware sucks and the hold out by the way Minnesota they're just too nice to admit the obvious and Republican Senators say that their bill will be gentler but it is hard to know that given that very few people have seen it and they're reportedly planning to bypass the Committee hearing and markup process vastly limiting the amount of changes that can be made and they also seem strange Str L unprepared for the push back that they've been getting will we have a hearing on the healthcare proposal will we yes I think we've already had one but no I mean on the proposal that you're planning to bring to the floor of the senate for a vote will there be a hearing Democrats have been invited to participate in this process and we are open to ideas and suggestions well I don't know that there's going to be another hearing but we've invited you to to participate oh that is pathetic he really should not have lines fed to him when he already looks like a um ventrus dummy of Mike Pence you idiot a ventrus dummy of Mike Pence you idiot thank you junior thank thank you very much but all this mystery and secrecy has a real cost ures a decid whether to be part of the Obamacare exchanges next year and the current situation is making things difficult just listen to a representative from the National Association of insurance Commissioners it comes down to the biggest problem we have right now is uncertainty insurance I think everybody at this table agree Insurance hates uncertainty yeah of course insurance companies don't like uncertainty they like consistency and predictability this is an industry where a duck has been a company spokesperson for 18 years but that uncertainty is really taking a toll Anthem pulled out of the Obamacare Marketplace in Ohio citing among other things continual changes in federal operations rules and guidance and yeah that will happen when no one knows what the law is even going to be and yet one of the Prime drivers of all this chaos seems oddly Cavalier about that Anthem News and also the prospect of people losing coverage just yesterday we learned that the last Statewide insurer in Ohio is leaving have you folks heard about that that's it bye-bye wave goodbye what a mess okay we all need to remember that sentence because those may be the exact words that Trump uses one day as a mushroom cloud explodes Across America bye-bye wave goodbye what a mess and now this and now things people's fathers used to say my father used to say there are three things you never change people's minds on politics baseball and sex my dad used to say at times in life it's important to call an ace an ace when I was a kid my dad used to say son don't look very far up the family tree there's some stuff up there you don't need to see my father used to say if you draw a circle and shut me out I'm going to draw a bigger Circle and shut you in my daddy used to say it's Wednesday all day long unless it rains I never didn't know what would happen if it rain oh I guess it would just be rainy Wednesday as my dad used to say them are the rules as my dadd used to say you going to have that you going to have that my father used to say you can't tell the players without a program my father used to say congress is always in session my father used to say there lies the body of Jonathan gray who died defending his right of way as my dad used to say dogs don't bark at Park cars that is very [Music] profound moving on our main story tonight concerns coal basically cocaine for Thomas the Tank Engine we have heard a lot about Cole this past year particularly from president Trump in fact arguably a key reason that we have this cautionary Bible story in the White House was his ability to connect with mining communities during the campaign even doing this in West Virginia Nice Nice y put it on right okay okay let me stop you right there it is not easy watching someone I doubt has done a day of hard labor in his life Show how he thinks coal mining works it's like watching a four-year-old Play Store oh that's right Aiden you just hand them your ducky and then you get cookies you idiot but what that crowd probably remembered from that day was how Trump's speech ended we'll start winning winning winning and you are going to be very proud and for those miners get ready because you're going to be working your asses off all right thank you everybody that's right you're going to be working your asses off like that right that's how you do it maybe some of this you'll do or maybe this maybe you'll do some your mimers right you're M you're going back to the coal mimes aren't you I don't know what you people do but Trump promising to bring back coal jobs is undeniably potent and to listen to his EPA administrator it's a promise that he's already keeping since the last fourth quarter of last year to till most recently added almost 50,000 jobs in the coal sector in the month of May alone almost 7,000 jobs okay so the only problem there is that those numbers are the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the actual number of cold jobs created since last year has been just, 1300 so that 50,000 new jobs claim was off by 48,600 which for this Administration is actually uncharacteristically accurate I I just assume that the figure would be more like 12 mining jobs and they're not actually jobs they're lobsters and Trump didn't create them he just remembers 12 times in his life that he saw a lobster but look there is no doubt Trump claims coal is a huge priority for his White House and let's set aside tonight the fact that it is environmentally catastrophic which we shouldn't because it is but this President clearly doesn't care about that he pulled out the Paris agreement citing coal as one of the reasons uh he's lifted a freeze on new coal leases on public lands and revoked a rule to limit coal mining companies from dumping Dey into local streams with miners behind him both times so if coold jobs are so important important to him let's talk about them and let's begin with a number because it's smaller than you might think well president Trump has talked about Reviving The Coal industry which employs 76,000 people retailer JC peny on the verge of bankruptcy employs 114,000 alone wow so there is a lot that is surprising there for a start I didn't even know that JC Penney had employees anymore I thought anyone who walked into a JC Penny was just handed the keys to the store saying here see if you can make it work good luck but 76,000 coal workers is less than you'd expect although in the areas where they are concentrated coal mines are Central to the community uh some schools have miners as mascots for their sports teams or even or even they have coal industry sponsored fairs where kids make a variety of projects perhaps non as awesome as this one it's about a lump of coal named lumpy who's on a journey to figure out what he what he's going to be and what he could be when he grows up I love that kid and by the way top-notch use of air quotes there because you and I both know kid that lumpy is not going to grow up lumpy is going to live a short life underground until one fateful day his friends notice he's missing where's lumpy they'll say has anyone seen lumpy they'll form search parties and put posters up around town but in the back of their minds they know the truth they've always known and one day there's a knock at the door it's the news they've all been dreading all along lumpy has been burned to death in a horrifying ritual alongside the entire lump family this is why we don't name them because then we get attached anyway the point is when coal Jobs go away communities feel it especially because these jobs are high paying a coal miner can make upwards of $80,000 so that's not easy to replace and the industry itself points much of the blame for lost jobs at President Obama with one of the loudest voices being this guy these are my employes I care for them deeply baric Obama and his Democrat followers are destroying entire segments of America Mr Obama is an outlaw I pray every day that this man's incompetence will be overcome that is evil agenda will be overcome when you have a 52-year-old coal miner in your office crying because you were forced to lay him off that's what Obama has never seen because he's never had a job what are you talking about he had a job listen to yourself his job was destroying entire segments of America with his evil incompetence or his name was not barck Obama now now that that man was Bob Murray the CEO of Murray energy and we will get to him later but he he's claim that Obama's regulations have been job Killers is worth taking a look at because while coal mining jobs undoubtedly did decline under Obama it's worth noting that coal mining jobs have also been declining for decades I mean just look at that trend line coal industry jobs declined at roughly the same rate as careers in the Zeppelin industry and babies named Adolf oh some still exist there's just not nearly as many of them anymore and I'm not saying that Obama's regulations had no effect but researchers have found that they had very little impact relative to other factors when they studied the decline in expected demand for coal from a decade ago they found that nearly half of that drop was owing to the drop in natural gas prices and another 18% was due to the growth in renewable energy like wind and solar and there is perhaps no more dramatic evidence of coal losing out to solar energy than this work has begun to power the Kentucky coal mining Museum not by coal but by the sun we believe that this project will help save at least $8 to $10,000 off of the energy cost on this building alone it's true the Kentucky coal mining museum is now using solar energy it's like finding out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was brought to you by Smashmouth and the hard truth is even if consumption wasn't declining companies would still be cutting jobs as they are increasingly replacing miners with machines you had all this mechanization going on and the people leaving but it's come to the point now where they don't do underground mining if they can get away with it they do mountain toop removals and surface mining you can mine a whole mountain side and I'm talking about a whole Mountain Side within a year or two with around uh 7 to 12 people and you that's all you need he's right coal mining like almost all Industries is facing increased Automation and I say that well aware that in 5 to 10 years I am probably going to be replaced by a robotic English tea kettle that screams depressing money stats at you and look the rise of alternative energies is a good thing for the Earth as a whole and some point out that as cold Jobs go away new green jobs are opening up which is true but not where coal miners live at West Virginia and Kentucky for instance rank near the bottom in solar jobs per capita so for the people who face layoffs the future can look Bleak I it's really depressing whenever you you you have kids and you got to work one day and they say well you don't work here no more you got to go home and face your family is hand and you don't have a job no more yeah and that is devastating and I know that it does not help someone in his situation to be told statistics by someone like me in a TV studio possibly powered by coal who doesn't have the skills or muscle mass to be a minor and who looks like the result of a drunk threesome between Chris Hayes Austin Powers and a potato but I know that but the question is what does help someone in that situation Donald Trump insists that he's helping miners by reducing regulations on coal companies but too often people can flate coal Coal Miners and coal companies and imply that when you help one you help them all but they are not all in the same boat although they may insist otherwise for instance when the coal company Alpha Natural Resources filed for bankruptcy two years ago their CEO stressed how painful that was are more mind closures possible they are unfortunately and for Crutchfield that's clearly the hardest part of it all when I asked him about this photo displayed prominently in Alpha headquarters a photo called Daddy's Hands the emotions were hard to hold back that is the backbone of America and we have that photograph just to remind everybody who we serve that's a nice sentiment just slightly undercut by the fact that according to documents Alpha later asked its Bank bankruptcy trustee if it could save $3 million by terminating the health and life insurance benefits of around 1,200 retirees while at the same time seeking permission to pay bonuses totaling up to around $12 million to top Executives including that guy that you just saw which is the sort of thing that might make Daddy's Hands want to do something like this and you wouldn't really blame them for that and yet Cole CEOs constantly claim to workers that it's us against them take Don blanken chip ex CEO of Massie energy he once held a rally featuring Ted nent Hank Williams Jr and a rousing speech from blanken ship himself I know that the safety and health of coal miners is my most important job I don't need Washington politicians to tell me that and neither do you okay so speech aside that's a hell of a look it takes a Brave man to go for half carry strug and half the time to make the donuts go and if you thought if you thought the presence of a man who's just been ejaculated on by a flag was as upsetting as that rally could get well guess who else was there we believe in God right Faith Family country We Believe America is a shining city on a hill right we believe in Freedom how you doing darl by the way there's there's a really hot looking chick in the third row there how you doing man I'll take you backstage to meet Hank a little later if you want you want to meet me later what the was that in the course of his speech he referenced God quoted Reagan and engaged in sexual harassment that man really is Fox News but but notably notably just just a few months after his rally against Washington safety rules blankens ship's company had a massive explosion killing 29 Miners and blankens ship denies responsibility but in the wake of that disaster he was sentenced to a year in prison for conspiring to violate mind safety and health standards he actually just got out and now has to rebuild his life with absolutely nothing but his estimated golden parachute of $86 million and that will help you get back on your feet 86 million will help you get back on anyone feet you want to get back on Fred a stairs feet that's no problem for 86 million grab a hacka we are digging up Fred blankin chip is already lobbying the Trump Administration to oppose more onerous criminal laws for mine owners saying they will not improve mine safety and I would like to think that Trump would not listen to him because you know he loves the miners so much but there's not much evidence of that what there is evidence of is his affection for M CEOs his secretary of Commerce is Wilbur Ross who ran the company that had the deadly SEO mind disaster and he's also close to that man that you saw earlier Bob Murray who claims that Trump called him shortly after the election to deliver a special message he said tell your coal miners I've got their back and then he said I love you man well congratulations on that Bob you're now in the very select group of people that Donald Trump has said I love you to along with presumably the worst Baldwin exactly one of his two daughters and the hollowe business ghost that greets him in the mirror every morning and Murray actually illustrates the divides that can exist between a coal company's interests and those of its workers and I'm going to need to be careful here because when we contacted Murray energy for this piece they sent us a letter instructing us to cease and desist from any effort to defame harass or otherwise injure Mr Murray or Murray energy and telling us that failure to do so will result in immediate litigation and a cease and desist letter is incredibly something that we've never received before on this show not even the nation of New Zealand has sent us one and we waby kick those imim burglar in the balls almost every week so so I have to proceed with caution I'm not going to say for instance that Bob Murray looks like a geriatric Dr Evil even though even though he clearly does because Murray energy has sued people in the past just last month they sued the New York Times for liel they also sued everyone from a contributor to the Huffington Post to these two papers in Ohio in fact Murray's current General Council told reporters that this paper had inflicted a potential economic loss of and I am not making this up $1 billion which when you think about it is exactly what you'd expect from a geriatric do evil and though Murray energy have insisted in the past that they only Sue news out lets as a matter of Last Resort and never to chill Free Speech their letter also tells us that they might pursue our damages to the fullest extent of the law including to the level of the Supreme Court of the United States and that would actually be a real mistake because we have a personal relationship with those judges and I'll give you a fun fact if you scratch Justice Alito just behind his left ear he pees on the floor that's true that's true of the dog and the man so so as we have been explicit told to cease and desist let us do neither of those things and let's talk about Bob Murray because he he often speaks on TV in defense of coal workers but let's take a look at his actions shall we because Murray's company recently unsuccessfully sued to block a rule aimed at reducing minor exposure to cold dust that causes black lung a disease which killed as many as 10,000 people between 1995 and 2005 insisted that the rule was illegal destructive and did nothing for minors uh for nothing for their health although last year with the rule in effect government reports indicated respirable dust levels fell to Historic lows and look if you even appear to be on the same side as black lung you're on the wrong side that's the equivalent of watching my girl and rooting for the bees and and and some of some of Murray's employees have clashed with the company over safety a few years back muray proposed a program where miners could receive bonuses based on the amount of coal they extracted it was voted down by employees who believed it would have an adverse impact on safety in the mines but the company did it anyway saying if workers didn't like it they could just write void on their checks and amazingly around 62 employees did just that with two going even further one returning a check for $158 by writing kiss my ass Bob on it and another taking a check for $322 and writing eat Bob and and I have to say well played miners because you could have sent that message on a cake or you could have sent it on a bear with a big stuffed heart but to write it on your $3 bonus check well played to you sir and then there was the deadly collapse at the kle canyon mine in Utah Murray attracted attention for a bizarre press conference in which while Rescuers were still working he was making B old claims about the cause of the accident this is the first major accident I've ever had in one of my co mines in 20 years of being in existence the first major accident and this was caused by an earthquake not something that Murray energy or Utah American did or our employees did or our management did so here is the interesting thing about that to this day Murray says that the evidence proves he was correct that an earthquake caused the collapse but that was decidedly not the conclusion of the government's investigation which found it was caused by unauthorized mining practices and there was no evidence that a naturally occurring earthquake caused the collapse Murray does not want us talking about the accident saying it was an incredibly difficult time for the families and though he admits that he was unable to satisfy the expectations of the family members he says he showed them honesty sincerity and compassion throughout the crisis although according to both a Department of Labor investigation and Congressional testimony by some of them their pain was exacerbated by Murray's Behavior while they waited for news of their loved ones all we heard was earthquake earthquake we did not want to hear about earthquakes but wanted to know when we were going to see our loved ones again Murray more than once yelled at us when we asked questions wow yelling at distraught families when they ask questions is not okay it is barely okay to do it with 5-year-olds and they ask over 42 million questions a day I give up why are birds is not a question I know the answer to Kyler Google it Google it Google [Applause] it and there is one more Bob story Bob Murray story that I would like you to know about it's an AP fful tale concerning how the company began Union miners claim that Murray used to tell them that he was sitting on his back porch contemplating his future when he was approached by a squirrel who hopped up next to him looked him in the eye and said Bob Murray you should be operating your very own minds and we asked Murray's company about that story and they told us it never occurred and you know what I actually believe Murray on that one cuz I think deep down we all know if squirrels could talk they wouldn't be giving career advice to Coal Executives they'd be loudly listing their favorite nuts okay let's go acorns chest nuts walnuts Armond cashews are good although of course technically not a nut Brazil nuts not my favorite well I wouldn't kick him out of bed either do you feel me guys do you feel this and look to get back to jobs Murray argues that he has provided thousands of them to mining communities and he's right about that and for those communities that fact might understandably outweigh everything else ESP especially if Murray and Trump can bring Co back but notably even Murray himself is careful regarding that can those jobs come back if it's a Donald Trump presidency I don't think those jobs can come back ma'am but we can stop the destruction I don't think it can come back to where it was but we can stop it and that's what I've told Mr Trump and he gets it uh hang on there Bob no he doesn't he do a he barely gets what mining is he may well think it's just running up to things that he wants and yelling mine and that that's possible and and B B he has repeatedly told miners that they're going to be working their asses off if Trump really cares about miners he would be putting a plan in place for their Futures as mining continues his long-term decline but he isn't doing that now now luckily there are some small things being done by others uh one company called bitsource in Kentucky has been hiring miners as software programmers and paying them through their retraining I've learned numerous code languages I've learned uh CSS I've learned PHP HTML JavaScript twig and yaml that's really impressive so much so that I will ignore the fact that twig and yaml sounds like a bootleg Russian DVD knockoff of Lilo and Stitch and but look that that program is encouraging but it won't suit everyone and at present it only has nine jobs for former miners and Trump is actively hurting the chances of other projects like it his new budget proposes cutting funding for the appalachin Regional Commission which helps Revitalize communities affected by coal mining job losses by funding employment programs that have helped among other things bit Source a and you might wonder well why would a guy who says he loves miners all the time do that well for a sense of how he really feels just read a Playboy interview from 1990 where he said and I quote if I had been the son of a coal miner I would have left the damn mines but most people don't have the imagination or whatever to leave their mine they don't have it and you know what they certainly don't have what Trump has specifically inherited wealth and hair like the wispy pubes of an aging Yeti the the the point here is Trump needs to stop lying to coal miners we all do stop telling them that that their jobs are all coming back when they're not stop telling them that coal is when it isn't and stop pretending that this isn't an industry in the middle of a difficult and painful orbe it necessary transition an honest conversation about coal and its minors needs to be had and we should neither cease nor desist from having it which actually reminds me one more thing here um Bob Murray I didn't really plan for so much of this piece to be about you but you kind of forced my hand on that one and I know that you are probably going to sue me but you know what I stand by everything I said although just to reiterate I do not think you claimed a squirrel talk to you even by your standard that would be a pretty ridiculous thing to say so I I believe that you have never been spoken to by a squirrel until that is tonight look Bob look look Bob it's it's Mr Nutter butter Bob look look look it's Mr Nut Butter hey hey there hey there Mr Nutter butter I understand that you have a message for Bob Murray I do okay hey Bob just wanted to say if you're planning on suing I do not have a billion dollars but I do have a check for three acorns and 18 oh that's that's very nice of you Mr Nutter butter it is yeah it's made out too eat sh Bob remember I kiss my ass thank you Mr M butter that's our show thanks so much for watching see you next week good night [Applause]