S4 E19: Alex Jones, John McCain & Transgender Military Ban: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

[Music] w welome welcome welcome to Last Week Tonight I'm John oliv thank you so much for joining us we have been away for most of July so we have clearly missed a lot from Kid Rock possibly running for the Senate to OJ Simpson getting parole finally to Jared Kushner actually speaking out loud following his testimony before a senate committee my name is Jared Krishna I am Senior advised to president Donald J Trump when my father-in-law decided to run for president I served his campaign the best I could I told you that's what his voice sounded like I told you and you wouldn't believe me now that happened on Monday that happened this Monday and if it if it feels like that happened a month ago that's all thanks to president Trump who seems to be bending the SpaceTime Continuum in order to fill a week with more news than it can scientifically contain and this week may have actually been notable not just for the Terrible Things Trump tried to do but for how terribly he tried to do them take what happened on Wednesday morning a policy pronouncement from the president of the United States he just took a major stance saying that he will ban transgender people from serving in the US military look that is as hateful as it is pointless but it means that we may already be entering the Mad Libs portion of Trump's presidency where he just persecutes groups at random transgender people banned from the military Pacific Islanders can no longer use the postal service and Jews can no longer high five sorry Jews and and to make to make this even worse Trump not only announced this policy over Twitter but across three tweets the first of which read after consultation with my generals and Military experts please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow then there was a 9 Minute Gap presumably while he finished his breakfast of deep fried Big Macs and mash Dorito and according to one report even his own generals were concerned about what might be coming next it was reported that generals at the Pentagon were nervous for 9 minutes till the second tweet came out because they thought the president might be declaring war on North Korea that's a pretty scary thought a pretty scary thought no Donald Trump declaring war on North Korea with a tweet is the scariest 10 consecutive words in the English language and I'm including on that list a clown waits for you in your house softly whistling and sharks can fly now and they know where you live and as as the military soon informed the president it doesn't take its marching orders from Twitter General Joseph Dunford said quote there will be no modification to the current policy until the order goes through the proper channels exactly the military needs instructions delivered through the proper chain of command you cannot change policy over the same channels that Justin Bieber once used to tweet random shout out to all my sexy ladies haha meanwhile there was also a development regarding the repeal of Obamacare which remember was a signature goal for Donald Trump's presidency along with presumably passing comprehensive pro- daughter dating legislation and getting to second base with a truck well well this week the repeal ran ground in spectacular fashion the GOP drive to repeal Obamacare fell apart at 1:29 a.m. eastern time Mr McCain when Arizona Senator John McCain flashed a thumbs down drawing gasps and some Applause from Democrats wow I haven't seen a group of senators break into spontaneous Applause like that since every time Ted Cruz leaves a room oh he's going that guy now M McCain's vote was an incredibly dramatic moment although CNN could not help trying to amp up the drama even more 1:29 a.m. senator McCain re-enters the chamber Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stands at the front of the room like he had most of the night McCain waves his hand to get the attention of the Senate clerk pauses for just a moment and gives a dramatic thumbs down Senator Elizabeth Warren leans in to get a better look and breaks into Applause Senator Diane Feinstein a single assertive clap meanwhile Senator Roy blunt shakes his fist at the heavens wondering how an omniscient God could be so cruel while Senator CLA mccal does something that looks like the Macarena and the Ghost of stom Thurman carves a racial epithet into a wooden desk using the blunted edge of a mechanical pencil but all this drama somehow took a back seat this week to the one unfolding within the White House where both Shan Spicer and R prus have resigned following the appointment as communications director of Anthony scaramucci a former hedge funer and long Islander of the frecking month for six 143 months in a row scaramucci's nickname is the mooch which already sounds like the name of a cow STD so uh neither one of us has been with anyone else and yet somehow I have the mooch is there anything you need to tell me anyway Tony mooch wasted no time cracking down on leakers going on CNN to explain his philosophy with an unexpected reference why don't you honor the job you remember Joe pno what would he say say act like you you've been there before act with honor and dignity whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa it is a little loaded quoting Joe pno particularly in the context of everyone needs to keep their mouth shut and the crazy thing is that whole act like you've been there quote has been attributed to multiple coaches including Vince Lombardi and yet the mooch still picks the guy with a child sex abuse Scandal and dismissal section on his Wikipedia page which is just weird if you were pregnant and someone asked you if you knew the sex of the baby your response would not be like Casey Anthony once said it's a girl and and that patno line would have been the craziest thing scaramucci had said this week until this White House communications director Anthony scaramucci unloaded on Chief of Staff Ry prus calling him an exploitive paranoid schizophrenic a paranoia act and this was the most disgusting thing he said I'm not Steve Bannon I'm not going to blank my own blank suck my own scaramucci said I'm not Steve Bannon I'm not trying to suck my own that's what he said to a reporter on the record there was just no point in anyone being Koy about this anymore in fact scaramucci's remarks were so extreme they put news networks in a tricky position but leave it to Gail King on CBS This Morning to cut right to the chest how is that even physically possible number one and number two when you hear something like that Bob are you offended are you offended are you disappointed are you saddened by it she's talking to Bob sheifer and nothing in his half century of Edward armaro award-winning journalism could have possibly prepared him for the question does the idea of Steve Bannon sucking his own make you angry or sad and that is where we are six months into the Trump Administration with a president who has no major legislative accomplishments no conception of even the the very basics of how his job works and a communications director who answers the question what if a tanning bed was a person and yet frustratingly there is no public indication from Trump that he thinks he's doing anything wrong in fact on Friday this was his takeaway from the failed Obamacare repeal they should have approved healthc care last night but you can't have everything you I said from the beginning let Obamacare implode and then do it I turned out to be right I turned out to be right you got to hand it to him no one is better than Trump at claiming victories from overwhelming defeats I could honestly see him at the end of his term saying I always said I didn't have the ability experience or intelligence to be a successful president I turned out to be right and now this and now more newscasters desperately trying not to say the words suck my own I'm not Steve Bannon I'm not trying to expl my own expl I'm not trying to suck my own bleep I'm not trying to suck my own blank okay I'm not trying this is really graphic I'm not going to keep just saying blanking blanking he's saying Bannon should perform physically impossible acts on himself there was also suggestions of physical acts which are impossible require flexibility that none of us have what he said about Steve Bannon which is if true would make Bannon a gymnast talking about faltio it's it's not like nothing I've ever seen yeah yeah Bing the way she expressed it aren't you moving on so for our main story tonight we're going to talk about the media specifically one increasingly influential member of it Alex Jones the Walter kronite of shrieking batet gorilla clowns and I know you may be thinking there is nothing more I need to know about Alex Jones because you've probably Seen Crazy Clips like this what do you think tap water is it's a gay bomb baby and I'm not saying people didn't naturally have homosexual feelings I'm not even getting into it you think I I'm like shocked by it so I'm up here bashing it because I don't like gay people I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the fraking frogs gay do you understand that crap wow if he is that upset about a govern conspiracy that is not happening just imagine how upset he's going to be when he finds out about one that actually is like the fact that the government is turning raccoons bilingual oh that's right they're all fluent in French now and they will be working that into conversation a and that famous clip is by no means an outlier Jones is a charismatic performer who gets charged up on a regular basis so there are plenty of lesser known outbursts like this my spirit gets close to that evil and I feel it and my whole Spirit just goes they call that crazy that's not crazy that's my will my human Spirit saying Crush those that would hurt the innocent go after the enemy build a civilization be honorable crush the snakes under your feet well at least now we know what Friday Night Lights would have looked like if they giving coach Taylor a nasty PCP habit go after the enemy crush the snakes under your feet Clear Eyes Full H oh God the snakes everywhere Stop Those snakes ah ah now look ideally ideally the first thing you should know about the Alex Jones Show is nothing but unfortunately it is an important part of a lot of people's media diets an estimated 6 million people listen to his radio show or watch it online every week and we know at least one Jones fan seems to be current Russian ambassador to the United States Donald Trump he he he supposedly called Jones after the election has tweet tweeted content from Infowars and one of its editors and just a year and a half ago even appeared on his show I just want to finish by saying your reputation's amazing I will not let you down you will be very very uh impressed I hope and I think we'll be speaking a lot the only thing that could have made that moment any grosser is if Nigel farage Bill Cosby and Phil Spectre were all on the same core so look it is no wonder that Jones has been getting a lot of coverage recently we even mentioned him on our first show of the season back in February and in his response to it he seemed a little annoyed with me your ratings are in the toilet you're a joke they brought you back revamped out of the gates to attack Yours Truly after you lectured us that Donald Trump could never win over and over again because you know you're the intellectual everybody knows the British accent's intellectual even there's no facts behind it and now you make fun of me out of context and and and OG go look at this loon hey boy people want legitimacy they want real they want to hear somebody that can speak to them and touch them inside okay okay a few things there one don't call me boy and and two my British accent does not sound intellectual believe me I sound like a chimney sweep passing through a wood chipper but but I will give him this Jones Is Right that too often people don't present him in his full context so tonight we are going to do that and let's first set aside the key context that Alex Jones has repeated repeatedly used his show to fuel speculation that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged by the government which has been deeply hurtful for the parents of those children over the years that is disgusting and it should be disqualifying in terms of ever taking him seriously sadly doing things that disqualify you from being taken seriously doesn't really seem to be much of a thing anymore but but there is a piece of context you may be less aware of and that concerns the nature of Jones's show itself it is 4 hours long and if you tune into to the whole thing your most shocking Discovery might be how frequently and shamelessly he pitches products that he sells in fact remember that clip from him earlier yelling about snakes let's just go back to that and play it out a bit be honorable crush the snakes under your feet get behind me Satan now before I go any further before I go any further we got to fund this operation we got the very best neutral out there I don't know if I can run this for another week or so we want to run to the end of the month but that's like 11 days cuz I don't want it to sell out before Mor gets INX to the good hogen 20% off infowarslife.com infowarslife.com infowarslife.com whoa that is a hard turn to have to make the Satan worshipping deep State Glo are going to murder you and your entire family open your eyes sheeple they are coming for you they're coming for all of us but first mcgilla Cut's oatmeal the perfect way to start your day and look that clip is not an anomaly in one week of recent broadcast on his site we found he spent nearly a quarter of the time either talking about or playing ads for his products or pointing you to the Infowars store and if you have never gone shopping on Infowars you are in for whatever the exact opposite of a treat is because there's the kind of survival gear that you would expect alongside more surprising items like organic shampoo body wash and the cant as well as products like combat one tactical Bath Wipes a $10 pack of moist towlettes that can be used anywhere needed including the perinal area which if you're wondering is this region right here that's right Alex Jones is trying to sell you sloppy wet Rags for your Tate and and when you are done wiping down the area between your genitals and anus with a glorified wet naap Why not pick up a Bill Clinton rape whistle which according to info Wars should be used to let Bill know you're in the crowd and that you know the truth that Truth by the way you just spent $6 on a whistle oh that's right we bought this and and by the way our order came with a free 911 was an inside job bumper sticker that we most assuredly did not ask for and look radio host doing ads is not inherently unusual but since 2013 Jones has increasingly focused on promoting his own products which he sells on his site under his Infowars life brand particularly vitamins and neutraceuticals which I believe are the result of the word nutrition the word pharmaceutical from behind I'm I'm pretty sure that's what it is but this this is a big part of Jones's business 2third of his funding reportedly comes from selling his products and there are a lot of them and the reason I know that is we bought a whole bunch now let let me let me break them down for you there is a super male Vitality a super female Vitality wakeup America Patriot Blend Coffee lung cleanse brain Force plus uh something called DNA force that cost $120 a bottle and child ease a herbal blend which according to Infowars is designed to soothe the mind and bodies of children which is a profoundly creepy phrase and then there is caveman true paleo formula with bone broth a chocolate flavored drink mix made from bee pollen Stevia and the dust of chicken skeletons now according to Infowars it is one of the most popular new health Trend in the world today and by the look on Jones's face it tastes exactly as good as it sounds you pour that in on a couple ice cubes and folks it tastes when it's creamy and thick I think better than oval te and it is got all the bone broth and and so much more this is why the Ancients they believe were had such better bones were so much healthier you can look it up this you could freeze this and this would be better than like Bluebell chocolate ice cream okay okay I know for a fact that Alex Jones did not enjoy drinking that glass of caveman because I have got a glass of caveman right here and I can confirm to you that it tastes it tastes exactly how you imagine a drink would taste that's made from chocolate and domesticated bird corpses it it comes at you in waves and that is not the only time that Jones has used himself as a guinea pig to sell his own products and a warning now to our younger viewers the following footage of a man graphically too comfortable with his own body may be disturbing just 10 minutes before we taped this decided to do this cuz I haven't done this in a while we took photos a year ago and then again about six months ago and the weight loss is dramatic already from what happened before okay so you're redder and you're wearing a belt the only thing I can discern happened between those two photos is that you walked shirtless in the Sun for 2 hours to a belt store you you could flip those two photos around and the effect would be exactly the same [Applause] also and look to be fair to Jones he does have a medical expert who consults on many of his supplements Dr Edward Group III who looks like the lead in a director DVD K Kalin biopic but he is actually even less impressive than that here he is in an infowar Wars ad explaining the importance of one of the products if you're suffering from abdominal pain allergies even like headaches anemia weakened immune system gut problems depression hair loss uh excess gas ass muscle pain nervousness I mean all these things if you look at some of these conditions and then Us opening up our borders and all the other countries opening up our their borders you're just dealing with a mass amount of parasites or harmful organisms you can type in Refugee spreading disease I mean the CDC is going crazy right now actually I'm pretty sure that if you type Refugee spreading disease into Google and press enter it just takes you right to the Wikipedia page for xenophobia which the end of the day is a real time saer for you but but despite the fact that Dr group looks like what would happen if Tom Petty was machine washed instead of dry cleaned Alex Jones swears by him in fact he has been pretty defensive about Dr group's credentials it doesn't matter you've got degrees from Mi and everywhere else and and a bunch of other degrees the media makes fun of you and says that you're an idiot that's right I mean literally they say we cannot sell coffee it's a fraud that's right that's right I I I've been a research scientist for a long time I do have I am MIT alumni I and I can tell you that I do research all the time okay stop look let's break down that bunch of degrees Jones mentioned group does have a doctor of Chiropractic degree from Texas Chiropractic College but while he list lists all these other schools on LinkedIn we checked and he didn't graduate from any of them in fact we asked him and he admits he does not have an undergraduate degree and as for whether he's an MIT alumni he only completed a non-degree certificate program there in fact just to be sure we contacted MIT and according to them it is not accurate to say he has a degree from MIT and calling him an alumni would be inaccurate and misleading which does make sense when you think about it because this man does not look like an MIT alumnus he looks like a fifth year senior at the University of falling off a surfboard so so just to clarify Alex that is what we are making fun of when we make fun of Dr group well that and the fact that he looks like what would happen if Iggy Pop got the Rachel and and look look Jones can inflat Dr group's credentials all he wants he says a lot of crazy on his show but it is noticeable that when it comes to selling his supplements he can sometimes show a caution that is pretty out of character just watch him bend over backwards to repeatedly qualify what he says seconds after he said it maybe you've had back pain before maybe you've had nerves that were cut off this creates tingling this a lot of people have their feeling come back I'm not going to make claims This research true organically based biopqq and it's not technically organic the other stuff synthetic prely M lab made this is made from organic sources but the bacteria's GMO I'll just tell you up front but it's not like the super high-tech stuff it's a bacteria that's just been bred to be able to then secrete and produce this just like beer is bacteria a lot of good bacteria obviously but this one that's how the Japanese do it but it's bioidentical this stuff is only found in comics and then Trace Amounts in blueberries wait wait okay so let's break that down it repairs nerves but maybe doesn't it's organic but not really it contains GMOs which is bad except for when he's selling you something and you can only find its ingredients in comets oh and blueberries and it's the drop off after that last one that is really incredible you can only find this stuff in dinosaur bones and in Trace Amounts in Ritz Bits and look Jones's products don't come cheap for instance he sells this one fluid ounce bottle of vitamin D3 for $29.95 but consumerlab.com a supplement Watchdog points out that you can buy the same amount of D3 from other sources for less than $4 but Jones will often give you a hard sale sometimes he'll tell tell you his products are different than the ones that you can find in stores and sometimes he'll go even bigger it is absolutely in the crystallin form the strongest you absorb it so folks don't go out to the store and get ion from say one of the big chains it'll kill you whoa wow I honestly did not know that you can imply your competition kills people four out of five dentists prefer Trident gum and the fifth dentist is dead because he put a piece of wriggley in his mouth and that's basically suicide and to hear Jones tell it to hear Jones tell it his products are marked up just enough to keep his business going as he explained in his recent appearance on rationalizing low ratings with Megan Kelly I mean it costs $45 $50 million a year to run this how much money is being made well the money that's made is pretty much put back into things okay so that is remarkable for two reasons first $45 to 50 million is a lot of money and second Jones would have you believe that every every penny they earn is being plowed back into a show that looks like it was filmed on the set of a lowbudget porn parody of itself in fact as he frequently tells his audience he needs them to buy more to keep his truth-telling Crusade solvent and growing we need to fund ourselves and we fund ourselves by you buying the products we're at a shortfall now because of the massive sustained economic attacks we're under but the listeners in just two weeks have almost narrowed that Gap I could have to sell my house to keep this place running 34 four months I could have sponsors every segment I don't do it I plug enough to fund things fund us give me the energy and I will attack the enemy exactly it's like an NPR pledge drive for people who hate NPR because to listen to Jones Infowars is perpetually on the edge of disaster he even has a link on the Infowars store where you can just give him money to help fund the fight against tyranny and contributors have left comments like $25 may not be much but I know every little bit helps but Jones seems to be doing a bit more than just keeping his head above water ex-employees describe a thriving business with one saying he can sell 500 supplements in an hour it's like QVC for conspiracy and in one of those clips we showed earlier we noticed he's wearing what looks like a Rolex watch worth around $88,000 which cool and you know as we looked around we noticed he also seems to have another two different Rolexes and you know cooler and here's the thing that is honestly fine he can have fancy watches there is nothing wrong with him getting paid I get paid to make this show but it does fight with his message that he needs you to buy products to help keep his show going and even Alex Jones seems to be a little self-conscious about that disconnect but don't worry he's reconciled it in a truly amazing way I wear a blue sports coat and a Rolex because it's a symbol of middle class and Humanity having prosperity and promoting human Prosperity from a perspective of empowering humanity and stealing the image of a man in a sports jacket with a Rolex that is the satanic image so I dress as a Satanist so that I can enter their world and show you that none of it means anything oh how stupid do you think your audience is okay you bought a Rolex so you could dress up like a Satanist what are the other two for and and incidentally tormenting the parents of Sandy Hook should comfortably get you into the satanic Club I believe that's the Easy Pass to whatever hell's version of the champagne room is and look so at the start of this piece I promised Alex Jones that I would put his statements in context because he is right that if you play small Clips in isolation he looks like a loon but if you play them in context he looks like a skilled salesman spending hours a day frightening you about problems like Refugee spreading disease and then selling you an answer remember that gay frog clip at the start he did a follow-up show explaining how chemicals were being placed in the water to feminize society and reduce the population and then immediately segwayed to this we sell five different brands of the very best watery water filtration systems out there they're amazing they cut out 99.99% of the glyphosate the herbicides the pesticides the fluoride I mean to an untrained eye it sure seems like he was using the idea of a gay frog to sell his product which incidentally is the same mistake the WB Network made and and listen listen I'm not saying I am not saying the only reason Jones is talking about the globalist systematically feminizing US is to sell overpriced neutral so we can buy luxury watches but if I were saying that it certainly wouldn't be the stupidest conspiracy theory that you've heard so far tonight so if Alex Jones wants his words in context this is it the fact that he happens to sell so many Solutions should really recontextualize how you think about what he is claiming our problems think think about it like this how would you feel if at the end of this segment that may well have made you feeling a little dirty I tried to sell you something to wipe that gross feeling away would you question my motives well I certainly hope not because that's what we are doing right now come with me come with me because I am proud to say that we've been working with a leading medical expert and I would like you to meet him right now please please welcome Dr Ted Ru III Dr Ted so happy to be here so happy to be here we're we're so happy to have you doctor and and we we are we are here the doctor and I to offer you the John Oliver moisture armored tactical assault wipe the first tactical wipe for use exclusively on the perum that's right uh for goodness sake don't don't use this anywhere else uh you're going to want to just focus right on this area right here okay right here now now now doctor doctor how is this going to make people feel better about what they've seen tonight how well my studies show that when you vigorously apply this taint wipe it causes a sensation that distracts the brain from whatever it had previously been thinking about okay and again uh you've got degrees from MIT and everywhere else and a bunch of other degrees the media makes fun of you and says that you're an idiot they do ju just for the record you did go to MIT right well I've definitely physically been there that's that's essentially the same that's what I've been telling everybody now now you can actually buy one of these wipes at infow wipes.com for one million this is real they are actually available for a million dollar a piece and don't even think think about buying a similar wipe in a store because those wipes will kill you yeah also these wipes have the power to heterosexualized frogs so uh that's very nice to have cuz that's been a real problem what with all the refugees right I look look this tactical tank wipe has demonstrated incredible results has absolutely it sure has look at this photo of me and now look at this photo of me 45 minutes later as they apping the tank WIP I you're you're much redder there I'm so much redder so much disturbingly red so if you want to spend a million dollars on a tank wipe go to infow wipes.com and if you are thinking well no one's going to do that all I will say is people pay Alex Jones $45 for a jar of chocolate flavored chicken juice so anything is possible that is our show thank you so much for watching thank you to Dr through for joining us see you next week good luck it's