John Oliver Takes on Supreme Court, Fate of Roe v. Wade: ‘We Know It’s Bad Because Don Jr. is Happy’
John Oliver took on the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Last Week Tonight, issuing a dire analysis about what this means for the fate of the court.
Kennedy, the court’s centrist swing vote, is set to retire this month and will likely be replaced by a hard conservative nominated by President Donald Trump.
“Now this is obviously huge news” Oliver said. “For anyone who believes that the Constitution protects things like reproductive and LGBT rights, this is bad. And we know it’s bad because Donald Trump Jr. was happy.”
Oliver showed Don Jr.’s widely mocked tweet calling the retirement of Kennedy “lit.”
“OMG! Just when you thought this week couldn’t get any more lit…I give you Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from #SCOTUS”, Don Jr. tweeted.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree with Mr. Junior on this because I personally don’t think this was lit at all,” Oliver said, before mocking the Trump son’s use of slang.
Oliver took a look at planned efforts to oppose Trump’s SCOTUS nominee, noting that given Republicans’ majority in the House, Democrats are “shit out of luck.”
Oliver also emphasized CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin‘s grim predictions for what Kennedy’s retirement means for the court’s abortion ruling Roe v. Wade.
“Roe V Wade is doomed; it is gone because Donald Trump won the election,” Toobin said in one hit on CNN.
“Abortion will be illegal in quite a significant part of the United States,” he said in another. “All this fantasy talk of, ‘I don’t know if Roe V Wade is going to be overturned.’ Of course it will be overturned!”
In one interview, Anderson Cooper noted Toobin said abortion could be illegal in 18 months, and Toobin corrected him: “No, I said abortion will be illegal in as many as 20 states because Roe V Wade is dead today.”
“I’m happy to say there is some good news here,” Oliver told his viewers. “Because, it turns out there is a Constitutional loophole that allows Democrats to… I’m obviously lying here, there is no good news, everything is terrible now.”
“And, barring some massive screw up from Trump, the only thing any his viewers can do now is vote,” Oliver said. “And there actually are two key elections you should really try and vote in. One is in 2016 and one in 2014. Because that is what got us into this mess.”
Watch above, via HBO.
[image via screengrab]
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