Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Tackles Philippines 'Trump of the East' Presidential Candidate Rodrigo Duterte
John Oliver sees similarities between Rodrigo Duterte and Donald Trump, branding the death-squad endorsing Philippines presidential front-runner the "Trump of the East."
The "Last Week Tonight" host tore into both men during a recent segment, opining of Trump, "Obviously, the big news here in the U.S. is that Donald Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee for president. That's right, this sentient circus peanut now holds the future of a major political party in his tiny, raccoon paw-sized hands-which is frankly a little surprising because the Internet repeatedly told me I had 'destroyed' and 'eviscerated' him."
Duterte Leads in Early Voting
From there, Oliver set his sights on Duterte, the longtime mayor of the city on Davao, off the island of Mindanao, who was leading in early voting for president on Monday, May 9.
A former prosecutor, Duterte's tough-on-crime platform has included a vow to kill all the country's criminals. An admitted womanizer, Oliver also played a clip of Duterte attending a recent wedding where he took to the microphone and offered to the crowd, "I don't have money to give, but I could give your wives something else, and this is for the wives only. Men, I'm sorry, but you don't get anything, because I'm not a queer."
Reports are since Duterte has been mayor, extrajudicial death squads have killed over 1,000 people, with him admitting that "he's got blood on his hands."
Still, Oliver ranted at the time of the show's taping Duterte held an 11-point lead and looked well on his way to securing a higher office.
"Duterte has seemed like he is trying to test the limits on basic human decency," Oliver marveled.
Trump's Controversial Positions
By comparison, Trump has vowed to deport millions of immigrants and build a wall along the Mexican border to further keep them out. He has also called for a "complete and total shutdown" of Muslims allowed to enter the U.S. and blasted Pope Francis as a "very political person" who "doesn't understand the problems our country has" when it comes to immigration.
He added of the Pope's recent decision to stand by the border alongside immigrants, "I think Mexico got him to do it because Mexico wants to keep the border just the way it is because they're making a fortune and we're losing."
Near the end of his segment, an exhausted Oliver sought to finally encapsulate the depths of his disgust in the flash of a single image, raising an edited photo of Trump and Duterte shaking hands in the White House.
"We could be treated to this as an official state visit," he warned.
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