John Oliver calls on Congress to act after James Comey's abrupt firing

Culture

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight is a weekly show, less interested in the news of today than 20-minute segments on niche subjects like chicken farming — and God bless HBO for giving him the green light on this. But ever since Donald Trump was elected, Oliver's focus has been forced to shift to, basically, whatever crazy thing Trump did in the preceding week, devoting at least a few minutes to breaking it all down, if not giving it full features. 

Sunday night, that meant taking some time to talk about Trump's abrupt firing of former FBI director James Comey, which the president later admitted was, in part, due to his ongoing investigation over the administration's potential ties with Russia. 

At this point, President Trump has made it very clear: He fired the director of the FBI at least partially due to unhappiness with the bureau's investigation into his campaign's possible collusion with Russia. Which is both shocking and yet completely unsurprising. There's really nothing Trump could do to genuinely shock me right now. If you said he fired Comey because he's investigating Russia, I'd believe you. If you said he did it because Comey is 6'8" and Trump feels like a tiny little man standing next to him, I would believe you.

Oliver admitted he's no longer surprised to see Trump "being crazy," so instead of expecting him to change in office, he hopes Congress will continue with the investigation into Russia's meddling of the election and potential ties with the administration. Though after showing House Speaker Paul Ryan shamelessly deflect questions on Comey's firing, Oliver's not getting his hopes up. "Apparently, no part of P90X targets the backbone," he adds, taking a dig at Ryan's fitness regimen. 

"The point is, the founding fathers created a system of checks and balances to limit the power of the president, but it only works if someone fucking checks or balances — and if you don't, it's no longer on Trump," he concludes. "It's on you."  

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