Election Results 2020: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Hello, welcome to the program. They are still taking place in this blank void. Fun fact is actually just a blown up image of this sticker that I voted for, which is cool, unfortunately that sticker is attached to James Woods, which it's not at all and we're obviously. We'll start with our main story

tonight

, which is the

2020

election

or as the horses are known, just one more

week

. Look at you, you idiots, this was clearly a very long and very tense

week

, although thankfully it was all worth it. to how it ended cnn projects joseph r biden jr being elected the 46th president of the united states winning the white house and denying president trump a second term yes that definitely happened trump will no longer be president something i learned personally no less of 20 text messages from my friends and family, all saying it's over, which in this situation was welcome, but on any normal day I would be terrified as we record this on Saturday, people all over America are still taking to the streets to celebrate not only that biden and harris were elected, but you mainly felt that someone was about to be evicted from the white house, hey, you know what that person yelling Donald Trump from the back of a moving scooter really sums it up quite a bit well how many people I feel right now and I have to tell you that it was like that all day here in New York there was a mood that can only be described as a reverse 911, because it combined total euphoria and a permanent dislike for Rudy Giuliani and this time.

In fact, people were dancing on the rooftops of New Jersey, it was a really good day, never forget, it's really hard to overstate the level of relief that has been wafting through parts of this country, especially at the end of a really grueling week , and

tonight

we think. It might be worth plotting exactly how we got to this point over the

last

seven days because at the beginning of this week we all knew that due to the pandemic this

election

was going to be crucially different and that it would require more patience than usual, but for some reason, As soon as Tuesday rolled around, everyone seemed to immediately forget about it, because from that night on almost every news channel was overtaken by some version of a guy playing with a big screen while someone comes in to interrupt them and pester them with questions.

It was basically the equivalent of watching Best Buy security footage for four days straight, and while the media did their best to be patient as things dragged on, it was clear that they simply couldn't do it, something that perhaps was best summarized in this exchange between Don Lemon and a Philadelphia city commissioner, so how long do you think it will take to count all the votes? Commissioner, you know it's interesting to listen to the reporters talk, listen up everyone, this is going to take some time and then the polls will close and then that's why don't you have the

results

yet so everyone needs to recalibrate their expectations.

It's nothing personal so let me ask you this and talking about it was a good answer but are you talking about hours? Are you talking about days? He does not know. It would have been just as productive for the man alone at that moment to ask him when the penguins will learn to fly or when Michael Keaton is going to win an Oscar or what the rest of the Pringle guy's body is like, if he is tall or short. Does he have a lot of body hair or is it completely straight? When can you tell me what his nipples look like?

Are you talking about hours or are you talking about days? What was also completely predictable was how Trump as Count was going to react. It developed slowly because long before the

results

were known he took advantage of the fact that he was ahead in some states to declare a premature and completely unfounded victory at 2:30 a.m. m. on Wednesday he gave this nightmare speech from the white house this is a fraud in To the American public, this is a disgrace to our country. We were preparing to win these elections. Frankly, we won this election, so we're going to the United States Supreme Court.

We want all voting to stop. We don't want them to find any. ballots at four in the morning and add them to the list okay, no, it's not good, it's not good at all to begin with, you can't just threaten to go to the supreme court when things don't go your way. the highest court in the land, not the high school principal's office and second, they couldn't find the ballots, they were counting them and counting and finding just aren't the same thing, which is why the movie Finding Nemo wasn't called Counting Nemo because that would have been a very different and much shorter movie, one nemo, the end, unfortunately, that press conference set the tone for the rest of the week with the soon-to-be ex-president and his side doing absolutely everything they could. occurred to subvert this election on Wednesday. after the count in Michigan began to favor Biden Trump tweeted, we hereby affirm that the state of Michigan, which is clearly not how it works, calling dibs on the states is not the way we elect presidents, we use the electoral college , which is at least three percent less stupid than the fact that on the same day the president's personal lawyer and recent Borat movie star, Rudy Giuliani, arrived in Pennsylvania to try to prevent the counting of the remaining votes, which were almost a million that morning, most from strongly democratic areas and he did So, with this passionate speech, how many votes do we have to be ahead? 400,000 is not enough with more than 80 percent counted.

I think there are only 14 votes left. Do you think we are stupid? You think we're stupid, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and actually this is a little awkward now because we had room for a joke here, but that didn't take any time, so I'll tell you what. Instead, let's look at this raccoon-shaped cookie jar with a raccoon inside. Did you eat everything? cookies, I bet yes, those cookies have gone from being inside one raccoon to being inside another, what an absolute delight, anyway, Giuliani's press conference was really unhinged, throwing out wild accusations with absolutely no evidence and such Perhaps the best answer came from John Fetterman.

The lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania came in and stood on a corner in Philadelphia and said we've won Pennsylvania, it's like you know, hahaha, I mean, like you know, it's just weird, I mean, it's like a bad house of cards. episode yes, you're right, Lieutenant Governor Stonecold is absolutely right because this is like a house of cards in the sense that it's full of political intrigue, there's a sexual predator pretending to be president at the center and it's been on for at least four seasons For what it's worth, the protests in Trump camps were consistently inconsistent in their messaging, mainly because from the beginning in some states Trump seemed to be ahead, while in others he seemed to be behind, which meant that in Michigan, where he led from the beginning, his supporters showed up. at a vote counting site in Detroit to chant this, stop the counting, fine, but in Arizona, where Trump seemed to be behind his supporters, they chanted this, now leaving aside the absurdity of two groups on the same side shouting completely opposite instructions, it's worth taking a minute. how strange it is that one of those instructions is to count the votes because that's how they were, that's exactly what the ballot counters were doing, it would be like a parent singing at their teenage son's bedroom door hit that meat, hit that meat, he is, he is doing it. you don't really need to encourage him, in fact all you're doing is making it much harder for him to finish and unfortunately the information vacuum that formed in those three days provided ample room for Trump and his followers to simply have fun .

At one point, Trump's Twitter timeline looked like this with an entire series of tweets marked as controversial or misleading, while Giuliani was tweeting this article and implying that 21,000 dead people had voted in Pennsylvania and hadn't. Rumors were also circulating that Trump ballots were being disqualified in Arizona because markers had been used to fill them out, which was false, and Eric Trump tweeted a fake video of ballots in Virginia Beach being burned, a video that the city itself had debunked a day before he tweeted it and that's really a shame because usually Trump's kids are so good at getting to the truth, you know, like when they solved the mystery of whether a beard can make someone look more like a child, the The answer turned out to be a resounding yes, good job, detectives, but conspiracy theorizing ran so rampant this week that during a press conference by a Nevada registrar of elections this happened.

OMG the media is covering up the violent crime family in this election. The media is covering it up. The blind crime family steals this election. someone is covering. up we want our freedom to the world give us our freedom to stay in your mind he's covering up this election he's stealing where were we what was the

last

question okay there's a lot to deal with there's the so called arctic shown by that recorder while he was interrupted by a walking comment on the internet, then there was that man's shirt with what I assume were his three favorite things, which I'm legitimately jealous of because now I want a tank top with my three favorite things on it, specifically the supervisory lobby. requests, hamsters and speedos, that's a t-shirt, but I think what I like most is how painfully clear it is there that that guy expected to get dragged and then got completely caught when it didn't happen, the Biden crime family is stealing. our freedom the Bond Crime family is still really guys, nothing, no one is going to escort me out of here because, honestly, I was really counting on someone to throw me in the car and take me away.

Actually, I don't have transportation home, otherwise, is it okay? I know I guess I'll walk. Have a nice day. Petergate was a 911 or whatever and in the middle of all of this, the Trump campaign was loudly announcing that he was filing multiple lawsuits in multiple states trying to cloud the entire process. but it's important to know how ridiculous those demands were and still are. One case in Georgia centered on a poll watcher who left the room and thought that a stack of 53 ballots that may or may not have arrived late may or may not have been counted while they were out, although the poll watcher couldn't say for sure because He had left the room again, that particular case was dismissed by a judge because, and I quote, the court determined that there was no evidence, meanwhile in Michigan the Trump campaign requested that absentee ballots stop being counted afterwards and this is key : The count was essentially over in the state the lawsuit was based on a poll watcher hearing a rumor from someone else that some late ballots were being counted and when the judge pointed out that that was totally hearsay that the campaign attorney Trump tried to escape before being slapped hard.

This is a first-hand factual statement made by Ms. Conneran and she made that statement based on her own physical evidence and first-hand knowledge of it. I heard someone else say something. tell me why that's not here say come on yeah come on look I'm no legal expert but I'm pretty sure it's not a good sign for your case when a judge gives you the judicial equivalent of out of here now , a great sign. Trump's complaint that he's doing a lot right now, so you'll probably hear it for the rest of your life, is that the election is illegitimate because Republican election observers didn't have access to the vote counting in Pennsylvania.

In fact, he tweeted wrong on Saturday. Things happened that our observers weren't allowed to see, which is a difficult accusation to support because, by the nature of the accusation, you didn't see them, but the claim was actually even more baseless than it seems, Fox noted. News. The Trump campaign has said that they wanted to have their poll watchers there and I guess they're being asked to provide evidence of something that they say they couldn't even participate in or couldn't see, and that's I think where they would say that It should be rectified if it could be.

That's not true, that's not true, it's just not true, the Trump campaign and the president's claim about that is not true, it's false, in fact, the Trump campaign lawyers. last night in federal court he admitted that he was right, they specifically admitted it, the judge asked if there were people representing Donald J. Trump in that room, to which the campaign lawyer said yes and the judge responded: I'm sorry, so , what's your problem with making this officially the most daring? week in the history of the judiciary they must have exchanged their gavels for umbrellas because these jurists are throwing some shade and the shameful fragility of these accusations of fraud begins to make sense when you see how desperately theTrump's camp was trying to incite them.

In Arizona, they announced at a press conference Thursday that they had gathered thousands of people's concerns about voting irregularities, which at first glance sounds dramatic, but is also a bit at odds with this moment captured just minutes earlier. . Hello everyone, if anyone has any personal examples. where have you witnessed voter fraud here in arizona please come see me I need a concrete example I need someone to talk to there on the corner thank you okay that's just pathetic although I like the idea that someone who I actually witnessed a electoral fraud and had evidence. I was waiting until that glorified party to tell anyone.

Yeah, I saw a guy in a balaclava pulling out fake tickets from his Kia festival, but it honestly didn't occur to me to tell anyone. until a representative from the hangover divorce and meat sweat law firm told me to meet him there on the corner, I'm so glad I did wander around, but wait, that's not all. The Trump campaign also created this website and phone number where they invited people to submit evidence of voter fraud, meaning that if you say you wanted to inform them of an incident that seemed suspicious to you, you could and still can.

In fact, you can simply go to this address and send them any evidence you want. There's even an option to add photographic evidence and a quick fun fact here. I don't know why I mention this. A political term of art for election shenanigans is a rat. so if you say you have access to images of rats from Pennsylvania, frankly it is your patriotic duty to send them to the Trump campaign immediately and all of these useless lawsuits are clearly going to cost a lot of money, which is probably why La campaign has spent the last few days desperately trying to raise funds for them by emailing their supporters in an increasingly aggressive manner with a message saying "this is your final notice." So far he has ignored all of our emails asking him to join us in defending the election he has ignored the Trump team, Eric Lara, Don the vice president and even ignored the president of the United States and the final notice on what exactly not to give them money , maybe it's the last chance to go to Donald J.

Trump's official site and buy this dog. leash with a dog who I can only assume was lobotomized and given rabies immediately before taking this photo. Also, a quick side note about those requests in the fine print mentions that instead of funding lawsuits, half of any contribution will be used to pay off Trump's debt. re-election campaign, which is not at all surprising and is also not the worst thing he has asked his followers to do, because obviously that would be when he made them watch him do this dance that looks like he is milking two cows at once and enjoying it sexually a lot. in fact, but perhaps the most pathetic part of this entire week was that in the moments before this race was called on Saturday morning, Trump tweeted that I won this election by a landslide, all in caps and exclamation points and yes That wasn't a bad enough case of denial, here's how some of his followers responded to the news of his defeat.

I would love to make fun of that, but unfortunately I don't have time for losers, but here's the really important thing after this absolute year of a week, the days of telling the misinformation, the desperate and pathetic attempts to paint this process as fraudulent, the fact is that Trump lost this election he lost everything we have become accustomed to seeing the job didn't work out this time and it's not like Trump and his family are going to stop, they are He will continue to wander and lie like they always have but once he gets out of the White House will no longer have the same effect, it will not directly affect the lives of all Americans and that alone is fantastic and I am temperamentally inclined. to overanalyze everything and I can already feel myself starting to do so.

I'm starting to focus on the negative here and be cynical about what a Biden presidency could or will try to accomplish, but before I get into anything negative. Let me give us all a brief, unreserved moment of celebration. In fact, let's put 30 seconds on the clock right now, during which time everyone will be able to experience joy in any way they want, dancing, screaming, banging a frying pan, it's really up to you. Personally, I'm going to do one of my favorite things to do, which is share great facts about octopuses with pictures of people celebrating this election.

Ready, octopuses are great, they have three hearts, blue blood, they can taste with their arms, their brains are spread throughout their body. They can change shape and color They have beaks They can open bottles They remember faces and hold grudges Once an octopus escaped from a New Zealand aquarium by crawling down a drain into the ocean There was also an experiment a few years ago where scientists gave the octopuses take ecstasy and They learned that if octopuses take ecstasy they will hang out and have fun with other octopuses, but if you don't, they prefer to keep to themselves, that's from a real study, isn't it cool?

I'm not saying I want an octopus, but you know what I wanted, oh, that's it, that's it, it's about time, it was fun and uncomplicated, so since we just did that, if you don't mind, I'm going to analyze too much this choice a little. Although not much, mainly because it is still too early to draw any important conclusions. There are two key things we know, although the good news is that this election had record turnout and more than 74 million people chose to oust Donald Trump from office. The less good news is that over 70 million people voted for him and everything he said and stood for, and that's something we're going to have to keep in mind for the foreseeable future and I know Biden has said it repeatedly during the campaign. electoral. that the ugliness that Trump represents is simply not who we are, he did it constantly in times like this, the only thing that can tear America apart is America itself and that is exactly what Trump has been trying to do all along, dividing to the United States based on race, religion and gender. national origin is wrong this is not who we are this is not who we are everyone knows who donald trump is let's keep showing them who we are look that's a really nice sentiment but dividing america based on race religion gender and national origin has often been very In fact, one could argue that in American history the one-liner version of the Trump presidency is that he continued to show them who we are, so we cannot and should not ignore that millions voted for Trump, which which means they actively supported his intolerance. or at least they felt comfortable enough to vote for him anyway, which isn't great, it's like your grandma was dating two old guys who had fought in world war 2 and in the end she chose pete, who She seems decent and works at the library and you're very happy about it, but at the same time you wonder how she got this far with Klaus because that doesn't really reflect very well on her and even on the joy and relief at the end of This Week's Worth It.

It's worth remembering how terrifying it felt as it unfolded with Trump supporters swarming and following a Boyden Harris bus in Texas and that moment in Detroit we saw earlier where a mostly white crowd showed up in a town of 80 black people to yell to stop count your votes and if you don't understand how those images rhyme with history it may be because you're just not used to seeing them in color because the last four years weren't about one man and This isn't just about the last four years and even There is no way that man is going away, no matter what happens, Donald Trump is the current and future leader of the Republican Party, certainly at least until someone else comes along with his stamina, charisma and drive.

Aside from the wildly divergent definitions we have of stamina, charisma, and drive, that garden party guest is right when she said that Donald Trump is here to stay, even though he's not in office, no matter how much he resists going, As a Biden campaign spokesperson told reporters this week: The United States government is perfectly capable of escorting intruders out of the White House, which is a nice line to hear and there will be time to talk about it. what Trumpism will mean in the future, as well as there will be time to talk about What this week means for the Democratic Party, which didn't get everything they expected, losing seats in the House and the question of whether or not they will have a majority in the Senate comes down to two runoff elections in Georgia in January, but the real takeaway from this election might be that there is no easy answer to the question of who we are.

A perfect example: Kamala Harris will now be vice president. The first vice president. The first South Asian vice president. The first black vice president. and the second black person we sent to the White House in the last 12 years, that's incredible, unfortunately we elected a white supremacist among them and the fact is that all of that together is who we are, we are the country. that did all of those things and it's important not to deny that reality and just one last point here, defeating Trump took a lot of work, much of it by activist groups led by those who have the most to lose from a second Trump term , a major factor in the vote in arizona was indigenous and latino people voting for biden and in pennsylvania, michigan and georgia, black voters were absolutely key and the groups that organized that vote, particularly black women, worked without rest for years and in the days and weeks to come there will likely be a lot of talk from white people about how black and brown voters saved us, which they just didn't understand a little bit because they weren't voting so much as a favor to white people but rather rather voting to protect themselves and their communities from someone. actively trying to harm them, although there are some lessons from that organization in georgia stacy abrams, along with many others, helped register hundreds of thousands of new voters over the last two years, half of them people of color, and introduce them to the elections .

In fact, just before the presidential race was called, she was already tweeting details about the January 5 Senate runoff and making sure people requested their votes because she knows what she's doing and whether the Democrats are intelligent, which they are not always. They should listen to her and activists like her. In the future, it will be a long road to get us out of the place in which the last four years have placed us, but that is why it may be so important to remember the moments of triumph that this week has managed to provide richie torres and monday jones became the first gay black men elected to congress cory bush a black lives matter activist is the first black congresswoman from missouri in delaware sarah mcbride became the country's first openly transgender state senator multi-county election reform florida prosecutors and sheriffs voted for raising the minimum wage and every state that had a marijuana initiative on the ballot passed it and most importantly, despite his lies, his obstructions and his depressingly popular racism, this guy lost, do you realize Do you realize what that means?

You're sad, right? Now, which is great, but also no more Stephen Miller in the White House, no more Steve Mnuchin, I hate to see him go, I love to see him walk away, no more helicopter screams, time, I'm not going to miss it, no more Mike Pence or Betsy Devos or Jared is no longer Jared and there will be big systemic institutional problems that we will have to talk about in the months and years to come and we will because for some reason this is the life I have chosen, but for now, after what that just happened, frankly.

I think we all have the right to put on our masks, go out and party like octopuses in ecstasy.