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John Oliver slams Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall for 18 brutal minutes

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Tucson. (Ross D. Franklin/AP)
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It was just last month that HBO’s John Oliver slammed Donald Trump the presidential candidate and Donald Trump the man, suggesting that Americans begin referring to him by his ancestral name — “Drumpf” — to undo the spell he has cast over parts of the electorate.

“We cannot keep being blinded by the magic of his name,” Oliver said. Of “Drumpf,” he added: “It’s the sound produced when a morbidly obese pigeon flies into the window of a foreclosed Old Navy.”

John Oliver slams Trump, a.k.a. Donald ‘Drumpf,’ for 22 brutal minutes

Now, Oliver, having failed to derail the Republican front-runner’s recent string of primary wins, has had a go at Trump again. During “Last Week Tonight” on Sunday, the host took aim at one of  Trump’s signature policy proposals: a border wall.

“Yes, Donald Trump wants to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border,” Oliver said, “and based on his tone, he wants to f— that wall.”

Republican frontrunner Donald Trump cited the Great Wall of China while talking about the reality of building a 1,000-mile wall along the Mexican border. (Video: Reuters)

But Oliver didn’t just want to make jokes. He noted that the wall is “one of the few policy proposals Trump has talked about in detail,” and he set about dissecting it for 18 minutes ahead of Tuesday’s primary in Arizona, where the wall is a big issue and anti-Trump protesters have blocked roads.



Trump’s dubious claim that his border wall would cost $8 billion

“It’s a big, dumb thing that only gets more expensive over time,” Oliver said. “It’s like getting a pet walrus. You think it’s stupid now — wait until you learn what a bucket of sea cucumbers costs. You’ve not prepared for that.”

Oliver also questioned Trump’s claim that Mexico would pay for the wall “and they’re going to be happy about it,” pointing out that two former Mexican presidents and Mexico’s current treasury secretary have said the idea is a nonstarter.

“People love it when you make them pay for s— they don’t want,” Oliver said.

Trump has said that the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico would give the United States bargaining power to force Mexico to build the wall. Oliver, who pointed out that American trade dollars don’t go to the Mexican government, but to Mexican private businesses, dismissed the idea, saying “that’s not how anything works.”

“It’s not lying around in some centralized Scrooge McDuck money bin labeled ‘Dumb Americans’ money — do not spend on border fence,'” Oliver said.

Oliver then explained how complicated it would be to figure out where to build the wall. Large stretches of a fence approved by President George W. Bush in 2006, Oliver said, couldn’t be built along the Rio Grande — one natural border between parts of the nations — because a treaty prohibited it. As a result, the fence had to be built inland — which, among other problems, resulted in a golf course in Brownsville, Tex., being stuck functionally on the Mexican side of the fence but still technically in the United States. Moreover, some land on the border was owned by private citizens, which resulted in lawsuits. And, Oliver added, a wall wouldn’t prevent immigrants from overstaying their visas.

“A wall can’t stop that,” Oliver said. “It’s like wearing a condom to protect against head lice. You could do that, but that’s not really how you keep the thing you’re worried about from happening.”

A wall might make people feel better, Oliver said. But because immigrants are less “crime-prone” than their “native-born counterparts,” that feeling is based on nothing but racism — and even if it wasn’t, it would still cost $77 per person, he said.

Oliver’s counterproposal: waffle irons.

“If the main thing it’s going to get us is a warm sense of satisfaction inside, I suggest instead of building that wall, we use the money to buy every man, woman and child in America a Palmer waffle iron,” Oliver said. “These beauties retail at $75 dollar apiece, so we’d still have about $1 billion left over.”

Oliver admitted the waffle-iron idea was “obviously” stupid, but he wondered whether it was any stupider than Trump’s wall.

“This waffle iron plan will cost less,” Oliver said. “It’ll do nearly as much to keep out immigrants and drugs. It won’t harm our relationship with our third-largest trading partner. If it is racist, it’s only toward Belgians.”

The video can be seen here.

Memorable moments on the campaign trail with Donald Trump

Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump shows off the size of his hands as Fox News Channel moderators Brett Baier (L) and Megyn Kelly (R) look on at the U.S. Republican presidential candidates debate in Detroit, Michigan, March 3, 2016. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook (REBECCA COOK/REUTERS)

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