John Oliver must be expecting for more Jeopardy! drama, but luckily, he had a backup drama to cover this week: GOP Senator Mitt Romney’s strange decision to dress up as terminal good-guy Ted Lasso (and distribute baked biscuits to Villain Senator Kyrsten Sinema) for Halloween. This move irritated Seth Meyers and (supposedly) Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis, so Oliver felt compelled to criticize Romney’s ploy as well. Romney’s statement — “If you believe in yourself, and have clear eyes and full hearts – you can’t lose” — didn’t escape Oliver’s notice, proving that he was “quoting Friday Night Lights for no good reason.” Furthermore, according to the presenter of Last Week Tonight, Romney and Sinema made “a move that felt like ‘homeroom teachers disguised as the most popular kids in school.’“
Ultimately, Oliver linked “Mitt Lasso” to Romney’s related stunt last week, which was to appear on Fox News to discuss how unworkable raising millionaire taxes is. Romney’s logic is that if this happens, billionaires will purchase ranches and art instead of creating employment or investing in the stock market, prompting Oliver to make an excellent remark on Mitch’s boot-licking skills:
“Not to sound too much like Mitt’s hero, Ted Lasso, but Mitt must be made of wood and yapping on the hour because that man is cuckoo like a clock. Is he Dora the Explorer on an acid trip because just can’t stop licking Boots. And at the risk of stating the obvious here, billionaires already buy ranches and paintings and dinosaur bones they have no use for. Why? Because they have too much f*cking money. There literally aren’t enough things on this planet for them to buy. That is why they’re all racing to space.”
That’s when Oliver called Romney out on his hypocrisy in portraying himself as a good guy while acting like a jerk:
“And it does seem many politicians would rather prioritize the hypothetical threat to a billionaire’s bank account above all else because that’s basically how our world works. Politicians tweet about cosplaying as TV’s nicest guy while opposing problems that could fundamentally change people’s lives… the scariest trick this Halloween might be that some people keep f*cking falling for it.”
Yup, Romney as Lasso doesn’t jibe. And poor Boots.
