As John Oliver recapped the Paris Olympics and the 2024 presidential race on Sunday, Donald Trump provided some baffling fodder.
The comedian opened this weekend’s episode of Last Week Tonight with a clip of the Republican candidate’s “disastrous appearance” before the National Association of Black Journalists, where he made unintelligible statements about Vice President Kamala Harris‘ ethnicity.
“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” the former president said in the clip. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black.”
Oliver then mused, “I mean this in the most disparaging way as possible: That went about as well as could be expected. Putting Trump in front of a Black audience and asking him to speak on race was never going to get more elevated than, ‘The lady said she was both Indian and Black, that is cheating!’”
Noting that Harris’ father is Black and mother was Indian, Oliver said of Trump’s running mate, “I cannot imagine what J.D. Vance, a man with three biracial children was thinking while watching Trump there. Although, you know what? He was probably thinking, ‘Look at that luscious upholstery. Do you think those cushions come all the way off?’”
Oliver then switched to the recent Olympic opening ceremony, which caused controversy over its perceived recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper‘ with drag queens (the performance was actually inspired by Greek mythology).
After playing a clip of Trump calling the ceremony “a disgrace,” Oliver said, “It’s always strange to watch Trump act like he cares about religions. Because to echo something I heard someone say recently, I didn’t know he was a Christian until a number of years ago when he happened to turn Christian. All of a sudden, he made a turn and became a Christian person.”