John Oliver marvels at Trump flip-flopping over breaking apart families at the border

John Oliver on Trump border policy reversal
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Last Week Tonight)

Last week, President Trump, "the abusive father America will be talking about in therapy for the next 40 years," signed an executive order to end his heavily criticized family-separation border policy, John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. This, after weeks of saying he couldn't do anything, his hands were tied. "Yes, Trump claimed he couldn't do a thing, and then he did it — which is a little strange because he usually claims he can do things and then doesn't do them, like draining the swamp or locking up Hillary or attending Tiffany's Sweet 16," Oliver said.

"Unfortunately, that executive order has some significant hitches," like the glaring holes in his administration's plan to reunite more than 2,000 children it separated with their parents, Oliver pointed out. "'How long it will take' and 'how it will get done' are the whole plan. That's like a recipe for cake that just says 'You're going to have some cake.'" He was even less impressed with the lengths to which Trump supporters went to excuse or deflect from putting children in cages, especially Stuart Varney on Fox & Friends.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.