As the U.S. Senate continued to debate late into the night Sunday over President Donald J. Trump’s massive tax and spending bill, John Oliver poked massive holes in claims by the president and his Republican loyalists.
In Oliver’s monologue during his final episode of Last Week Tonight before his annual summer break, the Emmy-winning HBO host played clips of House Speaker Mike Johnson alleging on Meet The Press that the bill actually “strengthens Medicaid for the people who actually need it and deserve it,” a talking point echoed by, among others, Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Mitchell on Newsmax. Trump, for his part, said in a February interview with Sean Hannity while sitting alongside Elon Musk that: “Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched.”
“But there’s a few problems there,” Oliver said. “Starting with the fact that following through with a promise not to touch something has never exactly been one of Trump’s strong suits. Also the math just doesn’t support those claims.”
Oliver cited congressional budget analysis estimating more than 16 million Americans would become uninsured by 2034 should Congress pass Trump’s bill, and that rural hospitals and community services also would lose their funding as a result.
Johnson told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, meanwhile, that the bill is targeting “29-year-old males sitting on their couches playing video games. We’re going to find those guys and we’re going to send them back to work.” An incredulous Oliver responded to the clip: “How is it possible that Mike Johnson always sounds so old and out of touch, while also managing to sound like a 12-year-old who dressed up as Stephen Colbert for Halloween?”
The Republican bill, which would still need to go through reconciliation procedures with the House should it pass the Senate, would force low-income Medicaid recipients to prove they’d worked, volunteered or attended school for 80 hours a month. Oliver cited a November 2024 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, however, that found two-thirds of people on Medicaid already work, while most of the remainder are busy in school, functioning as family caretakers or living with a disability.
“And yet Republicans won’t stop painting lurid scenarios of Medicaid freeloaders,” Oliver said. “For instance, here’s the current head of Medicare and Medicaid services who, remember, is inexplicably Dr. Oz, unloading the single weirdest hypothetical you will ever hear in your life.” In an interview last month with Good Day New York, Oz described a scenario in which a complete stranger lives in your basement, tells you you’re paying for his health insurance, and your response is to tell him to get a job or help raise your family.
Oliver said afterward: “The weirdness of that scenario is actually preferable to what it sounds like when Dr. Oz gives you a glimpse into what he really thinks work requirements are for.”
Earlier this month, Oz told Fox Business anchor (and former Trump Economic Council director) Larry Kudlow: “Go out there. Do entry level jobs. Get into the workforce. Prove that you matter. Get agency into your own life. It’s a much more enjoyable experience if you’re going through life thinking that you’re in control of your destiny. And you’ll get better insurance at the same time.”
“Hold on. Prove that you matter?” Oliver wondered. “So a person only means something if they work—that is not true, at all. In fact, if ever there were proof that you can work for decades while adding exactly zero value to society, it is Dr. Oz himself.”
Separately on Sunday, Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis broke ranks, not only voting to block the bill’s advancement, but also announcing he wouldn’t seek re-election next year. “It is inescapable that this bill, in its current form, will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made” not to slash Medicaid, Tillis said.
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