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John Oliver Extends A Special Invitation

by Joseph D. Lyons

Last week was full of Donald Trump news. Even though John Oliver didn't successfully "Make Donald Drumpf Again" and fend him off in the GOP primary, that doesn't mean he won't continue to try. On last Sunday's episode of This Week Tonight, Oliver rehashed the latest Trump news, reminding you once again to fill out some job applications for anything based in Toronto.

For starters, it looks like Trump and Paul Ryan might make nice. The two had a face-to-face meeting on Thursday, which seems positive for the Republicans attempts at unity pre-convention. Oliver thus started the segment off with a few words from Speaker Ryan after the meeting:

I was very encouraged with what I heard from Donald Trump today. I do believe we are now planting the seeds to get ourselves unified, to bridge the caps and differences ... I was very encouraged with this meeting ... His personality I thought, I thought he's a very good personality. He's a very warm and genuine person.

Now, there's only so much of this that Oliver can take. And can you blame him? Oliver put words to what you're thinking. Warm? Genuine?

The only way Trump could be described as 'warm' is if you're feeling leftover tanning bed heat radiating from his skin.

Oliver goes on to explain that these false niceties are the only way for Trump and the GOP to succeed in the fall. They need each other, even if they don't like each other. Trump will need the GOP's money and support, as he's decided he's not funding his general election campaign himself, "and the Republicans need to not alienate Trump's voters," Oliver explained. It's not so complicated:

Trump and the Republican establishment are like a teenage Christian couple who've made an abstinence pledge. They are going to have sex. It is just a matter of time. But they still need to make a big show of resisting it for anyone who might be paying attention.

Then Oliver turned to Trump's ongoing refusal to release his tax returns due to an ongoing audit. He said he doesn't need to, which led Mitt Romney to say that he should be disqualified for withholding them. Trump's response? That presidents didn't share them before 1976. There's a bit of a hiccup in that reasoning, Oliver points out:

Sure, but there were a lot of things we did before 1976 that seem crazy now, like smoking on airplanes and thinking Elliot Gould was a major sex symbol. The point is: times have changed.

Finally, of course, there was the publicist story. There are tapes from the 1990s that have surfaced that make it seem like Trump pretended to be his own publicist, using the pseudonym John Miller. In one conversation, "Miller" describes himself to a journalist as someone whom Trump "knows" and " trusts and likes."

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

"That is so perfectly Donald Trump," Oliver points out. "Even his imaginary alter ego reflexively brags about himself." Trump pretending to be Miller even made allegations that Madonna wanted to date him — which, according to Oliver, could be true, given that she reportedly went out with Vanilla Ice, Jose Canseco, and William Dafoe:

Much like his candidacy that is sad but not implausible ... What is Donald Trump if not a mix of the authenticity of Vanilla Ice, the likability of Jose Canseco, and the terrifying facial expressions of William Dafoe?

Evidently, Trump even admitted to it all being a joke back in the day. So to set the record straight, once and for all, Oliver has a proposition:

I would like to extend an invitation to John Miller, publicist, to appear on this program. Now, to be clear, this is not an invitation to Donald Trump, who has never and will never be invited here for an interview. But if John Miller wants to come sit down with us, we would love to have him.

Oliver says it's an open invitation. He even has all the things on hand that he assumes Trump — ahem, I mean, Miller — would enjoy, like "overcooked steaks, low-grade pornographic magazines, and a hand mirror."

"So please come on by," Oliver said. "There's literally nothing stopping you, other than the fact that you obviously don't exist."