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John Oliver shared his thoughts on Donald Trump‘s “stupid trade war” on the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight, taking aiming at the president’s repeated comments about dolls.
Last week, Trump explained the effects of his tariffs by using the price of dolls going up as an example. “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know?” he said. “And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”
“What a very weird thing to say,” Oliver responded. “It’s just another snapshot in the chaos album that is Trump having anything to do with children, because you can now put ‘kids will have two dolls instead of 30’ right up there with the lawn boy scream and that time he asked a kid if she believed in Santa Claus because, quote, ‘At seven, it’s marginal, right?’”
The late-night hosted recounted how Trump reiterated his thoughts about dolls only a few days later, saying, “I don’t think a beautiful baby girl that’s 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls, or four dolls.”
“OK, there is so much there,” Oliver replied. “‘A beautiful baby girl that’s 11 years old’? Don’t call an 11-year-old that. First, it’s creepy. And second, I promise, you call an 11-year-old girl a baby, she’ll fucking kill you. To think the prime age for playing with dolls is 11 is almost impressively wrong. Everyone knows the breakdown of what people play with by age goes: blocks from ages one to three, dolls from ages three to seven, and our phones from ages eight until we die.“
Oliver noted that Trump tripled down on his “frivolous” comments, saying something similar on Air Force One about how “a young lady, a 10-year-old girl, a nine-year-old girl, a 15-year-old girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls. She could be very happy with two or three four or five.”
“Every single way this man refers to girls makes my skin want to turn inside out,” Oliver said. “That said, I did also want to see him keep going there, just to see how many variations of ages and numbers he could cycle through: ‘All I’m saying is a young lady, 10-year-old girl, nine-year-old girl, 15-year-old girl, 45-year-old girl that’s still young at heart, doesn’t need 37 dolls. She could be very happy with two or three or four or six or eight, but also nine, and in its own way, 10—10 dolls, she could be happy with, couldn’t she? Or maybe 11. We can’t rule out 11 dolls, or 12—12’s a good number, isn’t it, folks? Twelve apostles, 12 days of Christmas,12 Angry Men—Henry Fonda, great guy, right? The other men, very angry, very angry men. That’s what we’ve got to get out of this country that’s coming over illegally. Or, you know what? 13 dolls, that’s my final offer.’”
He added, “Has he ever met a 15-year-old girl? That’s a dumb question. Of course he has. He was friends with Jeffrey Epstein.”
Oliver said that since kids won’t be able to afford dolls anymore maybe sticks would “make a comeback.” “Throw it, catch it, set it on fire,” he quipped. “Just look at it. The sticks the only toy you’ll ever need, which is lucky because it’s also the only one you’ll ever have.”
The host also commented on Robert Prevost’s recent election as head of the Catholic Church as Pope Leo XIV. “So if you’re wondering: ‘Is Trump’s stupid trade war about to hurt a lot of people?’” Oliver said. “Well, is the pope Catholic and now also some guy named Bob from Chicago? The answer is, obviously, yes.”
