Brow Beat

John Oliver Explained to Colbert Why He Decided to Make Donald “Drumpf” Again

On Monday night, John Oliver stopped by Late Show to explain how he, like the rest of America, came to the disheartening realization that he needed to take Donald Trump seriously as a presidential candidate. Oliver recently took Trump on in a 20-minute Last Week Tonight segment that pincered apart his case for the presidency and finished by asking America to refer to Trump by his family’s original, less appealing name: “Drumpf”. The show even launched its own Drumpf website and line of promotional hats. Apparently, 35,000 hats have already sold, and Oliver told Colbert Monday that Jay Z even called the show up to ask for one.

“I did say, ‘Well, be careful, because if he puts that on his head in public, you’re gonna need more hats,’ ” Oliver recalled. “‘And if his wife puts it on in public, we are no longer a TV show; we are a hat manufacturing company.’ ”

Jokes aside, Colbert wondered: Could something like a Trump candidacy ever happen in England?

“It’s not that it could happen, it has happened,” said Oliver. “We’ve had many kings in the past: Look through British history, and you’ll see lots of Drumpfs wearing a lot of gold on their head.”