Brow Beat

John Oliver Explains, With Raisins, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s Totally Equivalent Scandals

Monday night will see the first debate of the 2016 presidential campaign, or as John Oliver calls it, “The Electoral Equivalent of Seeing Someone Puking, So You Start Puking, and Then Someone Else Is Puking, and Pretty Soon Everyone Is Puking.” But after a brief hiatus, even an abundance of metaphorical vomit won’t keep Oliver from getting into the nitty-gritty of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s ethical and political shortfalls.

The Last Week Tonight host has been accused in the past of leaning too far to the left, but Oliver actually dedicated the majority of last night’s episode to the scandals of Hillary Clinton, from Whitewater to Benghazi to the oft-forgotten Swiss File Transfer. (OK, so that one was actually fake, but the point is that the level of hysteria surrounding Clinton might lead you to believe just about anything at this point.) Oliver pointed out that while Clinton has been the subject of many scandals over the years, like the controversy surrounding the Clinton Foundation or her use of a private email server while secretary of State, Trump’s ethical failings have still been “quantifiably worse.”

To put it another way: “Ethical failings in a politician are like raisins in a cookie—they shouldn’t be there, they disgust people—but most politicians have a few raisins.” Trump, on the other hand? “A fucking raisin monsoon.”