HBO
John Oliver ripped into President Donald Trump on Sunday's "Last Week Tonight" for misleading the American public about whether or not he had "tapes" of his meetings with former FBI director James Comey."James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" Trump tweeted in May.
In an interview with Fox News last week, however, Trump claimed that he "didn't tape" his talks with Comey but instead alluded to the possibility of tapes in an attempt to force Comey to change his story.
"When he found out that maybe there were tapes out there, whether it's governmental tapes or anything else and who knows? I think his story may have changed," Trump said, adding that his move to tweet about the specter of tapes "wasn't very stupid."
Oliver took apart what he called Trump's "extraordinarily stupid" reasoning on the issue, raising the possibility that Trump may have committed "witness tampering" with his threatening tweet to Comey.
"He didn't just casually admit to misleading the American public," Oliver said. "He also implied that doing so may have swayed Comey's testimony which, if that was his intent, could constitute witness tampering."
"And on top of all that, he then implied he made Comey tell the truth about their conversations, seemingly verifying Comey's account which is incredibly damaging to the president," he continued. "So, yeah, Trump might actually be right: It wasn't very stupid; it was extraordinarily stupid."
Watch the segment below: