John Oliver opened last night’s Last Week Tonight with the grudging admission that Trump will continue to dominate the news cycle (even the weekly one) “the way a fart dominates the interior of a Volkswagen Beetle: there is simply no escape from him.” So if we have to deal with a noxious, orange cloud running the country for a while longer, perhaps it’s time to get to the bottom of his ties to Russia. Trump did cape for the Putin’s homeland during his big Super Bowl interview, after all, insisting to Bill O’Reilly that America’s got blood on its hands, too. Which is, uh, fair?, Oliver guesses—but does it really compare to the oppressive state that is Russia, he wonders in the long segment.
The answer is no, of course, but Oliver’s investigative piece—which details Putin’s extravagance and ridiculously good luck, as well as his opponents who’ve been felled by seeming bad luck—isn’t really intended for his viewers. The host is simply sticking to his resolution to educate the president, whether it’s through cool cowboy commercials, or set to a techno beat.