A couple weeks ago, John Oliver spent the entirety of Last Week Tonight ripping through Donald Trump and all of his talking points. Now, he’s hacking away at the foundation of Trump’s platform.
In the latest episode of HBO’s weekly news program, Oliver focused on the giant wall that Trump wants to build on the border between the United States and Mexico, which he claims Mexico will pay for—a staple of his stump speech ever since he announced his presidency.
Casual viewers of Trump speeches may noticed that his numbers have been all over the place, not to mention that Mexico has refused to pay for it on multiple occasions. Math might not be part of the usual political comedy arsenal, but Oliver uses it to demonstrate just how ridiculous the idea of Trump’s wall is. And that’s just the cost of building it; he forgot to calculate the cost of maintaining it.
“It’s a big, dumb thing that only gets more expensive over time,” Oliver said. “It’s like getting a pet walrus. You think it’s stupid now, wait until you learn what a bucket of sea cucumbers costs. You’ve not prepared for that.”
And that’s not even including the other troubles that the government will run into—such as the trouble that went into the border fence that President George W. Bush signed into law in 2006—the land disputes, and the Native American graves found along the border.
It likely won’t be enough to sway Trump supporters, but it’s still a satisfying and extremely interesting explainer nonetheless.
Screengrab via LastWeekTonight/YouTube
