John Oliver is not letting NYC Mayor Eric Adams off easy, following his arrest and indictment capping off a corruption scandal that rocked the city last week.
During a new episode of "Last Week Tonight" on Sunday, Oliver weighed in on the headlines frenzy over Adams' alleged involvement in taking bribes for political favors — accused of receiving over $100,000 in luxury international flights and high-end hotels. The scandal has led to numerous calls for Adams to resign, but the politician has refused to leave office and maintains his innocence.
Detailing key points from the indictment, which Oliver pointed out is primarily focused on gifts and donations from Turkey, the most troubling charge against Adams is his alleged acceptance of "illegal campaign donations from foreign donors. Some of which, by the way, helped him qualify for more than 10 million in matching public campaign funds," the host underlined.
The comedian skewered the mayor and his staffers by reading texts found in the indictment. Oliver explained that Adams was allegedly requesting his aides to get him to Chile through Turkish Airlines, which prompted the airline to confirm they did not have routes between the countries.
"He did seem to know what he was doing was shady, given an aide once reminded him to 'please delete all messages you send me,'" Oliver said, tacking on Adams' response to that aide was: "Always do."
"That was clearly a foolproof plan given I'm reading those texts to you right now," Oliver joked.
“Adams is entitled to due process like anyone else, but he has not been helping himself,” the host said. “Last year, Adams said he’d be ‘shocked’ if anyone on his campaign had acted illegally because, quote, 'I cannot tell you how much I start the day with telling my team we’ve got to follow the law.' I’m not convinced you have a ton of respect for the law if every day you have to hype yourself up into obeying it.”
Oliver familiarized the audience with "arguably the weirdest mayor in this city's history," whose name is now added to a long list of similarly weird New York City mayors like Bill de Blasio, Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani. Oliver joked "We're no strangers to weird mayors. In recent years we've had goober slenderman, billionaire lawn gnome and a man who was disbarred in D.C. this week for his efforts to overturn a presidential election. Eric Adams takes the cake."
The comedian ran several clips of Adams that have "aged poorly," including a clip of him handing the key to the city to another disgraced New York figure, rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs, who was also recently arrested and indicted, for his alleged involvement in sex trafficking.
"The bad boy of entertainment is getting the key to the city from the bad boy of politics," Adams is shown saying in the clip.
"Hey hey hey! You might not want to be associated with that guy because things are not looking good for him right now. And if you're wondering which one I'm talking to, the answer is yes!" Oliver joked.
"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" airs on Sundays at 11 p.m. ET on Max.
