Donald Trump (Last Week Tonight)

"Donald Trump"
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver episode

John Oliver urged viewers to refer to Donald Trump as "Donald Drumpf"
Episode no. Season 3
Episode 3 (segment)
Narrated by John Oliver
Original air date February 28, 2016
Running time 22 minutes
Presenter John Oliver

"Donald Trump" is a segment of the HBO series Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, devoted to American businessman Donald Trump. It was first aired on February 28, 2016, as part of the third episode of the third season.[1] During the 22-minute segment, comedian John Oliver discusses Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and his long career in business. He also states that the Trump family name was changed at one point from the ancestral name "Drumpf".[2]

The segment, which is the show's most popular to date,[3] popularized the term Donald Drumpf and started a campaign urging viewers to "Make Donald Drumpf Again" – a play on Trump's own campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again".

Description

Donald Trump in late 2015

The 22-minute segment about Donald Trump was delivered by John Oliver during the February 28, 2016, episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Oliver introduced the topic of Trump's presidential campaign by referring to it as "America's back mole", saying, "It may have seemed harmless a year ago, but now that it's become frighteningly bigger, it's no longer wise to ignore it."[4][5]

Oliver then heavily criticized Trump.[4][6][7] He called Trump a "serial liar", stating that Trump had lied many times in the past.[4] Oliver mentioned that Trump claimed to have declined an invitation to appear on Last Week Tonight despite never having been invited; that Trump was not self-funding his 2016 presidential campaign, despite Trump having said otherwise; that Trump University misled people, since it was not a university, and despite Trump's statement to the contrary, the related lawsuits were still pending; and that Ivanka Trump, Donald's daughter, had said that her father once portrayed himself as poorer than a homeless person.[8] Oliver said that Trump had failed to repudiate former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. In total, according to Oliver, Trump was lying three-fourths of the time.[9] Oliver called Trump inconsistent in his presidential campaign, saying that "he's been pro choice and pro-life; he's been for and against assault weapon bans; in favor of both bringing in Syrian refugees and deporting them out of the country."[4]

Oliver stated that Donald Trump had frequently threatened to file lawsuits against various people, but had never actually filed these lawsuits.[10] Oliver said that Trump was also sensitive about the size of his fingers due to an incident several years prior, in which Trump had been accosted about the size of his fingers.[9] Discussion of Trump's "short fingers" was later covered by other media,[11] but in a Twitter post two days after the segment's original showing, Trump said that he was not aware that people knew about his "short fingers".[12]

"Make Donald Drumpf Again"

The Drumpf logo owned by Drumpf Industries, LLC and registered as a WordMark with US Trademark Office
Trademark request

In the final portion of the segment, Oliver urged viewers to refer to Trump as "Drumpf", the Trump family's ancestral name.[7] Oliver stated that "Drumpf is much more reflective of who [Trump] really is". Oliver said that if viewers wanted to vote for "the charismatic guy promising to make America great again", they should "stop and take a moment to imagine how [they] would feel if [they] just met a guy named Donald Drumpf". Oliver called Trump a "serial liar", saying that the latter had "a string of broken business ventures and the support of a former Klan leader, who he can't decide whether or not to condemn".[13] Oliver told viewers to use the name "Drumpf," saying, "Drumpf is much less magical. It's the sound produced when a morbidly obese pigeon flies into the window of a foreclosed Old Navy. ... It's the sound of a bottle of store-brand root beer falling off the shelf in a gas station minimart."[4]

A trademark application for the word "Drumpf" was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office by a company called Drumpf Industries, an LLC based in Delaware; Oliver stated that he had trademarked that term.[14][15] Oliver also released a Google Chrome browser extension called "Drumpfinator" after the segment, which changes all instances of "Trump" to "Drumpf" on webpages.[6] Oliver created the hashtag "#MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain" during the segment. He also registered the web domain "donaldjdrumpf.com", selling baseball caps with the slogan "Make Donald Drumpf Again," modeled after Trump's own "Make America Great Again" hat.[4] The website sold out of 35,000 of these hats by March 27.[3]

Reception and aftermath

CNET said John Oliver (pictured in 2014) had "a greater purpose" than "mere satire", which was to influence Americans to vote against Trump.

Immediately after the segment had aired, web searches for "Donald Drumpf", a term mentioned in the segment's final minutes, went viral. By March 1, on which the "Super Tuesday" primaries were held, Google Searches for "Donald Drumpf" had surpassed those for "Ted Cruz" and "Marco Rubio," Trump's fellow candidates for the Republican presidential nomination at the time.[16]

By the morning of March 4, the "Drumpfinator" Chrome extension had received over 333,800 downloads and 5,800 reviews.[17] A similar add-on for Mozilla Firefox with the name "Drumpfinator" had thousands of users.[18] The extensions resulted in multiple outlets accidentally replacing Trump's name. The American Jewish Congress announced the results of a poll of their members that referred to the candidate as "Donald Drumpf", which they later acknowledged was an accident caused by someone's use of the extension.[19] Wired magazine published multiple articles replacing Trump's name with the phrase "Someone with Tiny Hands" in reference to the Short-Fingered Vulgarian meme, a result of another Chrome extension.[20][21]

Reacting to the segment, The New York Times commented that "Donald Drumpf" was "a funny label", but stated that "some fairness might be in order". It stated that the Trump family had changed its name in the 17th century, and pointed out that many American entertainers and politicians, including two presidents (Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford) and a rival presidential candidate (Hillary Clinton), had changed their names.[22] CNET called the segment a "lengthy excoriation" of Trump, and commented that Oliver had "a greater purpose" than "mere satire", which was to influence Americans to care enough to vote against Trump.[23] S.I. Rosenbaum of The Washington Post was more critical, saying that making fun of foreign names "traffics in the very xenophobia that is Trump's sick stock in trade". Rosenbaum explained that: "We have a long history of this sort of thing in this country of immigrants — bestowing foreign-sounding names to imply that the target isn’t really an American."[24]

DeepDrumpf, which received its namesake from Oliver's segment, is a Twitterbot created at MIT which uses neural network technology and posts tweets to Twitter in an imitation of Trump. "The algorithm essentially learns an underlying structure from all the data it gets, and then comes up with different combinations of the data that reflect the structure that it was taught," says the bot's creator.[25] He stated that if there were more data available, or even all the data that Facebook's AI system can analyze, then the neural network would be better able to mimic the presidential candidate.[26]

Within one week of the original broadcast, the YouTube video of the segment had surpassed 20 million views, making it Oliver's most watched segment.[3] By comparison, the previous episode's segment had a little over four million views on YouTube by that date.[27] By March 8, the website had sold over 35,000 "Make Donald Drumpf Again" hats, comprising all of the inventory on hand.[28] Other merchandise satirizing Trump had been sold by other retailers as well.[29] By the end of March, the segment had been viewed 23.3 million times on YouTube and 62 million times on Facebook, making its viewership "a record for any piece of HBO content."[30]

In a subsequent segment on March 20, 2016, titled "Border Wall", Oliver talked about Trump's proposed border wall between United States and Mexico, although the YouTube video's description of the episode mentioned "Donald Drumpf's" plan to build the wall.[31] Oliver criticized Trump's idea in that episode as well.[32][33][34]

Name change timing dispute

Frederick Trump

While sources agree that Drumpf is Trump's ancestral name, and that neither Donald Trump nor his father were named Drumpf, they disagree on when the family name was changed, whether in the 17th century or 1885.[35] Snopes.com reported that Drumpf is indeed the original family name, but the writers were unable to determine what year the name was changed to Trump.[36] Some articles state that the name change happened in 1885, and that Donald Trump's grandfather, Frederick Trump, was formerly named Friedrich Drumpf.[14] However, other sources reported that Friedrich, his father, and his aunt were all named Trump. Genealogy organization FamilySearch provided information on Friedrich Trump, listing his father as Johann Ii Trump,[37] while a genealogist at About.com listed Donald Trump's grandfather as Friederich Trump and great-grandfather as Christian Johannes Trump.[38] The 2013 book America's Obsessives: The Compulsive Energy That Built a Nation stated that Donald Trump's great-grandfather and great-grandaunt (Frederick's father and aunt) were called John Trump and Charlotte Luise Trump, respectively.[39]

Some published sources stated that the name change occurred in the 17th century. In her 2001 book The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate, biographer Gwenda Blair wrote that the Trumps' family name was changed during the Thirty Years' War, as evidenced by the name of John Philip Trump who lived in the 17th century. Blair also wrote that Frederick Trump's original name was Friedrich Trump, and his father, born in the 19th century, was Johannes Trump.[40] This position was endorsed by The Boston Globe and The New York Times, with the latter writing, "Despite mistaken impressions, Mr. Trump and his recent relatives had nothing to do with the surname change. Mr. Oliver himself was careful to refer to a 'prescient ancestor.'"[22][41] A reporter from The Guardian who visited Kallstadt, where Trump's grandfather was born, called him Friedrich Trump, describing that "the Trump family name has had various permutations over the past five hundred years, according to the local church register", but did not mention the name "Drumpf."[42]

See also

References

  1. ↑ KERI BLAKINGER (March 21, 2016). "Oliver dumps on Trump's wall plans on 'Last Week Tonight'". NY Daily News. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  2. ↑ Melissa Locker. "John Oliver Takes On Donald Trump On Last Week Tonight". TIME.com. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 "John Oliver Sells Out of ‘Make Donald Drumpf Again’ Caps". The New York Times. March 9, 2016. Retrieved March 27, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "John Oliver Demolishes 'Serial Liar' Donald Trump". The Huffington Post. February 29, 2016. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
  5. ↑ Amanda Taub (March 1, 2016). "The rise of American authoritarianism". Vox (website). Retrieved March 29, 2016.
  6. 1 2 "John Oliver Destroys Donald Trump: ‘You Are Either a Racist or You Are Pretending to Be’". The Daily Beast. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
  7. 1 2 Justin Wm. Moyer (February 29, 2016). "John Oliver slams Trump, a.k.a. Donald ‘Drumpf,’ for 22 brutal minutes". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
  8. ↑ Melissa Locker. "John Oliver Takes On Donald Trump On Last Week Tonight". Time. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
  9. 1 2 Reed, Ryan (February 29, 2016). "Watch John Oliver Annihilate Donald Trump, Re-Brand 'Drumpf'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  10. ↑ "John Oliver Destroys Donald Trump In ‘Last Week Tonight’ Rant". Inquisitr. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  11. ↑ Nelson, Libby (March 2, 2016). "Donald Trump’s deep insecurity about his "short fingers," explained". Vox. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  12. ↑ "Donald Trump denies knowing anything about people making fun of his 'small fingers'". The Week. March 1, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  13. ↑ Sarene Leeds. "John Oliver Takes On Donald Trump, Implores America to ‘Make Donald Drumpf Again’". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  14. 1 2 "‘Drumpf’ trademark application filed". World Intellectual Property Review. March 3, 2016. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  15. ↑ "Primarily Merely a Drumpf". JD Supra. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  16. ↑ "‘Donald Drumpf’ Is Beating Rubio and Cruz for Second in Google Searches". The New York Times. March 2, 2016. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
  17. ↑ Swartz, Tracy (March 4, 2016). "Donald Drumpf browser extension installed more than 333K times". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  18. ↑ "Drumpfinator :: Add-ons for Firefox". March 1, 2016. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  19. ↑ Friedman, Gabe (March 11, 2016). "‘Donald Drumpf’ is runner-up in American Jewish Congress presidential poll". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  20. ↑ Bonazzo, John (March 9, 2016). "Wired Called Donald Trump ‘Someone With Tiny Hands’ in Several Articles". The New York Observer. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  21. ↑ Charlton, Alistair (March 10, 2016). "How two Wired articles changed Donald Trump's name to 'Someone With Tiny Hands'". International Business Times. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  22. 1 2 Victor, Daniel (March 2, 2016). "Donald Drumpf: A Funny Label, but Is It Fair". The New York Times.
  23. ↑ Matyszczyk, Chris. "John Oliver slams Trump for 22 minutes, creates new hashtag for him". CNET. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  24. ↑ S.I. Rosenbaum (March 3, 2016). "John Oliver’s 'Donald Drumpf' jokes play on the same ugly xenophobia Trump does". The Washington Post.
  25. ↑ Plummer, Quinten (March 5, 2016). "@DeepDrumpf Is An AI-Powered Twitterbot That Tweets Like Donald Trump". Tech Times. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
  26. ↑ Bonnie Burton (March 4, 2016). "Drumpf Twitterbot learns to imitate Trump via deep-learning algorithm". CNET. CBS Interactive. Retrieved March 4, 2016. The Twitterbot DeepDrumpf takes its name from "Last Week Tonight" host and comedian John Oliver who lambasted Trump on his February 28 show
  27. ↑ "Forget ‘Donald Drumpf.’ This new John Oliver segment is well worth a few minutes of your time.". The Washington Post. March 7, 2016. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
  28. ↑ Koblin, John (March 8, 2016). "John Oliver Sells Out of ‘Make Donald Drumpf Again’ Caps". The New York Times. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
  29. ↑ Cruz, Melissa (March 3, 2016). "Other Amazing Donald Drumpf Merchandise You Can Buy, Because Pissing Off Donald Trump Is Priceless". Bustle. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  30. ↑ Stelter, Brian (March 30, 2016). "Even John Oliver enjoys a Drumpf bump". CNN Money. Retrieved March 31, 2016.
  31. ↑ John Oliver (March 20, 2016). Border Wall. HBO. Retrieved March 27, 2016 – via YouTube.
  32. ↑ Garofalo, Alex (2016-03-21). "Donald Trump Border Wall Slammed By John Oliver On ‘Last Week Tonight’ [VIDEO]". International Business Times. Retrieved 2016-03-26.
  33. ↑ Lee, Chris (2016-03-21). "John Oliver Demolishes Donald Trump’s Wall In 18 Minutes". Fortune. Retrieved 2016-03-26.
  34. ↑ "John Oliver takes Donald Trump's border wall plan seriously, unfortunately for Trump". The Week. 2016-03-21. Retrieved 2016-03-26.
  35. ↑ "¿Quién es Donald J Drumpf y por qué genera tanta controversia en EE.UU.?" (in Spanish). BBC Mundo. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  36. ↑ Kim LaCapria (March 1, 2016). "TRUE: Trump's Family Surname Was Once 'Drumpf'". Snopes. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  37. ↑ "Friedrich Trump". FamilySearch. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  38. ↑ Powell, Kimberly. "Ancestry of Donald Trump - Great Grandparents". About.com. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  39. ↑ Kendall, Joshua (2013). "America's Obsessives: The Compulsive Energy That Built a Nation". Grand Central Publishing. Retrieved 7 March 2016. John Henry Heinz's mother was Charlotte Luise Trump, a sister of the Donald's great-grandfather, John Trump
  40. ↑ Blair, Gwenda (2001). The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate. Simon and Schuster. pp. 26–27. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  41. ↑ "Why Donald Trump trumps Donald Drumpf". The Boston Globe. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
  42. ↑ Connolly, Kate. "Kallstadt, Germany: on the trail of 'the Donald' in the Trump ancestral home". The Guardian. Retrieved March 6, 2016.

External links

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