# Midterms 2026: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

**Channel:** LastWeekTonight
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np7_mlvXFcA
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/Np7_mlvXFcA

## Chapters

- 0:04 — Midterm Elections and Republican Trouble
- 4:38 — Republicans Distance Themselves from Trump
- 12:54 — Litigation, Spending, and Election Denial
- 18:51 — Bigotry in Campaign Ads and Attacks
- 24:14 — Why Voting Still Matters Tuesday

## Transcript

**[0:04] Speaker A:** But we're actually going to dive straight in with our main story this week, which involves the midterm elections. They're just 2 days away, and last-minute rallies being held all over the country, with perhaps the saddest being Ken Paxton's on Thursday night, which began with this rousing speech.

**[0:19] Speaker B:** Um we're probably about an hour out. Do me a favor. Please don't leave. And the reason why that is cuz I don't want the media to turn it in saying that people don't like Ken Paxton. Well, it's not our fault that we have jobs we got to do in the morning. I'm sorry.

**[0:35] Speaker A:** Sure, but if you actually like the person you're seeing, you don't worry about work in the morning, do you? You don't leave a Springsteen concert at 8:30 saying, "Well, I was really hoping I'd see him do Born to Run, but it's a work night." No. You drink two more beers and get your joints loose for Rosalita LIKE A ADULT. OVERALL, things don't seem to be looking great for Republicans right now as they're on track to lose the majority in the House and possibly the Senate, too. And look, anyone gets carried away, polls can clearly be wrong. You may remember that Iowa poll right before the last election showing Kamala Harris winning the state, which spoiler alert, she didn't. As we now know, Iowa was instead carried by Corntaur, lord of the stalks, who rose from the fields at the 11th hour to claim his dark harvest.

**[1:21] Speaker A:** That said, there've been signs for months now that Republicans foresaw some trouble. In fact, at Trump's ridiculous midterm convention, he even led the crowd in this desperate pledge.

**[1:31] Speaker B:** I PLEDGE TO THE GREATEST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

**[1:43] Speaker B:** THAT LOVES US SO MUCH HE CAN'T EVEN BREATHE.

**[1:47] Speaker A:** Trump making the crowd pledge to him that they would vote come November.

**[1:51] Speaker B:** You know what happens if you don't vote? You go to hell, you know that.

**[1:57] Speaker A:** Okay, there is so much there, from asking people to repeat back a sentence clearly too long for them to the line loves us so much he can't even breathe. What in the Paramore lyrics is he even talking about there? As for vote or you'll go to hell, I'll say this, huge if true. Imagine if Jeffrey Epstein got to hell and said, "Oh, because of all this stuff." And the devil said, "No, actually, lack of civic engagement." In the last month, Trump's been crisscrossing the country to try and drum up support among his base, even repeatedly telling his voters to "Pretend I'm on the ballot." Which is a bold move given the extent to which his approval rating has completely tanked. In fact, just listen to this woman at the Iowa State Fair explain how she sees support for him every way before the reporter makes a big choice to wrap up the piece.

**[2:49] Speaker B:** Used to be no matter where you drove, they did it on the corn bales or the hay bales, everything Trump Trump. Every place you went because we are Republican where we're from. You don't see any now. You don't see any of them.

**[3:08] Speaker A:** And Alex, I'll keep this quick cuz I'm starting to get dizzy, but we've also heard expressions of frustration about President's up and down tariff policy. And even President Trump's most ardent supporters will say that the tariffs aren't working yet. They're just hoping that they will work down the line. That's what we're hearing from voters here at the Iowa State Fair.

**[3:30] Speaker B:** WOW. HE SHOT THAT AS IF HE EXPECTED VIEWERS TO RESPOND to him saying, "We're here at the Iowa State Fair." with "Really? prove it." And in hindsight, I'm pretty sure the entire time he was talking to that woman, he was just staring at the cotton candy sign behind her. Just Yeah, that sounds really tough what you're going through. Quick question, is there an age limit on the rides here? Cuz next thing you know, he's on a horsey looking like a child of divorce getting spoiled on dad's weekend. But, that fancy child reporter is right. Trump's tariffs do seem to have hurt him as have ICE raids all over the country and his war in Iran, which has contributed to gas prices being up 34% from a year ago. And I know it feels very weird to boil two years of violent chaos down to gas prices go up, but affordability is something many people do vote on.

**[4:22] Speaker B:** I will remind you, part of the reason we're in this mess right now is because of the price of eggs. It was mostly racism, but it was partly eggs. The point is, if Tuesday's midterms do turn out to be a referendum on this president, it's not looking great for him.

**[4:38] Speaker B:** So, given that tonight, we thought we'd take a look at the midterms, the problems they've laid bare for Republicans, and some of the ways that they're desperately trying to solve them. And let's start with the fact that some Republican candidates have notably been trying to distance themselves from Trump. One analysis found that more than 99% of GOP ad spending is now going to spots that do not mention him. In fact, just watch this uh uh Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers uh when he tries to dodge being connected to Trump in an interview last Sunday.

**[5:07] Speaker A:** Is a vote for you a vote for the Trump agenda?

**[5:14] Speaker B:** Um I'm apologizing. I'm having some difficulty in my earpiece, but I Is a vote for you I'm not sure. I I'll tell you what a vote for me is. It's a great day for the state of Michigan.

**[5:25] Speaker A:** Yeah, nice try, Mike. But, that was pretty obvious. I haven't seen someone dodge a question that shamelessly since I spent 3 hours gasping aloud at two complete lunatics who've never blinked once in their lives. If you want to talk about that movie, please contact anyone who works here. It's derailed our workflow to an unacceptable degree. Meanwhile, other Republicans have felt the need to actively criticize Trump's policies like Florida Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, who released this ad.

**[5:54] Speaker B:** Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policies. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.

**[6:07] Speaker A:** Okay, first, saying some of Trump's immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far is like saying some Nick Cage performances are a scooch unhinged. You're technically right, of course, but you're not really capturing the true scope of what we're talking about. But also, that is a notable shift, given just a year ago Salazar toured alligator Alcatraz and reassured reporters that no one likes to be inside a cage, but I want to tell you that the cage is well clean, WHICH IS PRETTY UP IN THE same way it'd be up to say, "Hey, nobody likes being waterboarded, but I want to tell you it's all natural spring water they're getting." But she's not wrong that Hispanic voters do seem to feel betrayed. As among likely voters in that demo, Democrats recently led Republicans by 35 points on the congressional ballot. That's up from a lead of just seven points in the last presidential election, which shouldn't be surprising because it it's not just anger over immigration enforcement.

**[7:03] Speaker A:** Hispanic voters are also experiencing the same affordability concerns as everyone else, as well as having to endure relentless racism from the White House. JUST THIS WEEK, its official Twitter account posted "Spooky season is here" with an image of a jack-o'-lantern with a sombrero on it, which is both racist and ridiculous, as the sombrero is just objectively one of the least scary hats. Which is hat? Top hat? Sure, both creepy, but if you're walking alone in the woods, someone comes around the corner and all you can make out is their sombrero? Brother, something festive this way comes. In fact, slap a sombrero on the Babadook AND SEE HOW PEOPLE'S REACTIONS TO him change. But some Republican candidates can't really distance themselves from Trump, as he's the one who got them on the ballot in the first place. During the primaries, he repeatedly endorsed extreme MAGA types.

**[7:57] Speaker A:** We've talked before about Senate candidates like Mike Collins in Georgia and Ken Paxton in Texas, but he also thumbed the scale in house races like in Upstate New York, where the Republican establishment backed this more traditional candidate, but Trump endorsed Anthony Constantino, the CEO of a sticker company who first gained attention by putting a giant Trump sign on his factory, something you can see in this photo taken by someone who just hates him. Constantino is running in a deep red district, but his race now seems up for grabs. And when you learn more about him, you can start to see why. For starters, he is a pro-Trump rapper, apparently, which is exactly as bad as you would expect. Just watch this video that he put out last year attacking Zoran Momčilović.

**[8:39] Speaker B:** Zoran a trained actor, he don't fool so many men, but I see through you and I know just how this ends. It don't end happy, it don't end police, it ends with you failing, failing to achieve. Can't with America, This is New York City, the home of Donald Trump, Tupac, and Biggie. Remember when they hit the tower? They couldn't destroy it. Your boy Osama dead now, and you're here to annoy us. We know the terrorist dream is to destroy New York. I want to make the whole world enjoy New York.

**[9:05] Speaker A:** Hamilton was a mistake. And yes, you heard right, he did just rhyme New York with New York there. Which is frustrating given there were so many other options open to him like fork, stalk, or turning the camera off, packing up his recording equipment, and never rapping again. Trump pushed hard for Constantino despite the fact he doesn't seem remotely ready for the job. He was recently asked if he knew the difference between mandatory and discretionary spending and said, "Mandatory means mandatory, and discretionary means discretionary." And when the reporter responded, "Well, right, but what do those terms actually mean?" He replied, "You tell me." And that's not even his worst answer, as when he was asked to simply name the biggest city in his district, he said, and I quote, "I don't know, ask Grok." Which we actually did, and it said the biggest city in New York's 21st District is a big-titted Lola Bunny telling us to kill ourselves.

**[10:01] Speaker A:** It's a very useful tool. The point is, Republicans seem to be facing some significant headwinds. And at this point, it's worth looking at how they're trying to overcome them because it's mostly been litigation, billionaire spending, and rank bigotry. And let let's talk about the litigation first because the DOJ's launched a bunch of baseless lawsuits to try and seize states voter rolls on which they're currently 0 for 27 in court. They've also been preemptively challenging the integrity of votes in California and Alaska with the latter suit really ramping up this week following reports that Democrats there had carried out an admittedly pretty dickish maneuver to sow confusion on the ballot.

**[10:41] Speaker B:** Tonight a new headline rocking the Senate race in deep red Alaska.

**[10:44] Speaker A:** And to Dan Sullivan, the people aren't going to be able to tell and it's a fraud.

**[10:49] Speaker B:** The New York Times reporting on a secret Democratic plot to sabotage the campaign of Republican Senator Dan Sullivan by placing another candidate with the same name on the ballot to confuse his supporters. Last week President Trump told the DOJ to file suit to block certification of Alaska's results if Dan J. Sullivan cost Senator Sullivan a win.

**[11:10] Speaker A:** Yeah, Democrats allegedly tried to confuse voters by getting another Dan Sullivan to run which again confirms my theory that when you hear secret Republican plot, it's always some sort of elaborate house of cards chicanery, but when you hear secret Democratic plot, it is the most rinky-dink Scooby-Doo clown car mix-em-up imaginable. Now, both the Democratic candidate's campaign and the party's Senate Campaign Committee have denied that report, but it wouldn't be the first time that tactic's been used. In fact, it's been called an age-old election trick and it's happened up and down ballots across party lines. It's also crucially not illegal. That would only be the case if it involved things like falsifying residency documents, laundering campaign funds, or offering direct payments. In fact, as one expert put it, if trying to confuse voters was a crime, then every politician would be in jail. What's more, as you can see from the ballot, the Dan Sullivan who's the incumbent Republican Senator is clearly marked incumbent.

**[12:05] Speaker A:** And while Trump has argued that a lot of people don't know what incumbent means, which does feel like he's really telling on himself there. When CNN talked to voters in Alaska, they didn't seem that confused.

**[12:18] Speaker B:** Can you tell who's who here?

**[12:20] Speaker A:** Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You've got Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. And then you have Sullivan Dan, who's a registered Republican and incumbent. And I don't even have my glasses on. It's pretty clear. It's in black and white. It's It's very clear.

**[12:37] Speaker B:** Yeah, and for what it's worth, the sickest possible burn from someone with any amount of gray in their hair is, "I don't even have my glasses on." If I don't have my glasses on and even I can tell that something is clear, YOU ARE COOKED.

**[12:54] Speaker B:** AND ON TOP OF THAT, Alaska actually uses ranked-choice voting. So, any theoretical person who doesn't know what incumbent means and wants to make sure their vote's going to Senator Dan Sullivan can just rank both of them on the ballot. And again, none of that makes what Democrats are being accused of good or okay, but it does make it stupid and meaningless, which if nothing else would be pretty on brand for the party. And yet, if Sullivan loses, it seems inevitable Trump will try to prevent his opponent from being seated in the Senate, despite there being no legal basis for that. And that's just one of many ways Trump and his administration have tried to sow fear and doubt ahead of this election, from the ICE raid of Ilhan Omar's home 3 weeks ago to his primetime address on supposed voter fraud in July. After that, DHS claimed that they were looking into 300,000 possible instances of fraud and sank huge resources into bringing cases.

**[13:48] Speaker B:** But, when we asked them exactly how many they've brought this term, not even convicted, just charged, they told us it was just 208, which is, you'll notice, slightly under 300,000. I can even tell that without my glasses on. AND ALL OF THIS IS clearly laying the groundwork for election denial. By one analysis, Trump attacked the integrity of elections on more than 70% of the days since he returned to office. And just this week, when asked if he'd commit to accepting the midterm results, he said this.

**[14:22] Speaker A:** And you'll respect the results, whatever happens?

**[14:24] Speaker B:** I will, if they're honest elections.

**[14:26] Speaker A:** Yeah, and that's a pretty big disclaimer, isn't it? It basically seems that Trump's principles are essentially, if you don't vote, you go to hell, and if I don't win, the whole thing can go to hell. So so that is how Republicans are trying to litigate their way out of trouble, but they're also trying to spend their way out of it. Because well, Democratic campaigns have actually out-raised Republican ones, when it comes to outside spending, it's not close. The 40 biggest donors this election cycle have given Republicans more than three times the amount that they've given Democrats, with Elon Musk alone giving Republicans at least $483 million so far. And that money's bought a lot of advertising, with Democrats and Republicans combined to spend over $11 billion just on ads. That's in part why your TV has been wall-to-wall with them for months now, and some have been truly ugly.

**[15:17] Speaker A:** Like the one taken out against Amy Acton, who's running for governor in Ohio, and which exploits a hideous childhood trauma.

**[15:24] Speaker B:** Acton was removed from her mother's custody when she was just 12 years old, after her stepfather was charged with raping her. They haven't spoken since. But now Acton's opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, has put her mother in a campaign ad.

**[15:40] Speaker A:** If you think she'll make your life better, you're fooling yourself.

**[15:44] Speaker B:** Acton calls the ad exploitative, saying her mother is not well.

**[15:48] Speaker A:** I think it was a horrible and hideous thing to do, a sad thing.

**[15:53] Speaker B:** Still, tonight, President Trump is defending the ad.

**[15:56] Speaker A:** Uh it's a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much.

**[16:01] Speaker B:** Yeah, that ad is so blatantly toxic that only the worst person on Earth could buy into it, and surprise, surprise, he did. But but IT'S NOT JUST TRUMP. IN THE wake of significant criticism, Ramaswamy actually doubled down on his ad.

**[16:15] Speaker A:** Voters deserve to know what the truth is, and the truth is that this woman is a liar.

**[16:20] Speaker B:** Jesus Christ. I would say that he should be ashamed of himself, but Ramaswamy clearly has no sense of shame, which probably shouldn't be news to anyone. Not only was he briefly the co-head of Doge, he was also apparently once a libertarian rapper. And if you are wondering whether he was any good, I'll let you be the judge. Here he is showing off his freestyling skills during a radio interview.

**[16:42] Speaker A:** It's Vivek like cake. I'm not fake and I swim in a lake of truth. That's me, Vivek. Yeah.

**[16:50] Speaker B:** I can't believe I'm about to say this, but Anthony Constantino is a better rapper. And when Republicans haven't been digging up horrifying traumas, they've been defaulting to stoking bigotry and fear-mongering. Take what's been happening in Michigan, where Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been relentlessly targeted with Islamophobic attacks, including from Trump himself on the campaign trail.

**[17:11] Speaker A:** His name is actually Abdullah something blah blah blah. It's Abdullah ba ba ba ba ba ba. Mohammed El-Sayed. So, his middle name is Mohammed. Mohammed El-Sayed. I call him Mohammed. Somebody said HIS NAME ISN'T MOHAMMED. It's Abdul. I said, "To me, it's Mohammed." He would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go into the Senate. I want him to have a metal detector. If Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas.

**[17:50] Speaker B:** That isn't just racist. Claiming El-Sayed's going to somehow cancel Christmas is also absurd, because there are plenty of things that could potentially ruin someone's Christmas. Travel delays, a bad cold, the release of another Kevin Spacey Christmas message, or, need I remind you, a president who starts a stupid trade war and then dismisses price increases like this.

**[18:09] Speaker A:** I don't think a beautiful baby girl needs such a 11-year-old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls.

**[18:19] Speaker B:** When you say they could have three dolls instead of 30 dollars, are you are you saying your Americans could see empty store shelves?

**[18:26] Speaker A:** No, I'm No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying they don't need to have 30 dollars. They can have three. They don't need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.

**[18:34] Speaker B:** Yeah. Don't worry, 11-year-old baby girls. If anyone comes and takes your precious dolls away this Christmas and the pencils we all know you love, it won't be a progressive Senate candidate in Michigan. It'll be a pudding-brained octogenarian who still doesn't understand what trade deficits are.

**[18:51] Speaker B:** And look, it shouldn't be surprising that Trump engages in Islamophobia, but the party seems more than happy to join him in that sewer. Just watch this attack ad put out by the Republican Senate Leadership Fund.

**[19:03] Speaker A:** Abdul El-Sayed in his own words.

**[19:06] Speaker B:** When I die and stand before God and go through everything I did in my life, I don't want to say I did it the easy way instead of the Sharia-compliant way.

**[19:15] Speaker A:** The Sharia law way? What's that?

**[19:18] Speaker B:** Using government to dictate how women dress,

**[19:21] Speaker A:** requiring they have a guardian,

**[19:22] Speaker B:** or prohibiting women from filing for divorce.

**[19:26] Speaker A:** The Sharia law-compliant way? Abdul El-Sayed's way.

**[19:30] Speaker B:** Okay, that is wildly misleading. First, that quote comes from an interview El-Sayed gave 17 years ago when he was 24 and was speaking to a reporter writing about a Michigan bank that offered a special kind of home loan for Islamic customers. Back then, he said he wanted to conduct himself in the Sharia-compliant way, meaning using the religious code as a guideline for his personal life. You know, how most religions work. And it is pretty bold as a move for the Republican Senate Leadership Fund to be like, "Hey, don't vote for this guy. He thinks the government should take agency away from women." Instead, why not vote for the party that overturned Roe v. Wade? BUT BUT IT'S NOT JUST ISLAMOPHOBIA. IN MANY STATES, THE biggest bet Republicans have made is once again been on transphobia. In basically every battleground state, there've been a slew of misleading transphobic attack ads, often using some variation of the same familiar tagline.

**[20:20] Speaker A:** John Davis doesn't always show up to work, but when he does show up, he's fighting for they them, not us.

**[20:27] Speaker B:** Mary Peltola works for they them, not for us.

**[20:31] Speaker A:** Annie Andrews is for they them, not for our values, not for South Carolina.

**[20:35] Speaker B:** Radical liberal James Talarico, for they them, not you.

**[20:41] Speaker A:** Wow. Normally, to hear that many shitty pronoun jokes in a row, you have to be watching a Netflix special someone got paid millions of dollars for. But, the level of bigotry this year has been truly ugly and sometimes plain weird. In Texas, Republicans went all in on the notion that James Talarico isn't manly enough to be senator. After the primary, Steven Miller tweeted that Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender Senate candidate. A PAC called Citizens for Sanity released this ad with an AI-generated Talarico singing a parody of My Favorite Things. And the PAC's own campaign itself called Talarico "Too Low-T for Texas." And come on. God forbid a man use pomade, exfoliant, and generally try to look a little more put together than Jabba the here. And even when Republicans weren't doing shitty trans jokes, they were implying that Talarico was gay.

**[21:31] Speaker A:** Like when J.D. Vance did this hilarious piece of crowd work.

**[21:35] Speaker B:** Now, before we get started, I love you, too, sir. In a totally platonic way. To be clear. I I'm the vice president, not James Talarico.

**[21:48] Speaker A:** For what it's worth, I think the most baffling thing there is someone yelling, "We love you." at J.D. Vance. I don't think anyone genuinely loved that man. I assume his colleagues hate him, his wife tolerates him, and even his couch thinks of it more of a no-strings-attached situation. And all that middle-school-level homophobia somehow gets even weirder given Trump's simultaneously been absolutely slobbering over the hotness of the male candidates he's been promoting, especially Ohio's John Houston.

**[22:17] Speaker B:** They started off by studying his ass. I just want to say.

**[22:20] Speaker A:** And I examined his ass.

**[22:22] Speaker B:** And his ass is It's like It's like a pile of muscle. I'm examining his body. And I said His ass was like a big piece of muscle. His feet were massive. His hands, his fingers look like sausages. My hands aren't bad, but his fingers look like sausages. Okay, hold on. His fingers look like sausages? Is that even good? Is that a thing people want? God, he's so hot. His fingers look like ground meat bursting out of fake skin. They look like they'd smell bad if you left them in the sun. Oh god. His fingers look like they could give you a botulism. I think I'M GOING TO BLOW. THE POINT IS, THE homophobia and transphobia has been off the charts this year. And what's wild is some Republicans will admit this isn't even working for them. Dave Weigel, a state representative in Texas, has complained, "We're still running transgender ads.

**[23:20] Speaker B:** It's just not resonating. What Republicans are talking about is just not what the swing voter is really interested in." And that's the problem for Republicans here. Things are clearly broken. It is not hard to tell who broke them. And you can't fix things by just screaming about gender or Muslims. It honestly says something about the degree to which all this fear-mongering may yet backfire. That when one Michigan voter was asked about Abdul El-Sayed after being barraged with attack ads against him, this was her response.

**[23:50] Speaker A:** Do you worry that he's a bit too left-wing to win in Michigan?

**[23:53] Speaker B:** At this point, what do we have to worry about? Anything but what we have. We're on our way to hell. So,

**[24:01] Speaker A:** at this point Socialist, socialize, social, don't matter to me. Lower my cost of living.

**[24:10] Speaker B:** Exactly. The point is voters are justifiably frustrated.

**[24:14] Speaker B:** So, what does all this mean will happen on Tuesday? Well, to quote my second least favorite Republican rapper, I don't know. Ask Grok. But you can probably safely assume that if things don't go Trump's way, he'll claim the election was rigged and do everything he can to undermine the result, which is a strong argument for you turning up to vote this year, even in districts where you think your candidates are safe. For one thing, remember, if you don't vote, you're going to hell, but also, the bigger the results for Democrats on Tuesday, the harder they'll be for Trump to litigate or deny. Look, Trump has said he wants people to pretend he's on the ballot this year, but I'm not sure people even need to pretend. We're now almost halfway through his second term. He's had both the House and the Senate on his side the entire time, AND LOOK WHERE IT'S GOT US.

**[25:02] Speaker B:** FINALLY, on Tuesday, we have a chance to apply some brakes. And if we can do that, if we can finally send a message to this administration that people are not remotely happy with what it's been doing, then maybe, just maybe, we, like I was greatest ever child reporter, will have earned ourselves a little treat.