Although John Oliver taped Last Week Tonight before Sunday’s racism-fueled Madison Square Garden rally railing against immigrants, he still managed to flag one of Donald Trump’s favorite patriots.
The late-night host singled out Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The U.S.A.” in his Sunday night monologue as an inappropriate anthem which Oliver and millions of other new U.S. citizens have been subjected to in their naturalization ceremonies for years.
“They deserve (a song) genuinely unique to this country,” Oliver said. “A song that celebrates the nation you Americans are about to join and the process that they’ve been through, also while not soft-pedaling some hard truths about it. And the good news is, I think we actually have the perfect song, and it’s performed by an actual American treasure.”
Instead of busting out some more of Greenwood, Oliver presented viewers with an alternative: Will Ferrell.
Featuring in a more than 3-minute video, the actor sung about the greatness of corn dogs, apple pie, fireworks, NASCAR, rodeo and barbecue, as well as “our flaws,” such as televangelists, fossil fuels, metal detectors in all our schools, private prisons and Mountain Dew.
“Student debt and CTE, the War on Drugs, Scientology, Boeing Airlines and Ted Fucking Cruz, they’re all American, now so are you!”
Oliver claimed “I am intimately familiar with the U.S. immigration process, having finally become a citizen in 2019. It was a long, stressful process capped by a moving naturalization ceremony.” But he said having to sit and watch a video performance of Greenwood’s song (after a message from then-President Trump) was “stuck in my head” as inappropriately awkward.
“While Lee Greenwood has repeatedly claimed his song is apolitical, he definitely isn’t,” Oliver said. Greenwood was inducted into the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) Hall of Fame in 2022, played Trump’s inauguration in 2017, introduced him at this year’s Republican National Convention, and according to Oliver, “serenaded him earlier this month when he returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, making his music the second worst thing to happen to someone’s ears there.”
Oliver also blasted Greenwood for trying to profit even more by tying his song to a special edition of the Bible that included the U.S. Constitution, partnering with Trump to market this unholy mashup for $59.99. “Even Christianity Today published a blog post criticizing it,” Oliver said.
“Honestly, I’m not sure why it’s being played at ceremonies at all?” Oliver wondered after citing a questionable contract between Universal Music and the federal government. “Not just contractually or even musically, but because Greenwood’s past remarks about immigrants have been, to say the least, off-message.”
At that same CPAC conference in 2022, Greenwood told Fox News that immigrants “need to know we’re a Western country that believes in God. That’s it.” To which Oliver expressed outrage, revealing that four questions on the U.S. citizenship test rely upon knowing that America guarantees freedom of religion. “Fellow immigrants, I cannot stress this enough: Do not listen to Lee Greenwood because among other things you will fail your citizenship test.”
