John Oliver To Use ‘Air Bud’ Rule To Run For Prime Minister Of Italy

It’s time to talk about Italy or as Last Week Tonight host John Oliver calls it, “the country that gave us spaghetti, the Colosseum, and in a roundabout way, the guy who played Turtle.” Oh yeahhhh.

On the latest episode of HBO’s trenchant week in review series, Oliver rallied against Italy’s upcoming election for a new prime minister. Concerned about the candidates — Matteo Salvini, whom Oliver referred to as a “fascist Mary Poppins” and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whom Oliver called one of “histories most ludicrous humans” — the comedian felt that their anti-immigration rhetoric is something that should bother everyone.

“Italy is in turmoil and is dabbling with fascism, and that should worry everyone,” Oliver said. “The last time they did that, they wound up with Mussolini, the, to put it nicely, Turner to Hitler’s Hooch.” But the HBO host may have stumbled upon a solution. The show discovered that there’s no explicit provision in the Italian constitution that says non-citizens can’t run for Prime Minister.

“As far as I’m concerned, we have ourselves an Air Bud scenario,” Oliver said. “Remember, the rules of basketball did not explicitly state that [Air Bud] couldn’t play. Next thing you know, the dog’s dunking. Well, I am that dog, Italy. So alley oop, motherf*ckers.”

Oliver is correct. In the first Air Bud film, there was no official rule that stated that a dog could not play basketball. Could Oliver save Italy? Probably not considering Oliver admitted his candidacy was a “complete and total farce.” Then again, Air Bud did lead his team to victory, so who knows.

“Yes, Italy, my candidacy for Prime Minister may be a complete and total farce, but be honest, incredibly, I am far from your worst option.”

Where to stream Last Week Tonight with John Oliver