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1 Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"! I'm John Oliver.

Thank you so much for joining us. It has been a busy week.

Israel continued its assault on Rafah,

even as Biden unveiled Israel's new peace plan that,

fun fact, the Israeli government apparently hasn't agreed to yet,

and a New York businessman got into some legal trouble,

which was undeniably fun to watch unfold live.

We have our verdict, Savannah, here we go:

Count 1, guilty.

Count 2, guilty.

Count 3, guilty.

Count 4, guilty.

Count 5, guilty.

Count 6, guilty.

Count 7, guilty.

Count 8, guilty.

Count 9, guilty.

Count 10, guilty.

Count 11, guilty.

Count 12, guilty.

Count 13, guilty.

Count 14, guilty.

Count 15, guilty.

Count 16, guilty.

Count 17, guilty.

Count 18, guilty.

Count 19, guilty.

Count 20, guilty.

Count 21, guilty.

Count 22, guilty.

Count 23, guilty.

She did that for all 34 different counts.

And it is so satisfying to watch, I'd honestly be surprised

if someone hadn't already uploaded it to Pornhub by now.

Anyway, that will be so fun to remember five months from now,

when we're watching that exact anchor count

the 270 electoral votes that Trump's won,

because nothing matters and we live in a broken world.

There might well be more to say about this after the sentencing,

but for now, we're going to dive straight in to our main story,

which concerns India, the last country in the world

that wants to be discussed by someone with this accent.

Which is why I'll be doing the rest of tonight's show in this one!

Everybody love-a-da Giovanni Oliver show!

Mamma mia, Buca di Beppo. Everybody love the…

Canceled!

Yep, that's right, that's fair, that's probably right,

I didn't love the way that was heading.

India's in the middle of an election right now,

and I do mean "in the middle", voting started several weeks ago,

and only just ended, with results expected on Tuesday.

It's a long process for a reason.

India is the largest country in the world by population,

with over 1.4 billion people.

That's the equivalent of roughly four United States, six Brazils,

nine Russias, 34 Canadas, or 1.4 billion Kevins.

It is a lot of people. And the sheer mechanics

of setting up an election that size are mind-blowing.

By law, every voter must be within two kilometers

or a little more than a mile of a polling station.

Officials trek over rough and mountainous terrain and across rivers.

Taking boats, choppers, even horses,

trekking through mountains deep in the Himalayas

and through lion-infested jungles.

Sometimes, a team travels 70 kilometers

to set up a booth for just one person.

That is incredible.

And just imagine if workers dragged a polling place

through mountains and rivers just for you, and then you forgot to vote.

"Was that today? I'm sorry, it slipped my mind.

Thanks so much for trekking through that lion-infested jungle for me!

I'll definitely try and remember next time!"

Results for India's election will be announced on June 4th,

and while we don't yet know who's going to win,

we kind of do, because it's gonna be Narendra Modi,

who is overwhelmingly favored to win a third term.

In fact, most experts agree the only real question mark is,

how much will he and his party, the BJP, win by?

One polling organization found he has an approval rating of 74%,

more than any world leader they track.

And for some Indians, part of Modi's appeal

is the sense that under his leadership, the country's been on the rise,

enjoying increased prominence on the world stage,

from Biden hosting Modi for a state visit last year,

to the Australian prime minister

introducing him at a packed arena in Sydney with this memorable line.

The last time I saw someone on this stage here was Bruce Springsteen,

and he didn't get the welcome that Prime Minister Modi has got.

Prime Minister Modi is the Boss.

That is some weapons-grade ass-kissing there,

and also a pretty strange way of transferring titles.

"Bruce Springsteen didn't get this reaction, so you're the Boss now.

You also got a bigger reaction than Madonna,

Luxembourg's Henri Guillaume, and Lizzo,

so by the transitive property, you're now Queen of Pop,

the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and 100% that bitch".

Despite Modi's popularity, there are some major causes for concern.

If you're thinking "Haven't you talked about this before?"

you're half right, because we've actually covered Modi twice before;

once four years ago and once for our very first episode,

which was, based on this photo, 200 years ago.

And those episodes actually stand up pretty well.

I asked my staff to pick a clip that they feel is representative,

and they tell me that they've found the perfect one, so go ahead, roll it!

Hitler is the only one who stepped up and got it done,

and for that I say "Way to go, Hitler!"

Hold on! That needs a lot more context around it.

Fuck you for choosing that!

What we explained in those episodes is that Modi's party, the BJP,

has a long history of espousing Hindu nationalism,

essentially, rejecting India's history as a pluralistic nation,

and trying to push it toward becoming an explicitly Hindu one.

It's long been affiliated with a paramilitary group called the RSS,

whose early leaders admired Hitler, and that was the context for that joke.

It was a pretty good Hitler joke, so good, in fact,

I'm guessing even Hitler would say "Way to go, John!"

And please do not take that image out of context as well.

We also talked about how, over the course of Modi's rise,

he's chosen to be strategically quiet

about his pseudo-authoritarian, pro-Hindu vision of India.

There's been a noticeable shift in his rhetoric during this election season,

because his speeches have started to contain overt anti-Muslim statements

like this one, in which he claims that, if elected,

his rival political party will hand over the country's wealth to Muslims.

The earlier government said the Muslims

will have the right over the resources of the country.

This means they will gather all the wealth

and give it to the people who have more children.

They will distribute it among the infiltrators.

Do you think your hard-earned money

should be distributed to the infiltrators?

Do you accept that?

That is Modi referring to India's Muslim citizens as "infiltrators",

and that's not the only troubling sign.

The BJP's produced incendiary videos like this one,

showing a bird labeled "Muslim" being planted in a nest

and then consuming all the funding while the other birds get nothing.

That's already ugly enough. But it's also coming at a time

when Modi and his party have seemed increasingly comfortable

threatening democratic institutions by, among other things,

stifling political opposition and freedom of the press.

On multiple fronts, India seems to be sliding toward authoritarianism.

So given that, tonight, let's check in on Narendra Modi,

what he's been doing in office, and what he might do next.

Let's start with why it seems so likely that he's going to be re-elected.

Some of his popularity

comes from the very real advances that India's made under his leadership,

especially when it comes to infrastructure.

He initially campaigned on issues like expanding access to sanitation

and water facilities, and has invested billions

in "a nationwide upgrade of the country's roads,

railways, airports, and seaports."

On top of that, there've been programs to alleviate poverty,

for which some citizens do thank him personally.

60% of the population benefits from Modi's food distribution scheme,

which he has pledged to renew for another five years.

Every month, they give me five kilos of rice and flour.

If Modi is no longer the head of the country,

I don't think we'll get any help. And that scares me to death.

We want Modi in power, not anyone else.

Yeah, you can see why people might love him for that,

especially since the grain literally arrives in a bag with his face on it.

Which feels a little egotistical.

It'd be like if Lyndon Johnson signed the Food Stamp Act of 1964,

but insisted that food stamps be rebranded

as "Lyndon's Lucky Yum-Yum Vouchers".

It's still a good program, but maybe turn it down a notch.

And that's not the only way that Modi has tried to take credit

for progress on his watch,

up until this election began, some train stations had Modi selfie booths

where you could take a picture with him and symbols of his achievements,

from India's space program, to a giant tap representing water connections,

to a huge bottle of Covid vaccine.

It was his not-so-subtle way

of making sure that you associate his face with all of India's wins.

Kind of like how Trump makes sure his name is on all of his products,

and Elon Musk modeled all of his Cybertrucks on his weird penis.

I'm not body-shaming.

I'm saying his penis does look like that, including the wheels,

and that's what he wants you to think about the next time you see one

slowly rolling into a tree whenever it rains.

Although I will say, sometimes,

Modi's tendency to take credit for things can be a bit of a stretch.

In this promotional video,

it's even suggested that he halted the war in Ukraine

to ensure the safe return of his citizens.

Modi brought us home. He stopped the war, dad.

Wait! He stopped the war? Are you completely sure about that?

I feel like I'd remember if Modi had hit pause on the war in Ukraine

like it's a "Call of Duty" game and his mom had just called him for dinner.

Now, a key thing Modi likes to brag about is his economic record.

India has grown to become "the world's fifth largest economy".

It's almost twice as big as it was,

and its stock market "has grown threefold since he took office."

But, those numbers only tell part of the story here.

The economy was already improving before Modi took over,

so he inherited an upward trajectory.

And for another, the precise measures of growth his government cites

have been called into question, with "even Modi's former economic aides

finding growth rates of 8% announced by the government 'mystifying'".

Similarly, while he claims he's lifted millions out of poverty,

as this economist points out, that comes with a massive asterisk.

So the government changed how it is going to define poverty.

It's using one multidimensional poverty measure,

which is, shall we say, problematic,

and which is designed to suggest that less and less people are poor.

We have a very large number of poor, and all kinds of data are telling us

that not only do we still have a very large number of income poor,

but other kinds of poverty like food poverty may well be increasing.

Anyone can get rid of all poverty

if you just change the definition of "poor people"

to something else, like "fire hydrants" or "opposite snakes".

And if you're thinking "Wait, so, there's been substantial growth

and increasing poverty at the same time?"

The reason is… I can feel you're getting hung up on something.

Opposite snakes are just arms and legs, no face or tail.

Basically, four legs with fingers on the end

and a butt in the middle, covered with hair.

If you're wondering how growth and poverty can coex,

they live in the jungle, by the way.

That is where opposite snakes live.

Just to get ahead of any habitat questions, okay?

If you're thinking that growth and… sorry.

Viewers at home probably can't tell, but it's got a bit tense in here.

I'll address as many questions as I can: how do opposite snakes eat?

Through a vertical slit on the underside.

What are its known predators? Badgers, mongeese,

any of those gorillas they taught sign language to,

bees, man, and dolphins.

Like regular snakes, opposite snakes come from eggs,

but their eggs are violent, they live for 85 years,

they have tongue tails, the proper collective noun is a nightmare.

A nightmare of opposite snakes is hounding that capybara.

Their meat's inedible, their skin's toxic, and their bones are haunted.

If you have any other questions about opposite snakes,

- you can go to Opposite-Snakes - dot-com to learn more.

What were we talking about? That's right!

If you're wondering how there's been both substantial growth

and increasing poverty,

that is because India's economic gains have been widely unequal.

By some estimates,

just one million people now control around 80% of India's wealth.

And as they've gotten richer, much of the country has gotten poorer.

Even with all those bags of grain with his face on them,

under Modi "The country has fallen in the Global Hunger Index",

and now "sits below North Korea and war-torn Sudan".

And you would think that all of this would be fertile ground

for Modi's critics to exploit.

But it's actually hard to do that in India.

For one thing, it's difficult to confront him to his face,

because he hasn't held a single press conference in India

in the last 10 years.

The interviews that he's granted have been the opposite of hard-hitting.

Do you carry a purse on you? A wallet to hold your cash?

Do you have a best friend?

Best friend forever, with whom you share matters of the heart?

At this age, how do you bring so much energy?

Does our prime minister eat mangos?

Does he cut it first or eat with the stone still in?

Okay, most of those questions are embarrassing softballs,

but "how do you eat a mango?" is a valid thing to ask.

Mangos are notoriously hard to peel and eat.

They're basically fruit juice grenades covered in rhino skin.

And it's not just me who thinks that.

There are endless Reddit posts about the subject,

including "How the hell do you eat a mango?"

"How the fuck do you eat a mango?"

"Mango eaters of Reddit, what is your go-to plan of attack?"

and my personal favorite

"How does one eat a mango without making a huge mess?

With a spoon? With a knife?

It's like that fruit was designed by napkin manufacturers."

Which received the pitch perfect response:

"You do not. You accept that the mango is a delicious mess

and prepare for it beforehand, do not make the mango prepare for you.

You may need a bib and moist towelettes for the process,

but this is simply the way it must be".

Which is excellent. Because it's true:

there is just no way to eat a mango with dignity.

Ergo, embrace the sloppy chaos of the mango.

But it is not just fawning interviews.

What criticism there is of Modi often gets suppressed in India,

sometimes in a pretty heavy-handed way.

Publications that have done stories critical of India's leadership,

like the BBC, recently saw their offices raided

on charges of tax evasion or money laundering.

One of the country's most popular news channels

that reported critically on the government, NDTV,

had its founders raided for bank fraud.

It's true. Not only were the founders of NDTV raided,

but a few years later, a billionaire with close ties to Modi bought it,

and its tone is now much friendlier to him.

Basically, if you criticize Modi, there's a pretty good chance

that things are gonna get very unpleasant for you.

And given we're here in America,

I'm honestly not too worried about Modi's goons coming after me.

On the off chance that their reach does extend this far, you know what?

Fucking try it. You want to try and shut us down for being critical?

I dare you. Do you have any idea who I am?

I'm Bill fucking Maher, and my show has been on for over 20 years,

and if you want to take us down, take your best shot.

I, Bill Maher, would welcome it.

It is no wonder that India is currently ranked 159th

out of 180 countries for press freedom.

That is 19 places lower than when Modi first came to power.

But it's not just national media. Local outlets have been targeted, too.

This network in Kerala was taken off air by the government in 2020,

for reasons explicitly linked to its content.

The shutdown was triggered by the channel's

reporting on anti-Muslim riots in Delhi in February 2020.

According to the notice from the information ministry,

Media One's coverage was biased and critical

of the role of the Delhi police and of a Hindu nationalist outfit, the RSS.

The ban was soon reversed, the channel back on air,

but the signal was clear: fall in line or else.

That's not good. That crackdown creates a clear chilling effect,

where media outlets may well be intimidated out of criticizing Modi.

And that could actually help explain why HotStar,

the platform that we were on in 2020,

mysteriously chose to block our episode criticizing Modi.

There are plenty of reasons to not watch this show.

Depressing subject matter, too much profanity,

and the very fact that the frantic pace of my talking voice

causes dogs to, and this is a medical term, go nuts.

Also, the show seems biased, it's too long

"I prefer Jimmy Fallon, Kimmel, Colbert, Seth, or James Corden".

Hi, Mom, by the way. Whatever your reason,

at least it's your choice, not someone else's, to not watch.

Meaningful criticism of Modi is scarce on TV in India.

Many veteran anchors who were critical of him

have migrated to sites like YouTube instead,

but the government may soon be able to help regulate digital media too.

It's pushing a law which could mean

that "anyone making social commentary online"

would have to "adhere to advertising and program codes

prescribed by the government".

Meanwhile, an amendment is working its way through the courts,

which would establish a "fact check unit",

allowing "the government to identify 'fake news' about itself"

and order it to be taken down.

And I actually have a lead for that fact-check unit:

check out the batshit claim that Modi stopped the war in Ukraine.

There's a weird video going around that you should probably get taken down.

And it's not just the press who've found it hard to take on Modi,

the same goes for his political opposition.

He's currently facing off against a coalition

called the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance,

or INDIA for short, a monumentally weak name for a coalition.

The first I in INDIA stands for "Indian".

It'd be like if the H in HBO stood for "HBO".

Which it obviously doesn't. It stands for "Hank".

Hank's Box Office.

The INDIA coalition is led by the Congress Party,

the face of which is Rahul Gandhi.

And while his party never stood a realistic chance of challenging Modi,

even so, its campaign has been significantly hampered

by the fact that, just weeks before this year's election began,

tax agencies moved to freeze their bank accounts.

And on the same day that that was announced,

the head of one of India's other opposition parties was arrested.

Those could be just more lucky, complete coincidences for Modi.

Except for the fact that, over the years, multiple politicians

who've opposed the BJP have found themselves

facing charges of fraud or financial malfeasance,

only for those charges to suddenly stall or be dropped

when they switch parties and join the BJP instead.

There's even a term for this, the washing machine,

where supposedly dirty politicians come out clean once they switch sides.

And it is a completely open secret there.

One opposition politician who joined the BJP in 2022

let the cat out of the bag when he said he sleeps easier

now that he's a member of the ruling party.

I also had to switch to the BJP. Now I am stress and tension free.

All is good. No official inquiries, no investigation,

and I can sleep peacefully, I'm tension free.

It is so universally understood, everyone in that audience laughed.

And laughed so hard, honestly, I'm a little bit jealous.

It kind of makes me wonder if I should have spent our last show

admitting to political corruption

instead of… what were we talking about?

What, corn? I did 25 minutes on fucking corn?

And people watched it? What exactly is this show?

But in general, and to put it mildly,

it seems good to be on Modi's good side,

and very, very bad to be on his bad side.

And that brings us back to his attacks on Muslims.

As I mentioned earlier, he and his party

are adherents to Hindu nationalism or "Hindutva".

It used to be a fringe ideology, but is now mainstream,

and it's been said "nobody has done more

to advance this cause than Prime Minister Narendra Modi".

And Muslims, as India's largest religious minority,

have borne the brunt of this.

Earlier this year, Modi famously opened an over $200 million Hindu temple,

showing up personally to help consecrate it.

Which might seem benign,

until you learn that temple was built on the former site of this mosque,

that was demolished by a Hindu mob in 1992,

in an incident that set off riots reportedly killing over 2,000 people,

most of them Muslim.

So, it's a site of tremendous pain for Indian Muslims,

and the symbolism of opening a temple on that exact spot has been called

"the crowning achievement of a national movement

aimed at establishing Hindu supremacy in India."

But the damage here isn't just symbolic.

In the climate that Modi's stoked,

Muslims have been "lynched by Hindu mobs

over allegations of eating beef or smuggling cows,

an animal considered holy to Hindus".

And then there's been this.

Muslim-owned buildings are literally being bulldozed

in what the government calls a crackdown on illegal construction

and accused criminals.

A brand of bulldozer justice all too common in India.

That is awful. And it's happening so much now

that "bulldozer justice" has become a commonly used term.

In fact, the bulldozer itself has become a Hindu-nationalist symbol,

and it's been featured during election victories, and in political rallies.

This hard-line BJP leader has even earned the nickname "Bulldozer Baba",

and there's now a whole new genre of Hindu-nationalist pop songs,

or "H-pop" as it's also known,

with bulldozers appearing front and center, including this one,

which, if you knew nothing else about it,

would honestly sound pretty good.

Baba bulldozer has won!

Baba bulldozer has won!

The enemies have been put to shame.

Baba bulldozer has won!

The enemies have been put to shame.

I hate what she's saying,

but the way she's saying it is undeniably catchy.

All that bulldozer video needed was Bob the Builder shaking his ass to it.

I'm sorry, did you not know about Bob?

There were two dumptrucks on that show,

and the biggest one was in his overalls.

And while Muslims are a minority in India,

there are still 200 million of them,

the equivalent of nearly two-thirds of the United States.

And with anti-Muslim hate speech and violence on the rise,

it is no wonder many are feeling increasingly targeted,

and in incredibly grim ways.

Muslim shopkeeper Shamsher Ali feels like he's being pushed out.

Anything can happen at any point. That is the amount of hate now.

Violence against Muslims is on the rise.

A Delhi police officer was caught on camera last month

kicking a group of Muslim men praying by the side of the road.

The video went viral. The officer suspended.

Another police officer arrested for killing three Muslims on a train,

praising the prime minister while standing over their bodies.

Yeah. And it's worth remembering, that is not a bug of Modi's leadership.

It is a feature. So, given all of this, what can we do?

For those of us who don't live in India, nothing really.

Also, asking a British person "what should we do about India?"

is a little bit dangerous, as we tend to have quite a lot of ideas,

none of which should be listened to.

But as an international community, it seems past time to stop

the uncritical, fawning praise of a man who is, to put it mildly,

a deeply complicated figure.

So, maybe we could at least stop comparing him to Bruce Springsteen.

And when you talk about what he's done for India,

at least acknowledge that while,

yes, he's responsible for giving bags of grain to people,

he's also responsible for some getting sent bulldozers.

And it should be possible to acknowledge the good things

that Modi's managed to do for India, while acknowledging that many Indians

live in active fear of what he seems more than happy to represent.

I know that this episode is almost not gonna end up airing in India.

And depending on what they do with the laws around YouTube,

I'm not totally sure what'll happen to it there either.

So, if this show does get taken down, and if you have friends

or family living in India who would like to see it,

just encourage them to visit Opposite-Snakes-dot-com,

where they'll find tons of fascinating facts on opposite snakes,

as well as a 25-minute video titled "Opposite Snakes"

which is, in fact, this entire story.

Alternatively, you can send them to How-to-Eat-Mangoes-dot-com,

which features this video, promising tips in Hindi

on mango-eating technique, but is this entire story instead.

And if any of Modi's people take offense at this, let me just repeat:

I'm not remotely scared of you.

In fact, I'll meet you, and your stupid bulldozers,

in front of this studio, right here, in Los Angeles,

or my name is not Bill Maher.

Which it very much is.

And now, this!

And Now:

Fox Business's Kennedy Reflects on Her Prom Night.

Authorities were forced to bring in an emergency crew

to raise the beleaguered boat,

but once they got everything strapped on,

it only took a few minutes to finish the job.

Just like my prom night.

Republicans are also salty

because the project is much smaller than initially planned.

Like my prom night.

It's not great to be drunk with no pants on,

but I'm gonna go not guilty.

Depends where you are. Did I say that on prom night? I didn't.

I've got tons of bags like this

because my prom date used to put 'em all over my face.

Here's Junji Nakasone juggling more balls than any human should.

Just like my prom night.

The new app will connect users with a series of random strangers

for four minutes at a time.

Just like my prom night!

I haven't seen this many trouser snakes since my prom night.

Check out the Donner Pass in Lake Tahoe, California,

getting plowed by a train.

Just like my prom night!

Massive hole is now 16 meters wide and 20 meters deep.

Just like my prom night.

Uber has released its 2021 lost and found index with details

about people who lost something in back seats of their cars.

Just like my prom night, all 15 times!

I miss prom night.

Moving on. Finally tonight, a word about Red Lobster.

One of many restaurants that sounds like a sex position,

alongside Jack in the Box, Hard Rock Cafe, Sonic Drive-In,

and, of course, Five Guys.

As you may have heard, Red Lobster has had a rough month.

With no notice,

signs like this are popping up at Red Lobsters across the nation.

This sudden shut down here in Mira Mesa

is one of dozens of abrupt closures nationwide today,

an unwelcome surprise to loyal customers.

What was your reaction when you got to the door?

Got to the door, you know what?

I can't say it on camera, is what my reaction was.

Although, I'm now a little curious to know what he was gonna say,

given that they've chosen to blur out whatever's on his hat there,

so, it might've been pretty spicy.

But the fact is, last month, Red Lobster,

Long John Silver's hot cousin, officially filed for bankruptcy.

It tried to spin this as a positive, issuing a letter to customers saying

"Bankruptcy is a word that's often misunderstood.

Filing for bankruptcy does not mean we are going out of business.

In fact, it means just the opposite".

Except, no, it doesn't.

You either don't know what "bankruptcy" means

or what the word "opposite" means.

Because while the company as a whole isn't going out of business,

they've abruptly closed at least 99 restaurants in at least 27 states,

amounting to 15% of the chain, and could shut down 120 more.

And as the news spread, it's notable that what many people

were concerned about losing access to at this seafood restaurant

wasn't actually seafood at all.

- What about Cheddar Bay Biscuits? - Are they not the best?

Is it just me, or do you also want those Cheddar Bay Biscuits?

We've been talking about them all morning, and we are hungry.

I like their Cheddar Bay Biscuits.

Tried to make them at home one time, they sucked.

They're soft and then they're buttery and then they're cheesy

and then they're garlicky and it's like the perfect biscuit.

They've got good food. Good seafood. And the biscuits just slap.

It's true!

The biscuits are so good that any time someone's talking about Red Lobster,

the conversation inevitably turns to them.

You could call 911 and say "There is a Red Lobster on fire"

and the dispatcher would say "I bet it's warming up those biscuits nice".

The point is, a lot of people are fond of Red Lobster,

to the point that it once got the ultimate name-check from Beyoncé.

When he fuck me good, I take his ass to Red Lobster.

When he fuck me good, I take his ass to Red Lobster.

That is the single greatest endorsement a restaurant could ever get.

It is no wonder their sales actually spiked 33%

after that song came out.

Also, how does Beyoncé's rewards system work, exactly?

Do they talk about it in the moment,

or, the next time they drive past a Red Lobster?

Is Jay-Z like "Can we go?"

And Beyoncé has to search her sexual archives

to determine whether or not he's banked a trip.

I don't think I want to know. I am just posing the question.

So, how the fuck did this restaurant get into such a mess

that it's going into bankruptcy?

Many have speculated that it's all thanks to their disastrous

"ultimate endless shrimp" special.

Multiple articles cited it while covering the bankruptcy,

and even regular customers assumed that it was the main problem.

They shouldn't have done the all-you-can-eat shrimp.

You don't know how many people are pigs,

and they'll just keep eating.

I'm feeling a little bit attacked!

What you don't seem to understand is that unlimited shrimp

is not a suggestion, or a recommended serving size.

It's a fucking challenge for anyone brave enough to accept it.

So frankly, you should either embrace the madness and join in,

or just go to Starbucks, where you get to speak fancy fake Italian

to distract from the fact that it's just a public toilet with more rules.

But while endless shrimp was undeniably stupid,

it wasn't actually the crucial factor in the company's bankruptcy.

It cost them more than $11 million,

but given that their total debts stand at $294 million,

it's clearly a drop in the bucket.

Red Lobster's decline is about a lot more than just a single bad promotion.

I'd like to take just a moment to talk about what happened exactly,

because it's a case study for what's happening to so many companies in US.

I'll skip over the early years.

Suffice it to say that it was founded in 1968 by a man named Bill Darden,

seen in front of his first restaurant, The Green Frog, in 1938,

while holding a sign promoting "swamp boy breakfast",

which I assume is like girl dinner but in the morning and for male crocodiles.

When Darden started Red Lobster, it was an immediate hit,

and by 1978, it had 236 restaurants around the country.

It even became the first casual dining chain to advertise on network TV.

And over the years, it's had some great ads,

featuring lemons being squeezed over various seafood products,

and even last year, the co-opting of a Shirley Caesar classic.

We got tails, shrimp, waiters, potatoes,

sauces for bosses, cheddar bay stuffing.

Tails, shrimp, waiters, potatoes, tails, shrimp, waiters, potatoes,

tails, shrimp, tails, shrimp, tails, tails, tails, tails.

Three lobster and shrimp entrees for a limited time.

Come taste it!

That is fantastic. Though it is a little weird

for a restaurant to boast about having waiters.

That's a pretty basic component of sit-down restaurants!

They may as well be proudly announcing they have a stove

and some plates.

But in the early 2010s, the chain had a few years of sluggish sales,

and in 2014, its parent company, Darden Restaurants,

sold Red Lobster off to a private equity firm

called Golden Gate Capital for $2.1 billion.

That private equity firm did exactly what private equity firms always do:

immediately try and suck the value out of the company.

One of the first things Golden Gate did was sell off Red Lobster's real estate

and then immediately lease the restaurants back.

Meaning Red Lobster had to pay rent on stores that it had previously owned,

setting it on a downward spiral,

as the rent they were suddenly paying was about $118 million a year,

roughly half the chain's annual earnings.

It was terrible for Red Lobster, but pretty great for Golden Gate,

because that real estate deal

covered most of what it had paid for the company in the first place.

Very basically, Red Lobster got fucked, fucked so good,

it probably should have taken Golden Gate's ass to Red Lobster.

And, in 2020, Golden Gate sold off what remained of the company,

and Thai Union, a major seafood supplier,

with no experience in running restaurants,

became the leading shareholder.

Now initially, it said it wouldn't get involved in day-to-day operations,

but dozens of veteran Red Lobster leaders were fired or resigned,

and Red Lobster ended up having five CEOs in five years,

a level of corporate turnover

usually reserved for whoever owns fucking HBO.

They also instituted cost-saving measures,

from squeezing waitstaff by switching from servers covering 3 tables to 10,

to charging for a side salad for the very first time,

and leaving tails on shrimp in pasta.

Which suddenly makes it a lot less fun

that they were telling customers to expect this.

Tails, shrimp, tails, shrimp, tails, tails, tails, tails.

Yeah, exactly, there's gonna be unwanted tails fucking everywhere.

Hope everyone's okay with that.

And all this brings us back

to that incredibly stupid endless shrimp for $20 promotion.

Even at the time, it seemed like a very bad idea.

Their CEO was reportedly warned by the company's leaders

that $20 was too cheap to make a profit.

And they were right about that.

Because even as the company raised the price to $22 and then 25,

customers made it a point to get more than their money's worth.

It even became a TikTok trend to see how many you could eat,

in a single sitting, leading to videos like this.

My waitress was so proud of me.

I set a new record at my local Red Lobster.

This is my greatest achievement in life.

$27, that's one quarter per shrimp.

So proud of myself, best day of my entire life.

Yeah, of course, it was. If I'd done that,

even if I then cured cancer and achieved world peace,

I think I'd open my Nobel Prize acceptance speech with:

"Who gives a shit about any of that?

One time, I ate 108 shrimp in a single sitting."

But interestingly, while that offer was terrible for Red Lobster,

you can see why Thai Union

might've thought that it would turn out great for them.

Because remember, it's primarily a seafood supplier.

And as it happens, Red Lobster had cut

two of its longtime shrimp suppliers

to purchase more shrimp from Thai Union at higher costs.

It seems they were basically just selling shrimp to themselves,

sinking Red Lobster even further into debt

that it's now trying to discharge through bankruptcy.

Which is, at best, incredibly shitty.

And the end result of all this mismanagement

is Red Lobsters shutting across the country,

leaving unemployed workers in their wake.

And the restaurants themselves are now being sold off for parts.

This location is now part of restaurant liquidator TAGeX Brands'

largest restaurant equipment auction ever.

One top bidder for each location will walk away

with commercial appliances and furniture.

Images posted by Restaurant-Equipment-dot-bid

even include the lobster tank.

It's unclear if the crustaceans are part of the deal.

It's true. You can even get the tank!

So, if you've been searching for the perfect gift

for that one friend who's impossible to buy presents for

but who also has a bunch of loose lobsters roaming around their house,

I've got great news for you.

The chain's auctions were winner-take-all,

meaning each winner would receive

the entire contents of the Red Lobster they bid on.

And before you even ask, no, we didn't.

I know, we buy a lot of stupid shit on this show,

but not even we would be interested in old furniture

from a carpeted seafood restaurant

containing a fish smell that's just never coming out.

Besides, we went all-out on a purchase earlier this season

that didn't really turn out the way that we hoped it would.

So, as far as where Red Lobster goes now, it's kind of hard to say.

One or more of the company's lenders might buy it,

and since one of their key lenders is yet another private equity firm,

this whole merry-go-round of asset stripping may still continue.

The frustrating thing is, it seems about any random idiot

could run a Red Lobster better than these companies have done.

But there's really only one way to put that to the test.

Which brings me back to those auctions that I mentioned a second ago,

because the truth is, I lied to you, we did participate in one,

for the contents of this Red Lobster in Kingston, New York,

and we fucking won everything inside it.

And though we have no prior restaurant experience,

that doesn't seem to be disqualifying.

So please, come with me!

And welcome to Red Lobster with Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

It's a new concept in casual dining,

where we're not looking to get rich off this.

We very much won't do that. Thanks so much.

Instead, what we do want to do is give people

the single item that they want most from a Red Lobster.

And that is the biscuits.

They are the only things that this location will sell.

We'll still have the inexplicable nautical themed artwork,

and the lobster tank.

But those lobsters are really only there

so that they can watch you eat biscuits.

I'm excited to say, we've got a "finite biscuits" promotion on,

where for just $1 you can get one biscuit, and that is it.

It's a limited-time promotion, for the duration of this taping,

so please, bring out the biscuits!

Because we've got waiters, biscuits, biscuits, waiters,

biscuits, waiters, biscuits, biscuits, and that is all.

Now, is this a good idea for a restaurant?

Who can say? Lots of people, and the answer is no,

but you've got to admit, it is a much better idea

than any of Red Lobster's previous owners have had.

And at least we're not bleeding it dry to make a handful of idiots rich,

which is what is happening to so many companies nowadays.

That is our show, thank you! See you next week, good night!

Biscuits for everybody! Biscuits for everyone!

Waiters, biscuits, biscuits, waiters,

biscuits, biscuits, waiters!

Come taste it!

Tails, shrimp, tails, shrimp, tails, tails, tails, tails.

Canceled!