"Couch-f***er energy": John Oliver mocks JD Vance's "terrible" first week on campaign trail

John Oliver went off on Sen. JD Vance on Sunday, skewering Donald Trump's vice presidential pick for his lukewarm performance at the Republican National Convention, his "cat lady" comments, and his staunch anti-abortion views and 2020 election denial.

Oliver on the latest edition of "Last Week Tonight" highlighted the positive upturn for the Democratic Party from President Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris's journey into the spotlight as the potential new Democratic nominee. However, Oliver pointed out that while the Democrats have had a great past two weeks, the Republicans are flailing because of Vance's personality and political views.

Oliver said it's been a "pretty terrible [week] for Trump’s pick to be his next VP, JD Vance, because he spent the week on the campaign trail where his performance was, to say the least, underwhelming."

The comedian mocked the atmosphere at Vance's rallies. "The vibe there is less running for vice president and more bombing the bed at an open mic night that makes Jeb’s ‘please clap’ look like Showtime at the Apollo," he said.

But mostly, Oliver noted that "people are getting a look at JD Vance for the first time, and what is becoming clear from polling comparing him to previous VP candidates is that voters are not liking what they’re seeing."

The show played a clip from CNN that showed Vance polling negatively after the Republican National Convention, noting that the poll numbers may be tied to Vance's views.

"He’s argued the last election was stolen from Trump and supported a federal abortion ban while also opposing exceptions for rape and incest," Oliver said. "He’s also argued that because Kamala Harris and other Democrats didn’t have children, they didn’t have, quote, 'any physical commitment to the future of this country.'" 

Moreover, the comedian mentioned the viral comments Vance made about how the country is being run by Democrats who are "miserable" and "a bunch of childless cat ladies."

"You don’t need kids to care about your fellow human beings," Oliver shot back. "As for the claim that women who don’t have children are miserable with the choices they’ve made, the only person I’m pretty sure is miserable with the choice they’ve made right now is Donald Trump after choosing Great Lakes Ron DeSantis here as a running mate."

But Oliver said that "JD Vance sucks so much that it says something that for a few days this week, the internet ran wild with a joke tweet that he was the first VP pick to have admitted in a New York Times bestseller to f***ing an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions with a citation to a page number from his memoir."

While that wasn't true and Oliver confirmed that, the host said "I think the reason it spread so fast might be that A. nobody read that book and B. it was incredibly easy to believe because if you ask me to draw a man that f**ks his couch, 10 times out of 10, I’m drawing this guy."

Oliver continued the joke, "I’ve never seen someone with more couch f***er energy. He looks like he watched the Tom Cruise Oprah interview and was jealous of Tom’s shoes."

Despite the rumor being fake, it hit the news in Norway which led to The Associated Press publishing a fact check that said “No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch,” only to then take it down with the link leading to “Page unavailable.”

"The AP later explained its decision to pull the piece by saying the story did not go through their standard editing process. And no, it didn’t, because there’s an obvious problem with that original headline," Oliver said.

So "Last Week Tonight" reached out to Vance's campaign because they wanted to give him the opportunity to deny the claims.

"We asked, and I quote, 'Has Senator Vance ever had sex with a couch?' they hung up on us, which is, and this is critical, not a no, is it? We then followed up by both texting and emailing the same question again, as well as asking if he’d had sex with any other furniture or household items, but as of taping, we sadly haven’t heard back," Oliver said.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver airs on Sundays at 11 p.m. ET on Max.