A day after they engaged in corporate whoring promoting Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper having a turn hosting the Comedy Central show this week, Tuesday’s CBS Mornings trotted out HBO’s Last Week Tonight host John Oliver as a passionate truth-teller, fawning over his “us[e] of comedy to make sense of these very complicated times” thanks to “a whole lot of research.”
Like with Klepper and previous liberal comedians, there was no attempt made to pin an ideological label on Oliver, the far-left comedian and former Daily Show personality who’s made a career of commentaries smearing conservatives.
Our friends at The Federalist lambasted Oliver as a leftist specializing in personal attacks, including then-FCC Commission Chair Ajit Pai, Charlotte Pence Bond, and pro-life pregnancy centers. They also pointed out how he’s smeared charter schools, defended single-payer health care, and called Israel an “apartheid” state.
At NewsBusters, we’ve called out Oliver for having dismissed the summer 2020 riots, encouraged viewers to send penis pictures to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, suggested Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was a sexual predator, joked about “shoot[ing] Tim Tebow,” and told Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) “can lick my scrote” and “suck my balls.”
Instead, we got a lovefest, starting with four teases. Here’s a few of them (click “expand”):
GAYLE KING: Plus, it is Last Week Tonight in the morning. That’s clever. I like that, guys. Host, John Oliver is here to talk about 10 years of talking really fast and using comedy to make sense of these very complicated times.
(....)
TONY DOKOUPIL: Still ahead, John Oliver has racked up multiple Emmy Awards for Last Week Tonight. He talks with us about making complicated topics funny and what’s still to come in season number 10.
The segment itself opened by touting the show’s 14 Emmy’s and hooting and hollering from the CBS hosts and co-host Vladimir Duthiers (who’s wife Marian Wang is Last Week Tonight’s senior news producer) framing the show as completely objective and for all Americans: “The show takes a close look at big topics like Artificial Intelligence, solitary confinement, and even psychedelic-assisted therapy using comedy and a whole lot of research.”
As part of that smoke and mirrors, Duthiers opined one of CBS’s producers explained “it takes about six weeks for the producers and the writers and everybody on the staff to put together one of those segments,” which wasn’t a surprise to Duthier but a shock to co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King.
“[W]e do work really hard. It is really — I guess, the thing is, with some of the stories,” Oliver explained, “they’re either so complicated or so legally volatile, that if we get something wrong, either the story collapses or we’re gone forever.”
King continued to marvel: “But what Vlad pointed out that I thought was really genius is that you get all the research, you get all the facts, and then there’s a comedy team that writes it along with your talent.”
Before the rest of the segment consisted of playing up the closeness of the shows with Duthiers and his wife and then Oliver playing a few rounds of This or That, the hosts inquired about how an episode is developed (click “expand”):
DOKOUPIL: So how do you pick the topics?
OLIVER: Well, we get told — everyone can pitch at the show. So it’s, basically whatever we’re drawn to. If it gives us a sense that there’s something interesting there, there’s something that it is spending six whole weeks on, as crazy as that sounds, Gayle.
KING: Six weeks on. Yeah, yeah.
OLIVER: And if we can show people things they haven’t seen before, that’s one of the metrics that we use if we can give people something that’s perhaps new to them.
KING: I know, but that’s what fascinates me about the show, because last Sunday, it was about farm workers, and I go, oh, farm workers. Honestly.
DUTHIERS: And you were like — I know.
KING: Honestly. Honestly and then —
DOKOUPIL: Somebody had to pitch.
KING: — exactly, and then I started watching it, John, and it was so interesting.
OLIVER: Yes, yes.
DUTHIERS: Yes.
KING: All the things you don’t know.
OLIVER: Oh, I am glad you liked it yet.
KING: I did.
OLIVER: That is why we don’t ever say that this is what we’re going to be doing this week, because it would sound like a show that you didn’t want to watch.
DUTHIERS: No, it is true.
KING: Yes.
OLIVER: It’s like a closely guarded secret of what we’re going to talk about each week, not because it’s going to be fun.
KING: Yeah.
OLIVER: But because it’s better for us to have a captive audience who can’t leave.
KING: Well, one of the reasons I tuned in is because this particular week, I watch you all the time, but I said I know they’re going to say something about Donald Trump and the indictment. I can’t wait to see his take on it and you didn’t really go into it. I was surprised. How come?
OLIVER: No. Well, it was the end of the week. It felt like that story had been talked about —
KING: Way past.
OLIVER: — to death.
KING: All right.
OLIVER: So, yes. We kind of — I can’t even remember what we talked about instead, but it was more fun than trying to flip or drop at that indictment.
KING: No, it was. It was, and even the title of the show when it first started, Last Week Tonight, I go how is that —
DUTHIERS: You were thinking about it, right? The title.
KING: — yes. What does that mean? And now that we know how the show works, it’s actually very good, John Oliver.
OLIVER: Yes. I guess it worked out. I guess the problem with that was having to create a show’s title before you know what the show is going to be.
KING: Yeah.
OLIVER: So, yes, it was a slight play on words.
Well, what a relief to know it takes a month for Oliver to come up with personal attacks against DeSantis and worrying that society wasn’t converting enough black kids to transgenderism.
CBS gushing over another liberal comedian as a passionate truth teller was brought to you by advertisers such as Flonase and National Car Rental. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant transcript from April 18, click here.
